Priscilla Shirer “I Am Who God Says I Am”
“I Am Who God Says I Am”
You are not defined by your past, behavior, failures, struggles, feelings, circumstances or by the false philosophy of our culture. You are what God calls you, regardless of what you even call yourself.
Priscilla Shire is a wife and mom first.
Put a Bible in her hand and a message in her heart, and you’ll see why thousands flock to her conference and dive into her bible study series in books each year.
Her ministry, going beyond ministries, hosts awaken, and outreach event in her hometown designed to encourage and mobilize women locally.
She is the author of several books and has starred in various faith based films.
Priscilla has been married to Jerry for 20 years between studying and writing.
She spends most of her time with her 3 growing boys.
Let’s open our hearts and get ready to receive a word from Priscilla Shire.
Good morning, family.
As always, it is such a pleasure and a privilege to be here with you.
While you’re standing, I just wanna take a moment to do what I can’t even imagine not doing, and that is honoring your pastor and his wife, Trina Duphens.
How about y’all? You could do better than that.
We love them so much.
And I’m a tell you something.
Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more rare to find church leaders that actually have integrity.
And the fact that the lord has entrusted the growth of your souls.
To people like John and Treeta Jenkins is something you ought to thank god for. He’s so grateful.
I love you. Grateful to be with you this morning and excited to see what it is god is going to say to us.
Lord, Jesus, I thank you for your word.
I thank you that it is living and active and sharper than it needs to edge sword.
I thank you that you brought us here today to hear a word straight from the mouth of the living god.
So, father, we are so glad that each other is here, but we didn’t come to see each other.
We came to see you. So rend the heavens, come down, and speak to your people.
Your sons and daughters are list in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. You may take your seats.
We are so grateful to be, um, with you today.
Jerry and I are always reminiscent when we come here a little nostalgic because the picture, uh, that was up on the screen a few minutes ago of our boys.
Doesn’t look anything like our boys anymore.
The first time we were here, actually, I was at a women’s treat that miss Trina invited me to, that would have been nearly 21 years ago.
My oldest was six months old. He was in my arms at that retreat.
He’ll be twenty one years old in 3 weeks.
So it’s been such a long time that we’ve had the privilege to just be family with First Baptist Church of Glenn Arden.
My two oldest boys are in college now. My youngest one, Jude, is here with me.
Dude, just stand up. Let them see my big fifteen year old heavy fifteen on Saturday. That’s jude.
He’s with us here all day.
He said, mom, now is 3 services.
And talking with him this morning, about being here reminded me of something that I was exactly his age, exactly, when I decided to have a little experiment in my life.
Now just so you know, I was the kid of the 4 of us. I have 3 siblings.
Of the 4 of us, I was the one that gave my parents a run for their money.
You know, how there’s always one.
It’s just the one that’s a little mischievous always getting into something that was me.
And I was always just coming up stuff.
I decided my freshman year of high school that I wanted to change my name.
There was a convenient opportunity for me to do that because My siblings and I went to a small private school from kindergarten to 8th grade, then we transferred to what is still one of the biggest high schools in Texas, our freshman year, Duncanville High School.
I went from thirteen people in my class to 750 people in the freshman class alone at Duncanville High School.
I didn’t know most of them.
They didn’t know me, so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to have the experiment of introducing myself as a brand new name just to see if it would catch on.
I just put 2 initials together, DK, I’m not sure why I chose that. Put them together.
I decided that would be my new nickname.
There was a young lady that had been friends of mine, had been a friend of mine, still is, Since we were nine years old in youth group at church, we grew up together, she was already in that school district.
So I knew I’d be kinda hanging out with her there as soon as I got to Duncanville High School, I told her about my plan.
I said, listen. When you introduce me to folks, when we’re hanging out, do not call me Priscilla, call me d k.
Just wanna see what happens. To make a long story short, for the next 4 years of my life, every single person called me DK.
All the students at school, all the teachers, all the counselors, principals, most people didn’t even know my actual real name was Priscilla.
To this day, all these years later, if I run across somebody in the mall or in the grocery store and they say, hey, DK, I automatically know that I knew them when I was in high school because everybody called me DK.
My parents kinda went along with it. They didn’t say much about it.
They were a little bit annoyed when DK was monogrammed on my athletic uniforms.
But it all came to a head on one particular day when I got sick at school.
They had to call my mother to come pick me up. I had a temperature.
And I was a little fatigued because of the fever.
So I don’t remember much, but I do remember laying on that cock with the curtain closed in the nurse’s stage, and I can hear my mother when she came around the corner and asked the nurse for Priscilla.
The nurse said, who? She said, we don’t have a Priscilla, but we have a decay.
And my mom said, yeah, that’s her. Send her home with me.
She nursed me and got me well for a couple of days. And then that was my senior year.
So at the end of those couple of days, I will never forget my mother looking at me very seriously eye to eye.
And saying now, Priscilla, in a couple of months, they’re getting ready to have a graduation ceremony.
And at that situation ceremony, they’re gonna hand you a very important piece of paper.
And when they hand you that piece of paper, there better not be a d or a k anywhere on that diploma.
She said, because you know what?
I don’t I don’t care that 100100 of people have called you that other name.
I don’t care what they call you, and I don’t even care what you call yourself.
There is only one who has the right the authority, the privilege of giving you your name, and it’s the one who gave birth to you.
Brother than sisters were just a few moments this morning.
I just wanna remind you what your name is.
I just wanna remind you for a few moments if you’ll allow me about who you really are.
Because you are not defined by your behavior. You are not defined by your failures.
You are not defined by your struggles. You are not defined by your feelings.
You are not defined by your circumstances.
You’re not defined by the here today, gone tomorrow, false ideologies, and watered down philosophies of the chaos in our current culture, you are who god says you are.
It doesn’t matter what others call you.
It doesn’t even matter what you’ve looked in the mirror and called yourself.
There’s only one who actually has the right, the privilege the authority to give you your name, and it is the one who created you.
Circumstances aren’t powerful enough to define you. Your history may have marked you. It may have hurt you.
It may have labeled you, but it does not have the power to define the totality of who you are because you are who your creator says that you are.
And he says you’re a chosen race. He says you’re a royal priesthood.
He says you are redeemed and chosen adopted and qualified. You are not a mistake. You are not an afterthought.
You are not a liability. You have been made in the very image of almighty god.
That means every aspect of your unique physicality and every aspect of your personality, the strength and even the weaknesses.
They are an expression of the creative genius of an almighty god.
And when we surrender all of ourselves to him, he values you enough that he actually takes up residence on the inside of you as a person of the Holy Spirit making you a temple of almighty god.
That means you’re an overcomer. That’s who god says you are.
Church would you say I am who god says that I am. I can do what god says that I can do.
This issue of identity is to walk in victory is directly correlated and tied to whether or not we have a correct view of our identity.
You will either behave in a way that lives up to or down to whatever you believe to be true about yourself.
This is why all throughout the Old Testament and all throughout the new testament, we just find god showing up again and again and again to get people’s identity in view, to remind them who they are now that they are in relationship with him.
It was most clearly seen in the Old Testament with the children of Israel. They were his people.
He marked them, set them apart, consecrated them for its purposes.
And even though they were enslaved for 400 years, he looked at them and said, yes, but slavery is not who you are.
That does not define the totality of your existence. And so they are freed after 400 years.
He got them out of Egypt. But it would take 40 more years to get Egypt out of them.
Because what good is having freedom in theory if you can’t be free in reality.
See, if they still have the mindset of slavery, that meant that they would make decisions from a position of lack of deficiency, of scarcity.
They would act as bound people even though they were legally free.
So they could come out of Egypt, but Egypt had to come out of them.
He had to change their mind to help them to see clearly that they were a brand new people because of their relationship with Yahweh.
And over and over and over again, the hound of heaven comes looking for his people to remind them about their identity, to remind them that they’ve been set aside and consecrated for his purposes.
And the people in the Old Testament, god’s people there are kinda like us that they keep forgetting who they are.
All throughout the Old Testament over and over again, we see them being seduced by idols or low to spiritual apathy by errant religious philosophy and institutions.
They just keep forgetting who they are.
We seek out people bow and they bend and they break down and they settle and live below the standard for which they had been created.
The promises that Yahweh had freed them from 400 years of slavery to save and enjoy.
They didn’t get to grab hold of all of it simply because they didn’t know who they and they suffered the consequences for it.
They opened themselves up to enemy attack over and over and over again.
And this is never more clearly seen than in the book of judges.
If you have your Bible with you, you know, if you still use an old school paper bible like I do, Turn to the book of judges or your iPhone.
Any manner of I Ness will also get you to judges.
And it’ll be on the screens as well.
As you turn there, I wanna just tell you that in the book of judges, it is one of the most sad indictments against the people of god that we see in the Old Testament.
Because in the book of judges, y’all, they have already now come out of Egypt They have been through the wilderness for 40 years, and they’re in canan in judges.
The land is flowing with milk and honey.
It is representative of the peace of god, the presence of god, the promises of god are all around them.
And yet in the book of judges, we see the people of Israel being called away from their true identity and allegiance to the one true and living god.
They continue to be seduced by idols.
In the book of judges, the people of god don’t turn their backs completely on Yahweh.
They just station their worship of idols alongside their worship of Yahweh.
And it’s the duplicity of the people of god.
That causes there to be such a decay in society that by the time you get to the last line of the book of judges, it says, and everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes.
If that don’t sound like 2023, I don’t know what does.
Everybody just doing what is right in their own eyes.
And as a result of that, they are open and and exposed to enemy attack all throughout the book of judges.
But everything is about to change for the entire nation when one man comes face to face with god, and his identity is recalibrated.
Judges chapter 6, 2 simple verses, verse 1112. Then the angel of the lord came.
And he sat down under this oak tree that was in a town called Ophra, which belonged to Joash, the Abraite, as his son Gideon.
Was beating out we wheat in a wine press.
He was doing that in order to save it from the MITianite. Verse 12.
And the angel of the lord said appeared to him and said to him, the lord is with you o valiant warrior.
Gideon, you know that name.
He’s the one that with just a meager army of 300 is going to be victorious against 140,000 midianite soldiers.
He’s the one that puts the fleece out and says, guys, if it’s really you, if this is what you’re really saying, then if you could deal with this this fleece and confirm it, I would appreciate that.
Gideon, we know him well. He’s one of the most famed names throughout the Old Testament.
But before that, before the stories before the stuff that he’s most notable for, we find this man hiding in a wine press beating out wheat on a regular all ordinary day, but there’s crisis in the culture.
The previous verses tell you that the midianites, the enemies, have pillaged them for 7 consecutive years, completely devastating the entire nation.
Y’all, the people of Israel can’t even enjoy promises of god.
They can’t enjoy the milk and honey because their towns have been burned down.
Their homes are in complete decay and collapse They’ve had to run from their cities and live on the side of caves and the depression of rocks so that they can hide from the enemies that they have exposed themselves to because of their idol worship.
And in the midst of this chaos, in the midst of the crisis, in the midst of the state of national calamity.
Don’t miss the 1st line of verse 11. The angel of the lord comes and makes himself at home.
Oh, I wish I had all day y’all because we could just spend time on that one line right there.
Don’t let the gravity and the weightiness and the beauty and the power of this line roll off your shoulders as if it’s no big deal.
The angel of the lord came into one person’s chaos to remind him. You are not your circumstances.
You are not your situation. You are not your behavior.
You are not your feelings. You still are exactly who I say that you are.
The angel of the lord came. Y’all, this is not any old regular angel.
Anytime throughout the Old Testament, you see the phrase, the angel of the lord, You need to know that in the original language, it is the phrase the malec Yahweh.
This is what scholars call the great presence of Israelite history.
This is basically god stepping out of eternity onto the landscape of Earth so that he could invade the details of someone’s life so clearly and so obviously that they would know for sure they had been in the presence of almighty god.
This is basically before Jesus puts on flesh and comes in the new testament, This is the pre incarnate Jesus Christ coming in the Old Testament.
Think pillar of cloud by day or fire by night.
These are theophanes god appearances when god shows up in an unmistakable way.
And most of the time, when the angel of the lord showed up in the new testament, it was to remind somebody who they were.
When he stepped out of heaven, when he made it his business to invade earth, it was because he was trying to get a son or a daughter to sure that they recalibrated their perspective and remembered that they were not what was happening to them.
They were still exactly who he said. The angel of the lord coming into history.
I can barely wrap my mind around it that the god of the universe would make time to come see about us like that.
The god of the universe who y’all that need to have a relationship with us.
Like, honestly, if he would saved us and given us a ticket to eternity, that could have been enough for us to celebrate him for the rest of our lives.
That would have been enough for us, but that wasn’t enough for him. He said, no.
I don’t wanna just have a relationship with you when you get to have and I wanna have a little bit of a relationship with you before I ever see you there.
I want you to have heaven while you’re right here on planet Earth.
So the angel of the lord came in the old testament. Jesus Christ came in the new testament.
And on this Sunday in the year 2023, the angel lord has come to see about you.
On this Sunday.
Teenage, or you just thought that your mama made you get up and come to church today. This ain’t happenstance.
This ain’t chance chance. This is the hound of heaven coming to sit in your circumstances to remind you You are who I say that you are.
He’s trying to remind you.
You are not what has happened to you. You are not what they did to you.
You are not your feelings You are not your circumstances. You are not your past. You are not your behavior.
Those things may be part of your but they are not the totality of who you are.
You are who god says you are.
And I’m so grateful to the angel of the lord, to our savior, Jesus Christ, to our god who right now is orchestrating the throes of the universe.
Y’all, he’s taking care of neighborhoods in the universe that scientists don’t even yet know exists in the universe.
Like, he’s busy. He got stuff to do.
He’s the one that made sure that the sun rose this morning, and that it’s gonna stay exactly where it’s supposed to be all day long till it swaps places with the moon later on tonight.
He’s the one that’s gonna make sure that every single star is hung in the sky.
He’s gonna know every single one of their numbers and every single one of their names.
He is the god that is making sure right now while we’re sitting in this room that the Earth spends on its axis at just the right speed to make sure we can maintain life on this planet.
And that great, big, magnificent, powerful, almighty god has taken time on this Sunday to come up in here and see about you.
Hallelujah.
Praise the lord.
Please do not miss the detail of what the writer wants to make sure you know Gideon was doing when the angel of the lord showed up, says he was beating out wheat in a wine press.
He’s beating out wheat. He’s threshing wheat, but he ain’t on a threshing for.
He’s in a wine press.
The environments where these two things occurred, the pressing of grapes to make wine or the threshing of wheat to prepare it for harvest.
Those two things happened in completely opposite environments, but he’s doing them in the exact same setting.
Why the last line of verse 11 to save it from the midianites? K.
Threshing, we normally took place on a hilltop The reason why you went on to a hilltop is because there was a breeze up there.
And as they would beat out the week to thresh it, The whole goal of threshing was to dislodge from the wheat, the useless chaff.
The chaff would fall away. And because there was wind up there, the breeze would carry the chaff away.
The reason why she is in a winepress is because that environment is complete the opposite to an open air at Hilltop.
A wine press would be in the the depression of a rock.
It would be a damp shading environment at the bottom of a hill. There was no air moving through there.
It was a stable environment in which great could ripen for the purpose of making wine. It’s completely opposite environments.
And the reason why he wanted to be in a shaded environment is because he was afraid that if the chaff was driven away by the wind, the many unites would catch scent of it, and they would know there was harvest to come pillage once again.
So the reason he’s in a wine press y’all is because he’s insecure intim intimidated and fearful because of his circumstances.
I suspect that there are some of you that are in this room that honestly The whole reason why you’re under that shadow in your life is because there’s an enemy that’s been pressing in on you causing so much havoc in your life that it has relegated you to a wine press where there’s insecurity and there’s fear and it’s made you a shell of the person that you once were.
The angel of the lord shows up to a man who is acting currently in fear and insecurity.
And he says, let me tell you who you are. You are not your current behavior.
You, he says at the end of verse 12, are a valiant warrior.
He tells him who he is despite the way he’s behaving.
The angel of the lord kept showing up all throughout the old testament to do it.
Do you remember in Genesis? There was a woman named Hagar.
She was cast out into a wilderness by people she was supposed to be able to trust.
Abraham and Sarah, they were supposed to be with the people to cover her and take care of her.
Instead, they misused and abused her and discarded her.
And their Haggar sits in the middle of a wilderness that she did not create other folks did it to her.
And as she sits in this wilderness that is not of her own making, it’s because of other people’s decisions and other people’s bad choices and other people’s misuse of her as she sits there crying a river of tears.
The angel of the lord shows up in that wilderness and says, let me remind you who you are.
So maybe you’re like Gideon.
It’s the circumstances around you that have caused this chaos. Well, the angel of the lord can find you there.
Even if you’re listen, y’all, Gideon was hiding Gideon was trying not to be found.
And in the place where he’s trying not to be found, the angel of a lord finds him.
Where can you free from god’s presence?
Where can you go that the angel of the lord can’t find you?
His arm is not so short that he cannot save.
His ear is not so dull that he that he cannot hear, and his eyes are not so dim that he can’t find you wherever it is that you are.
The hound of heaven came looking for you this Sunday morning.
So maybe you’re Gideon and the circumstances have done it to you.
Maybe your hagar and other folks choices have done it to you.
Or maybe you’re Moses and you did it to yourself.
Because in Exodus chapter 3, it is the consequence of Moses’s own choices that have landed him out of the palace of Egypt and into the desert where he is tending sheep.
This is Moses. He was raised as the prince of Egypt.
He is now tending sheep a shepherd, which is a job that is below his pay grade and below his educational level.
And he’s doing it for many long years.
But on one day, on the backside of the wilderness, he runs across a fiery bush.
It’s the angel of the lord. Because the bushes on fire, but it is not burned up.
And when he turns aside to look, god speaks to him from the bush and says, let me tell you who he you are.
So whether your hagar and other folks did it to you, whether your Gideon and the circumstances did it to you, or whether you’re Moses and the truth be told, you can look back and realize it’s the decision you made that puts you in this situation.
Even if you’re where you are because of the consequences of your own choices, there is no pit that is too deep, even if you dug it for yourself, that the arm of the grace of god, the long suffering nature of god that he comes and finds us wherever we are.
And he finds this man who is trying not to be found.
And he says, let me tell you who you are. You are a valiant warrior.
And he speaks to him while he is operating in opposition to who he is.
And he says, you’re not this. You’re that.
Start acting like who I say you are.
Not the way you feel but who I’ve declared you to be.
Y’all, we give our feelings too much power. Your feelings are not the engine. They’re the caboose.
They’ll catch up. All feelings can do are feel. They don’t think they don’t have intellect.
They’re not that smart. You’ve gotta be operating based on a compass that has been given to you by an unchanging almighty god because feelings are up one day and down the next, you gotta know who you are.
And then you act like that. You make decisions.
Can you think of how our lives would be different if we would choose relationships based on who god says we are and not the way we feel?
Can you imagine how much victory we’d have if we would remember that we can’t decide or react or move or plan or make purposes for our life that are based in who other people have said we are, but it’s based on who god says we are.
So I don’t decide out of fear. I decide out of security.
I don’t decide because I need the applause of people.
I decide from the place of acceptance that god already says that I have. I’m already approved. I’m already competent.
I’m already complete. I don’t need your approval. I already have the approval of almighty god.
Decide like that. Choose like that.
So he tells Gideon this is who you are.
You’re a valiant warrior, Gideon’s whole life, and everybody attached to him, all of it’s about to change because this one guy comes in contact with the angel of the lord who recalibrates his identity.
Can I tell y’all this has been a mission of my mind with my 3 boys?
I drive them bananas because since they were little pretty much every single day, I start the day the exact same way.
I look at them squarely in their eyes. And I say, look at me. You gonna look at me.
And they kinda wanna roll their eyes and slouch their shoulders, uh-uh, stand up straight and look at your mother.
Because I’m gonna tell you who you are.
And I say to them, you are a man of integrity, character, and honesty You will love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
You will put on the full armor of god so that you can stand firm against the scheme of the enemy.
You are the head. You are not the tail. You are above. You are not beneath. You are a leader.
You are not a follower. And the praises of god shall always be in your mouth.
That’s who you are, and you better act like that or I’m gonna spank you.
And I don’t call them I don’t say that to them because that’s the way they always behave.
I’m saying that to them, so they’ll know this is who you are now behave like that.
After this encounter under the oak tree, y’all oh, when you have time read through the rest of chapter 6, because after the encounter under the oak tree, when when Gideon recalibrates his identity, He comes out from underneath the shadow of the oak tree.
He goes this fearful timid insecure man immediately goes into his father’s household.
And all the idols that have been indicative of the trajectory of their entire family, he grabs those idols 1 by 1, and he starts breaking them over his knee, and he shifts the trajectory of his entire family line, entire generational curses for his hire family completely shift because one man got his identity in view.
And then after he dealt with his family, He goes into battle against the midianites with those 300 soldiers against 140,000 midianites and he brings home a victory for Israel that shifts the trajectory of the entire nation.
A whole family and a whole culture take an entire turn, an entire pivot just because one person and finds out who they are.
Do you know how many people are attached to you?
Do you know that your son, your daughter, your grandsons, your granddaughter, your great grandchildren that you have not even laid eyes on yet, Do you know your coworkers and your boss and the other mothers on the PTA?
Do you recognize there’s an entire community, an entire neighborhood an entire office, an entire structure attached to you, waiting on you to get your identity squared away.
And when you do, not only will there be freedom and victory for you, but everybody attached to you.
And so I wanna close by reminding you who you are.
The Bible says You are a child of god.
You are reconciled to god through Jesus Christ. You are not condemned by god. No guilt.
No shame. No fear. You have been justified. You are Christ’s righteousness. You are Christ’s ambassador.
You are completely forgiven. You are tenderly loved by god. You are blameless and beyond reproach.
You are the salt of the art, and you are the light of the world.
You are a branch on Christ’s Vine. You are Christ’s friend.
You are joint hair with Christ sharing in his inheritance. You are a member of Christ’s body.
You are a saint. You are hidden with Christ in god. You are chosen by god. You are holy.
You are brainless, and you are beyond reproach. You are a chosen race.
You are a royal priesthood, and you’re a holy nation. You are firmly rooted. You are completing Christ.
You have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Your needs, they are met by god. You’ve bought with a price. You’ve been adopted by god.
You’ve been established and anointed and sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. You’re a citizen of heaven.
You’re a personal witness of Christ. You are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
You are god’s workmanship, and you can do all things through Christ, who strengthens you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Amen. That’s who you are. That’s who you are.
So y’all, this week, make decisions like you know who you are Don’t decide from that place of insecurity and fear that are feelings that don’t line up with what god says.
You know who you are at like that. Act like that.
Stand to your feet if you’re not already.
And if you would bow your heads with me, I wanna pray for all of us, but particularly for those of you who have not had an encounter with god through Jesus Christ.
You have not heard him whisper to you who it is that you are.
You’ve not had your identity recount and you know the victory you need is attached to you having a relationship with this one who will reframe the entire course of your life.
If you have never had an encounter with Jesus, But you don’t wanna leave today without making sure that this identity situation is settled once and for all.
Then we wanna give you an opportunity to make the best decision, the most important decision you will ever make in your life.
If you’re in this room and you know you have never placed faith in Jesus Christ, but you wanna make sure that you take care of today.
While every head is bow and eyes are closed, would you raise your hand if that’s a decision that you need to make?
And you wanna make sure that you get that squared away today.
Just wave me if that’s what you need to do today. Anybody? Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.
I see you. Anybody else? Your whole life changes today when you place faith in Jesus. Yes, brother.
Anybody else? Yes. I see you.
Would y’all come forward? Anybody that needs to make that decision? Would you come down?
We have some folks that wanna pray with you and for you.
Anybody, whether you raised your hand or not, you need to get this issue of identity settled in your life.
Come on, This is why we’re here. Anybody else, even in the balcony, just come down.
We’ll wait for you. You finished shifting trajectory of your life and your kid’s life and your kid’s kid’s life.
Your whole generational lines shifted because of the decision you’re making today. Come on.
Teenagers, young people, older folks, mature votes, it doesn’t matter, married, single, come. Come.
You are who god says you are.
I’m looking at all these folks up here, and some of them are so young.
I see these three boys hear these teenage your whole life is changing because you’re giving your life to Jesus Christ today.
Okay.
Okay.
The scripture say that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is lord, you shall be saved.
He’s done all the heavy lifting. He did all the hard work so that you could have this new identity.
All you have to do is receive the gift.
And then by the power of the he he himself takes up residence on the inside of you to power you to live in a way that lines up with your new identity.
You don’t have to be shackled.
You don’t have to live in shame and fear you can walk in victory starting today in Jesus’ name.
So I’m gonna pray a prayer.
I just want you to repeat after me. There’s no magic in the words that I’m saying. Okay?
You have to believe in your heart what it is that you’re about to say.
In fact, can we just all pray it together so that we can build an atmosphere of faith for those who are saying it for the first time?
Okay? Let’s pray together lord Jesus. I am a sinner in need of a savior.
And I believe that you are that savior.
So today, I place faith alone in Christ alone to remove my sins, take up residence in me, in the person of the Holy Spirit right now in Jesus’ name.
In Jesus’ name, Come on church, say amen.
Put a Bible in her hand and a message in her heart, and you’ll see why thousands flock to her conference and dive into her bible study series in books each year.
Her ministry, going beyond ministries, hosts awaken, and outreach event in her hometown designed to encourage and mobilize women locally.
She is the author of several books and has starred in various faith based films.
Priscilla has been married to Jerry for 20 years between studying and writing.
She spends most of her time with her 3 growing boys.
Let’s open our hearts and get ready to receive a word from Priscilla Shire.
Good morning, family.
As always, it is such a pleasure and a privilege to be here with you.
While you’re standing, I just wanna take a moment to do what I can’t even imagine not doing, and that is honoring your pastor and his wife, Trina Duphens.
How about y’all? You could do better than that.
We love them so much.
And I’m a tell you something.
Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more rare to find church leaders that actually have integrity.
And the fact that the lord has entrusted the growth of your souls.
To people like John and Treeta Jenkins is something you ought to thank god for. He’s so grateful.
I love you. Grateful to be with you this morning and excited to see what it is god is going to say to us.
Lord, Jesus, I thank you for your word.
I thank you that it is living and active and sharper than it needs to edge sword.
I thank you that you brought us here today to hear a word straight from the mouth of the living god.
So, father, we are so glad that each other is here, but we didn’t come to see each other.
We came to see you. So rend the heavens, come down, and speak to your people.
Your sons and daughters are list in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. You may take your seats.
We are so grateful to be, um, with you today.
Jerry and I are always reminiscent when we come here a little nostalgic because the picture, uh, that was up on the screen a few minutes ago of our boys.
Doesn’t look anything like our boys anymore.
The first time we were here, actually, I was at a women’s treat that miss Trina invited me to, that would have been nearly 21 years ago.
My oldest was six months old. He was in my arms at that retreat.
He’ll be twenty one years old in 3 weeks.
So it’s been such a long time that we’ve had the privilege to just be family with First Baptist Church of Glenn Arden.
My two oldest boys are in college now. My youngest one, Jude, is here with me.
Dude, just stand up. Let them see my big fifteen year old heavy fifteen on Saturday. That’s jude.
He’s with us here all day.
He said, mom, now is 3 services.
And talking with him this morning, about being here reminded me of something that I was exactly his age, exactly, when I decided to have a little experiment in my life.
Now just so you know, I was the kid of the 4 of us. I have 3 siblings.
Of the 4 of us, I was the one that gave my parents a run for their money.
You know, how there’s always one.
It’s just the one that’s a little mischievous always getting into something that was me.
And I was always just coming up stuff.
I decided my freshman year of high school that I wanted to change my name.
There was a convenient opportunity for me to do that because My siblings and I went to a small private school from kindergarten to 8th grade, then we transferred to what is still one of the biggest high schools in Texas, our freshman year, Duncanville High School.
I went from thirteen people in my class to 750 people in the freshman class alone at Duncanville High School.
I didn’t know most of them.
They didn’t know me, so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to have the experiment of introducing myself as a brand new name just to see if it would catch on.
I just put 2 initials together, DK, I’m not sure why I chose that. Put them together.
I decided that would be my new nickname.
There was a young lady that had been friends of mine, had been a friend of mine, still is, Since we were nine years old in youth group at church, we grew up together, she was already in that school district.
So I knew I’d be kinda hanging out with her there as soon as I got to Duncanville High School, I told her about my plan.
I said, listen. When you introduce me to folks, when we’re hanging out, do not call me Priscilla, call me d k.
Just wanna see what happens. To make a long story short, for the next 4 years of my life, every single person called me DK.
All the students at school, all the teachers, all the counselors, principals, most people didn’t even know my actual real name was Priscilla.
To this day, all these years later, if I run across somebody in the mall or in the grocery store and they say, hey, DK, I automatically know that I knew them when I was in high school because everybody called me DK.
My parents kinda went along with it. They didn’t say much about it.
They were a little bit annoyed when DK was monogrammed on my athletic uniforms.
But it all came to a head on one particular day when I got sick at school.
They had to call my mother to come pick me up. I had a temperature.
And I was a little fatigued because of the fever.
So I don’t remember much, but I do remember laying on that cock with the curtain closed in the nurse’s stage, and I can hear my mother when she came around the corner and asked the nurse for Priscilla.
The nurse said, who? She said, we don’t have a Priscilla, but we have a decay.
And my mom said, yeah, that’s her. Send her home with me.
She nursed me and got me well for a couple of days. And then that was my senior year.
So at the end of those couple of days, I will never forget my mother looking at me very seriously eye to eye.
And saying now, Priscilla, in a couple of months, they’re getting ready to have a graduation ceremony.
And at that situation ceremony, they’re gonna hand you a very important piece of paper.
And when they hand you that piece of paper, there better not be a d or a k anywhere on that diploma.
She said, because you know what?
I don’t I don’t care that 100100 of people have called you that other name.
I don’t care what they call you, and I don’t even care what you call yourself.
There is only one who has the right the authority, the privilege of giving you your name, and it’s the one who gave birth to you.
Brother than sisters were just a few moments this morning.
I just wanna remind you what your name is.
I just wanna remind you for a few moments if you’ll allow me about who you really are.
Because you are not defined by your behavior. You are not defined by your failures.
You are not defined by your struggles. You are not defined by your feelings.
You are not defined by your circumstances.
You’re not defined by the here today, gone tomorrow, false ideologies, and watered down philosophies of the chaos in our current culture, you are who god says you are.
It doesn’t matter what others call you.
It doesn’t even matter what you’ve looked in the mirror and called yourself.
There’s only one who actually has the right, the privilege the authority to give you your name, and it is the one who created you.
Circumstances aren’t powerful enough to define you. Your history may have marked you. It may have hurt you.
It may have labeled you, but it does not have the power to define the totality of who you are because you are who your creator says that you are.
And he says you’re a chosen race. He says you’re a royal priesthood.
He says you are redeemed and chosen adopted and qualified. You are not a mistake. You are not an afterthought.
You are not a liability. You have been made in the very image of almighty god.
That means every aspect of your unique physicality and every aspect of your personality, the strength and even the weaknesses.
They are an expression of the creative genius of an almighty god.
And when we surrender all of ourselves to him, he values you enough that he actually takes up residence on the inside of you as a person of the Holy Spirit making you a temple of almighty god.
That means you’re an overcomer. That’s who god says you are.
Church would you say I am who god says that I am. I can do what god says that I can do.
This issue of identity is to walk in victory is directly correlated and tied to whether or not we have a correct view of our identity.
You will either behave in a way that lives up to or down to whatever you believe to be true about yourself.
This is why all throughout the Old Testament and all throughout the new testament, we just find god showing up again and again and again to get people’s identity in view, to remind them who they are now that they are in relationship with him.
It was most clearly seen in the Old Testament with the children of Israel. They were his people.
He marked them, set them apart, consecrated them for its purposes.
And even though they were enslaved for 400 years, he looked at them and said, yes, but slavery is not who you are.
That does not define the totality of your existence. And so they are freed after 400 years.
He got them out of Egypt. But it would take 40 more years to get Egypt out of them.
Because what good is having freedom in theory if you can’t be free in reality.
See, if they still have the mindset of slavery, that meant that they would make decisions from a position of lack of deficiency, of scarcity.
They would act as bound people even though they were legally free.
So they could come out of Egypt, but Egypt had to come out of them.
He had to change their mind to help them to see clearly that they were a brand new people because of their relationship with Yahweh.
And over and over and over again, the hound of heaven comes looking for his people to remind them about their identity, to remind them that they’ve been set aside and consecrated for his purposes.
And the people in the Old Testament, god’s people there are kinda like us that they keep forgetting who they are.
All throughout the Old Testament over and over again, we see them being seduced by idols or low to spiritual apathy by errant religious philosophy and institutions.
They just keep forgetting who they are.
We seek out people bow and they bend and they break down and they settle and live below the standard for which they had been created.
The promises that Yahweh had freed them from 400 years of slavery to save and enjoy.
They didn’t get to grab hold of all of it simply because they didn’t know who they and they suffered the consequences for it.
They opened themselves up to enemy attack over and over and over again.
And this is never more clearly seen than in the book of judges.
If you have your Bible with you, you know, if you still use an old school paper bible like I do, Turn to the book of judges or your iPhone.
Any manner of I Ness will also get you to judges.
And it’ll be on the screens as well.
As you turn there, I wanna just tell you that in the book of judges, it is one of the most sad indictments against the people of god that we see in the Old Testament.
Because in the book of judges, y’all, they have already now come out of Egypt They have been through the wilderness for 40 years, and they’re in canan in judges.
The land is flowing with milk and honey.
It is representative of the peace of god, the presence of god, the promises of god are all around them.
And yet in the book of judges, we see the people of Israel being called away from their true identity and allegiance to the one true and living god.
They continue to be seduced by idols.
In the book of judges, the people of god don’t turn their backs completely on Yahweh.
They just station their worship of idols alongside their worship of Yahweh.
And it’s the duplicity of the people of god.
That causes there to be such a decay in society that by the time you get to the last line of the book of judges, it says, and everybody was doing what was right in their own eyes.
If that don’t sound like 2023, I don’t know what does.
Everybody just doing what is right in their own eyes.
And as a result of that, they are open and and exposed to enemy attack all throughout the book of judges.
But everything is about to change for the entire nation when one man comes face to face with god, and his identity is recalibrated.
Judges chapter 6, 2 simple verses, verse 1112. Then the angel of the lord came.
And he sat down under this oak tree that was in a town called Ophra, which belonged to Joash, the Abraite, as his son Gideon.
Was beating out we wheat in a wine press.
He was doing that in order to save it from the MITianite. Verse 12.
And the angel of the lord said appeared to him and said to him, the lord is with you o valiant warrior.
Gideon, you know that name.
He’s the one that with just a meager army of 300 is going to be victorious against 140,000 midianite soldiers.
He’s the one that puts the fleece out and says, guys, if it’s really you, if this is what you’re really saying, then if you could deal with this this fleece and confirm it, I would appreciate that.
Gideon, we know him well. He’s one of the most famed names throughout the Old Testament.
But before that, before the stories before the stuff that he’s most notable for, we find this man hiding in a wine press beating out wheat on a regular all ordinary day, but there’s crisis in the culture.
The previous verses tell you that the midianites, the enemies, have pillaged them for 7 consecutive years, completely devastating the entire nation.
Y’all, the people of Israel can’t even enjoy promises of god.
They can’t enjoy the milk and honey because their towns have been burned down.
Their homes are in complete decay and collapse They’ve had to run from their cities and live on the side of caves and the depression of rocks so that they can hide from the enemies that they have exposed themselves to because of their idol worship.
And in the midst of this chaos, in the midst of the crisis, in the midst of the state of national calamity.
Don’t miss the 1st line of verse 11. The angel of the lord comes and makes himself at home.
Oh, I wish I had all day y’all because we could just spend time on that one line right there.
Don’t let the gravity and the weightiness and the beauty and the power of this line roll off your shoulders as if it’s no big deal.
The angel of the lord came into one person’s chaos to remind him. You are not your circumstances.
You are not your situation. You are not your behavior.
You are not your feelings. You still are exactly who I say that you are.
The angel of the lord came. Y’all, this is not any old regular angel.
Anytime throughout the Old Testament, you see the phrase, the angel of the lord, You need to know that in the original language, it is the phrase the malec Yahweh.
This is what scholars call the great presence of Israelite history.
This is basically god stepping out of eternity onto the landscape of Earth so that he could invade the details of someone’s life so clearly and so obviously that they would know for sure they had been in the presence of almighty god.
This is basically before Jesus puts on flesh and comes in the new testament, This is the pre incarnate Jesus Christ coming in the Old Testament.
Think pillar of cloud by day or fire by night.
These are theophanes god appearances when god shows up in an unmistakable way.
And most of the time, when the angel of the lord showed up in the new testament, it was to remind somebody who they were.
When he stepped out of heaven, when he made it his business to invade earth, it was because he was trying to get a son or a daughter to sure that they recalibrated their perspective and remembered that they were not what was happening to them.
They were still exactly who he said. The angel of the lord coming into history.
I can barely wrap my mind around it that the god of the universe would make time to come see about us like that.
The god of the universe who y’all that need to have a relationship with us.
Like, honestly, if he would saved us and given us a ticket to eternity, that could have been enough for us to celebrate him for the rest of our lives.
That would have been enough for us, but that wasn’t enough for him. He said, no.
I don’t wanna just have a relationship with you when you get to have and I wanna have a little bit of a relationship with you before I ever see you there.
I want you to have heaven while you’re right here on planet Earth.
So the angel of the lord came in the old testament. Jesus Christ came in the new testament.
And on this Sunday in the year 2023, the angel lord has come to see about you.
On this Sunday.
Teenage, or you just thought that your mama made you get up and come to church today. This ain’t happenstance.
This ain’t chance chance. This is the hound of heaven coming to sit in your circumstances to remind you You are who I say that you are.
He’s trying to remind you.
You are not what has happened to you. You are not what they did to you.
You are not your feelings You are not your circumstances. You are not your past. You are not your behavior.
Those things may be part of your but they are not the totality of who you are.
You are who god says you are.
And I’m so grateful to the angel of the lord, to our savior, Jesus Christ, to our god who right now is orchestrating the throes of the universe.
Y’all, he’s taking care of neighborhoods in the universe that scientists don’t even yet know exists in the universe.
Like, he’s busy. He got stuff to do.
He’s the one that made sure that the sun rose this morning, and that it’s gonna stay exactly where it’s supposed to be all day long till it swaps places with the moon later on tonight.
He’s the one that’s gonna make sure that every single star is hung in the sky.
He’s gonna know every single one of their numbers and every single one of their names.
He is the god that is making sure right now while we’re sitting in this room that the Earth spends on its axis at just the right speed to make sure we can maintain life on this planet.
And that great, big, magnificent, powerful, almighty god has taken time on this Sunday to come up in here and see about you.
Hallelujah.
Praise the lord.
Please do not miss the detail of what the writer wants to make sure you know Gideon was doing when the angel of the lord showed up, says he was beating out wheat in a wine press.
He’s beating out wheat. He’s threshing wheat, but he ain’t on a threshing for.
He’s in a wine press.
The environments where these two things occurred, the pressing of grapes to make wine or the threshing of wheat to prepare it for harvest.
Those two things happened in completely opposite environments, but he’s doing them in the exact same setting.
Why the last line of verse 11 to save it from the midianites? K.
Threshing, we normally took place on a hilltop The reason why you went on to a hilltop is because there was a breeze up there.
And as they would beat out the week to thresh it, The whole goal of threshing was to dislodge from the wheat, the useless chaff.
The chaff would fall away. And because there was wind up there, the breeze would carry the chaff away.
The reason why she is in a winepress is because that environment is complete the opposite to an open air at Hilltop.
A wine press would be in the the depression of a rock.
It would be a damp shading environment at the bottom of a hill. There was no air moving through there.
It was a stable environment in which great could ripen for the purpose of making wine. It’s completely opposite environments.
And the reason why he wanted to be in a shaded environment is because he was afraid that if the chaff was driven away by the wind, the many unites would catch scent of it, and they would know there was harvest to come pillage once again.
So the reason he’s in a wine press y’all is because he’s insecure intim intimidated and fearful because of his circumstances.
I suspect that there are some of you that are in this room that honestly The whole reason why you’re under that shadow in your life is because there’s an enemy that’s been pressing in on you causing so much havoc in your life that it has relegated you to a wine press where there’s insecurity and there’s fear and it’s made you a shell of the person that you once were.
The angel of the lord shows up to a man who is acting currently in fear and insecurity.
And he says, let me tell you who you are. You are not your current behavior.
You, he says at the end of verse 12, are a valiant warrior.
He tells him who he is despite the way he’s behaving.
The angel of the lord kept showing up all throughout the old testament to do it.
Do you remember in Genesis? There was a woman named Hagar.
She was cast out into a wilderness by people she was supposed to be able to trust.
Abraham and Sarah, they were supposed to be with the people to cover her and take care of her.
Instead, they misused and abused her and discarded her.
And their Haggar sits in the middle of a wilderness that she did not create other folks did it to her.
And as she sits in this wilderness that is not of her own making, it’s because of other people’s decisions and other people’s bad choices and other people’s misuse of her as she sits there crying a river of tears.
The angel of the lord shows up in that wilderness and says, let me remind you who you are.
So maybe you’re like Gideon.
It’s the circumstances around you that have caused this chaos. Well, the angel of the lord can find you there.
Even if you’re listen, y’all, Gideon was hiding Gideon was trying not to be found.
And in the place where he’s trying not to be found, the angel of a lord finds him.
Where can you free from god’s presence?
Where can you go that the angel of the lord can’t find you?
His arm is not so short that he cannot save.
His ear is not so dull that he that he cannot hear, and his eyes are not so dim that he can’t find you wherever it is that you are.
The hound of heaven came looking for you this Sunday morning.
So maybe you’re Gideon and the circumstances have done it to you.
Maybe your hagar and other folks choices have done it to you.
Or maybe you’re Moses and you did it to yourself.
Because in Exodus chapter 3, it is the consequence of Moses’s own choices that have landed him out of the palace of Egypt and into the desert where he is tending sheep.
This is Moses. He was raised as the prince of Egypt.
He is now tending sheep a shepherd, which is a job that is below his pay grade and below his educational level.
And he’s doing it for many long years.
But on one day, on the backside of the wilderness, he runs across a fiery bush.
It’s the angel of the lord. Because the bushes on fire, but it is not burned up.
And when he turns aside to look, god speaks to him from the bush and says, let me tell you who he you are.
So whether your hagar and other folks did it to you, whether your Gideon and the circumstances did it to you, or whether you’re Moses and the truth be told, you can look back and realize it’s the decision you made that puts you in this situation.
Even if you’re where you are because of the consequences of your own choices, there is no pit that is too deep, even if you dug it for yourself, that the arm of the grace of god, the long suffering nature of god that he comes and finds us wherever we are.
And he finds this man who is trying not to be found.
And he says, let me tell you who you are. You are a valiant warrior.
And he speaks to him while he is operating in opposition to who he is.
And he says, you’re not this. You’re that.
Start acting like who I say you are.
Not the way you feel but who I’ve declared you to be.
Y’all, we give our feelings too much power. Your feelings are not the engine. They’re the caboose.
They’ll catch up. All feelings can do are feel. They don’t think they don’t have intellect.
They’re not that smart. You’ve gotta be operating based on a compass that has been given to you by an unchanging almighty god because feelings are up one day and down the next, you gotta know who you are.
And then you act like that. You make decisions.
Can you think of how our lives would be different if we would choose relationships based on who god says we are and not the way we feel?
Can you imagine how much victory we’d have if we would remember that we can’t decide or react or move or plan or make purposes for our life that are based in who other people have said we are, but it’s based on who god says we are.
So I don’t decide out of fear. I decide out of security.
I don’t decide because I need the applause of people.
I decide from the place of acceptance that god already says that I have. I’m already approved. I’m already competent.
I’m already complete. I don’t need your approval. I already have the approval of almighty god.
Decide like that. Choose like that.
So he tells Gideon this is who you are.
You’re a valiant warrior, Gideon’s whole life, and everybody attached to him, all of it’s about to change because this one guy comes in contact with the angel of the lord who recalibrates his identity.
Can I tell y’all this has been a mission of my mind with my 3 boys?
I drive them bananas because since they were little pretty much every single day, I start the day the exact same way.
I look at them squarely in their eyes. And I say, look at me. You gonna look at me.
And they kinda wanna roll their eyes and slouch their shoulders, uh-uh, stand up straight and look at your mother.
Because I’m gonna tell you who you are.
And I say to them, you are a man of integrity, character, and honesty You will love the lord your god with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
You will put on the full armor of god so that you can stand firm against the scheme of the enemy.
You are the head. You are not the tail. You are above. You are not beneath. You are a leader.
You are not a follower. And the praises of god shall always be in your mouth.
That’s who you are, and you better act like that or I’m gonna spank you.
And I don’t call them I don’t say that to them because that’s the way they always behave.
I’m saying that to them, so they’ll know this is who you are now behave like that.
After this encounter under the oak tree, y’all oh, when you have time read through the rest of chapter 6, because after the encounter under the oak tree, when when Gideon recalibrates his identity, He comes out from underneath the shadow of the oak tree.
He goes this fearful timid insecure man immediately goes into his father’s household.
And all the idols that have been indicative of the trajectory of their entire family, he grabs those idols 1 by 1, and he starts breaking them over his knee, and he shifts the trajectory of his entire family line, entire generational curses for his hire family completely shift because one man got his identity in view.
And then after he dealt with his family, He goes into battle against the midianites with those 300 soldiers against 140,000 midianites and he brings home a victory for Israel that shifts the trajectory of the entire nation.
A whole family and a whole culture take an entire turn, an entire pivot just because one person and finds out who they are.
Do you know how many people are attached to you?
Do you know that your son, your daughter, your grandsons, your granddaughter, your great grandchildren that you have not even laid eyes on yet, Do you know your coworkers and your boss and the other mothers on the PTA?
Do you recognize there’s an entire community, an entire neighborhood an entire office, an entire structure attached to you, waiting on you to get your identity squared away.
And when you do, not only will there be freedom and victory for you, but everybody attached to you.
And so I wanna close by reminding you who you are.
The Bible says You are a child of god.
You are reconciled to god through Jesus Christ. You are not condemned by god. No guilt.
No shame. No fear. You have been justified. You are Christ’s righteousness. You are Christ’s ambassador.
You are completely forgiven. You are tenderly loved by god. You are blameless and beyond reproach.
You are the salt of the art, and you are the light of the world.
You are a branch on Christ’s Vine. You are Christ’s friend.
You are joint hair with Christ sharing in his inheritance. You are a member of Christ’s body.
You are a saint. You are hidden with Christ in god. You are chosen by god. You are holy.
You are brainless, and you are beyond reproach. You are a chosen race.
You are a royal priesthood, and you’re a holy nation. You are firmly rooted. You are completing Christ.
You have not been given the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
Your needs, they are met by god. You’ve bought with a price. You’ve been adopted by god.
You’ve been established and anointed and sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. You’re a citizen of heaven.
You’re a personal witness of Christ. You are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.
You are god’s workmanship, and you can do all things through Christ, who strengthens you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Amen. That’s who you are. That’s who you are.
So y’all, this week, make decisions like you know who you are Don’t decide from that place of insecurity and fear that are feelings that don’t line up with what god says.
You know who you are at like that. Act like that.
Stand to your feet if you’re not already.
And if you would bow your heads with me, I wanna pray for all of us, but particularly for those of you who have not had an encounter with god through Jesus Christ.
You have not heard him whisper to you who it is that you are.
You’ve not had your identity recount and you know the victory you need is attached to you having a relationship with this one who will reframe the entire course of your life.
If you have never had an encounter with Jesus, But you don’t wanna leave today without making sure that this identity situation is settled once and for all.
Then we wanna give you an opportunity to make the best decision, the most important decision you will ever make in your life.
If you’re in this room and you know you have never placed faith in Jesus Christ, but you wanna make sure that you take care of today.
While every head is bow and eyes are closed, would you raise your hand if that’s a decision that you need to make?
And you wanna make sure that you get that squared away today.
Just wave me if that’s what you need to do today. Anybody? Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.
I see you. Anybody else? Your whole life changes today when you place faith in Jesus. Yes, brother.
Anybody else? Yes. I see you.
Would y’all come forward? Anybody that needs to make that decision? Would you come down?
We have some folks that wanna pray with you and for you.
Anybody, whether you raised your hand or not, you need to get this issue of identity settled in your life.
Come on, This is why we’re here. Anybody else, even in the balcony, just come down.
We’ll wait for you. You finished shifting trajectory of your life and your kid’s life and your kid’s kid’s life.
Your whole generational lines shifted because of the decision you’re making today. Come on.
Teenagers, young people, older folks, mature votes, it doesn’t matter, married, single, come. Come.
You are who god says you are.
I’m looking at all these folks up here, and some of them are so young.
I see these three boys hear these teenage your whole life is changing because you’re giving your life to Jesus Christ today.
Okay.
Okay.
The scripture say that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus Christ is lord, you shall be saved.
He’s done all the heavy lifting. He did all the hard work so that you could have this new identity.
All you have to do is receive the gift.
And then by the power of the he he himself takes up residence on the inside of you to power you to live in a way that lines up with your new identity.
You don’t have to be shackled.
You don’t have to live in shame and fear you can walk in victory starting today in Jesus’ name.
So I’m gonna pray a prayer.
I just want you to repeat after me. There’s no magic in the words that I’m saying. Okay?
You have to believe in your heart what it is that you’re about to say.
In fact, can we just all pray it together so that we can build an atmosphere of faith for those who are saying it for the first time?
Okay? Let’s pray together lord Jesus. I am a sinner in need of a savior.
And I believe that you are that savior.
So today, I place faith alone in Christ alone to remove my sins, take up residence in me, in the person of the Holy Spirit right now in Jesus’ name.
In Jesus’ name, Come on church, say amen.
