Going Beyond Ministries with Priscilla Shirer – Set Up to Win
Cherry that there are people who love the Lord.
They live for the Lord and they love the word of God.
And so what comes out of them is really a part of what’s in them.
It’s a part of their DNA.
And so I am so excited to have on a Sunday morning at James River Church for the first time.
Priscilla Shire. Would you give it up for Priscilla Shire? Welcome her to James River Church.
Thank you as Amen. Amen.
Amen. Well, hi y’all.
It’s so great to have an opportunity to be with you this morning.
We really love this church so much and love what God is doing in this house and through this house, particularly obviously with the women’s conference, which is the reason why I have the privilege to be here this weekend.
And then a couple of years ago, I was also at the women’s conference and to just see what God is doing and how he’s growing it not only in numbers but growing its reach and its potential and its anointing God’s was there so powerfully and beautifully all weekend long.
And I kind of just wanted to take a second before we go into this message to echo the encouragement that you’ve been given ladies to register early for next year for several reasons.
One of them is that, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or y’all noticed or not.
But in the venue this year in the arena, there was only like a couple of rows at the very top that were left open, it was almost completely full and this is just your first year in that arena.
Uh which means that there are lots of people coming in from outside of your city and the state even and coming in for this incredible movement um with this particular conference and it’s a good thing.
Uh But if there is one negative side to that, it could be that they all register first and the women of James River don’t actually get a seat.
Um And that would be a tragedy for you all not to be able to be there front and center.
So please do register early because we are so excited um about all that God is doing in your church and doing through that incredible ministry.
And I also wanna tell you that Jerry and I are um very impacted by your pastors, by the leadership of this church, the entire team of leadership at this church.
Amen. I want y’all to know that in the privilege that we have of traveling to many different churches and being um the privilege of being with many different ministries that, that sometimes it’s not the case that you are with leadership that actually has integrity, that are the same people in front of folks that they are when nobody’s looking sometimes that’s not always the case.
And so you all need to know at this church that everybody ain’t got it this good and that to have leaders that genuinely love the Lord and love you.
It is a blessing. And so we honor your pastors and we honor the leadership team at this church.
Thank you for inviting us.
I want to pray with you and then I want to share with you a few simple, simple principles from scripture that I pray will impact your life as much as I have found that they have impacted mine.
Let’s pray, Lord Jesus. Thank you so much for this privilege that we have to be in your presence and that we have to hear your voice through the word Lord.
I pray that you would do it only you can. Would you take this one little simple message?
Would you divide it a couple of 1000 different ways so that every single one of us will hear from you, Lord.
We’re glad that each other is here, but we didn’t come to see each other.
We came to hear from you.
So God, would you please open every spiritual ears and help us to be attentive to your word?
We are your servants and we’re listening in Jesus name. Everybody agreed and said, amen.
As was mentioned, Jerry and I have three boys.
Uh Jackson is our just about 12 year old and then Jerry Junior is our 10 year old and then we have a little surprise one.
We still don’t know how he got here.
He is our just about six year old in four days. He’ll be six years old.
He’s looking forward to that 6th birthday.
Uh We named him Jude and we named him Jude on purpose because that’s as close as I could get to revelation because it is finished is the end of the line.
So I got Jackson Jerry Junior and little sweet dude.
And they are our boys and I will tell you one distinguishing factor about our boys is that they are just big boys.
My 11 year old already wears a size 12 men’s shoe. That’s what size he’s in.
I know my husband only wears a 13 and our 11 year old is in a 12 and my 10 year old, he’s wearing a 10.5 men’s shoe.
Their little brother is not far behind him.
They are just big guys and one of the ways that it has worked out well for them is in sports.
They do enjoy sports, kind of whatever is in season.
We just are playing and there are a couple of them that haven’t really figured out their niche yet.
They like sports, but they haven’t figured out what their thing is going to be.
But our second son has, Jerry Junior loves baseball.
We call him J C and J C has been involved in baseball for probably five years now or so.
It’s just, it’s justice thing and I got to brag on him a little bit and tell you that he actually, he’s got a knack for it.
He’s really a very good baseball player and I think that his size helps him out quite a bit.
He’s already able to, when he gets a good hit, he hits the ball over the fence line for his home runs and he’s great at first base.
He makes lots of great stops and lots of good outs as the first baseman.
So we’re pretty proud of him as a baseball player and we enjoy the baseball season.
We’re in fall ball right now.
Spring ball will be later on next year and in the fall, obviously, the weather is nice and cool.
We go out for practice in the evening and when we’re out at practice, Jerry or I or whoever takes him, it’s kind of nice sitting outside.
The breeze is blowing same thing in spring ball.
You go outside and in the spring, in the evenings, it feels nice outside.
The games are a family affair on Saturday morning. It’s cool outside. Feels good.
The problem with spring ball though is that spring dovetails into summer.
Now, I don’t know what happens in Missouri in the summer, but in Texas, mid to late summer it gets hot, like ungodly hot where the sun is no longer your friend and it’s just beating down brutally upon you.
And you’re sitting out there at the game that sometimes is not scheduled.
First thing in the morning, it’s at high noon or one o’clock when the sun is in the middle of the sky and you’re sitting there trying to cheer your kid on, but you’re sweating bullets and the, and the sweat is down your shirt and your jeans and you’re just hot out there and it really still is bearable when there’s just one game.
But the problem is at the end of spring ball, there is a tournament, a series.
And so you’re going to be out there on Thursday and you’re going to play that first game and if your kid does good, then the team goes on to the second game that day.
And then if they do well in the second game, they will probably play a third game.
And if they do well on Thursday, then they move on to Friday’s series of games.
And if they do well on Friday, they come back on Saturday and if they do well on Saturday, they come back on Sunday, some of you are nodding your head because you have kids in Little League, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re sitting out there trying to be happy for your kid.
But you’re wondering if there is ever a time that it is ok to pray your kid loses so you can go home.
Can I just get one witness this?
I know I’m talking about and I will neither confirm nor deny that I have ever done that.
But I do recall last summer being outside, it was extremely, extremely hot.
My husband bought this huge outdoor kind of tent thingy from Dick’s outdoor sporting outdoor goods and we were sitting out there under the tent, but still it was brutally hot and we’re sweating and they played two games that morning.
It was finally time for a break. So we were glad to have a little break.
We went into the car to a restaurant for some air condition and we sat there, drank some cool water, ate some, some salad, something cold so that we could just cool off.
And we felt refreshed as we went back to the baseball diamonds for, I believe, what was the third game that day?
And as we took all of the gear out of the car to walk over toward the dug out where my son, my son’s team was going to be playing.
I watched something happen to my son.
Now, he’s normally a fairly confident, gregarious young man and I, I watched him, his chin had been up in excitement and enthusiasm about this next game as we marched over.
But I watched his Countenance change his chin.
That had been up all of a sudden as we got closer to the baseball diamond, his chin began to hang down.
I watched him start wringing his hands, wiping them on his clothes because they were sweating and I watched that chest that had been poked out in confidence.
All of a sudden, it was kind of hung over and I could not figure out for the life of me why in the world his countenance could change so dramatically from just the car to the dugout.
So I kind of looked around as I was carrying that big bag of stuff, I looked around to figure out what was going on.
And then I spotted what I thought the problem might be.
There was a huge tree and underneath the shade of the tree lay the team members that were on the team.
We were about to play. I got a good look at these team members and when I looked at them, I realized that these guys were a part of a team that had faced my boys team earlier in the season.
And when this team had played my son’s team, they had annihilated my son’s team earlier in the season.
I mean, it had been a complete upset. It was embarrassing.
These boys had, were these boys were serious baseball players, you know, the kind that have those serious parents, it was that kind of team, these boys, you know, they were the kind that when their parents gave birth to them, they immediately right there in the hospital put a mitt on one hand and a baseball on the other serious players.
And so we were getting ready to play this team all over again.
And I watched my boy insecurity and started to overwhelm him as he realized this was the team that we were about to play.
But as we passed closely by them, we overheard two members of the team talking to each other, they thought they were whispering, but they weren’t doing a great job.
So we heard them as we walked by, one leaned over to the other and said, there goes that big, that big kid from the other team.
Do you remember him? Yeah, he’s the one that hit the ball and it went over the fence.
You mean the one that was at first base, the first baseman, the one that caught the outs, that was him?
The kid leaned over and said, yeah, that’s Jerry Shire.
When my boy heard his name cross the lips of the opposing team members, all of a sudden that chin that was down, all of a sudden, it went back up again.
His chest poked back out all of a sudden he got his swag back.
In fact, we had to take him down a few notches before the game started because it really is amazing how your countenance can change when you really understand what the enemy thinks about you that no matter what the challenge is that you have ahead of you, when you really understand and believe every single thing that the word of God declares to be true about you, it changes the way you face the battle, it changes the way you face the enemy.
When you understand that every time the enemy sees you coming, he is shaking in his boots because you as a daughter or a son of God, you are a threat to everything that He is trying to do.
So, no matter what your challenge is today, whether it’s in your marriage or in your final answers are in your singleness or on your job or in your ministry, no matter what the challenges that you have to, that is that you have to face.
You need to really understand that the enemy believes every single thing that the word of God declares to be true about you.
That even if you don’t believe you are victorious, the enemy does, even if you don’t believe that you have been forgiven, the enemy is completely sure because God’s word declares it to be true that you are free, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus.
You might not believe it. But the enemy knows beyond any reasonable doubt that he is already under your feet.
He knows that he can form a weapon against you but that it will never prosper.
He is very clear on the fact that because second Corinthians chapter three says that you’ve been made competent by the spirit of God, that you are totally capable to handle anything that may come your way.
Even if we don’t believe it, the enemy knows beyond any reasonable doubt that in the end we win y’all, what a tragedy it would be for the enemy to believe more about our potential than we do.
What a tragedy it would be that when you face the difficulties that come with life, the next game that you’ve got to play, the next bat, you have to swing the next hurdle that you have to get over on the journey of your life.
What a tragedy if we get to the hurdle and we shrink back in fear or discouragement when, when the enemy knows beyond any reasonable doubt that if we ever just really stepped in to all that God has called us and commissioned us to be as daughters and sons that, that we could cross any river, we could get across any hurdle.
We by the spirit of God’s power can get around and across anything that comes our way and move forward to the destiny that God has for us.
And so I want to offer encouragement for anyone that is in the room on this wet Sunday morning and there is a hurdle in front of you.
You like my boy are, are seeing this intimidating circumstance that is in your path.
And you’re wondering how in the world you’re going to ever be able to get across this or through this or around this so that you can move forward toward the destiny that God has for you.
There is encouragement for anyone in this room that finds themselves in that sort of predicament from a group of people that know exactly how that feels.
The Children of Israel had just been released from slavery for 500 years, nearly of slavery in Egypt.
They had just been released after 10 miraculous plagues.
They’re on the journey with God just like you and I are, they are headed to the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey.
That was representative of the place that it would have God’s power and God’s presence and God’s favor with them consistently and constantly.
They are on the journey with God.
But on the way they come across a little problem called the Red Sea a hurdle, they’re gonna have to get over so that they can get on with their lives.
I want to find out how they handled that problem.
It’s gonna help us and instruct us on how we can handle ours.
If you have your Bible and you want to turn with me to Exodus chapter 14.
If you still actually use a Bible with paper pages like I do or you can use your iphone, your ipad, any manner of I just flip on over to Exodus chapter 14, I believe they may have it on the screens as well for us to see how the Children of Israel handle.
The Red Sea. Exodus chapter 14 verse 13 and 14.
Moses says to the people do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will, somebody say he will, which he will accomplish for you today.
For the Egyptians whom you’ve seen today, you will never see them again forever.
The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. That’s good, isn’t it? Listen to that again?
Moses says to the people while they’re still looking at the red sea that they have seen no miracle yet.
They don’t know how it’s gonna be divided.
They can’t figure out how in the world they’re ever gonna be able to move forward on their journey with God.
Moses looks at this discouraged people and says to them do not fear because ain’t nobody got time for that stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will.
Somebody say he will, he will accomplish for you today.
For the Egyptians whom you’ve seen today, you will never see them again forever.
The Lord will do the fighting for you.
If you’ll just keep silent, Moses looks at the Children of Israel in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
He looks at them and he gives them four instructions, four instructions that I want to share with you.
But before I do, I want to make sure that you did not miss the fact that embedded within these little two verses that has these four instructions for those of us that need to get across hurdles in our life embedded within these two verses.
There is a declaration of victory that the promise of victory is already there.
He doesn’t say that God might give us victory today that we’re going to hope that maybe possibly we’ll be able to have victory today.
He says that He will accomplish this victory on your behalf.
He says to the Children of Israel that you need to change your vantage point completely.
You are not getting ready to fight for victory. You are fighting from a place of victory.
You’re already in a position that is victorious.
It changes the way you face the battle when you understand that the victory has already been given to you that there are some things in Christ Jesus that are already done.
The promises of God in Christ Jesus are yes and amen and it changes everything.
When you realize the victory is already yours, you see everything from a different perspective.
And so Moses is not getting ready to give them instructions that will help them create the victory or manipulate for the victory.
He is only going to tell them the four things they need to do so that they can just lay hold of the victory that is already theirs.
The Lord says to us this morning on this Sunday morning that if you will do these four things, these four things will allow you to lay hold of the victory.
He’s already got planned for your life. The first thing he says is be fearless.
He says, do not fear. Then he says, be still stand firm.
Then he says, be watchful, see the salvation of the Lord.
And then he says, be quiet.
I thought for just a few moments, you and I can look at each of these four things, these four things that are so simple and they sound so simple, but they can be hard to inscribe on our hearts and implement in our lives.
But if we’ll make a decision to do it, we too will see how to get across the red, the red sea circumstances of our life and move on to the victories that the Lord has planned for us.
The very first bit of instruction that Moses gives to the Children of Israel and that the Holy Spirit gives to us today is that we ought to be.
He says, do not be afraid.
So important is this issue of fear that over 300 times between the Old Testament and the New, over 300 times.
God’s people are commanded in some form or fashion to not be afraid.
It’s said in different ways, be fearless, do not be afraid, fear, not over and over and over again.
We as daughters and sons of the most high God are commanded to choose fearlessness.
Now, it makes sense that Moses would need to give the Children of Israel. These instructions makes complete sense.
Remember, they had just come out of brutal living for 500 years. They had been completely traumatized and brutalized.
They are just days out of that situation. Days out of that circumstance.
They want so desperately to get to can and, and, and they want so anxiously to get away further and further from Egypt and the Captors and on their way there, they come across the Red Sea and y’all, when they looked across the Red Sea, they could not see the shoreline on the other side.
And when they looked to the right, they could not see that there was any land for them to go around.
And when they looked to the left, they saw more of the same, it seemed to them that they were completely blocked, blocked in on the front to make matters worse.
Pharaoh’s heart was hardened all over again. He decided to get his homeboys and to come after.
So Pharaoh and his army came up on the rear.
So now they’re blocked in the front and they’re blocked behind.
But the problem is not only that they’re blocked in front and behind, but scholars say that Pharaoh’s army would have been so vast that they also would have spanned out around the east and the west side of the Children of Israel.
So not only do they have a problem in front, not only do they have a problem behind, there’s also a problem on both sides.
In other words, they are completely surrounded in a group this size.
I bet there are some of you sitting in this room and you know how it feels to be completely surrounded because you just took care of this problem only to turn this way in your life and realize there’s another problem waiting on you.
Then you took care of this one only to turn this way and realize there’s another one here and then you turn this way only to realize there’s another one here everywhere you look, it just seems like you are surrounded on all sides.
The Children of Israel know exactly how you feel.
And it makes sense when you are surrounded on all sides, that fear would well up within you and seek to, to paralyze you and cripple you from, from moving forward or to from moving on in your life, which is why Moses had to say to these people, the exact same thing that the Holy Spirit has to say to us in our own personal life circumstances do not be afraid.
It does not mean you won’t feel the fear.
It means you will choose not to wallow in the fear that you feel.
It don’t mean it does not mean that fear and intimidation and insecurity might not. Well, up within you.
It doesn’t mean that they won’t knock on the door of your life.
But it does mean that when they do, you will not open the door and invite them in and tell them to stay a while and make them some tea and crackers and have a party with them.
It means that you don’t make friends with the fear that you feel.
It means that every time that fear wells up on the inside of you, you take every thought captive to the authority of Christ that you find the promises of God that apply to that which you, of which you are afraid and you speak God’s word over your circumstances.
Y’all this life that we are living y’all, this is not a playground. This is a battlefield.
Don’t, you know there is an enemy who is after your destiny.
He knows that on the other side of that thing that you are afraid of is milk and honey.
So he’s gonna do everything he can to so cripple you that you never want to move forward to that thing that you are afraid of because He knows that on the other side of that is the promised land, that’s got your name on it.
So you gotta make a decision not to be afraid that you won’t let fear hamper you or thwart the progress of your life.
Listen, I want you to know that when I am trying to discern God’s will in my life.
Let’s say there are two things, Jerry and I are praying through. What do we do?
How do we move forward? Which option should we take?
If there is one option that I’m not interested in? I mean, I just don’t like that.
I, I’d rather do this over here. I just don’t want this when I pray through it.
And I think through all the reasons why I don’t want this particular option.
If at any level, even at the root, if I find that it has anything to do with the fact that I’m afraid of it or I’m intimidated by it or I don’t think I’m capable enough or insecurity.
If any of that is wallowing down at the bottom of my reason why I do not want to do something, I automatically assume that the enemy must be behind that because you see God does not give a spirit of fear.
Now, our God is in the gift giving, giving business. He loves to give his Children gift.
But one gifts gift you will never find coming from God.
It will never have a bow on it with a, with a note from God saying, hey, I got a gift for you.
One gift you will never find coming from God is fear. He doesn’t do it. But power love sound mine.
That’s God. Ok. So if I discover that the spirit of fear is attached to something in my life, and I know that God does not give fear, then I automatically assume that it must be the enemy behind that fear.
And if the enemy is working that hard to cause me to steer clear of that thing, it must be because he knows there is something in that thing.
He does not want me to have.
And I don’t know about y’all, but when I find out that the enemy is behind something, it causes a holy indignation to rise up on the inside of me.
Because anything and everything that the enemy does not want me to have, that’s exactly what I wanna have.
And so I begin to pray and I say, Lord, why is the enemy working so hard to cause me to steer clear of that thing?
Is there something in that thing or on the other side of that thing has to do with your destiny for my life or blessings for my life.
Lord, please don’t allow me to steer clear of the things that the enemy wants me to just simply be afraid of.
My friend. Don’t be afraid. Cross that Red Sea on the other side is the promised land.
Don’t allow the enemy. The the joy of causing us to be so paralyzed that he causes us to steer clear of the very things that he knows are best for our lives.
I remember, I remember when my boys began to love baseball, I remember it so clearly because it was um, it was a unique Christmas for us and I’ll tell you why.
Um, up until very recently I told the women this at the conference this weekend, up until very recently, this is how we did Christmas.
I went to the Dollar store and bought each of my kids a couple little things from the Dollar Store and I did that for a couple of reasons.
Number one, I decided I was gonna milk that as long as I could.
As long as they didn’t know that those things weren’t worth nothing.
I was gonna do that as long as I could and I put them underneath this little three ft tree.
We have just in the last couple trees, couple years gotten a, you know, a real Christmas tree because the boys were all bigger than the three ft tree that we had.
And so, uh, we’ve just kind of graduated up just a little bit.
The boys are just now, you know, they’re starting to in the last few years discover that the, the, the dollar tree thing, the Dollar General Store stuff is not really what they want to see under the tree, but I did that, um, you know, for several reasons and one of the reasons is too that my Children have grandparents.
Can somebody say amen about noon on Christmas day, every Christmas day.
As long as I can remember after we have a little Christmas at home myself and all of my siblings and all of our Children, we all go to nanny and Poppy’s house.
My parents and that is where my kids get the loot. Amen.
Are there any grandparents in the room? Any, any grand we want you to know?
We love you. You just keep doing what you do. We appreciate it.
So that’s where my boys get the goods at grandparents at their grandparents house.
But on this particular Christmas, it was a unique Christmas because I had gone to the dollar store and I got a couple of things, put it under the Christmas tree, but that Christmas, uh, Jude wasn’t even with us yet.
It was just my older, two boys. I think they were like five and three years old.
Jerry decided he was gonna go to Toys R Us and get them one real gift.
So he got them, this little plastic baseball machine.
It was a machine that catapulted baseballs out at a certain frequency and a certain velocity.
Just little plastic baseballs and your kid stands there with the plastic helmet on little plastic baseball and waits for those balls to come out.
Well, of course, you know how kids are, as soon as they opened it up at seven o’clock on Christmas morning, they want you to put it together, go outside, it’s cold.
You’re in your bathrobe there. We were seven in the morning outside watching them play this game.
And my normally a very gregarious outgoing son, you know he’s standing there with that little helmet on. He’s three.
He’s at least swinging at every single ball that comes flying out of that chute and, and his older brother who’s a little bit more reserved and a little bit more cautious.
He’s standing off to the side and he’s watching these balls come out. Mom. I, I can’t do that.
I said, buddy. Yes, you can, you can do it. It’s gonna be so fun. It’s almost your turn.
No, mom, I don’t think I can do that though. Balls. Balls are too fast. You can do it.
No mom, I can’t, you can do it and you’re gonna do it because it’s seven o’clock in the morning.
I’m not here in my bathrobe. It’s cold out here. You gonna do it?
So finally it’s his turn.
He stands there, I’m getting the helmet all put on him and everything and I get him set up.
He’s standing there with the bat and he is horrified at the thought that the ball is gonna come out of that hole.
I felt so bad for him.
He was so insecure and so unsure of himself and I was just wishing I could get his little five year old brain to understand something that I knew.
What I knew is that while I was getting his helmet on, his dad had gone behind the machine and had opened up this little flap that revealed some gears, the gears could be adjusted and manipulated so that the frequency and the velocity of the balls was matched up to the capability of the person that was standing at the plate.
So the reason why my boy had no reason to fear is because he had a daddy who loved him, who had already gone behind the scenes and had already orchestrated the event so that he was set up to win.
Can I tell you why? You have no reason to fear?
You have no reason to fear because y’all, we have a daddy who loves us right now as we’re sitting in this room, he has already gone behind the scenes of your life.
He is orchestrating events and circumstances and people and people.
He is connecting the dots so that all you have to do is say yes, Lord in obedience and step up to the plate of, of God’s will for your life.
And every single time you do that in obedience, you will hit a home run, not because you’re so great, but because you have a daddy who loves you and who is great and who he is working on your behalf and on my behalf do not be afraid.
The second thing that that Moses says is listen, listen, not only do you need to not be afraid.
He says, I want you to be still some translations of that verse.
The one I read to you says, stand by others, say stand firm and still others say stand still.
I want you to notice the two parts of the command, the standing part and the stillness part just so we’re clear, I’ve got a problem with both of these, the standing part and the stillness.
And the reason why I have a problem with it is because I want you to put yourself in the situation that the Children of Israel were in, surrounded the Red Sea in front of them, an army coming up behind them and Moses the best you’ve got is stand still, don’t you see that we’ve got some swords here available to us?
Mo Don’t you want us to pick up one of these swords and go to battle against the Children of Israel.
Moses. You do realize we’ve got a bow and some arrows here.
We can set them on fire on the ends and go ahead and send them sailing into enemy territory.
Moses, we’ve got some wood here, wouldn’t you like us to get this wood and start to chop it up so that we can bind it together and build a raft so that we can get across this body of water.
Moses the best you can come up with that stands still seems like such a passive command in the midst of such active circumstances.
Seems like it makes absolutely no sense to us that this would be what you want us to do to handle this unbelievably difficult scenario that we are finding ourselves in Moses, you mean you don’t want us to lean to our own understanding as to what makes sense to solve this problem.
You want us simply to plant our feet and to stand for and to trust and have confidence.
We don’t even know what God or if God is going to do anything, the best you can come up with is just standing in your situation, whatever it might be, the Holy Spirit says to you today that the solution that is coming to your mind as the most rational way that you would handle the circumstance or the way that your experience tells you is the way to handle the circumstance isn’t always necessarily the best way.
Sometimes your solution is found in just standing firmly on the promises of God in believing that what God says is exactly what He will accomplish in your life and that He never has nor will he ever need our help to bring solution in the circumstances of our life.
He is God, y’all all by himself. He does a very good job at being God.
So sometimes you have to do what seems like the most passive thing, not nothing but standing.
I know it sounds passive.
But when you think about it, there’s nothing passive at all about standing.
When you’re busy, you’ve had a busy, busy day tiring. When you get home.
If you’re like me, you take your shoes off, you go into the living room and you don’t stand, you find a place to sit out, don’t you?
You sit down because you wanna take the weight off.
You want something else to carry and support and sustain you standing actually requires the, the molecular structure of your muscles to begin to, to work.
It requires a decision of your mind.
Your brain has to send a message down into your joints and your muscles and your bones to cooperate.
There has to be some strength involved to hold up the skeletal structure of your entire body.
When you think about it passive or standing actually sounds passive.
But it’s one of the most active things that you can do because it requires every single aspect of your body to stand up.
It’s going to require a decision of your will. A resolve in the midst of circumstances.
When you’re looking at a red sea and you’re maybe fearing or discouraged, what’s discouraged by what’s coming behind you, it’s going to take a deliberate intentional decision of your will to plant your feet on the promises of God to not be swayed to the left or to the right.
But to decide that I’m gonna believe that everything God has declared to be true of me.
My circumstances, this circumstances, the things that I hold dear, I’m gonna believe and trust that everything God says is true.
Standing not passive, it’s active requires a decision, a resolve to plant your feet and stand.
Can I tell you what makes makes church powerful, especially a church like this one, a Bible teaching church where you are being fed the, the scripture day in and day out, week in and week out.
What makes it so powerful is not that we’re in here celebrating it, clapping for it, waving our hands to it.
All of that’s nice. But what matters is whether or not we actually walk out of these doors and our Monday is transformed because we’re standing on what we heard on Sunday.
What matters is whether or not our Tuesday and our Wednesday and our Thursday and our decision making on Friday and our choices on Saturday, whether all of that is restructured, whether the way with a filter through which we deal with the problems of our life, whether we see it completely differently.
Because what we heard is implemented in our lives throughout the rest of the week. That’s when you stand.
That’s when you recall what God has said to you and then you plant your feet and believe him, there’s a young lady that interned with our ministry for a summer.
Her name was Katie. Katie was a wonderful young woman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Um Baton Rouge, Louisiana is a small, pretty small town in comparison to Dallas, small town and um the airport there is pretty small.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in it, but it’s a small airport and she hadn’t really traveled a whole lot in her life anyway.
But when she had, it was in and out of Baton Rouge.
So when she moved to Dallas, she interned with us for the summer.
We travel a lot and we travel out of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, but it is a monster airport.
If you want to get to your plane, you first just have to know which terminal you’re going to.
We have five ABC D and E you gotta first know which terminal you’re going to.
Then each terminal has about 30 to 36 gates at each terminal. You gotta know what gate you’re going to.
That would be confusing enough except that most of the gates have a part A and part B.
So you might be going to terminal A gate 33b on one occasion.
Actually, the first occasion that Katie was traveling with us, there were five of us, the boys, me and Jerry and then Katie.
So six all together we drove up to terminal D so that we could get ready to fly off, I think to Los Angeles and we drove up to the airport, got out at terminal D, we all got in line for security.
We checked our bags already. We were now going through security so we could board our flight somehow.
All five of us got filtered into a different lane than Katie. So Katie is going through security over there.
We’re going through security right here and, and for some reason, our line was quick.
All five of us got all the way through security before Katie did.
So we’re all standing on the other side of security and Katie is still on the back side and, and she shrugs her shoulder, she doesn’t know what’s going on with her line and why it’s taking so long.
So Jerry decides to just send her a little text.
He sent her a text and said, Katie, we will meet you at gate 22 A.
Now remember we’re in terminal D, he says we’ll meet you at gate 22 A.
Now when you come through security gate 22 a was right there, we could see it.
We went ahead and took the kids to the gate, got them all settled. We waited for Katie.
They started to board the flight. I decided to go ahead and get the kids on.
So while we’re waiting for Katie, we got the kids filtered on and we, we decided to put our baggage in the overhead compartment, get the kids all buckled in and all settled and we’re waiting for Katie.
Jerry sends her another text. She does not respond.
We knew she had gotten the text about meeting us at gate 22 A.
She had, she had responded to that. So we knew she’d gotten that we’re waiting for her.
Now, other people are boarding the flight and, and we can’t, we can’t find her and she’s not there.
She’s not responding. We know we, we believe she’s gonna miss this flight because now the last person has gotten on the plane, we even start to hear them call her name over the loudspeaker.
You know, you’re late when they start calling your name over the loudspeaker.
They are about to close the door of the airplane.
Finally at the last second y’all, Katie comes running down the jet bridge, walking down that little small narrow aisle, way of the plane.
She is sweating bullets. Her hair is plastered to the side of her face.
She settles down into her chair and she wipes her sweat and she buckles up and she looks up just in time to find the five of us looking back at her like this.
We said, Katie, what in the world happened?
She said, well, I saw that Jerry told me to meet y’all at gate 22 A but I just assumed that he meant gate A 22.
So I got on the airport train that takes you to all the other terminals in the entire airport.
When I got to gate a 22 I realized y’all weren’t there.
So I had to get back on the airport train to take me all the way around the entire airport to come back here.
She literally almost missed the flight. And, and I remember as Jerry’s listening to her, explain what happened.
He responded to her with something. I will never forget. He said to her Katie.
If you would have just believed that exactly what I wrote is exactly what I meant.
I could have saved you so much time, so much energy, so much sweat.
If you would have just believed that exactly what I wrote is exactly what I meant.
How many sleepless nights and extra sweat and extra frustration and irritation and going all the way around.
How much would it save us if we would just believe that what he says to us, he means and we need to plant our feet and stand on it.
Y’all can I just say sometimes we have become too smart for our own good.
We try to craft and create and manipulate and maneuver what God is saying instead of just taking him at his word.
And if he says He is for you, he means I’m for you. No one can be against you.
The weapon might be formed but there’s no reason to fear because it just won’t prosper whatever he says.
He means. So be fearless and be still the third thing that Moses said to the people is to be watchful.
He put it this way. See the salvation of the Lord.
Now, the reason why this one is very interesting to me, this bit of instruction is because if you are anything like me, you’ll know what I mean.
That when I’m in the midst of a circumstance that I don’t particularly care to be in a hurdle that I have to get over or a red sea that I have to get through somehow.
The last thing I want to do is open my eyes and look at the problem.
I wanna close my eyes and sleep through it. I wanna pray through it. I wanna hurry through it.
I want God to get rid of this whole red Sea so we can move on with the promised land stuff.
I don’t really wanna hang out here and see it and make friends with it.
I wanna get through it real quick. Moses says the exact opposite to the Children of Israel.
He says, don’t close your eyes while you’re here standing here at the Red Sea.
We, they have no idea yet that God’s gonna divide it in just a little while.
They don’t know about the miracle while they’re staring at the problem.
Moses says, resist the urge to close your eyes and miss it.
He says, open your eyes and be watchful right now, even while you’re yet praying for God to do a miracle in your marriage, in your finances, on your job in that situation, open your eyes and see that there is so much God is already doing.
Don’t miss out on what’s happening today while you’re waiting for what God might do tomorrow.
You’ll want to see what God does tomorrow as well, but in the meantime, keep your eyes open to see the little details of God’s work in your life.
He wanted the Children of Israel to see and never forget what it looked like.
When he stepped out to the edge of that body of water and held out his rod over the red sea.
He wanted them to always remember what, excuse me, what it looked like.
When the expression on the faces of their toddlers, their toddlers saw God’s miracle begin to unfold.
He wanted them to never forget the expression on the faces of those little, those little people in their lives or the way that the hands felt of their elderly, those soft hands as they grabbed grandma and grandpa’s hands to walk them across the body of water.
He wanted them to never forget the details.
He wanted them to see what their stand feet looked like when they didn’t collect any mud on the bottom of them because they were walking across on dry ground.
He wanted them to always remember what it felt like when that East wind started to blow slowly at first, but then gain more and more and more momentum as it began to become a fierce scale that was able to divide that body of water.
He wanted them to remember the details of God’s miracle and realize that there was so much to be grateful for God about not just the big miracle but a bunch of little miracles along the way.
And what if you’re waiting on God to do the big thing and you miss all the incredible little things he’s doing in the next 24 hours.
So, yeah, keep praying. Keep praying for your marriage. Keep praying for Him to divide the red Sea.
Keep praying for a beautiful thing to happen in your, in your, on your job or in your finances or with your child.
Keep praying for the big miracle.
But while you are praying, keep your eyes open for what God is doing today.
Be watchful, you know why you should be watchful for many reasons.
But one of them is because y’all, it makes you grateful.
It keeps a smile on your face while you’re yet on your knees praying about the whole Red Sea thing.
It keeps a smile on your face because you, you’re aware that oh God’s doing that.
Oh God did this too. Yeah, I still got a big prayer request on my plate.
But in the meantime, let me just tell you God did this and God did this and God did this.
You keep gives you a track record with God and as you build this track record with God of being aware of what he’s currently doing in your life.
As you build that track record, it means that the next time you face a new red sea, you’ll face it with much more confidence because you’ll be able to look back at the track record that maybe you wrote down of all the things that you’re grateful for that God did the last time.
And it builds this faith on the inside of you because you remember the same God who did that is the same God who will carry me through this.
So be fearless, be still be watchful. And finally, Moses says, be quiet.
He says, guard yourself against complaining, close your mouth to negativity.
Do you know that life and death are in the power of your tongue?
Do you know that out of this mouth? We can speak blessing or we can speak cursing.
You got to choose which one you’re gonna allow your mouth to be an instrument for.
I remember that I was telling a friend of mine named Lisa, something that was going on in my life.
It was a difficult circumstance and I was trying to give her the details of this difficult circumstance because she’s a prayer warrior.
I knew she would pray with me through it. She would give me wise counsel regarding it.
So I was just trying to give her the detail so that she could, she could, you know, give me wise counsel.
And as I was giving her the details um about halfway through my story, she stopped me, she held out her hands, she stopped me and she said, hang on Priscilla.
I I’m so sorry, but you’re gonna have to start over.
You’re gonna have to start from the top of the story and say it all again.
I said why she said because I don’t really like your word choice. It sounds too negative.
So stop right there. Start over and let’s take it from the top.
I said, excuse me, she said, I want you to start over.
And she said the reason why Priscilla, the reason why you need to need to choose your words wisely is because you do know that the, the enemy seeks to form a weapon against you.
But most often the material that he needs the instruments that he needs to form the weapon he does not have until you hand it to him.
And every negative word out of your mouth is a handed tool to the enemy to construct the weapon that he intends to use against your life.
On the flip side, the word says he watches over God watches over his word to perform it.
So she said, Priscilla, you gotta decide.
Do you want to give the enemy something to work with or God you choose, you’ve got to make a decision.
Will you speak blessing over your husband or your wife or will you speak cursing over your child?
That yes is very much in reality, struggling in that particular situation. Maybe your adult child. Yes.
But are you going to speak blessing or cursing over your finances? Your job, your ministry. Yep. It’s tough.
It’s difficult. You’re having a hard time. Ok, I got it. But are you going to speak blessing or cursing?
You decide, are you gonna give the enemy something to work with or God?
And then a fearless steadfast, watchful, silent bunch of Hebrews.
They saw a miracle of a lifetime.
In fact, when Hollywood did the movie The 10 commandments years ago, it took Hollywood 18 months to figure out how to simulate what our God did in a split second.
And he did it for a people that were fearless, steadfast, watchful and quiet.
They live for the Lord and they love the word of God.
And so what comes out of them is really a part of what’s in them.
It’s a part of their DNA.
And so I am so excited to have on a Sunday morning at James River Church for the first time.
Priscilla Shire. Would you give it up for Priscilla Shire? Welcome her to James River Church.
Thank you as Amen. Amen.
Amen. Well, hi y’all.
It’s so great to have an opportunity to be with you this morning.
We really love this church so much and love what God is doing in this house and through this house, particularly obviously with the women’s conference, which is the reason why I have the privilege to be here this weekend.
And then a couple of years ago, I was also at the women’s conference and to just see what God is doing and how he’s growing it not only in numbers but growing its reach and its potential and its anointing God’s was there so powerfully and beautifully all weekend long.
And I kind of just wanted to take a second before we go into this message to echo the encouragement that you’ve been given ladies to register early for next year for several reasons.
One of them is that, I don’t know if you’ve noticed or y’all noticed or not.
But in the venue this year in the arena, there was only like a couple of rows at the very top that were left open, it was almost completely full and this is just your first year in that arena.
Uh which means that there are lots of people coming in from outside of your city and the state even and coming in for this incredible movement um with this particular conference and it’s a good thing.
Uh But if there is one negative side to that, it could be that they all register first and the women of James River don’t actually get a seat.
Um And that would be a tragedy for you all not to be able to be there front and center.
So please do register early because we are so excited um about all that God is doing in your church and doing through that incredible ministry.
And I also wanna tell you that Jerry and I are um very impacted by your pastors, by the leadership of this church, the entire team of leadership at this church.
Amen. I want y’all to know that in the privilege that we have of traveling to many different churches and being um the privilege of being with many different ministries that, that sometimes it’s not the case that you are with leadership that actually has integrity, that are the same people in front of folks that they are when nobody’s looking sometimes that’s not always the case.
And so you all need to know at this church that everybody ain’t got it this good and that to have leaders that genuinely love the Lord and love you.
It is a blessing. And so we honor your pastors and we honor the leadership team at this church.
Thank you for inviting us.
I want to pray with you and then I want to share with you a few simple, simple principles from scripture that I pray will impact your life as much as I have found that they have impacted mine.
Let’s pray, Lord Jesus. Thank you so much for this privilege that we have to be in your presence and that we have to hear your voice through the word Lord.
I pray that you would do it only you can. Would you take this one little simple message?
Would you divide it a couple of 1000 different ways so that every single one of us will hear from you, Lord.
We’re glad that each other is here, but we didn’t come to see each other.
We came to hear from you.
So God, would you please open every spiritual ears and help us to be attentive to your word?
We are your servants and we’re listening in Jesus name. Everybody agreed and said, amen.
As was mentioned, Jerry and I have three boys.
Uh Jackson is our just about 12 year old and then Jerry Junior is our 10 year old and then we have a little surprise one.
We still don’t know how he got here.
He is our just about six year old in four days. He’ll be six years old.
He’s looking forward to that 6th birthday.
Uh We named him Jude and we named him Jude on purpose because that’s as close as I could get to revelation because it is finished is the end of the line.
So I got Jackson Jerry Junior and little sweet dude.
And they are our boys and I will tell you one distinguishing factor about our boys is that they are just big boys.
My 11 year old already wears a size 12 men’s shoe. That’s what size he’s in.
I know my husband only wears a 13 and our 11 year old is in a 12 and my 10 year old, he’s wearing a 10.5 men’s shoe.
Their little brother is not far behind him.
They are just big guys and one of the ways that it has worked out well for them is in sports.
They do enjoy sports, kind of whatever is in season.
We just are playing and there are a couple of them that haven’t really figured out their niche yet.
They like sports, but they haven’t figured out what their thing is going to be.
But our second son has, Jerry Junior loves baseball.
We call him J C and J C has been involved in baseball for probably five years now or so.
It’s just, it’s justice thing and I got to brag on him a little bit and tell you that he actually, he’s got a knack for it.
He’s really a very good baseball player and I think that his size helps him out quite a bit.
He’s already able to, when he gets a good hit, he hits the ball over the fence line for his home runs and he’s great at first base.
He makes lots of great stops and lots of good outs as the first baseman.
So we’re pretty proud of him as a baseball player and we enjoy the baseball season.
We’re in fall ball right now.
Spring ball will be later on next year and in the fall, obviously, the weather is nice and cool.
We go out for practice in the evening and when we’re out at practice, Jerry or I or whoever takes him, it’s kind of nice sitting outside.
The breeze is blowing same thing in spring ball.
You go outside and in the spring, in the evenings, it feels nice outside.
The games are a family affair on Saturday morning. It’s cool outside. Feels good.
The problem with spring ball though is that spring dovetails into summer.
Now, I don’t know what happens in Missouri in the summer, but in Texas, mid to late summer it gets hot, like ungodly hot where the sun is no longer your friend and it’s just beating down brutally upon you.
And you’re sitting out there at the game that sometimes is not scheduled.
First thing in the morning, it’s at high noon or one o’clock when the sun is in the middle of the sky and you’re sitting there trying to cheer your kid on, but you’re sweating bullets and the, and the sweat is down your shirt and your jeans and you’re just hot out there and it really still is bearable when there’s just one game.
But the problem is at the end of spring ball, there is a tournament, a series.
And so you’re going to be out there on Thursday and you’re going to play that first game and if your kid does good, then the team goes on to the second game that day.
And then if they do well in the second game, they will probably play a third game.
And if they do well on Thursday, then they move on to Friday’s series of games.
And if they do well on Friday, they come back on Saturday and if they do well on Saturday, they come back on Sunday, some of you are nodding your head because you have kids in Little League, you know exactly what I’m talking about and you’re sitting out there trying to be happy for your kid.
But you’re wondering if there is ever a time that it is ok to pray your kid loses so you can go home.
Can I just get one witness this?
I know I’m talking about and I will neither confirm nor deny that I have ever done that.
But I do recall last summer being outside, it was extremely, extremely hot.
My husband bought this huge outdoor kind of tent thingy from Dick’s outdoor sporting outdoor goods and we were sitting out there under the tent, but still it was brutally hot and we’re sweating and they played two games that morning.
It was finally time for a break. So we were glad to have a little break.
We went into the car to a restaurant for some air condition and we sat there, drank some cool water, ate some, some salad, something cold so that we could just cool off.
And we felt refreshed as we went back to the baseball diamonds for, I believe, what was the third game that day?
And as we took all of the gear out of the car to walk over toward the dug out where my son, my son’s team was going to be playing.
I watched something happen to my son.
Now, he’s normally a fairly confident, gregarious young man and I, I watched him, his chin had been up in excitement and enthusiasm about this next game as we marched over.
But I watched his Countenance change his chin.
That had been up all of a sudden as we got closer to the baseball diamond, his chin began to hang down.
I watched him start wringing his hands, wiping them on his clothes because they were sweating and I watched that chest that had been poked out in confidence.
All of a sudden, it was kind of hung over and I could not figure out for the life of me why in the world his countenance could change so dramatically from just the car to the dugout.
So I kind of looked around as I was carrying that big bag of stuff, I looked around to figure out what was going on.
And then I spotted what I thought the problem might be.
There was a huge tree and underneath the shade of the tree lay the team members that were on the team.
We were about to play. I got a good look at these team members and when I looked at them, I realized that these guys were a part of a team that had faced my boys team earlier in the season.
And when this team had played my son’s team, they had annihilated my son’s team earlier in the season.
I mean, it had been a complete upset. It was embarrassing.
These boys had, were these boys were serious baseball players, you know, the kind that have those serious parents, it was that kind of team, these boys, you know, they were the kind that when their parents gave birth to them, they immediately right there in the hospital put a mitt on one hand and a baseball on the other serious players.
And so we were getting ready to play this team all over again.
And I watched my boy insecurity and started to overwhelm him as he realized this was the team that we were about to play.
But as we passed closely by them, we overheard two members of the team talking to each other, they thought they were whispering, but they weren’t doing a great job.
So we heard them as we walked by, one leaned over to the other and said, there goes that big, that big kid from the other team.
Do you remember him? Yeah, he’s the one that hit the ball and it went over the fence.
You mean the one that was at first base, the first baseman, the one that caught the outs, that was him?
The kid leaned over and said, yeah, that’s Jerry Shire.
When my boy heard his name cross the lips of the opposing team members, all of a sudden that chin that was down, all of a sudden, it went back up again.
His chest poked back out all of a sudden he got his swag back.
In fact, we had to take him down a few notches before the game started because it really is amazing how your countenance can change when you really understand what the enemy thinks about you that no matter what the challenge is that you have ahead of you, when you really understand and believe every single thing that the word of God declares to be true about you, it changes the way you face the battle, it changes the way you face the enemy.
When you understand that every time the enemy sees you coming, he is shaking in his boots because you as a daughter or a son of God, you are a threat to everything that He is trying to do.
So, no matter what your challenge is today, whether it’s in your marriage or in your final answers are in your singleness or on your job or in your ministry, no matter what the challenges that you have to, that is that you have to face.
You need to really understand that the enemy believes every single thing that the word of God declares to be true about you.
That even if you don’t believe you are victorious, the enemy does, even if you don’t believe that you have been forgiven, the enemy is completely sure because God’s word declares it to be true that you are free, that there is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus.
You might not believe it. But the enemy knows beyond any reasonable doubt that he is already under your feet.
He knows that he can form a weapon against you but that it will never prosper.
He is very clear on the fact that because second Corinthians chapter three says that you’ve been made competent by the spirit of God, that you are totally capable to handle anything that may come your way.
Even if we don’t believe it, the enemy knows beyond any reasonable doubt that in the end we win y’all, what a tragedy it would be for the enemy to believe more about our potential than we do.
What a tragedy it would be that when you face the difficulties that come with life, the next game that you’ve got to play, the next bat, you have to swing the next hurdle that you have to get over on the journey of your life.
What a tragedy if we get to the hurdle and we shrink back in fear or discouragement when, when the enemy knows beyond any reasonable doubt that if we ever just really stepped in to all that God has called us and commissioned us to be as daughters and sons that, that we could cross any river, we could get across any hurdle.
We by the spirit of God’s power can get around and across anything that comes our way and move forward to the destiny that God has for us.
And so I want to offer encouragement for anyone that is in the room on this wet Sunday morning and there is a hurdle in front of you.
You like my boy are, are seeing this intimidating circumstance that is in your path.
And you’re wondering how in the world you’re going to ever be able to get across this or through this or around this so that you can move forward toward the destiny that God has for you.
There is encouragement for anyone in this room that finds themselves in that sort of predicament from a group of people that know exactly how that feels.
The Children of Israel had just been released from slavery for 500 years, nearly of slavery in Egypt.
They had just been released after 10 miraculous plagues.
They’re on the journey with God just like you and I are, they are headed to the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey.
That was representative of the place that it would have God’s power and God’s presence and God’s favor with them consistently and constantly.
They are on the journey with God.
But on the way they come across a little problem called the Red Sea a hurdle, they’re gonna have to get over so that they can get on with their lives.
I want to find out how they handled that problem.
It’s gonna help us and instruct us on how we can handle ours.
If you have your Bible and you want to turn with me to Exodus chapter 14.
If you still actually use a Bible with paper pages like I do or you can use your iphone, your ipad, any manner of I just flip on over to Exodus chapter 14, I believe they may have it on the screens as well for us to see how the Children of Israel handle.
The Red Sea. Exodus chapter 14 verse 13 and 14.
Moses says to the people do not fear, stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will, somebody say he will, which he will accomplish for you today.
For the Egyptians whom you’ve seen today, you will never see them again forever.
The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent. That’s good, isn’t it? Listen to that again?
Moses says to the people while they’re still looking at the red sea that they have seen no miracle yet.
They don’t know how it’s gonna be divided.
They can’t figure out how in the world they’re ever gonna be able to move forward on their journey with God.
Moses looks at this discouraged people and says to them do not fear because ain’t nobody got time for that stand by and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will.
Somebody say he will, he will accomplish for you today.
For the Egyptians whom you’ve seen today, you will never see them again forever.
The Lord will do the fighting for you.
If you’ll just keep silent, Moses looks at the Children of Israel in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
He looks at them and he gives them four instructions, four instructions that I want to share with you.
But before I do, I want to make sure that you did not miss the fact that embedded within these little two verses that has these four instructions for those of us that need to get across hurdles in our life embedded within these two verses.
There is a declaration of victory that the promise of victory is already there.
He doesn’t say that God might give us victory today that we’re going to hope that maybe possibly we’ll be able to have victory today.
He says that He will accomplish this victory on your behalf.
He says to the Children of Israel that you need to change your vantage point completely.
You are not getting ready to fight for victory. You are fighting from a place of victory.
You’re already in a position that is victorious.
It changes the way you face the battle when you understand that the victory has already been given to you that there are some things in Christ Jesus that are already done.
The promises of God in Christ Jesus are yes and amen and it changes everything.
When you realize the victory is already yours, you see everything from a different perspective.
And so Moses is not getting ready to give them instructions that will help them create the victory or manipulate for the victory.
He is only going to tell them the four things they need to do so that they can just lay hold of the victory that is already theirs.
The Lord says to us this morning on this Sunday morning that if you will do these four things, these four things will allow you to lay hold of the victory.
He’s already got planned for your life. The first thing he says is be fearless.
He says, do not fear. Then he says, be still stand firm.
Then he says, be watchful, see the salvation of the Lord.
And then he says, be quiet.
I thought for just a few moments, you and I can look at each of these four things, these four things that are so simple and they sound so simple, but they can be hard to inscribe on our hearts and implement in our lives.
But if we’ll make a decision to do it, we too will see how to get across the red, the red sea circumstances of our life and move on to the victories that the Lord has planned for us.
The very first bit of instruction that Moses gives to the Children of Israel and that the Holy Spirit gives to us today is that we ought to be.
He says, do not be afraid.
So important is this issue of fear that over 300 times between the Old Testament and the New, over 300 times.
God’s people are commanded in some form or fashion to not be afraid.
It’s said in different ways, be fearless, do not be afraid, fear, not over and over and over again.
We as daughters and sons of the most high God are commanded to choose fearlessness.
Now, it makes sense that Moses would need to give the Children of Israel. These instructions makes complete sense.
Remember, they had just come out of brutal living for 500 years. They had been completely traumatized and brutalized.
They are just days out of that situation. Days out of that circumstance.
They want so desperately to get to can and, and, and they want so anxiously to get away further and further from Egypt and the Captors and on their way there, they come across the Red Sea and y’all, when they looked across the Red Sea, they could not see the shoreline on the other side.
And when they looked to the right, they could not see that there was any land for them to go around.
And when they looked to the left, they saw more of the same, it seemed to them that they were completely blocked, blocked in on the front to make matters worse.
Pharaoh’s heart was hardened all over again. He decided to get his homeboys and to come after.
So Pharaoh and his army came up on the rear.
So now they’re blocked in the front and they’re blocked behind.
But the problem is not only that they’re blocked in front and behind, but scholars say that Pharaoh’s army would have been so vast that they also would have spanned out around the east and the west side of the Children of Israel.
So not only do they have a problem in front, not only do they have a problem behind, there’s also a problem on both sides.
In other words, they are completely surrounded in a group this size.
I bet there are some of you sitting in this room and you know how it feels to be completely surrounded because you just took care of this problem only to turn this way in your life and realize there’s another problem waiting on you.
Then you took care of this one only to turn this way and realize there’s another one here and then you turn this way only to realize there’s another one here everywhere you look, it just seems like you are surrounded on all sides.
The Children of Israel know exactly how you feel.
And it makes sense when you are surrounded on all sides, that fear would well up within you and seek to, to paralyze you and cripple you from, from moving forward or to from moving on in your life, which is why Moses had to say to these people, the exact same thing that the Holy Spirit has to say to us in our own personal life circumstances do not be afraid.
It does not mean you won’t feel the fear.
It means you will choose not to wallow in the fear that you feel.
It don’t mean it does not mean that fear and intimidation and insecurity might not. Well, up within you.
It doesn’t mean that they won’t knock on the door of your life.
But it does mean that when they do, you will not open the door and invite them in and tell them to stay a while and make them some tea and crackers and have a party with them.
It means that you don’t make friends with the fear that you feel.
It means that every time that fear wells up on the inside of you, you take every thought captive to the authority of Christ that you find the promises of God that apply to that which you, of which you are afraid and you speak God’s word over your circumstances.
Y’all this life that we are living y’all, this is not a playground. This is a battlefield.
Don’t, you know there is an enemy who is after your destiny.
He knows that on the other side of that thing that you are afraid of is milk and honey.
So he’s gonna do everything he can to so cripple you that you never want to move forward to that thing that you are afraid of because He knows that on the other side of that is the promised land, that’s got your name on it.
So you gotta make a decision not to be afraid that you won’t let fear hamper you or thwart the progress of your life.
Listen, I want you to know that when I am trying to discern God’s will in my life.
Let’s say there are two things, Jerry and I are praying through. What do we do?
How do we move forward? Which option should we take?
If there is one option that I’m not interested in? I mean, I just don’t like that.
I, I’d rather do this over here. I just don’t want this when I pray through it.
And I think through all the reasons why I don’t want this particular option.
If at any level, even at the root, if I find that it has anything to do with the fact that I’m afraid of it or I’m intimidated by it or I don’t think I’m capable enough or insecurity.
If any of that is wallowing down at the bottom of my reason why I do not want to do something, I automatically assume that the enemy must be behind that because you see God does not give a spirit of fear.
Now, our God is in the gift giving, giving business. He loves to give his Children gift.
But one gifts gift you will never find coming from God.
It will never have a bow on it with a, with a note from God saying, hey, I got a gift for you.
One gift you will never find coming from God is fear. He doesn’t do it. But power love sound mine.
That’s God. Ok. So if I discover that the spirit of fear is attached to something in my life, and I know that God does not give fear, then I automatically assume that it must be the enemy behind that fear.
And if the enemy is working that hard to cause me to steer clear of that thing, it must be because he knows there is something in that thing.
He does not want me to have.
And I don’t know about y’all, but when I find out that the enemy is behind something, it causes a holy indignation to rise up on the inside of me.
Because anything and everything that the enemy does not want me to have, that’s exactly what I wanna have.
And so I begin to pray and I say, Lord, why is the enemy working so hard to cause me to steer clear of that thing?
Is there something in that thing or on the other side of that thing has to do with your destiny for my life or blessings for my life.
Lord, please don’t allow me to steer clear of the things that the enemy wants me to just simply be afraid of.
My friend. Don’t be afraid. Cross that Red Sea on the other side is the promised land.
Don’t allow the enemy. The the joy of causing us to be so paralyzed that he causes us to steer clear of the very things that he knows are best for our lives.
I remember, I remember when my boys began to love baseball, I remember it so clearly because it was um, it was a unique Christmas for us and I’ll tell you why.
Um, up until very recently I told the women this at the conference this weekend, up until very recently, this is how we did Christmas.
I went to the Dollar store and bought each of my kids a couple little things from the Dollar Store and I did that for a couple of reasons.
Number one, I decided I was gonna milk that as long as I could.
As long as they didn’t know that those things weren’t worth nothing.
I was gonna do that as long as I could and I put them underneath this little three ft tree.
We have just in the last couple trees, couple years gotten a, you know, a real Christmas tree because the boys were all bigger than the three ft tree that we had.
And so, uh, we’ve just kind of graduated up just a little bit.
The boys are just now, you know, they’re starting to in the last few years discover that the, the, the dollar tree thing, the Dollar General Store stuff is not really what they want to see under the tree, but I did that, um, you know, for several reasons and one of the reasons is too that my Children have grandparents.
Can somebody say amen about noon on Christmas day, every Christmas day.
As long as I can remember after we have a little Christmas at home myself and all of my siblings and all of our Children, we all go to nanny and Poppy’s house.
My parents and that is where my kids get the loot. Amen.
Are there any grandparents in the room? Any, any grand we want you to know?
We love you. You just keep doing what you do. We appreciate it.
So that’s where my boys get the goods at grandparents at their grandparents house.
But on this particular Christmas, it was a unique Christmas because I had gone to the dollar store and I got a couple of things, put it under the Christmas tree, but that Christmas, uh, Jude wasn’t even with us yet.
It was just my older, two boys. I think they were like five and three years old.
Jerry decided he was gonna go to Toys R Us and get them one real gift.
So he got them, this little plastic baseball machine.
It was a machine that catapulted baseballs out at a certain frequency and a certain velocity.
Just little plastic baseballs and your kid stands there with the plastic helmet on little plastic baseball and waits for those balls to come out.
Well, of course, you know how kids are, as soon as they opened it up at seven o’clock on Christmas morning, they want you to put it together, go outside, it’s cold.
You’re in your bathrobe there. We were seven in the morning outside watching them play this game.
And my normally a very gregarious outgoing son, you know he’s standing there with that little helmet on. He’s three.
He’s at least swinging at every single ball that comes flying out of that chute and, and his older brother who’s a little bit more reserved and a little bit more cautious.
He’s standing off to the side and he’s watching these balls come out. Mom. I, I can’t do that.
I said, buddy. Yes, you can, you can do it. It’s gonna be so fun. It’s almost your turn.
No, mom, I don’t think I can do that though. Balls. Balls are too fast. You can do it.
No mom, I can’t, you can do it and you’re gonna do it because it’s seven o’clock in the morning.
I’m not here in my bathrobe. It’s cold out here. You gonna do it?
So finally it’s his turn.
He stands there, I’m getting the helmet all put on him and everything and I get him set up.
He’s standing there with the bat and he is horrified at the thought that the ball is gonna come out of that hole.
I felt so bad for him.
He was so insecure and so unsure of himself and I was just wishing I could get his little five year old brain to understand something that I knew.
What I knew is that while I was getting his helmet on, his dad had gone behind the machine and had opened up this little flap that revealed some gears, the gears could be adjusted and manipulated so that the frequency and the velocity of the balls was matched up to the capability of the person that was standing at the plate.
So the reason why my boy had no reason to fear is because he had a daddy who loved him, who had already gone behind the scenes and had already orchestrated the event so that he was set up to win.
Can I tell you why? You have no reason to fear?
You have no reason to fear because y’all, we have a daddy who loves us right now as we’re sitting in this room, he has already gone behind the scenes of your life.
He is orchestrating events and circumstances and people and people.
He is connecting the dots so that all you have to do is say yes, Lord in obedience and step up to the plate of, of God’s will for your life.
And every single time you do that in obedience, you will hit a home run, not because you’re so great, but because you have a daddy who loves you and who is great and who he is working on your behalf and on my behalf do not be afraid.
The second thing that that Moses says is listen, listen, not only do you need to not be afraid.
He says, I want you to be still some translations of that verse.
The one I read to you says, stand by others, say stand firm and still others say stand still.
I want you to notice the two parts of the command, the standing part and the stillness part just so we’re clear, I’ve got a problem with both of these, the standing part and the stillness.
And the reason why I have a problem with it is because I want you to put yourself in the situation that the Children of Israel were in, surrounded the Red Sea in front of them, an army coming up behind them and Moses the best you’ve got is stand still, don’t you see that we’ve got some swords here available to us?
Mo Don’t you want us to pick up one of these swords and go to battle against the Children of Israel.
Moses. You do realize we’ve got a bow and some arrows here.
We can set them on fire on the ends and go ahead and send them sailing into enemy territory.
Moses, we’ve got some wood here, wouldn’t you like us to get this wood and start to chop it up so that we can bind it together and build a raft so that we can get across this body of water.
Moses the best you can come up with that stands still seems like such a passive command in the midst of such active circumstances.
Seems like it makes absolutely no sense to us that this would be what you want us to do to handle this unbelievably difficult scenario that we are finding ourselves in Moses, you mean you don’t want us to lean to our own understanding as to what makes sense to solve this problem.
You want us simply to plant our feet and to stand for and to trust and have confidence.
We don’t even know what God or if God is going to do anything, the best you can come up with is just standing in your situation, whatever it might be, the Holy Spirit says to you today that the solution that is coming to your mind as the most rational way that you would handle the circumstance or the way that your experience tells you is the way to handle the circumstance isn’t always necessarily the best way.
Sometimes your solution is found in just standing firmly on the promises of God in believing that what God says is exactly what He will accomplish in your life and that He never has nor will he ever need our help to bring solution in the circumstances of our life.
He is God, y’all all by himself. He does a very good job at being God.
So sometimes you have to do what seems like the most passive thing, not nothing but standing.
I know it sounds passive.
But when you think about it, there’s nothing passive at all about standing.
When you’re busy, you’ve had a busy, busy day tiring. When you get home.
If you’re like me, you take your shoes off, you go into the living room and you don’t stand, you find a place to sit out, don’t you?
You sit down because you wanna take the weight off.
You want something else to carry and support and sustain you standing actually requires the, the molecular structure of your muscles to begin to, to work.
It requires a decision of your mind.
Your brain has to send a message down into your joints and your muscles and your bones to cooperate.
There has to be some strength involved to hold up the skeletal structure of your entire body.
When you think about it passive or standing actually sounds passive.
But it’s one of the most active things that you can do because it requires every single aspect of your body to stand up.
It’s going to require a decision of your will. A resolve in the midst of circumstances.
When you’re looking at a red sea and you’re maybe fearing or discouraged, what’s discouraged by what’s coming behind you, it’s going to take a deliberate intentional decision of your will to plant your feet on the promises of God to not be swayed to the left or to the right.
But to decide that I’m gonna believe that everything God has declared to be true of me.
My circumstances, this circumstances, the things that I hold dear, I’m gonna believe and trust that everything God says is true.
Standing not passive, it’s active requires a decision, a resolve to plant your feet and stand.
Can I tell you what makes makes church powerful, especially a church like this one, a Bible teaching church where you are being fed the, the scripture day in and day out, week in and week out.
What makes it so powerful is not that we’re in here celebrating it, clapping for it, waving our hands to it.
All of that’s nice. But what matters is whether or not we actually walk out of these doors and our Monday is transformed because we’re standing on what we heard on Sunday.
What matters is whether or not our Tuesday and our Wednesday and our Thursday and our decision making on Friday and our choices on Saturday, whether all of that is restructured, whether the way with a filter through which we deal with the problems of our life, whether we see it completely differently.
Because what we heard is implemented in our lives throughout the rest of the week. That’s when you stand.
That’s when you recall what God has said to you and then you plant your feet and believe him, there’s a young lady that interned with our ministry for a summer.
Her name was Katie. Katie was a wonderful young woman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Um Baton Rouge, Louisiana is a small, pretty small town in comparison to Dallas, small town and um the airport there is pretty small.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in it, but it’s a small airport and she hadn’t really traveled a whole lot in her life anyway.
But when she had, it was in and out of Baton Rouge.
So when she moved to Dallas, she interned with us for the summer.
We travel a lot and we travel out of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the Dallas Fort Worth airport, but it is a monster airport.
If you want to get to your plane, you first just have to know which terminal you’re going to.
We have five ABC D and E you gotta first know which terminal you’re going to.
Then each terminal has about 30 to 36 gates at each terminal. You gotta know what gate you’re going to.
That would be confusing enough except that most of the gates have a part A and part B.
So you might be going to terminal A gate 33b on one occasion.
Actually, the first occasion that Katie was traveling with us, there were five of us, the boys, me and Jerry and then Katie.
So six all together we drove up to terminal D so that we could get ready to fly off, I think to Los Angeles and we drove up to the airport, got out at terminal D, we all got in line for security.
We checked our bags already. We were now going through security so we could board our flight somehow.
All five of us got filtered into a different lane than Katie. So Katie is going through security over there.
We’re going through security right here and, and for some reason, our line was quick.
All five of us got all the way through security before Katie did.
So we’re all standing on the other side of security and Katie is still on the back side and, and she shrugs her shoulder, she doesn’t know what’s going on with her line and why it’s taking so long.
So Jerry decides to just send her a little text.
He sent her a text and said, Katie, we will meet you at gate 22 A.
Now remember we’re in terminal D, he says we’ll meet you at gate 22 A.
Now when you come through security gate 22 a was right there, we could see it.
We went ahead and took the kids to the gate, got them all settled. We waited for Katie.
They started to board the flight. I decided to go ahead and get the kids on.
So while we’re waiting for Katie, we got the kids filtered on and we, we decided to put our baggage in the overhead compartment, get the kids all buckled in and all settled and we’re waiting for Katie.
Jerry sends her another text. She does not respond.
We knew she had gotten the text about meeting us at gate 22 A.
She had, she had responded to that. So we knew she’d gotten that we’re waiting for her.
Now, other people are boarding the flight and, and we can’t, we can’t find her and she’s not there.
She’s not responding. We know we, we believe she’s gonna miss this flight because now the last person has gotten on the plane, we even start to hear them call her name over the loudspeaker.
You know, you’re late when they start calling your name over the loudspeaker.
They are about to close the door of the airplane.
Finally at the last second y’all, Katie comes running down the jet bridge, walking down that little small narrow aisle, way of the plane.
She is sweating bullets. Her hair is plastered to the side of her face.
She settles down into her chair and she wipes her sweat and she buckles up and she looks up just in time to find the five of us looking back at her like this.
We said, Katie, what in the world happened?
She said, well, I saw that Jerry told me to meet y’all at gate 22 A but I just assumed that he meant gate A 22.
So I got on the airport train that takes you to all the other terminals in the entire airport.
When I got to gate a 22 I realized y’all weren’t there.
So I had to get back on the airport train to take me all the way around the entire airport to come back here.
She literally almost missed the flight. And, and I remember as Jerry’s listening to her, explain what happened.
He responded to her with something. I will never forget. He said to her Katie.
If you would have just believed that exactly what I wrote is exactly what I meant.
I could have saved you so much time, so much energy, so much sweat.
If you would have just believed that exactly what I wrote is exactly what I meant.
How many sleepless nights and extra sweat and extra frustration and irritation and going all the way around.
How much would it save us if we would just believe that what he says to us, he means and we need to plant our feet and stand on it.
Y’all can I just say sometimes we have become too smart for our own good.
We try to craft and create and manipulate and maneuver what God is saying instead of just taking him at his word.
And if he says He is for you, he means I’m for you. No one can be against you.
The weapon might be formed but there’s no reason to fear because it just won’t prosper whatever he says.
He means. So be fearless and be still the third thing that Moses said to the people is to be watchful.
He put it this way. See the salvation of the Lord.
Now, the reason why this one is very interesting to me, this bit of instruction is because if you are anything like me, you’ll know what I mean.
That when I’m in the midst of a circumstance that I don’t particularly care to be in a hurdle that I have to get over or a red sea that I have to get through somehow.
The last thing I want to do is open my eyes and look at the problem.
I wanna close my eyes and sleep through it. I wanna pray through it. I wanna hurry through it.
I want God to get rid of this whole red Sea so we can move on with the promised land stuff.
I don’t really wanna hang out here and see it and make friends with it.
I wanna get through it real quick. Moses says the exact opposite to the Children of Israel.
He says, don’t close your eyes while you’re here standing here at the Red Sea.
We, they have no idea yet that God’s gonna divide it in just a little while.
They don’t know about the miracle while they’re staring at the problem.
Moses says, resist the urge to close your eyes and miss it.
He says, open your eyes and be watchful right now, even while you’re yet praying for God to do a miracle in your marriage, in your finances, on your job in that situation, open your eyes and see that there is so much God is already doing.
Don’t miss out on what’s happening today while you’re waiting for what God might do tomorrow.
You’ll want to see what God does tomorrow as well, but in the meantime, keep your eyes open to see the little details of God’s work in your life.
He wanted the Children of Israel to see and never forget what it looked like.
When he stepped out to the edge of that body of water and held out his rod over the red sea.
He wanted them to always remember what, excuse me, what it looked like.
When the expression on the faces of their toddlers, their toddlers saw God’s miracle begin to unfold.
He wanted them to never forget the expression on the faces of those little, those little people in their lives or the way that the hands felt of their elderly, those soft hands as they grabbed grandma and grandpa’s hands to walk them across the body of water.
He wanted them to never forget the details.
He wanted them to see what their stand feet looked like when they didn’t collect any mud on the bottom of them because they were walking across on dry ground.
He wanted them to always remember what it felt like when that East wind started to blow slowly at first, but then gain more and more and more momentum as it began to become a fierce scale that was able to divide that body of water.
He wanted them to remember the details of God’s miracle and realize that there was so much to be grateful for God about not just the big miracle but a bunch of little miracles along the way.
And what if you’re waiting on God to do the big thing and you miss all the incredible little things he’s doing in the next 24 hours.
So, yeah, keep praying. Keep praying for your marriage. Keep praying for Him to divide the red Sea.
Keep praying for a beautiful thing to happen in your, in your, on your job or in your finances or with your child.
Keep praying for the big miracle.
But while you are praying, keep your eyes open for what God is doing today.
Be watchful, you know why you should be watchful for many reasons.
But one of them is because y’all, it makes you grateful.
It keeps a smile on your face while you’re yet on your knees praying about the whole Red Sea thing.
It keeps a smile on your face because you, you’re aware that oh God’s doing that.
Oh God did this too. Yeah, I still got a big prayer request on my plate.
But in the meantime, let me just tell you God did this and God did this and God did this.
You keep gives you a track record with God and as you build this track record with God of being aware of what he’s currently doing in your life.
As you build that track record, it means that the next time you face a new red sea, you’ll face it with much more confidence because you’ll be able to look back at the track record that maybe you wrote down of all the things that you’re grateful for that God did the last time.
And it builds this faith on the inside of you because you remember the same God who did that is the same God who will carry me through this.
So be fearless, be still be watchful. And finally, Moses says, be quiet.
He says, guard yourself against complaining, close your mouth to negativity.
Do you know that life and death are in the power of your tongue?
Do you know that out of this mouth? We can speak blessing or we can speak cursing.
You got to choose which one you’re gonna allow your mouth to be an instrument for.
I remember that I was telling a friend of mine named Lisa, something that was going on in my life.
It was a difficult circumstance and I was trying to give her the details of this difficult circumstance because she’s a prayer warrior.
I knew she would pray with me through it. She would give me wise counsel regarding it.
So I was just trying to give her the detail so that she could, she could, you know, give me wise counsel.
And as I was giving her the details um about halfway through my story, she stopped me, she held out her hands, she stopped me and she said, hang on Priscilla.
I I’m so sorry, but you’re gonna have to start over.
You’re gonna have to start from the top of the story and say it all again.
I said why she said because I don’t really like your word choice. It sounds too negative.
So stop right there. Start over and let’s take it from the top.
I said, excuse me, she said, I want you to start over.
And she said the reason why Priscilla, the reason why you need to need to choose your words wisely is because you do know that the, the enemy seeks to form a weapon against you.
But most often the material that he needs the instruments that he needs to form the weapon he does not have until you hand it to him.
And every negative word out of your mouth is a handed tool to the enemy to construct the weapon that he intends to use against your life.
On the flip side, the word says he watches over God watches over his word to perform it.
So she said, Priscilla, you gotta decide.
Do you want to give the enemy something to work with or God you choose, you’ve got to make a decision.
Will you speak blessing over your husband or your wife or will you speak cursing over your child?
That yes is very much in reality, struggling in that particular situation. Maybe your adult child. Yes.
But are you going to speak blessing or cursing over your finances? Your job, your ministry. Yep. It’s tough.
It’s difficult. You’re having a hard time. Ok, I got it. But are you going to speak blessing or cursing?
You decide, are you gonna give the enemy something to work with or God?
And then a fearless steadfast, watchful, silent bunch of Hebrews.
They saw a miracle of a lifetime.
In fact, when Hollywood did the movie The 10 commandments years ago, it took Hollywood 18 months to figure out how to simulate what our God did in a split second.
And he did it for a people that were fearless, steadfast, watchful and quiet.
