May 2, 2016 · 10:37 am

Strongholds – The Finish

Peninsula Community Church

May 1, 2016

Strongholds – The Finish 

Ephesians 6:10-13 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

As we come to the end of this series, I trust you have been encouraged and challenged to allow God to bring change into your life. No matter where you have come from or the events that you have faced, God can bring victory to you today and for the future. The goal of this series has been to help us in our journey and in our growth in Christ. The desire from the beginning has been to assist you in knowing what strongholds might be in your life and to give you the tools you need to live as free people in Christ. While we might be wrapping up the series we will continue to discuss the freedom that is ours in Christ. This discussion will continue to be a element of every message we share.

Paul understood the need for freedom and release from the strongholds of life. He understood the work that needed to be done in a person’s life. For that reason he encouraged and challenged the church at Ephesus to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. The idea presented by the word strong is to be empowered with strength. It is a power that is resident within us. Just as in a stick of dynamite there is power but it is not revealed until the fuse is lit. We are empowered by the work of Christ in us and that power is revealed when we need it.

This morning I would like to look at nine things we can do to assure that we are dealing with the strongholds we face. I will call these the 9 R’s*. Let me say from the onset that this is not some secret formula but rather it is an ongoing process of walking and living in freedom. I would also suggest that we need to apply all of these in our life so that we are fully and completely free. Acting on a part of these would be like leaving out key parts of a building process. For example, the building process will not be what it should be if you leave off the doors and windows. Without doors and windows the thief has easy access to our home. I would also suggest that applying these nine principles separates those who want to go through the motions of life as a believer and those who mean business about their freedom. I am not sure about you but I mean business today.

The first “R” is relationship. To truly be set free we must begin with a relationship. You see the one true relationship we need more than any other is a relationship with Christ (John 1:12-13). To know Christ is to know real freedom. This is critical because we know that religious acts alone will not set us free. We know that just keeping the rules will not bring freedom. The one thing that sets us free is our personal ongoing relationship with Christ. By having a relationship with Christ we live without condemnation (Romans 8:1). I shared with you a couple of weeks ago my personal journey with the strongholds I faced and continue to face at times. I can tell you today that my life radically changed the more I found myself in relationship with Christ and I accepted the fact that I do not have to be condemned by my past.

The second “R” is recognize. We must recognize and thus admit that we have a problem. The fact is we cannot change what we do not admit to or accept as a problem. We cannot trust completely in Christ to save us until we come to some awareness that we are helplessly, hopelessly lost, and unable to save ourselves by our own good works. In this case, we must admit that we have been living with a spirit of anger, self-pity, bitterness, being wounded, guilt, regrets, abandonment, lust, and so on. We must admit that we have allowed these negative emotions to control our life and that they have reduced our effectiveness to live life to the fullest.

The third “R” is responsibility. We must then take responsibility for our actions and for allowing the strongholds to control us. By allowing these things to control us, we in essence become a servant to the stronghold. But to be free we cannot blame others. We cannot blame our circumstances. We must however take responsibility for our actions and for allowing such things to dominate our lives. Refusing to lay blame means we come to the place where we accept the need to change and begin to take a course of action to change. That brings us to the next ‘R’.

The fourth “R” is repent. It is here that we must ask for forgiveness (1 John 1:9-10). True repentance means there is a change of heart which leads to a change of action. Through repentance the heart is changed which leads us to change the way we act and the way we respond to the issues we face. By repenting we take a stand where we no longer allow these things to control us or to define us. When we take responsibility for our actions and for being controlled by false standards we will repent. Let me add one caveat here. Our repentance must be in the name of Jesus who brings life, hope, and the promise of a new day. So, what does repenting in Jesus’ Name mean for us? It means that we accept Christ’s authority and all that His name represents. In essence we are inviting the authority of Christ into our lives to assist us in overcoming the obstacles we face.

The fifth “R” is renounce. Not only do we repent but we must renounce these things so that they can no longer control our life. The term renounce is defined as to “formally declare one’s abandonment of a claim, right, or possession.” By renouncing these things in our life we are saying that we will no longer claim a right to these strongholds. We renounce their power to control us or to define us. By allowing them to continue to exist we are in essence allowing sin to dominate us. And in so doing, we will never experience full freedom.

The sixth “R” is remove. We must cast the work of the enemy from our life. How do we do this? Jesus who is our example. He spoke to the demons that existed and He commanded them to go in His name (Matthew 10:8, 12:28). We must remove the work of the enemy from our heart but we must fill it with Christ and a new way of thinking. Without doing so it will be too easy to fall back on what is natural or common for us. Without a new way of thinking or living we will be tempted to fall back to the way we use to respond or think about things. In so doing we will find ourselves trapped again.

The seventh “R” is resist. While it is important to repent, renounce, and remove these elements from our life; the fact is we can be tempted by the thing that we have dealt with. Once free we must continue to resist the enemy’s work in us because it is an ongoing battle. Continue to resist the devil and he will flee from you. Don’t give in and don’t surrender your new way of thinking to an old way of thinking. Refuse to go back to the way things were. The problem is illustrated by the Children of Israel who were delivered from Egypt and the ways of Egypt and yet they continued to want to go back to their old way of living. They desired the leeks and the garlic of Egypt more than the water of life that God was offering (Numbers 11:4-6, Exodus 14). It was a comfortable place of them as that is the place they knew and even though it was a horrible place they found comfort in that place. Don’t go back. Resist the devil’s temptation to recapture your thinking.

The eighth “R” is rejoice. We must give God praise and thanks for what He is doing and what He has done in us and through us. We praise God for our freedom and we praise God for giving us the wisdom to see that we need Him. We must give thanks for all that God has done in us and that we have the ability and the opportunity to live in freedom. The joy of the Lord is our strength and as we learn to rejoice in Him we are more likely to be free from the power of the strongholds that we face (Habakkuk 3:18-19, .

The ninth “R” is restore. We pray for restoration for ourselves but we also begin a ministry of restoration to others. We emulate the work done in our hearts and we promote the good work of Christ in others. We share what Christ has given us. Here is the beauty of this. Healed people will heal people. That is our goal and purpose. We are to experience the healing of God so that we can bring God’s healing to others.

As we close let me say this. While most of the statements that have been made today seem to imply that the success of breaking the strongholds in our lives is dependent on our actions but that could not be further from the truth. We must take advantage of the power of the Holy Spirit that is ready and willing to help us overcome. We must partner with and invite the Holy Spirit to break us free from those things that hold us bound. After all, where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and freedom. To be free, we must invite the Holy Spirt to reside in us.

Finally, we must take action. I would like to close today by having us take a particular step toward being free and delivered. I would ask that you take one of the small sheets of paper that we are now distributing. On the page I ask that you write down one or more of the strongholds you face. After you have done that I invite you to come here to the altar and present it to God. We do this through repentance where we turn this over to God and we take steps to resist the work of the enemy in us. As you do this I ask that you go through the steps that we have shared here today. Start with your relationship with God. Recognize that you have a problem. Take responsibility for the problem and then repent, renounce, and remove that stinking thinking from your thought processes. Then once you have surrendered this to Christ continue to resist the enemy’s attempt to recapture your heart. Finally, begin a life of rejoicing and one of restoration where we celebrate what God has done and we begin to share this work with others. Are you ready? Let’s do it.

  • Adapted from Kim Karlson’s 9 “r’s” of freedom.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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April 24, 2016 · 7:51 pm

Strongholds – The Heart

Peninsula Community Church

Strongholds – The Heart

April 24, 2016

Jeremiah 17:9-10 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.

As we continue our conversation on strongholds we will focus our attention on the heart today. Spiritually the heart has been defined as the seat of our emotions. Because of this, our emotions can be an area of our life that is ripe for strongholds to be established within us. The heart is that place where the enemy of our souls negatively influences until we are controlled by unhealthy emotional responses. Today, I would like to look at the susceptibility of the heart to errant emotions. We then will look at what we can do to have a new heart.

Let’s begin with the passage before us today. Jeremiah makes a definitive statement about the heart. He states the heart is deceitful and is desperately sick. The fact is without the Holy Spirit’s intervention our hearts will remain deceitful and sick. This happens because our hearts, as the seat of our emotions, can be wounded by past actions and by the words that have been spoken to us. Most of have used the cliche “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” How many would agree that is a lie? Sticks and stones do hurt us but words also hurt us. Most of the time it is easier to heal from the wounds of the sticks and stones but it is much harder to heal from the wounds of spoken words. Why is this? It is because words go to the depths our psyche. Words wound us. Words negatively effect us.

When it comes to the heart, I would propose this morning that there are several kinds of heart we can experience and all of them can be deceitful and sick at the core. I would suggest that we can have a wounded heart. We can have a hardened heart. We can have a broken heart. And we can have a weary heart. Let’s look at these for a moment. First, the wounded heart. This is the heart that is effected by the hurtful and negative words that have been spoken into our lives or by the failures we have experienced. You know what I mean. We hear words like we are not good enough. We are a failure. We don’t deserve God’s love. We will never change. These words have the potential to wound our spirit and injure us for life. As a result, unless we change we are destined to failure and to fall short of God’s desire for us.

Secondly, is the broken heart. This comes when those we trust have let us down. The spouse we loved, left us. We lost our job. We have had bad medical news. Our children have abandoned the path we have set for them. We have been hurt by infidelity and mistrust. For others it is the loss of a loved one. Each of these create in us a broken heart and broken hearts are not so easily healed. And if they are not healed they can be the reservoir of deceit and pain as everything we do will be filtered through the broken heart. Now don’t misunderstand me please. Brokenness of heart is a real issue. I have lived it myself. I certainly do not mean to minimize any one’s pain but I am also cognizant of the fact that if we do not allow God to bring healing to us the enemy of our souls can use our brokenness as an opportunity for negative influences and for the possibility of strongholds to be developed.

Thirdly, is the hardened heart. The heart is hardened when we refuse to allow the truth to impact our heart or we have been deceived. We see this in the Book of Romans when Paul says that those in the Roman church and in Roman society had rejected not only truth and but they rejected the God of truth as well. Through a rejection of truth, their heart had been hardened. The result was that the truth of God could not penetrate the heart. This occurs in us as well when we either reject the truth or we are deceived. Hardened hearts can also be realized when we continue to suffer from brokenness and wounds. We harden our hearts so we will not suffer any more pain. But the opposite is actually true. Instead healing we receive more heart.

Fourthly, we can also have a weary heart. You know how it is. We can become tired and weary of the things that impact us. We are over worked, and emotionally overwhelmed. A weary heart causes us to want to give up. A weary heart occurs when we confront the same issues over and over again which never seem to be resolved. Our children are rebellious. Our work is topsy turvy. Our family seems to have unresolvable financial issues. On and on it goes. The result is that we feel we want to give up because we are too tired and we no longer have the energy or the will to keep going on.

As we look at the heart we find it is here that the enemy of our souls loves to influence us neagtively. You see even as believers, while satan cannot possess us, he can certainly influence us to make bad decisions and do things that make our life more miserable. He can influence us to hold onto the past and not let go of the emotional bonds that are not easily broken.

But what is the answer and how do we overcome this? How do we experienced a healed heart? First, we must recognize that we need help. We must understand that our heart is broken, wounded, hardened, or weary. We must understand that we need something to change and begin to identify what that is. The problem too often is that we have been convinced this is just the way things are going to be. We are confronted with the messages that there is no hope and there is no means to bring change. We settle for bondage rather than freedom. We are convinced that we will live this way the rest of our lives. But that is a lie from the very pit of hell.

The fact is there is hope. We have the promise for a new heart and new way of life. We have a promise that God will take our stony, broken, wounded, and weary hearts and He will heal them. It is noteworthy that throughout Scripture that God gives us a new heart. He takes our wounded, broken, weary, and stony hearts and gives us a new fleshy heart. Ezekiel understood this when he penned these words. And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God (Ezekiel 11:19-20).

And then in Ezekiel 36:25-28 we find these words. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Yes! it is true that within our hearts there is a battle that is raging but that does not mean that we have to continue to live that way. We can choose to allow God to break our stony hearts and renew us with a fleshy, sensitive heart. Why is this critical? It is critical because to have a stony or wounded heart means that God is blocked from doing His work in us. And we need Him to work. By having a fleshy sensitive heart we are empowered to follow God’s commands and to follow His will which leads to receiving all that He has to offer us.

Secondly, we have to hide the world of God in our hearts. There are three passages in Scripture that bear this out for us. First, David stated How can a young man keep his way pure? Notice that David answers his own question. He states we keep our way pure By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! With my lips I declare all the rules of your mouth. In the way of your testimonies I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.  I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word (Psalms 119:9-16).

We also find that the temptation of Jesus comes to mind as he was confronted by satan directly (Luke 4:1-13). Notice that in His temptation that Jesus did not use positive thinking. He did not try to hide the problem. He did not justify his actions. What did He do? He used Scripture to counter satan’s ways. You see much of the temptation Jesus was faced was emotional. Notice that Jesus was hungry and satan offered him bread. He was playing with Jesus’ emotions but Jesus passed the test. Finally, the Scripture tells us that when we know the truth, the truth will set us free. For this to happen we must know the truth and that truth must be applied in our life (John 10:10).

Thirdly, we must recognize that this is an ongoing process of healing and restoration. We can never rest on the laurels of the past or on what God has done in the past for us. We must always be aware of the tactics of the enemy. He seeks to capitalize on our weaknesses and our failures. He knows the hot buttons in our life and he knows exactly what will set them off. Have you ever noticed that we are attacked at the most inopportune times. We are attacked when we are tired! We are attacked when we are overworked. We are attacked when we feel under appreciated. We are attacked when we feel that we have been deceived. While I have overcome the enemy over certain things I must be aware that I must consistently resist the devil and his schemes and he has many.

Fourth, we need to shut the door of our heart to the works of the enemy. When we recognize that the enemy is at our door, we must slam the door shut. Remember Cain and Abel. God spoke to Cain and said that sin is crouching at his door. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. (Genesis 4:4-7). This is the sad part of this story. Cain was warned that the enemy was at the door of his heart and that he had a chance to block his work. The enemy who is a thief was at the door of Cain’s heart to steal his heart, and to rob his brother of his life. Let me ask you, if a thief were standing at your door at home would you open the door and allow him to come in. To do so would not be very wise nor would it be helpful. They would raid your home and take what does not belong to them.

That is why Jesus reminded us that The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10). We must recognize the thief for who he is. He is a thief. He is a liar. He is an accuser. The problem for us as Christians is that too often we give the enemy territory in our life that should never have been given to him. We open the door for him to come in and set up a residence which results in us being controlled by lies, distortions, and bondage that is unnecessary. The result is that we begin to die. We begin to become ineffective and we become weakened.

So let us resist the devil and he will flea from us. Stand your ground and be attired in the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). Through Christ we have a new heart and a new way of living. We do not have to live in bondage or in the distortion that comes. Are you ready to live a new life? Are you ready to be free? After all we are promised an abundant life in Christ. It is a full life filled with promise, hope, and a new vision for what He can do within us.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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April 18, 2016 · 7:16 am

Strongholds – The Baggage We Carry

Peninsula Community Church

Strongholds – Baggage

April 17, 2016

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

I ask your forgiveness in the beginning of this message. I know that it will appear that the message will be focused on my life and my testimony. But I ask that you bear with me because as I was preparing I thought there was no better way to express the power of the baggage we hold onto than through my personal testimony. As I share this I do not in any way want to take away from the Gospel but it is the Gospel and the power of Christ that I am where I am today.

With that said in 1979, when I moved to New York City after Bible College, one of the jobs I had was to help refugees resettle to the United States. In particular, we were helping Christians who came from Communist countries and had lost everything as a result of their stand for Christ. In that job one of my roles was to travel to churches to present the program and seek to have churches sponsor refugees. I enjoyed this because I was able to fly around the country and visit some exciting churches and meet some awesome people. On one such trip, upon my arrival back to New York I found out that the person who was suppose to pick me up was not able to do so and I would have to find an alternative way home.

So I began to consider how I was going to get home from LaGuardia Airport which was not as easy as it might seem. The problem was that I had a huge trunk, a large suit case, and a brief case because I had to carry all of the church presentation material with me. Upon investigating how I was to get home I found out that I needed to take a bus from the airport to the Grand Central Station. From there I had to take a subway to Penn Station where I would catch the Long Island Rail Road to West Islip. On the Long Island Railroad I was required to make one transfer. Can you imagine me pulling a 75 pound plus trunk (with no wheels), a large suit case, and my brief case onto the bus, down the stairs of the subway, up the stairs of the train station, and then down the other side to catch the Long Island Rail Road and then to do it all over at the transfer point.

Once in West Islip I called only to find that no one could pick me up. So I had to get a taxi to take me home. So now I had to wrestle with this stuff again. When I arrived home, I drug the trunk, the suit case, and the brief case into the house only to find the person who was to pick me up was watching boxing matches with his sons. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. By the way it took me almost four hours or more to get home from the airport. I laugh at that story now but the fact is the excess baggage I had with me weighed me down and kept me from being very mobile. I had to drag this baggage around with me in order to make any progress at getting home.

While this is a humorous story the fact is that many of us have baggage that tends to weigh us down as we take this journey called life. The writer of Hebrews expresses this as weights and sin. Both the weights of life and the sin (ongoing sin) that possesses us holds us back and causes us to be immobile and ineffective in this journey called life. It is of note that a weight in itself is not necessarily a sin but it is something that is cumbersome, annoying, and it holds us back from being all that we could be, otherwise.

I am sure that you know what I mean. Our collection of baggage begins early in life as we experience the ups and downs of life. For me, it began as a child because when I was just a year old or so I was rushed off to my grandmother’s house to live so that my mom could find herself in Texas. During this time my grandfather who was my best bud died. It was in that moment that I began to pick up the bag of rejection and abandonment. The problem of course was that as I grew older I began to stuff that bag with more and more rejection and abandonment. When I was six years old I moved back with my mom. While living with my mom we moved every year to two years until I was eleven because of my step dad’s drinking problem. At eleven years old I was moved to my aunt’s house because of the issues at home. And after one year with my aunt I suddenly found myself at the doorsteps of my dad’s home in Alabama. Each of these actions added to the baggage I carried. The bag of rejection and abandonment became much heavier. To make matters worse I began to filter everything through the prism of rejection and assumed that rejection and abandonment was going to be a way of life for me.

In addition to the baggage of rejection and abandonment, I also picked up a bag of abuse and wounds as my step dad was abusive physically, emotionally, and mentally. He would punish me with military type punishments. One such punishment was to have me stand six inches from the living room wall with one foot in the air for 45 minutes. If my foot dropped, he would slap me and the time would start over. This was just one case of the physical abuse. In many ways the physical abuse was nothing compared to the emotional abuse I encountered with my dad. By the time I turned eleven or twelve my self esteem was blown and I had experienced the power of insecurity in big ways.

This lead me to take on other baggage such as fear and guilt. I feared for my life as I did not know how my step dad was going to be when he arrived home. I also felt guilty because I felt I was the problem. After all my step dad would regularly remind me that the issues at home were my fault. He would say such things as I was never wanted and that I should have stayed with my grandmother. He would blame me for all of the problems he was facing and would blame me when he and my mom would fight which was often. At 7 years old I began to accept the idea that my parents issues were my fault.

Throughout my life I picked up more and more baggage until I was weighed down and had became immobilized by the baggage I carried. The fact is I knew no better. The fact is that people who were around me did not even know that I was dealing with this burden as I did a great job of hiding my real self. I assumed that this was just the way of life so I had to a accept it and move on. On March 4, 1974, as a teenager, I received Christ and through that action I thought that life would be grand. While I had been forgiven of my sin, I still carried the baggage I had collected throughout my life. In fact, instead of getting rid of my baggage I actual picked up another piece of baggage called religion. Even though I had accepted Christ and I was going to church regularly, I still carried the baggage of my past. Instead of living in freedom, I tried to obey the rules that had been given me. But as I continued my journey with Christ, particularly after my Bible college years, I began to realize that I did not have to walk with the baggage that was weighing me down. I learned that there was a better way of living.

Let me share with you a few of the Biblical truths I learned that helped me let go of the baggage in my life. First of all I learned that true forgiveness meant that none of my past issues had to dictate my present circumstances or my future life. You see I had accepted Christ but I had not accepted His forgiveness. I confessed Christ but I not taken what He had accomplished for me to heart. I failed to grasp what Peter had stated in 2 Peter 1:3-5. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. You see one of my problems was that I was relying on my own strength and I was good at keeping all of the rules to be a “good Christian.” I did not fully realize that God had already given me everything I needed to overcome the baggage in my life and that I could be a partaker of the divine nature of Christ which brings freedom.

Secondly, I learned that I did not have to walk in the fear of rejection or abandonment again. The words of Timothy reminded me that God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. You see I had so much fear that I could never be free or so I thought. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of rejection. I was afraid of being abandoned. I was afraid of the future. But once I grasped the power of the words of Timothy, I now know that I do not have to walk in fear but I now have a power to overcome the baggage in my life.  

Thirdly, as I grew in Christ, for the first time in my life, I began to realize that I was accepted and received by Christ. Even though I had accepted Christ I still struggled with the fact that Christ really accepted me. What I did in life was in fact done to get Christ to love me and accept me. I did not want Him to reject me. After all I felt everyone else did so. As I began to grow in Christ I began to realize and grasp that I was accepted by Christ not because of who I was but because of who He is. Listen to the words of John 1:12-13. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. Look at this, Christ gave us the right. He gave us permission. He opened the door for us to be children of God. You see Paul is saying you are not just forgiven, you are accepted by God as His child.

Fourthly, I learned that I was not responsible for the actions or decisions of others. I also learned that I needed to take responsibility for my life, for who I was, and what I had done. While I had many things done against me I defaulted into the blame game mode. I had become  good at pointing out other’s sin and their shortcomings. I was good at blaming my parents, my step dad, my mom, my real dad, my step mom, my brothers and sisters for my sin and the wrongs I had done. But I had to take ownership of what I had done. I had to own up to my sin. I had to come to terms with the fact that I had allowed baggage to begin to dictate how I was to live.

Fourthly, as the baggage began to fall off, I realized that I had to fill my life with something. According to physics, a vacuum is never empty, it always filled with something. It is for this reason that Jesus Himself explains the need to be filled with all that God is and not to remain empty. “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came. ’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation (Matthew 12:43-45). 

You see I can get rid of my baggage but I need to be filled with something good or else I will begin to fill my life with more baggage and I will find that seven more evil spirits will come. You see I need to be filled with Christ’s love and the power of all He has given me. I need to be filled with His word, His spirit, and His power. In so doing, I can let go of all of the baggage in my life and not worry about being entrapped by those things again.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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April 11, 2016 · 11:49 am

Strongholds – The Mind

Peninsula Community Church

Strongholds – The Mind

April 10, 2016

Romans 12:1-2 – I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Last week, toward the end of the service I made a statement that I want to restate today. Too often we seek forgiveness as a means to deal with guilt but salvation is so much more than guilt management. We must renew the mind and develop our minds to follow after Christ. The goal is to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5) and grow to be Christlike. In having the mind of Christ we are empowered to overcome the power of evil and thoughts which do not honor God. You see God never intended for us to be just forgiven, but He wanted us to live in freedom (Galatians 5:1). He desires that we have an abundant life not just a mediocre one (John 10:10). Jesus envisions a life for us that is filled with freedom and victory.

To grasp freedom and victorious living we must recognize that the mind is a reservoir of every thought, idea, or imagination we have ever had. It is also filled with everything we have ever learned. Now some of you might argue that point because like me I am sure that you feel that you have forgotten more than you have ever learned. But the fact is it is in there. That is why we suddenly recall a memory or a fact that we thought had been long forgotten. This happens to us when we seek to live a full free life. We think we have won a victory and suddenly out of the recesses of our minds a thought comes. It is our mind reminding us where we have been, what we have done, and what has been done to us rather than what God is doing and can do in us.

You see he mind is a filtering system where every thought, idea, or imagination is processed. This can include both conscious and unconscious processes which effect and impact what we do and how we do them. It is through these processes that we begin either reject or accept the truth. Most often the truth we receive is filtered through our past experiences and the things that have had happened to us. Once filtered and accepted these thoughts, ideas, and imaginations begin to form and shape who we are and how we respond to life and they begin to define who we are.

Strongholds are established when we begin to believe the lies or begin to follow after the thoughts, ideas, and imaginations which we have allowed into our minds. For example, because of past experiences we often adapt certain views about life in order to function. Let me illustrate this. When you were growing up, you may have lived in a home where abuse was very evident. The result is that you begin to tell yourself that this is the way people are. The result is you find it difficult to trust people because you begin to believe that every relationship you have will end in abuse. At times we reject others not because they have done anything but because we believe that they might hurt us. We therefore live in fear and rejection. It is a vicious cycle of defeat. But God wants to deliver us and free us from these cycles of failure and defeat.

A stronghold can also be established in the mind by way of our personal attitudes. For example, we can be filled with anger or worry which binds us and creates in us a stronghold. Rather than being controlled by God’s peace we are controlled by worry and fear. Our fail safe for dealing with issues we confront is to fall back on worry and fear rather than on God’s peace. The problem is that we attempt to control our fear and worry instead of being set free and established in Christ.

The story is told of the man who bought passage on a passenger ship. He had worked hard to save his money for this trip. The day finally came and he boarded the ship to head to America. Along with his luggage he brought a bag of food and crackers to have in his room. Just as they were about to dock in New York the captain of the ship saw the man standing by the rail. The captain approached the man and stated that he had been missed at the captains dinner. The man explained that he did not have the money to eat at the captains dinner so he had been eating in his room. The captain hung his head with sadness as he spoke to the man. He then revealed that the meals had been included in his ticket price. You see for us we have had salvation purchased for us but we are not taking advantage of the everything salvation has to offer. We have been forgiven, yes, but we have also been given a full and free life. Let’s live like it.

Because the mind is the reservoir of thoughts, ideas, imaginations, and intellect we can be negatively impacted by the stimulus around us. So how do we live in freedom as designed by God. To do so we must fulfill the command of Romans 12 to renew our minds. And how do we renew our minds? We do so by being transformed through the renewal process. The Greek word for transformation is the word metamorphosis. It is the idea of being changed from one thing to another. The classic example of this is the caterpillar which is turned into a butterfly.

With that in mind there is a caution we must also consider. Transformation is not a matter of switching from one list of things to do in the flesh to a list of things to do in the law. When Paul replaces the list of the works of the flesh he replaces it with the fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22). You see the Christian alternative to immoral behaviors is not a new list of moral behaviors. It is the triumphant transformation of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ. It is a new way of living that is not managed by a list of do’s and don’ts, but rather it is a new way of living. Rather than a list of new activities, it is way of being.

When it comes to the mind I propose four steps to overcome and break the strongholds that impact us. First we need to test every thought. To renew the mind we must control the thoughts we allow into our mind. That is way Paul stated in Corinthians that we should take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). In essence, we have to cut off the power of the stronghold at its source. So what are you thinking? The fact is what we think we become. The thoughts we allow in effects what we become and what will eventually define us.

To bring something into captivity means to control, to conquer, or to bring into submission. We take every thought captive. We make our thoughts submit to the obedience of Christ. We make our thoughts to submit to the word of God. The problem however is that my mind does not always mind. My mind wants to do its own thing. That is why we have to make our thoughts obedient to Christ and to His ways. You see the battle for sin always begins in the mind and it has to end in the mind as well. To control our minds and thoughts is to know Christ and His ways. That is the template we must use.

A second thing we need to do is to guard against garbage. The New Living Translation has an interesting interpretation of Proverbs 15:14. It says “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash.” Nutritionist will tell you that there are three types of food. There is brain food which makes you smarter. There is junk food which is simple calories. Its not poison but it is empty calories. Then there are toxic foods which are filled with toxins that destroy the body. The same comes to the thoughts that we let in. We want the thoughts that are going to make us smarter and stronger.

Paul in Philippians 4:8-9 gives us a secret to control our thoughts and to control against the garbage that comes in. Listen to what Paul says. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

Let me ask you. Do you sit around and listen to gossip and negative comments? What do you watch on TV? What do you read? What do you allow into your mind that impacts and effects who you are and what you are about? When we put in garbage we get garbage out. The opposite is true as well. When we put truth in then we will get truth out. So we must begin to fill our minds with truth and what is pure. When you fill your mind with truth, the truth will set you free (John 10).

The third thing we can do to battle false mindsets is to feed on God’s Word and learn as much as you can. Be a student of God. This is not learning for the simple goal of learning but our learning must be focused on knowing God and understanding His ways and His wisdom. We do not study to get more knowledge; we study to become more Christlike. We must become life long learners of God’s grace. For example here at PCC we have a number of opportunities for you to learn. We have Sunday School. We have small groups. We have ladies study on Thursday. We have the men’s gathering at McDonalds. We have Sunday worship. We have opportunities for fellowship and to get together. We do this so you have an opportunity to grow and learn.

I am also reminded that Rick Warren has said that truth is never invented, it is discovered. We must discover the truth of the Gospel. We read! We listen! We study! We ask questions! That is how we learn and how we keep on learning. We feed our minds with the word of God because it renews and strengthens us. We feed our minds with the word of God because it begins to change us and begins to transform our thinking.

And finally, let God stretch your imagination. So many of us live under the power of strongholds because we do not know how to live otherwise. To overcome the strongholds in our life, we must believe there is a better way to live. We must believe that God has a plan for your life that does not contain the mindsets and strongholds that have been established against us. When we believe that God has a different plan for us, we really really believe it, and we begin to act that out we will live differently and we will act differently. By allowing God to stretch your imagination of what could be we can then move from a state of forgiveness to living victorious. That is the power of overcoming the strongholds in our life.

So how are you doing? Are you ready to live free?

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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April 4, 2016 · 6:10 pm

Strongholds – Boundaries

Peninsula Community Church 

Strongholds – Boundaries

April 3, 2016

James 4:1-10 What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double- minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

As we continue our study on the strongholds that pursue us and enslave us I want to look at a specific area of truth this morning and it is what I will call a boundary mentality. A boundary is a line that marks the limits of an area. It is a diving line. It is also a limit of a subject or sphere of activity. Therefore boundaries are established to aide in understanding one’s limitations in terms of what they do, how they do it, and where. In the Old Testament, particularly, we find that God established boundaries so the Children of Israel would know their limitations and what they could or could not do. These things were established for their benefit and not their harm. As a parent we set boundaries for our children so that they would be protected and would be kept safe. One of the boundaries we set was that they could not play in the street. Why was this boundary set up? It was because we knew that playing in the street was dangerous. We also knew that crossing that boundary could result in negative consequences.

The fact is boundaries are necessary in our lives and we all have them in some shape or form. Boundaries are necessary because they give us guidance and they establish limits so that we know when we are crossing the line into sin, unhealthy relationships, making poor decisions, and so on. The law of God and the Commandments of God are boundaries that have been established to give us the ground rules. They were established not to bind us or take away our fun. They have been established to give us life and liberty.

But even in the best of circumstances what has been designed for our good can become a trap for us. So there can be a problem associated with boundaries, if we are not careful. You see the problem at times is that we allow the boundaries we establish to begin to define us. The result is that too often we are defined more by what we cannot do rather than what we can do. The fact us our boundaries must never define us. We must be defined by relationship with Christ.

One problem with setting boundaries is that too often we use boundaries to management our sin rather than allowing God to change our heart. I have often said that it has been easier for us to establish a law or in this case a boundary than it it is to deal with the real issues of the heart. We can have as many rules and regulations we want but we will still struggle because the heart has not changed. God is after a heart change and not boundaries. When we try to manage our sins, the tendency is that we become more legalistic than we should be. The tendency is that we focus more on the boundaries and what is right or wrong rather than focusing on God. While trying to live for God, we in essence live with a fear of sinning so that we can never be free to be what God has called us to do. I have shared before that I grow up in a legalistic environment. Rules were established to control us and prevent us from sinning. There was no bowling, no skating, no movies, no cards, no dancing, and so on and so on. What a relief later in life to know that I was not going to be condemned for watching a movie or playing cards.

The root of the problem is that boundaries, like the law of the Old Testament, point us toward what sin is and it defines sin but the law does not and cannot save us from our sin. Deception and bondage come when we believe that if we tow the line and do everything right then we will accepted by God. Jesus warns us about this kind of mindset. He reminded us that there would be many who will stand before God that will be able to describe their list of accolades and abilities. Even though they have an impressive resume of successes, the sad commentary was that they did not have a personal relationship with the very one they were trying to get approval and acceptance from. Jesus reminded them that many will cry Lord Lord and yet God will deny them entrance into heaven because they were not true passionate followers of Christ (Matthew 7:21). With that said I want to be clear that God does want us to obey His commands but we must never do so apart from a relationship with God.

A second problem with setting boundaries is that too often it too easy to move and change the boundaries. This is especially true when we no longer like a particular boundary or rule. The result is that we no longer have a fixed focus on truth in our lives. If we believe the boundary is no longer appropriate or it no longer serves its purpose we simply move, remove, or redefine the boundary. When we are with Michelle’s family one of the things we love to do is play games. But we always have a problem. There are those around the table that at some point during the game who decide to change the rules. They change the rules because they do not like the rule or they feel the rule is not benefitting them.

We see this being played out in our society in a big way today. Drugs are now being legalized. All forms of sexual sin are being normalized. Rebellion and anarchism are being praised as a way to overcome those we do not agree with. Our boundaries and our moral footing have moved and have been changed. Think about this if you will. It is very similar to dieting. I am sure that none of you have done this but I have. You say I will have an extra donut now and then tonight I will eat less but that never seems to happen. The problem is that once we have moved the boundary of what is acceptable we have the tendency to allow other things in as well.

This also reminds me of a story I heard a number of years ago. A group of boys in Philadelphia went into a local store and switched as many price tags as they could. They never stole anything but they simply switched the price tags on as many items as they could. When morning came, the store opened as usual but something was different. Both the customers and the store owners were shocked to find that the prices had been changed and the price tags had been switched. That happens to us. The price tags have been switched and the boundaries that once stood firm have been moved. The enemy of our souls loves to switch the price tags so we no longer value what God values and in so doing we move the boundaries.

The third problem with setting boundaries is that too often we live as close to the boundary as we can. By living on the edge we can be easily pushed into sin or into a wrong pattern of thinking. The closer we live to the boundary, the greater the temptation is to be sucked into a lifestyle or a sin that is knocking at our door. The other problem is that when we live at the edge of the boundary the lines of right and wrong begin to blur. It is here that we fall prey to the lies, the accusations, and the doubts of the enemy. It is way too easy for the lies, accusations, and doubts to become a part of who we are. In essence, we flirt with sin and we flirt with stepping over the line. All it takes is a slight nudge by the enemy to cause us to step over the edge.

And finally, the greatest problem with setting boundaries is that when we live near the edge of the boundaries we set there is a tendency to live further from God. The tendency is to focus more on the boundaries and what we can do and what we cannot do rather than trying to live close to God. In other words, rather than living close to the edge, lets find out what God is saying and do that. Remember our verse this morning that says“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double- minded.

Let me ask you today, do you have a security in the lines you have drawn. Or, do you rest in the power of Christ to accomplish His will in your life. Please note, I am not asking or even suggesting that you remove the boundaries you have set. I am simply saying that your trust must be in God and not in the boundaries we set. What if we changed our focus? What if we focused on Christ who offered us the cross and the resurrection. Let me say this and I hope you hear this. The walk of a Christian is not sin avoidance. It is Christlikeness.

Rather than boundaries we should ask what would honor God? What would cause His glory to be manifested in and through my life. You see setting boundaries focuses on forgiveness and that is so important but Christ died for more than our forgiveness. Too often we want the removal of guilt and not the work of Christ in us. Know this Christ died for more than the removal of guilt; he has called us to live a vibrant abundant life filled with joy, peace, and love. We are more than forgiven, we are called to Christlikeness. It means that I allow God into every area of my life. I receive victory because I am forgiven but I live in victory because I seek to be Christ like. You see the gospel has to be more than guilt removal it has to be a way of life. It is “life abundantly lived.” So are you living abundantly or are you living close to the boundaries?

So what do we do with this? First, what boundaries have you set in your life? Do you focus more on the boundaries that have been set than on Christ who died and gave Himself for us? Second, I suggest that you refocus your life to move closer to Christ than living on the edge. You will find that the temptation toward sin will be diminished. I am not saying that it will be annihilated but the temptation to be pushed over the edge is diminished. And finally, if we want to know how to live closer to God we must know the word. We read it. We memorize it. We live it. That way we can be victorious in all we do.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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March 28, 2016 · 7:31 am

Easter the Power to Overcome – Do Overs

Peninsula Community Church

March 28, 2016

Easter the Power to Overcome – Do Overs

John 21:15-17 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

We are in the midst of a series on the strongholds and the mindsets that prevent us from being all that we have been called to or created to be. We started the series by briefly looking at some of the strongholds that are evident in our lives. Last week we were reminded that the debt of our sin has been nailed to the cross. We were reminded that the enemy of our souls loves to throw accusation, lies, and half-truths at us in hopes that we will take the bait and fall victim to his ways. But the cross reminds us that the debt of sin charged against us has been paid and the cross is the receipt of that debt.

Today, we will look at a second aspect of our life in Christ. As I noted last week it is important for us to establish an understanding of who God is before we move on to deal with the issue of strongholds and mindsets more specifically. That is why we looked at the cross last week and today we look at the results of the resurrection. While the cross reminds us that our debt has been forgiven, the resurrection reminds us that we have the power to begin again. The resurrection gives us the power to start over regardless of our past sin or our past failures. In essence we get a do over.

When I moved to New York, in 1979, I began to “try” to play the game of golf. When I first began to play, I played with some people who did not make the game very much fun. They continually corrected me. They criticized my swing, the way I was standing, the way I approached the ball, how I hit the ball, and on and on. They were so critical and such perfectionists that I wanted to give up the game which I did do for some time. But a number of years later I was asked to play again. After some persistence on their part and reluctance on my part, I agreed to play. I was surprised when there was a totally different environment this time. They gave instruction but it was done in a way that was not harsh or belittling. In fact, as we played I hit my normal bad shot. When I did that they said something that revolutionized my life in relationship to golf. One of the guys asked me if I wanted to take a mulligan. Of course I had never heard of that before because the people I had originally played with did not give mulligans. They were serious if not legalistic about their golf and they did not believe in such a thing. For those that may not know what a mulligan is, it is a second chance. It is a do over. You hit a bad shot and you have an opportunity to hit the shot again.

My message this morning is a message of do overs. It focuses on those around Jesus who failed and failed big time. You see when we talk about mindsets and strongholds in our life there is no greater place for this to occur than in the area of failure and blown opportunities. We feel life is over and there is nothing left to do. This comes as well when we have committed that sin or that thing that we believe has derailed us for life. The result is that we feel that our life has come to an end and there is no hope for a better future. You see this is much like the friends that took me golfing earlier in my life. Each failure was overly emphasized and I was reminded how horrible a golfer I really was. Instead of hope, I experienced disappointment and wanted to give up. But the resurrection is a reminder that we have a chance to start over. Because He lives, we have hope and we have a chance for a do over.

As we think about the resurrection and do overs we cannot help but think of the disciples who were negatively impacted by the events of Christ’s death. Think about it, the disciples who were by Jesus’ side for three years were nowhere to be found during His trial or the crucifixion. All of the disciples except for John ran and hid. Thomas doubted Jesus. Peter, as prophesied, denied his relationship with Jesus. We find the disciples are confused and when they received a report that Jesus is alive they reluctantly went to the grave site. This was in part because they struggled to believe the story that He had risen but also because they were afraid they might be arrested by the Roman guards.

Let me ask you this morning do you ever feel confused? Do you feel that you have been betrayed? After all Jesus said He would never leave them? Do you ever feel you have failed so big that there is no chance of forgiveness or opportunity to start over and make things right? Do you feel there are too many pieces to the puzzle of your life that are not fitting together? The fact is there are so many questions and so much brokenness around us. But we must hear the rest of the story to understand the day of new beginnings.

While all of this was happening we must be reminded that actions of the disciples did not prevent Jesus from being raised from the dead. That is the power of who Jesus is. Our lack of belief in Jesus or our sinful condition, no matter how bad it is, does not change who Christ is nor does it change what He has done on our behalf. We find in the story of Jesus that He rose again. Though He was dead, He now lives. But here is the amazing part of the story for me. As soon as possible, Jesus purposely goes to see the disciples. This band of believers who had failed to stay strong when it mattered most were in hiding but Jesus knew where they were. And most importantly, He knew the condition of their heart.

If you are familiar with the resurrection story you know that Jesus sought out the disciples. Jesus knew their pain. He knew the hurt, confusion, and rejection they were feeling. They should have known better but they still acted in a way that betrayed who they were. They failed to follow Jesus’ words and yet Jesus wanted to see them. It is noteworthy that while over 500 people saw that Jesus was alive, the scripture hones in on his visits to the disciples.

First, Jesus encountered Thomas who was a doubter. He doubted everything. How many have doubts today about your future and the hope you have? Doubt is such a robber of faith and it can cause us to be frozen in the past and in only what can be seen in the present. Notice that Jesus did not discredit Thomas’s doubt but gave him a chance for a do over. He allowed Thomas to touch His side and His hands and in so doing Thomas found a spirit of faith arise in him. He had a do over.

Then Jesus went to see Peter. He knew Peter’s rejection and denial. While Peter had failed, Jesus saw beyond his failure and saw his heart. If you remember, Peter was a passionate person. He was quick to speak out. Peter defiantly had promised Jesus that he would not forsake or leave His side. In that moment there was no doubt that Peter meant and believed what he said. He had ever intention of fulfilling his word but as we know from the crucifixion story, it was not long before Peter denied his relationship with Jesus, and he did so not once but three times. Can you imagine the heart of Peter in the moment when the rooster crowed? Can you imagine the guilt and the rejection he felt? What did Peter do, he ran and hid. Rather than heading to the cross, he headed to a back room in Jerusalem.

But here is the amazing part of the story. While Peter was confronted by Jesus and was questioned about his love of Jesus there is a greater story here. Notice that each time Jesus asked about Peter’s love for Him, Jesus commanded Peter to feed the sheep. That speaks to the fact that Jesus still trusted Peter to fulfill His mission. Peter was given a second chance. He was given a do over.

So what do we learn from this? First of all we see through the story of the resurrection that Jesus is always concerned about us and He is ready too give us a second chance. There is nothing that you can do to cause Him to stop loving you. Some of you who are here may feel that you have blown it and that there is no way that God could love you or forgive you. But here is the good news. He is seeking you out today. He wants you to know that He loves you and He desires that you come close to Him.

So how do we do that. We surrender your fears, your doubts, and your failures to Him today. In so doing, we must remember that our failures and shortcomings are not the end. They are a chance at new beginnings. There is hope and there is an opportunity to start over. Jesus is calling and He is coming to you today. He wants you to know that no matter what you might have done, life is not over. He loves you and He is extending His hand to you today.

Secondly, we must be aware that we need a do over. The problem too often is that we do not accept the fact that we need a do over when we have failed. We can be deceived into thinking that everything is ok, when it is not. It is also possible that no one has ever shared with you that you have the opportunity for a do over. Here is the fact we need to understand. Jesus has extended a hand of forgiveness. To go back to my golf analogy, there have been times where I have refused to take the mulligan and it cost me each time. Instead of being on the green in three or four I ended up with 7 or 8 strokes before landing on the green. The result was that my confusion and frustration was magnified. It did not have to be that way but I allowed it. So then the key is to recognize our need for Christ in our life and accept his do over.

And thirdly, confession is always a necessary process in this discussion. John was clear about this when he stated that If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Paul also stated For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith (Romans 3:22a-25). Here is a fact we can live with. We all need forgiveness. We all need restoration. Because we have all blown it at one time or the other. But thank God for do overs.

So as we close do you need a do over? If so, Jesus is here and He is extending His hand to you. Will you take His hand and hear His heart? He is saying I am ready to give you a do over. It comes by way of confessing the issue that is at the core of your heart. And it requires you to make whatever change is necessary to never go back there again. Are you ready? Let’s pray.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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March 21, 2016 · 6:56 am

How Easter Gives Hope to Overcome

Peninsula Community Church

How Easter Gives Hope to Overcome

March 20, 2016

Colossians 2:8-15 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

The week we continue our look at the strongholds that impact our life. If you remember last week we defined a stronghold as a mindset or a thought process that controls our lives. Last week we looked at the fact that we walk in the flesh but we do not use the armaments of the flesh to fight our battles. This week we want to look at the victory that has been won on our behalf. Because of Christ’s death on the cross we have been positioned for complete and total victory. Now before we get into the details of strongholds and mindsets I want to set the stage by talking about the power of God and work of God on our behalf. That is our focus today.

The passage we have before us today issues us a warning but it also gives us a solution for winning the battle for our minds. Paul begins where we left off last week. He states See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. He offers us a warning to watch out for philosophies and empty words that control our way of thinking. In essence, Paul is saying that the ideas presented by a worldview which is not secured in Christ will be found empty and useless.

Paul continues by stating that the full authority of God is found in Christ. Paul states that in Christ the whole fullness of Deity dwells bodily. In other words, Christ is the manifestation of God here on earth because He is God. While that is pretty awesome, Paul goes on to say that we have been filled in Him. What is Paul saying? While it is true that all of the power of God is in Jesus, it is also true that we have Jesus in us. Therefore, we have the fullness of who God is in us. Remember last week we stated that greater is He that is in us than He that is in the world (1 John 4:4). Paul explains why here. Jesus who is full of everything God, and who lives in us, has all authority and rulership over the kingdoms of our lives. That makes Him greater than any force that can come against us. So why would we not choose to follow Him and obey His commands.

At the end of this passage, Paul makes an incredible powerful life changing statement. He says look not only was Christ raised from the dead but you were too. Listen to Paul’s words. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

There are a couple of things in this that bears comment. We have been made alive in Him. We who were dead in our trespasses and in the works of our flesh have been made alive in Christ. In so doing, we have been forgiven and the sin debt we had was cancelled. So the shame, regret, and desire to control has been dealt with on the cross and we are free today as a result.

But there is a problem in that the enemy of our souls loves to bring accusation, lies, and half-truths against us (Revelation 12:10). His very nature is to be deceitful and to distort the truth we need (John 8:44). When this occurs we have a choice to make. Will we allow false accusation to rule us and therefore walk in the lie of misinformation; or will we reject the lies and live in the truth that is ours through Christ. What truth is that? It is the truth of forgiveness and the fact that our debts have been paid. The debt we owed has been cancelled and it is been discarded as if it never existed.

A few months ago I received a bill from a doctor who was looking for a payment on some medical work that Michelle had done back in 2006. They had attached a note that read if I did not pay the bill I could be taken to court and I would be reported to the credit bureau. Their note was an attempt to intimidate and pressure us to pay a debt that had already been resolved. But heres the deal. Yes! There was a time that I owed that bill but the debt had been paid and it had been paid in full. Fortunately, for us I had all of my receipts and I was able to go back and locate the bill and the check that that had been written to pay off the debt. I contacted the company and sent them a copy of the check and the paid invoice as well as the monthly statement that showed we were paid in full. There was nothing they could do.

You see in our life the enemy of our souls loves to bring up past due bills that have in reality already been paid. He loves to remind us where we have been and what we have done. He loves to remind us how many times we have been rejected and how many times we have done things that have brought us guilt and shame. He is so good at reminding us of our past but when He does that we can go to the file cabinet of our heart and pull out the paid in full receipt that we were given when we came to know Christ and have confessed our sin. Christ paid the debt. What receipt do we have? Spiritually, we have the cross because it was there that our debt was nailed to the cross. Therefore the cross serves as a reminder that the debt has been paid and it has been paid in full. The debt no longer exists.

Let me give you another illustration. A number of years ago I received a call from a collection agency demanding the payment of a debt we did not owe. Even though I provided evidence that I was not the person they were looking for, they continued to call. Each time they demanded payment of a debt that we did not owe. In fact it was a debt that was never ours. Each time they called they agreed they had the wrong person and said they would not call again. Then one night they called and got Michelle on the phone and started pressuring her with scare tactics and manipulation. It upset her. About the time I got home they called again and I had enough. I asked for a supervisor and after some hesitation they finally had a supervisor come to the phone. Because I had journaled all of the dates and the times they called when the “supervisor” finally came to the phone, I let them have. I told them that I was tired of the accusation and the phone calls. I began to list the dates of the calls and who I had spoken to each time they called. I demanded in that moment that the calls stop or else the next person they would be speaking to would be my lawyer. I must have gotten to them because we never got another call again. Here is the point. The pressure to pay the debt was not removed until I threatened to bring in an advocate to handle my case. You see Jesus is that advocate and he is ready to stand in the gap on our behalf. But we must be willing to stand our ground and make the call for Him to do His work. That is why we pray Your kingdom come, Your will be done. We invite God into our world and into the issues we face.

The scripture here today says that Jesus has disarmed the rulers and authorities. This word disarm literally means to strip or to deny power to. In others Jesus by way of the cross has stripped the enemy of his power to effectively accuse us or use any false accusation against us. Listen to me this morning the debt of your sin and past mistakes have been paid for on the cross. Yes in some cases we suffer the consequences of what we did but the guilt, the shame, and the power of the enemy to hold that over you has been dealt with at the cross and you are free today as a result. The power of that sin has been disarmed and the accuser of the brethren has been shamed and defeated. You have been forgiven so forgive yourself. You must walk in the righteousness you have been given. When the debt of guilt comes knocking, let God open the door. When the debt of past failures comes knocking, let God open the door. When the debt of past sin comes knocking, let God open the door. He has come and we are free because of Him.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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March 14, 2016 · 7:36 am

How Easter Gives Hope

Peninsula Community  Church

How Easter Gives Hope

March 13, 2016

2 Corinthians 10:3-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.

This morning I am excited about this new series. Over the next few weeks we will look at how we can overcome strongholds and mindsets that hold us back from being what we need to be in Christ. This series is a natural outflow of the prayer series we just completed. You see through the movie “War Room” we were challenged to pray. Through small groups we have been challenged to understand the grace of God and the power of forgiveness.

Two weeks ago, we looked at the Lord’s Prayer to gain a greater understanding of how to pray effectively. As you remember, one of the key parts of the Lord’s prayer is praying that God’s kingdom would come and that His will would be done in us and in our circumstances. By praying this pray we are literally asking that God’s Kingdom and His will would invade everything about us. We pray He would invade our minds, our jobs, our relationships, our health issues, and so forth. The fact we are verbalizing the desire we have for Him to rule our life.

That brings us to our study today. While we sincerely pray and desire for the kingdom of God to be established in us, the fact of the matter is there are many kingdoms vying for that position. As we have read in our text today, Paul reminds us that we walk in the flesh. We live in a world that has been subjected to the power of sin and the rebellion of mankind. Because of this, we walk in the flesh and we are subjected to the work of the flesh in our lives. But Paul is also clear that even though we walk in the flesh, as passionate followers of Christ we have a set of weapons that can destroy the schemes of the enemy and the the strongholds that have been established in us.

So what is a stronghold? If you look at the second part our passage for today, you will find that Paul defines the idea of a stronghold. He states We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. So a stronghold is a mindset or thought process that controls our lives. It can be a sin we continue to confront, a shortcoming or failure we continue to experience, a past experience we can’t let go of, or a strong emotion such as fear, jealously, or anger that keeps surfacing. Without dealing with these strongholds they hang onto us and deter us from who we should be. They become a stumbling block and serve to defeat us rather than strengthening us.

As we look into this subject let me give a warning at this stage. We must never become so focused on spiritual strongholds or demonic activity that we fail to see that Christ is victorious in us. To do so gives credit to the enemy that he does not deserve. To do so allows us to justify our sin, our actions, and our negative thoughts. It is more effective to focus on His victory, His word, and His power in our life. That is the message of Easter and it is our message today.

With that said, let me dive into this subject. We must understand that while we have come into a relationship with Christ, we come into that relationship with baggage from our past. This baggage can include but is not limited to various mindsets, emotions that have not been healed, sins that have not been confessed, or a misconceived theology for living. As we live life we are also impacted and affected by the experiences we have and the people we encounter.

To fully understand this battle our discussion must not begin at the fall of mankind or focus on the post fall condition of man. We must begin our story earlier in the narrative. The fact is we must begin with the intent and desire of God in the creation. Therefore it is necessary to  begin with the creation and not the fall. That is why it is not a mistake that the Biblical story begins in Genesis 1:1. The first chapters of the Bible teach us that God created something beautiful and wonderful. After each day of creation, God proclaimed His work “good.”

But why start here? We do so because we need to be reminded that in creation we were fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). We were not only created out of the dirt of the earth, but we were created in the image of God. That should mean something to us. Because we are created in the image of God, we have value and we have a purpose. This also means that every life has value no matter who the person is. He made an amazing creation created in His image and filled with His breathe.

But as we know, by way of the historical perspective of the Bible, there was a problem. Because of the fall of mankind, what God created was contaminated by sin. If you will for a moment think about life in the Garden of Eden before the fall. Man walked with God and He had an acceptance with God and with each other. That was priceless. They walked in an innocence that was pure and perfect. In the Garden, man was called to have dominion over the earth and the animals of the earth. So, we find that in the Garden of Eden mankind had acceptance, he walked in innocence, and he had dominion over God’s creation.

But, as we know, that all changed on the day Adam and Eve sinned. All of life was pushed out of kilter. From that day forward what was once so easy for mankind had now become a battle. What God had given man and the essence of creation has been defamed and destroyed. With that said let me make sure that we know that while the situation has changed we are still valuable in the sight of God. We are still a creation of God. That is why the process of redemption is to restore mankind to His original purpose. Redemption provides us with acceptance. We are given  forgiveness which is restored innocence. And dominion over all of creation has been restored.

As we consider this in relationship to the theme of strongholds, we begin to realize that humankind’s attributes before the fall become glaring needs after the fall. First of all in the Garden mankind walked in acceptance. But after the fall acceptance by God and subsequently by others was replaced by rejection. The result was a need to belong and because of sin it became more difficult to feel accepted. The problem is exasperated when we are rejected over and over again. The result is that we begin to feel rejected as a person and we begin to think that rejection is a way of life for us. Because of the feeling of rejection we strive more and more to be accepted and loved. In our effort to be more accepted and loved we succumb to peer pressure to be liked and loved. If we are not careful we will do whatever it takes to be accepted by our peers, our coworkers and our family. We end up in a vicious cycle of wanting acceptance but we experience rejection. The result is that we allow a stronghold of rejection to establish a false kingdom in our heart. When this happens we filter our decisions and the actions of others through the filter of rejection. Because we feel rejected, we lose the will to try.

Secondly, because of the fall of mankind innocence was replaced by guilt and shame. The result is that too many people have a poor sense of self-worth therefore they strive to find their worth and value in people and things rather than in Christ. The advertisement world plays on the need for self worth. If you buy this car, shop at this store, wear this brand of clothes you will have worth and you will be accepted by your peers. Striving for a sense of worth can cause a stronghold to be established as we will do anything to feel worthy, even if it is a false worth. You see we strive for self-worth by doing things we believe will fill that void in our life. We work harder and do more and yet we feel more shame and guilt. To make things worse we begin to filter the activity of our through shame and guilt which inevitable brings more shame and guilt.

The third aspect here is that dominion was replaced by weakness and helplessness therefore we have a need for strength and self-control. People attempt to meet this need by disciplining themselves or by trying to control others. Trying to control others is in reality a symptom of insecurity and a lack of self worth. In essence, we try to satisfy the need for dominion by trying to control others. Control is a stronghold that is sin’s answer for lost dominion. On the other hand while we try to control others we also try to control ourselves. We do so through strict and extreme efforts to discipline one’s self and one’s actions. We try to manage sin rather than dealing with sin. The result is that we are led to a spirit of legalism, perfectionism, and self-destruction. Additionally, when we try to control ourselves and control others we are never satisfied so we try and control more. Thus the stronghold only gets stronger.

As we bring this to a close today, I read this week that as believers we are not trying to become saints we are saints who are becoming like Christ. That is so true. That is why we do everything we can to bring every thought into captivity to the glory of God. We filter everything not through the hurt or stronghold but through the filter of God’s word, His redemption, and His power. In our HVAC systems we have filters that take out contaminates and dust out of the air. If that filter becomes clogged it will not allow the air flow through the filter and then there are problems. The same goes for our mind as well. We need a new filtering system. That is what we will be talking about over the next few weeks.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2016 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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February 29, 2016 · 1:24 pm

Prayer Series – How to Pray

Peninsula Community Church

Prayer Series: How to Pray

February 28, 2016

Matthew 6:5-8 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Over the last few weeks we have concentrated our attention on this one verse. In doing so we have looked at the when of prayer, the where of prayer, and last week we looked at the who of prayer. This week we will conclude this series by looking at the how of prayer. If we read the text that follows this passage we find that Jesus gives specific instruction on how to pray. The beauty of this is that Christ not only tells us what to do and for that matter what not to do in prayer but He illustrates how to pray effectively.

For me, I love this because I am a hands-on kind of learner. I love reading books to learn about things but I learn best by applying what I have learned in practical ways. I think Jesus had people like me in mind when he instructed His disciples on how to pray. Listen to what Jesus tells them. Pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Before we get into the meat of this passage let me make an observation in the form of a question. How many times have we quoted this passage without fully understanding what we are praying? Too often, in reciting the passage we miss the real purpose and true meaning behind the words. So today in the few moments we have let us unpack this passage to the degree we can. To begin with, we find the passage divided into two parts. The first part is focused on God, His Kingdom, and His will. The second part focuses on our needs, our forgiveness, and our deliverance. The first part reaches upward and the second part reaches both inward and outward to touch us where we are.

For now let us turn our attention to the first section of this passage which is focused on God and His greatness. In essence, what Jesus is instructing the disciples to do is to focus on God the Father. Jesus begins by recognizing God as the Father, but He is not just any father, He is Our father. It is noteworthy that Jesus does not just call God Father, but He invites us to do the same because He is also our Father. For that reason he tells us to pray “Our Father!” The word here for father is the word abba. It is a more personal form of the word as it speaks of intimacy.

With that said Jesus proceeds to instruct us on how to pray. He prays “Our Father which art Heaven, Hallowed be your Name!” The idea of hallowing God’s name is to honor, reverence, esteem, and treasure His name above everything else in this world. One’s name in Biblical times meant so much more than it does today. One’s name defined them. In terms of God’s name, when we pray we must remember what God’s name stands for and what His name represents. By hallowing His name we are focusing on the fact that God is holy, eternal, all powerful, every where present, and that He is trustworthy. In essence, by praying this prayer we focus on the grandeur and majesty of God.

Secondly, Jesus invites us to pray “Your Kingdom come.” In essence we pray that the Father of heaven will cause His sovereign rule to be manifested throughout the world. To pray this means we are praying that God’s kingdom would invade our life and our circumstances. We do not pray that His Kingdom would come into existence because it exists already but rather that His kingdom would be revealed and be made known.

Because of the fall of mankind in the Garden, the urge to establish one’s own kingdoms has been an ongoing battle. There is the kingdom of this world which is ruled by sin and wrong thinking. And there is the kingdom of our heart where we want our will to be accomplished regardless of the outcome. But then there is God’s kingdom. In praying this prayer we are saying that we recognize God’s kingdom, we trust God’s kingdom, and we desire that God’s kingdom is revealed in every circumstance of our life. So here is the deal. If I am sick, I pray that the kingdom of God is revealed in the circumstance. If I am dealing with difficult relationships, I invite God’s kingdom to invade those relationships. If I am emotionally wounded I pray for the kingdom of God to come and heal my wounds.

The idea of the kingdom also speaks to us that we do not have to fight alone. We can invite the kingdom of God into center of all that we encounter. The lie of the enemy is that we are alone and we have to fight alone but that is just a lie that continues to be propagated. We have each other but we also have the very presence of God who comes on our behalf to invade our circumstances and to make Himself known. When we invite the kingdom of God to come we have the entire arsenal of heaven at our disposal. How awesome is that!

Thirdly, we pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that God’s all-wise, all-just, all-holy will is done all over this world. We pray that God’s will happens in me. There is nothing greater than to have the will of God evidenced in our hearts and manifested in and through our lives. Therefore this reinforces the purpose of prayer which is to align our will with the heart of God. This occurs when we recognize His supremacy and His power. We invade the impossible by surrendering our will to His will.

So in the first part of this prayer we recognize the majesty of God. We pray for His kingdom to be established in us and in our circumstances. We pray that His will is manifested in all we do and in every circumstance of our life. With that said we can now move to the second part of this prayer. The second part of the Lord’s prayer focuses on our needs. You see when we recognize God’s supremacy and the closeness of His kingdom, we are in a better position to focus on our specific needs in a godly manner. By recognizing that He wants to invade our circumstances, we are more apt to pray with faith and trust in God. This weekend one of the speakers at the conference said that too often we pray to get out of a particular situation but we should pray for God to reveal what we can get out of that particular situation. In other words we ask: What is God doing in us? How is He growing us?

The first petition here is “Give us our daily bread.” This is a petition of provision. Bread is a term that is inclusive of all needs. You see in that day bread was one of the greatest concerns they had. They did not need much else but bread to sustain them. So, what is your need? Is it food? Is it healing? Is it relationships? Whatever it is God can and will answer. We pray that God who is our Father will bring the Kingdom into focus in every area of our life and that God’s will is revealed to us. We pray that according to His name, His kingdom, and His will that our needs will be met.

The second petition is “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” This reminds us that we are not only forgiven but we are to be forgivers. You see in light of the grace of God and the power of God I do not have the right to live with a grudge or the guilt of unconfessed sin. You see we pray for forgiveness for ourselves but we pray also for those who hold a grudge against us. In praying this prayer we are praying for forgiveness so that His kingdom can invade that part of our life so that we are no longer held captive by the actions of others.

You see when we pray for forgiveness we are reminded of how blessed we are. We are reminded of the power of God’s grace at work in our lives. We are reminded that we have received so much we do not deserve. That is grace. We receive God’s riches at Christ expense. And we are to give grace to others. Remember in the War Room movie when Clara confronts Elizabeth about her relationship with her husband, Tony. Clara reminds Elizabeth how much God’s grace has been manifested in her life and how unwilling she was to give that same grace to Tony. Real grace is manifested best by giving grace to those who deserve it the least.

The third part states “and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” In essence, Jesus is saying that we should pray that we no longer continue to sin. We pray that we do not become entangled in overpowering temptation. The prayer Jesus prays is that we are delivered from evil. We pray that God would guard our life from the attacks of satan and from his works and his ways in our life. We ask God to help us to walk in His holiness.

I do not think that it is a coincidence that Jesus ends with this part of the prayer. You see when we face circumstances that are beyond our control and that seem bigger than us, we can be in bondage to unanswered prayer. In the end, we pray that the kingdom of God is revealed through us. To have that occur we cannot be entangled with the ways of the enemy. To be entangled places us in a position where we are susceptible to strongholds and to bondage that must be broken. To be entangled we tend to steer away from God’s will and we are intimidated by the ways of the enemy. In essence, Jesus prays that we would not be entangled with unconfessed sin. Not only does this equate to unconfessed sin but it also refers to the past experiences of our life that can continue to effect us and impact us to the degree that we can’t move forward as we need to.

So when we pray, we pray in the secret place to receive answered prayers from an all wise and all powerful God who loves us. In prayer, we recognize and pray from the standpoint of making Him King and Lord. In so doing God’s grace will be revealed.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2015 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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February 22, 2016 · 11:00 am

Prayer Series – Who You Pray To

Peninsula Community Church

Prayer Series: Who You Pray To

February 21, 2016

Matthew 6:5-8 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

As we continue our study this morning I would like to focus our attention on the who of our prayer. The bottom line is the who of prayer is more critical than the actual  prayer we pray. Without an understanding and a knowledge of who we pray to we will find that our prayers are not as effective as they should be. Additionally without knowing God our faith can be misplaced. When we pray we must understand that we are praying to someone. We are not just reciting words or ideas but we are actually communicating with God Himself. When we realize this the way we pray will change. With that in mind, I would like to share three things about God which are critical to our understanding of who He is and why prayer to Him is important. With that said let me offer a caveat here. In the time we have today, there is no way for me to completely give you everything there is to know about God. Therefore, we will only hit the highlights. As a result, I encourage you to do some self-study to learn more about who God is.

The first consideration for us this morning is that He is the sovereign God. He is in the secret place. He hears our prayers. He knows our needs. He knows the answer to our prayer. As the Sovereign God He is all knowing, so He knows your need before you ask. God is everywhere present, and so He knows what is going on all around you. He is all powerful, and thus He can do whatever He needs to do to bring about His purposes. He is eternal. Think about it. He has seen it all. And because He is eternal He knows the beginning from the end. Therefore, He knows how every circumstance in your life will work out. He knows exactly what He needs to do to bring about His purposes in your life.

As we look at the subject of the sovereignty of God, there has been much debate about what this means. Entire denominations have been formed around different ideas and perspectives in regard to their understanding of this subject. Let me say this in regard to the idea of the sovereignty of God. God is big enough, wise enough, and powerful enough to do whatever He deems necessary to accomplish His will. Here is a fact, God can do whatever He pleases as confirmed by Psalm 115:3. Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. What this means is that God is not constrained by any outside force that will dictate what He should or should not do.

Therefore to say that God is Sovereign is to declare that God is God. To say that God is Sovereign is to declare that He is the Most High and that He is working according to His will. He is working in the armies of Heaven, and He is working among the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay His hand. As we look at this, we must be aware that God only acts within the context of His character and who is. Thus, He cannot lie for there is no falsehood in Him. He cannot sin as He is the purest form of perfection and holiness. He cannot fail because He is all powerful and all knowing. And He can be trusted because He is has been proven to be trustworthy over and over again.

Because He is sovereign, our role is to pray with an attitude of faith. In Hebrews 11:6-7 we find the author saying that … without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. To be effective we must present our needs to God with a faith that trusts and believes that He is able to answer our prayer. We must believe in His sovereignty and that He has our best interest in mind when we pray. His sovereignty combined with our faith positions us for answered prayer. What is faith? It is believing and trusting in someone greater than ourselves.

Because He is sovereign and He knows best, we must pray that our will is in alignment with His will. Listen to 1 John 5:14-15 – And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. So how do we know His will. There are two ideas to be considered. First, we pray that our hearts will be aligned with His heart. And second we read the Word of God for it is in reading and understanding the Word that we gain a better understanding about what He desires. 

Additionally, we need to be aware that unconfessed sin prevents God from answering our prayers. The reason is that when we are motivated by sin we tend to ask for things that are not in alignment with His purposes or His will. David relates this to us Psalm 66:16-20 – Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

Not only is He sovereign but He is also the God that responds. Jeremiah 33:2-3 “Thus says the Lord who made the earth, the Lord who formed it to establish it— the Lord is his name: Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. Here is a promise you can take to the bank. God hears us and He responds to us. The responses may not be in the timeframe that we think or it may not be packaged the way we think, but He does answer. When we pray we are reminded that He is all knowing, all powerful, and that He is everywhere present. We know that His delay does not mean He does not care nor does it mean that He does not hear us.

In reading through the Old Testament, we find that the children of Israel had prayed for years for a deliverer. As we read the story of the Exodus, we find that God was already at work to set up a deliverer and yet there was no visual sign of movement toward the fulfillment of this and yet God was working on Israel’s behalf. Moses was born and was positioned to understand the ins and outs of Egypt’s government and the underpinnings of how things worked. And then just as we think that things are about to happen, Moses is kicked out of Egypt and he ends up in the desert for another 40 years. In Egypt Moses is being prepared in the ways of Egypt and in the wilderness God is preparing Moses to know the desert and thus He is prepared to lead the nation of Israel. Meanwhile the people are praying and crying out to God.

The third aspect is that He is the God that blesses and He knows how to give good gifts. God loves to give good gifts. Jesus described this later in the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 7:7-11. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him. Here is one thing we can count on, God knows how to bless and give good gifts. The point of the passage we just read is that God is not going to give us anything that is going to harm us.

Listen to the words of John Piper. When you pause to consider that God is infinitely strong and can do all that he pleases, and that he is infinitely righteous so that he only does what is right, and that he is infinitely good so that everything he does is perfectly good, and that he is infinitely wise so that he always knows perfectly what is right and good, and that he is infinitely loving so that in all his strength and righteousness and goodness and wisdom he raises the eternal joy of his loved ones as high as it can be raised — when you pause to consider this, then the lavish invitations of this God to ask him for good things, with the promise that he will give them, is unimaginably wonderful.

In the human realm, have you ever received a gift that you did not know what to do with. The gift ended up in a closet somewhere never to be used again. Or you end up selling it on e-bay or a garage sale. Here is a guarantee, if God gives you a gift you can be sure that it is good and it is exactly what you need. God gives us good gifts. God does not tell us that we receive everything we ask for but God gives us what is best for us in the moment. To give us everything we ask for would make us spoiled and would God one who spoils us.

As another aspect of Him giving good gifts is that He often gives us what we do not deserve or have not merited on our own accord. So to understand who God is we best understand Him through His gift of grace. That is why there are some who do not seem to deserve God’s answered prayer and yet they receive it. As in the War Room movie there is not one of us who have been distanced from God’s grace. None of us deserve God’s grace but that is the beauty of His grace. We don’t deserve it but He freely gives it.

For an audio of this message go to http://pccministry.org/media.php?pageID=14

Copyright © 2015 All Rights Reserved Robert W. Odom

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