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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Fully Persuaded | Morgan Dufresne | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
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Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. I want to start something and we. We may continue with this subject in the coming weeks, but I definitely want to introduce it this morning. It's been stirring in my heart and things associated with it. Romans, chapter 4 and verse 21. And says the Amplified. Well, I want to read out of the King James and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. That's our primary text, but when we go back up in verse 17, as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations. This is God talking to Abraham before him whom he believed. Even God, who quickeneth the dead and calleth those things which be not as though they were, who against hope, believed in hope that he might become the father of many nations. According to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he consider not his own body now dead, which when he was about 100 years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God and being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was also able to perform. Now we know that Sarah's faith was. It took her faith to believe and to trust that she was gonna get pregnant and have a child in her old age. But Abraham had to believe what God said about him, that he was going to be the father of many nations. They both had their part, you understand, In a marriage, in a congregation, we all have our part. In any relationship, in any divine connection, we all have our part. And for one to say my part isn't as important or my part isn't as necessary, or my part can wait, is a sign of doubt and unbelief. And so when we are failing to bring our part, when we're failing to act in line with God's word, according with our part, well, what is our part? Our part in the body of Christ is to serve, to be a witness, to proclaim the gospel, to reach the lost, to go out in the highways and the byways and minister to those who don't know Jesus. And so when we fail to do our part in the local church and we fail to do our part outside the local church, then what we're saying is we don't believe that what God said about us is true. Abraham had to do his part. His part was to take his son up to the mountain and proceed to bring him as a sacrifice to show that he trusted God undoubtedly and unwaveringly, that he was going to raise his son from the dead, that he was going to perform a miracle because it was going to take a miracle for him. Before that, he had shown God, I trust you that I'm going to be the father of many nations. And he was still acting that out even after his son was born. He was still fully persuaded that when God said, I am going to make you a father of many nations, but you're going to have to take and sacrifice your son, he was still fully persuaded. So being fully persuaded doesn't wane over time. It doesn't change when you're fully persuaded and you see God's word and God's truth, and that means you hold fast to that until we go to heaven, until we exit this place. We're fully persuaded at the preaching and teaching of the Word, and we're fully persuaded for the rest of eternity. So don't let the Devil talk you out of last year what he talked to you about. God talked to you about what God's put on your heart. If you were fully persuaded once, that's all it takes. Stay fully persuaded. Amen. But that's not what I want to talk about this morning. When we're fully persuaded in God that God's word is true and who we are in Christ and that what God said about us is true, then we're also going to be fully persuaded in some other arenas in our life. And so it's not just being fully persuaded in faith, fully persuaded that God's promises are true, fully persuaded in prosperity, fully persuaded in healing. The devil's not going to so directly attack what we're taught and what we know to be true and what is so clear in God's word going to come. We could say this through the back door. He's going to convince us and have us to be compromising and not fully persuaded in some other arenas first. Because he would not be a roaring walking about as a roaring lion. He wouldn't. The devil is nothing to be afraid of. But he also, we must be more skillful than him. We must know that we need to be more skillful. And so to be more skillful than him, then we must know the tactics and the ways that he tries to work in our lives to get us to not be fully persuaded so that we won't receive all the promises, all the rewards, all that's been provided for us. He's going to attack Your faith, but it won't be always in such a direct manner. And so this morning, and I want to introduce this because we want to look at some maybe indirect ways that we need to keep our guard up so that we won't suffer the consequences of losing our persuasion. I don't want to lose my persuasion. How about you? I want to keep my persuasion that God's word is true. So we. We take a look here. I had. The Holy Ghost had given me this. And like I said, I'm just going to probably start today. We won't get into everything. He had given me this message when I was gone. We. We've been in Colorado for two weeks. We went as a family on vacation to get some rest. But before that, I was gone for about 10 days preaching on the road. And when I'd gone to one of the churches, the Holy Ghost gave me this message very clearly. And I thought, oh, that's very good. I'll have to preach that one when we get home. And it was in Merced. And I want to look at what does being fully persuaded really mean? Being fully persuaded is when your mind and your heart are always in agreement together. Your heart is going to always agree with God's word. The scripture says in Romans that the spirit of God bears witness with our spirit. So your spirit will always agree with what the Holy Ghost is trying to minister to you and teach you and lead you and guide you in. But it's your mind that's going to disagree, that's going to struggle and stumble over the natural. What the natural shows that when the natural doesn't line up with what you're hearing in your spirit, your mind is always going to want to go with the natural. Because the mind can see, touch, experience what's going on in this natural world. Your mind wants to go with experience. Experience. Your mind wants to go with what it knows, what it's heard, what it's felt. Your mind does not want to go with faith. You have to make your mind go with faith. Your mind will not automatically go with faith. It will not grab hold of the truths of faith without you agreeing and tapping into your heart and telling your mind. That's what meditating on the word is. You're telling your mind we agree with this word. When you mutter and you answer, this morning I was speaking the passage in Jeremiah about healing that he's restored my health. What am I telling my mind? Jesus has restored my health. I'm speaking that over my life. Am I sick? No, but it's Good to tell my mind he has restored my health. What are you telling your mind? What are you speaking? That your mind is going to agree your mind. You know you can speak up out of your heart. Dad used to talk about that. That you can speak something and declare something so long you know that you'll get your heart and your mind to agree with it. You're going to have to decide not to let your mind speak, but to let your heart speak. These are the basic, simple truths of being a Christian. This is what makes you different from your unbelieving neighbor, is that you have life to speak out of and they do not. It doesn't make them less important to God, it just makes you more valuable to the kingdom of God. You're so valuable when life gets deposited on the inside of you. The Word is preached to you. Now that life, if you'll take and renew your mind, speak the word of God only and you declare it. Then what happens is that life goes out and affects other people's lives. But when we fail to fully persuade ourselves that the word of God is true, when we fail to mutter the Word, when we fail to meditate on the Word, when we fail to stay in that place of being fully persuaded, it not only affects us, it affects others. And so I want to look at that this morning because the number one, the first thing that God told me was to be fully persuaded. If you're going to teach on being fully persuaded in faith, you must first teach that you won't be fully. You must be fully persuaded that offense has no place in my life. So, number one, offense. If we are to be fully persuaded that God's Word is true and that what he said about me is true, and that where he placed me is true, then I am fully persuaded that offense has no place in my life. Let's say that together. Say offense has no place in my life. How often do we say that to ourselves? How often do we speak that we want to speak? Healing. But how often do we get up and declare offense? Today has no place in my life. I am a being of love. I've been born out of love. I am walking by faith. And when I walk by faith, that means I believe the best in everyone, every situation, and I choose not to be offended. What if we answered offense before it even showed up and meditated on being fully persuaded that I am free from offense? I'm free from offense. We want to be free. We want to be. Declare that we're delivered, we're set free, We've been brought into the kingdom of light that we have been provided for. But what about declaring we're free? Free from offense. Amen. So, number one, fully persuaded, offense has no place in my life. Go with me, if you would. Let's go back to John, chapter 11. We were there quite a bit, but I just want to get our eyes on this John, chapter 11. And if you would hold there, hold your place there, because we're going to go to Luke chapter 10, and I want you to see the connection between these two. Luke chapter 10 and verse 38. Now, it came to pass as they went that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus feet and heard his word. But Martha was cumbered about by much serving and came to him and said, lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone and bid her therefore that she help me? And Jesus answered and said unto her, martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her. The amplified. If we look at the amplified, it says mary who seated herself, verse 39, seated herself at the Lord's feet, was listening to his teaching. And Martha, overly occupied and too busy, was distracted with much serving. And she came up to him and said, lord, is it nothing to you that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me to lend a Hannah to do her part along with me. But the Lord replied to her by saying, martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. Jesus at this moment rebukes Martha and he rebuked Martha. Because we see a difference in Mary and Martha. If we go over to John, chapter 11, who was the first one to come out and get Jesus, was Martha. Can't we say Martha? We could say Martha is the go getter, the type A, the one that's gonna get some things done in life. Martha is the one who keeps that ship sailing. Martha's the one who's got everything planned out, has the itinerary, know when Jesus is arriving, know what they're cooking, know what they're serving, where everybody's gonna be sitting. She has the plans and provisions made. And it seems like to me, Mary does quite a bit of what Martha says. And there's nothing wrong with that. To be a Mary and to be a Martha, we need Martha's. Make the world. I tell my husband this all the Time Marthas make the world go round and the Mary's make it enjoyable. We need both, right? And so you can't make other people like you. But in this instance, I don't believe this was just an isolated incident because Martha was the first one to greet Jesus, when to come out and meet Jesus when her brother had died. So we see that Martha takes the initiative. But in this case, Jesus rebukes Martha not just for being anxious, but really for her personality. Can we say that Jesus gets right up in Martha's business and rebukes Martha for the very person that she is? How many times have we been corrected for the way we do things and how we do things? But how many times have we been tempted? We either we took the temptation or we didn't to be offended because of the way somebody treated us. Because that's just the way I am. Offense. Y' all are awfully quiet. What about in a marriage? Well, that's just the way I am. Well, maybe you need to change the way I am. And that's what Jesus is telling Martha. Martha, your anxiety is offensive. You chose what was wrong. And thank God Martha didn't get offended with the Master. Because later on down the road, Martha needs a miracle. And Jesus, in front of everybody, rebukes her, tells her, you're acting out of order, and then compares her to her sister. Sister. Talk about a temptation to be offended. Family members. Now Jesus, the Messiah, the one that she professed, she knew he was the one that had been prophesied about. Here is all these people questioning, doubting, getting offended with Jesus because he's performing miracles. He's doing the works of the Father, and they don't receive him. Those that were in the Jewish faith are rejecting him. And Martha's receiving him. Martha is saying, jesus, I believe you're the Messiah. Jesus. She proclaims it over and over again. When we look In John chapter 11, Martha didn't have a lack of faith. She just only had faith to a certain level. It took Jesus faith to raise Lazarus. But Martha had faith that Jesus was the Messiah. We will be raised with him. He has come to deliver us. She had no doubt this is the man that had been prophesied about. That's why she had him in her home. And we know that based off what she says In John chapter 11, she was there to facilitate the Master teaching. She wasn't offended that he was teaching. She was offended that her, because of her personality and what she saw fit to do, right was wrong. And the Master told her that's wrong. And your sister chose what's right. You can't get offended when you're wrong. You can't get offended when others are right. Those are two opportunities that we have is to get offended when we're wrong and to get offended when other people are right. And so we have to examine ourselves. Listen, we're talking about being fully persuaded. If we're fully persuaded that God's word is true. See, because Martha was fully persuaded that Jesus was the Messiah. She was fully persuaded. I cannot get offended that he has corrected me, that he has dealt with me in this manner, and that he has compared me to my sibling. Amen. Because what happens In John, chapter 11, Martha needs a miracle. What if Martha. Let's just play this scenario out. What if Martha would have taken offense with Jesus in her home? Well, because we see that Mary kind of probably helps come alongside Martha and what Martha wants. Could we play this scenario out? Martha gets offended. The Master leaves. Martha tells Mary we're offended. We're not having him back in this house anymore. Martha tells Lazarus, Lazarus, can you believe it? He's trying to divide me and my sister. He. He doesn't like who I am. God made me this way. I'm a doer. And this is what doers do. We do. We prepare. We're the workers. I'm just trying to do this work for him because I believe he's the Messiah. Lazarus, we're offended. What if Martha would have gotten herself and her siblings offended? What would have happened? There would have been no John, chapter 11. Lazarus would have died and never been raised. Jesus would have never been able to demonstrate the resurrection power. Amen. So you being fully persuaded in faith is only the first part. You being fully persuaded that no offense can get in is the second part. You cannot allow offense in because you never know. On the other side of that offense, you may need a miracle. Amen. Now, let's go to John. Let's go to Matthew, chapter 16, because there's others, and I like looking directly. And again, we have other examples, but this morning, I just want to look at the examples directly connected to Jesus. Matthew, chapter 16. And it says, well, Matthew, let's look at verse 13. It says, now, when Jesus went into the region of Caesarea, Philippi, and asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they answer. Some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah. Others say Jeremiah or one of the prophets. And he said, then. But who do yourself say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ. The son of the living God. And he goes on, he says, and. And I tell you, you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church in the gates of Hades. The powers of the infernal region shall not overpower it or be strong to. To its detriment or hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatever you bind, declare to be improper and unlawful on earth must be what is already bound in heaven. And whatever you loose declare lawful on earth must be what it is already loose in heaven. Then he sternly and strictly charged and warned the disciples to tell no one that he was Jesus Christ. Okay, he tells Peter who he is. It's important that you recognize that the one that's telling you who you are in Christ is the one that the devil is going to try to get you offended with first. This was Peter's divine connection. Well, he was Jesus. Nope. He was Peter's divine connection. Jesus called him out before Peter had full revelation of who he was. Okay, then, if we look from that time forward, Jesus began to clearly show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, and at the hands of his elders and high priests and scribes, and be killed. On the third day, he raised from dead. And Peter took him aside privately and began to reprove and charge him sharply, saying, God forbid, Lord. This must never happen. But Jesus turned away from Peter and said to him, get behind me, Satan. You are in my way, an offense and a hindrance in this snare to me. And you are minding what partakes not of the nature and quality of God, but of men. Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to be my disciple, let him deny himself, disregard, lose sight of him, forget himself in his own interest and take up his cross and follow me. Cleave steadfastly to me. Confirm holy to my example in living and if need be, in dying also. So right here Peter gets rebuked and has a perfect opportunity for offense. Because Jesus rebukes him and says, you're offensive. If we don't properly define what is truly offensive in our lives and what should be offensive, we'll take the first opportunity that comes to be offensive at others. The one thing that's offensive to God is sin. And that's the only thing that you're authorized to be offended at and to reject and to make decisions so that you don't fall into what is offensive to God. Sin is offensive to him. Call it what it is. You don't have any right to get offended with any other human being that Jesus died and paid the price for that he sacrificed his life for. When you see others and you recognize that Jesus died for them the same way. When you get offended with those in and out of the body of Christ, you're forgetting that Jesus died for them the same way he died for you. You're forgetting that blood was shed for them the same way. And it's pride that gets offended. The devil got offended with God because of his pride. So where you find offense, you find pride also. They're related. They're siblings. They're twins, really. Because you can't have offense without having pride. Well, I'm offended at what the news says. Well, because you're prideful in your own opinion. Well, I'm offended at what this person says. Well, because you have pride in your own self and who you think you are. And how dare they talk to me that way. There's always an element of pride when offense is present. And so we see with Peter, he gets rebuked by the Master for saying, I don't want you to die, Jesus, but we love you, we want you to stay here. He gets rebuked just for showing some compassion and having an opinion. And Jesus said, your opinion is offensive and it has no place in the kingdom. So what do we have to do with our own lives when we see that our own opinion gets rebuked when we listen? This world is offensive enough. We don't need an offended body of Christ. They are offended people. The world is an offended world. We don't need it in the body of Christ. And so we see that offense could have set in and divided and separated Peter. Who's to say that Peter, had he taken that offense, wouldn't have sided in with Judas over the money? You know, Judas didn't have to be alone in his workings, but he was. Because Peter and the rest of them chose not to be offended at the Master. And what was taught? What about when he said, hey, you're going to have to eat of my flesh and drink my blood. And the offended ones that didn't understand left. Who was the first one to stand up? Because he'd already been there. He had already stood this test. He said, well, where are we going to go? Peter got up and says, master, where are we going to go? Why? He had already been rebuked once. What about when he walked on the water? Well, he failed. He succeeded and then he failed. Peter was rebuked so many times, he had so many opportunities for offense. But do you understand that when Peter, every time he put down that opportunity for offense, it was setting him up for his great promotion on the day of Pentecost to preach one of the greatest messages and have such a great impact that from that moment on, the gospel, from his words, was going to go out in a way that it has never been preached before. So we see on the other side of an opportunity for offense is a miracle. On the other side of an opportunity of offense is promotion. Mary Martha got her miracle with her brother. Peter got promoted into the place that God had for him, that had said that, the place that God had set aside the ministry that God had set aside for him to walk in. Amen. So we have to be fully persuaded. There was a time in early on when I had married Stephen, that I got an opportunity, because we all do, to get offended with Dr. He had dealt with me before a conference, and I'm here in this conference doing everything that he wants me to do, serving. Whatever he says, I'll do it. I'm a yes person, just Dr. Whatever you need, I will gladly try to make that happen. And we had had a situation, come up with some hotels in the area. It was summertime, we were having a difficulty, and I had worked with Pastor Nancy on it, and somebody had come up and given him some false information that took the information I had and made it look like I didn't do my job. And so he dealt with me as if I had not done my job. And very sternly and very, very clearly, right before service, right before a service. And I felt like Peter, in that very moment, I'm just here serving. I'm just trying to do my job. I'm just trying to do what you want me to do. And we've been preparing for months, and I got in trouble, and service was starting in five minutes. My husband walks in to grab his Bible, and I kind of told him what happened. He just chuckled and walked out like, welcome to the club. You know, Pastor Nancy, I think, kind of knew what had gone on, and she just kept her mouth shut and walked out to service. Welcome to the club. You know, this was within, you know, a year, you know, or so after we had been married. And this test comes to everybody. It comes to everybody in every relationship, in every circumstance, whether it be in church, whether it be on the job, whether it be in your marriage, whether it be with family, it's gonna present itself. You have to be fully persuaded. Offense has no place in my life. And I had to decide at that moment, one of three things. Either I was gonna stay in the back room and be upset and be offended because I had been here and the person that had come and presented wrong information had just shown up, was brand new and really wasn't interested in the way I was interested in the ministry. How was I gonna. How was I gonna settle that? I could stay in the back, be offended, get touchy, go and try to convince my husband that I had been done wrong, plead my case with Pastor Nancy, cried, sobbed, and decided that I'm not going in there with a man who just chewed me out when I've been serving him faithfully and left my family, left my home, left my pastor, left my parents to come and not just marry and take his son off his hands and relieve him of a heavy. A heavy burden to bear, but come and assist the prophet. Or I could go sit in the back of the service and let my seat on the front in the middle be empty because I'm offended. Or I could march myself down to my seat as if I believe the word of God was true, that he's a man of God, that he's a man that's going out under the anointing to preach and minister to the people, and that if I'm not there and my place is absent, that a piece is going to. Not that I'm anybody special, but that my faith isn't present in the service and that that could hinder. Well, I knew the second option wasn't doable because I had been raised well enough to know that if I bring my offense in that sanctuary, everybody else is going to be affected. So I knew option number two wasn't an option. To sit in a service with offense and a hard heart and pride, it endangers and hurts everyone else. And so the first option wasn't an option either, because I knew too much to know that sitting in that back room was going to not hurt him. It was going to hurt me and hurt my job and my assignment to help the man of God and help the ministry and that it wasn't going to just stay in that back room. At that point, we didn't have children. At that point. He had already ministered to me regarding something being wrong with my physical body. And he knew by the Spirit, he saw it in the Spirit and addressing it so that I could have children. What if I had taken that offense? Where would my miracle have gone? It had gone right out the door with my dishonor. So I walked in the service and I sat down by faith, got over My feelings, as Martha got over her feelings, got over anything that was said because I believed he was a man of God, he's a prophet of God, and that he's got a job to do that night for the kingdom of God. That's going to affect lives, ministries, healings, and not only that, it was going to affect my life. And I'm not going to give in to and be less than fully persuaded of my assignment and my role and my place in the body of Christ. When you give into offense, you're giving up your place in the body of Christ. There's no place for offense in the body. You're giving up your place. And so this morning, this is just what I wanted to touch on. We're going to continue with this because there's two more things that the Holy Ghost gave me regarding being fully persuaded and we'll look at those. But I just wanted to start there and that we can address any place of offense that we may have in our own hearts. Maybe it's not in the church, maybe it's to your boss, the one that gave you the job, the one that said, yes, I'll hire you, the one that has given you a paycheck. Maybe it's to your spouse. I tell you what, offense in the home is just as dangerous as offense in the body. Because God has ordained the body of Christ and he has ordained and seen as a covenant, us together. But he's also recognizes the covenant between a man and a woman in their home. And to violate that covenant with offense. I'm not saying you can't have discussion. I'm not saying that you can't have disagreements. I'm not saying that you were have to just see eye to eye on everything. But what I'm saying is there's no place for offense. There's no place for turning our feelings into manifestation. That's what offense is, is you took your hurt feelings and now it's manifesting by way of offense. Because offended people act offended, they talk offended, they look offended. Amen. So this morning, that's what I wanted to get us started on, that we're people of faith. So if we're people of faith, we are fully persuaded that offense has no place in our life. Amen. We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us at defrainministries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings, share your testimony, become a partner or visit our online store. This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Dufresne Ministries.