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Hey, good people, this is Torre Roberts. Blessings to you and welcome to the ONE Podcast. I'm excited that you're here. ONE is a community of dynamic and vibrant thought leaders, preachers, teachers, and just a community of wonderful people all together. And we're excited to bring you this weekly podcast from our services from ONE in la. If you haven't been the One, I encourage you to check it out. You can go to one the Word one O N E online and find out all about the service times and all about the teachers and all the philanthropic things that we have going. I believe you're going to be blessed to be a part of it. And speaking of being blessed, we're getting ready to get into a teaching right now that I believe is going to bless you. So tune in, enjoy, and I'll be back with you at the end.
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While everyone is standing, I am going to read the Word. It's going to be a quick reading because I know many of you have on shoes you don't want to be standing in right now. So I might help you all out. We are going to start today in Matthew chapter four. We're actually going to go through a series of these verses, but we're just gonna start with this one verse then. Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Well, Father, you put forth the word. You have an expectation in each and every one of these, your sons and daughters. And I know, Father, that what you have for them will. Will not only meet, but it will exceed the expectation you have placed in their hearts. Father, I pray you use me however you need to. Wring me dry, that those who may receive it, may receive it and run with it and give you honor and glory as they do in Jesus name. Amen. Let's have a seat. I'm laughing at the irony of what I said earlier about PDA and her heart. She actually just went on her way to go spend some time with the kids at our children's ministry. I'm like, it's your birthday weekend. And she's like, I'm on the go. I gotta go touch the babies, man. Amazing. I know. We have note takers in the house. Yes. Can we shout? Y' all love to take notes. Do we have note users in the house? Oh, y' all didn't see the second part coming. We got note sharers. Okay. I heard that. Somebody sharing. Please do. For those of us who are taking notes and loving it, title for today is the lens of. Of victory. The lens of victory. It's interesting because we are in a time and season that is very combative. We are combative within the body of Christ like I've never seen before. We are combative with those outside of the body of Christ in the way that I've never seen before. And in all of this combat, I said, lord, if all we're doing is fighting, how do we know when we've won? What does victory look like when you are in a combative environment? And so what the Lord gave me was some very choice examples of how we need to have the lens of victory fixed on our eyes so that we actually, actually know what victory is. Because if we don't, all we will do is fight and fight and fight. And as I study in my word, there are so many examples of incredible, incredible examples of victors. Think of Abraham. For me, Abraham was a victor of time because he was old, old, too old to have babies, old. And God still said, I made a promise to you. So for me, Abraham is a victor of time and faith, of endurance, of being steadfast. You know, I think of Joshua, who led his people into and into and throughout the promised land. I think of Moses. I think of the leaders. I think of shepherds. I think of David, King David, one of the greatest victories we celebrate. Even people who don't know Jesus know about the five stones and the slingshot and the giant. And yet, as I'm combing through my word for all of these incredible examples of how God chose to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things, to extract victory from places we could not possibly envision. And then I settle upon a man named Jesus. What I find the most fascinating, because there are many things I find fascinating about Jesus and how we have crowned him as the victor. Of all victors, Jesus managed to be victorious and hurt no one. Jesus, who had all power, hurt no one. In fact, anyone he touched, he healed. So now my lens for what victory looks like is different. Because when we are in a combative age, in a combative state, in a combative environment, and, come on, everybody here has felt that season where you feel like you're fighting on all sides. You're fighting to keep your mind, you're fighting to keep your time, you're fighting on all levels. And what happens is, if you get so used to fighting and throwing punches and ducking punches and recovering from punches and trying to go on the offensive, but then still remain on the defensive so that you don't get hit anymore, at some point you start to lose the point of the Fight to begin with. And so what I want to do today is I want us as the body, as Christians. Y' all know this is my favorite pronunciation of that word. As Christians, I want us to fix the lens of victory back on our vision. We are not going to fight fights that do not yield fruit that provides evidence of the one who sent us. So today, we're going to fix the lens of victory upon us. I started with Matthew, chapter four, because the first thing we see Jesus do says he's led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The reason this verse jumps out at me, number one, I didn't have points, but y' all just got to take quick notes. In this season, victory is knowing why you are where you are, trying to help somebody. In this season, victory, Global family is knowing why you are where you are and someone I can already hear. Well, how do I know if I'm here? Guess what your new job just became. You need to seek God for why you are where you are. If you don't know why you're in Los Angeles, I just gave you a free prayer point. Look at that. I just gave you a whole list of things to talk to God about. Global family. From whatever corner of the globe you're tuning in from, God has planted and placed you where you are for a reason. God doesn't do random. So if I am going to walk with the understanding of what victory is, the first thing I need to do, I put on my victory lens, which is I need to know. In this season, victory is knowing why you are where you are. This very first verse, Matthew 4, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. This is one of the most crystal clear mission statements you're ever going to see. Because one, I know who led Jesus into the wilderness. There's any number of us who have found ourselves in a wilderness, but we don't know what spirit led us there. Victory, in this season, I know why I am where I am and I know by what spirit I was led there. If the Holy Spirit is not telling you to go there in this season, you don't have the leeway to go. The grace for being led by any spirit, not the Holy Spirit, into any wilderness is gone. And we've all done it. Any number of us can speak to a time where we found ourselves in a place, in a space, talking to a person and in the middle of the conversation, don't leave me out here by myself. Middle of a conversation. And it's A good conversation. You're enjoying it all of a sudden, why am I here? This conversation is great. It's making me laugh. But how did I get here? Did I pray about this? And in my prayer was I let to have this conversation here with this person? And this is not just for the bad conversations. Don't do that. You can have good conversations, but if you have on a lens of victory, you're asking yourself, is this a God conversation? You could have good encounters and good meetings. But with my lens of victory on, I'm asking myself, is this a God encounter and a God meeting? Victory. In this season, you know why you are where you are and you are led by the Spirit. And watch this says back to verse one. I really thought I was going to do all 10 of these verses. We might just live in verse one. Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So the Spirit leads him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. There is a specific reason why he is there. It is for this encounter to take place, this encounter has to happen. Jesus is God wrapped in flesh, all power wrapped in flesh. And if we have the mindset of having all power and going into situations where we feel we have an advantage. If I don't have a lens of victory on, I will use my power outside of the authority it was given to me to use it in. This encounter was planned, but it was planned for us. Because remember, this is God wrapped in flesh. So we as Christians need to see how Christ deals with the very encounters that we are going to have in our own time. This wilderness is not foreign to any one of us. So he said, I've got to show his people. I've got to show my people what it is to be engaged and how to handle it. This is how my people will lay hold of the victory that I've already given them. I gotta show them how it's done. So Jesus, led by the Spirit, is in the wilderness to be tempted. He fasts for 40 days and for 40 nights. Baby, I hear you. That's what fasting for 40 days and 40 nights I'll feel like for somebody. You think it's cute? It is not. We all sound like that when we fast for 40 days and 40 nights. We just do it at home and we don't put it on the Grammy. Now the tempter comes to him. This is verse three. If you are the son of God, command these stones become bread. But he answered, it is written. It is written, will preach itself. Man shall not live by bread. Alone. But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Victory is knowing who my provider is. Victory is knowing what provision is. Because remember, Jesus was hungry. He had every right to say, you know what? I'm going to take these stones, turn them into bread and feed myself. But that was not the point of the encounter. The encounter was not for Jesus to come to an all you could eat bread buffet. It was for him to encounter the tempter in this way and answer the way that he answered, so that we would see the example. So that when we are tempted in such a way to try to take that which is used to build and eat instead, we know what to do, because we answer with the word. The lens of victory says, I know my flesh wants this, but God has me here to do something else. So we see first thing he understands first, I know. Victory is knowing who your provider is. The next encounter that takes place, it says, then the devil took him up to the high holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple. If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, study this. This is in your Bible. It is written, he shall give his angels charge over you, and their hands they shall bear. In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone. Jesus said to him, it is written again, victory lens. Let me help you out. I hear this, I put on my word. I'm seeing everything through the lens of my word, My personal study, my revelation, my time in prayer. It doesn't matter what you send my way, if I hear it, I put on my word lenses. Because once again, Jesus says, wait a minute. I'm glad you know the word, but this is what the word has spoken. Imagine trying to quote the word to the living word. The futility is amazing. He tried it anyway. Jesus says, it is written again, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. Victory is knowing who my protector is. Victory is knowing what my protection is. He did not need to answer what the tempter was trying to do in order to prove that he was protected. He knew that his protection was not in him listening to someone else tell him how to show protection. His protection was the word that was given to him before he went in there to begin with. I don't need to tempt the one who provides for me. I don't need to tempt the one who protects me. I already know him for who he is, and I know how he works. Victory, you know who your provider is. You let me not say no. I can I can say it better. You remember who your provider is. You remember who your protector is. And then this last one, which is very near and dear to my heart because we just spent some time in this very special place. Again, the devil took him on an exceedingly high mountain, showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to them, all these things, I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. Then Jesus said to him, away with you, Satan. See, once we talked about the worship, Jesus said, oh no, you have to go. This situation is now officially over. You're trying to get me to worship someone that is not my father. I think I just spoke a word into somebody's life. I think I just changed the trajectory of somebody's week. Perhaps I might have shifted your month or your season when anything shows up to try to get you to worship anyone that is not God. It's time to shut the conversation down. It's time to shut the encounter down. It's time to shut that situation down. It is time to shut that relationship down. It's time to shut that way of thinking down. It's time to shut that stronghold down. Once you start talking about my worship, that's when I start kicking things out from where they're not supposed to be. Because when you play with my worship, you play with my authority. So once we get to the place where he says, you will fall down and worship me, say, oh, you got to go. For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you shall serve. Victory is knowing who I worship. Say this. Victory is not only knowing who I worship, it's knowing what I am worshiping in a given moment. When I have my victory lens on, it means I am aware of the posture of my heart towards certain things. I'm aware of the posture of my heart towards certain people. And if we're not careful and we don't remember that as Christians we are to only worship our Father, we we will find ourselves worshiping lesser substitutes and not even realizing it. I'm not talking about the out there idolatry. I'm talking about the things in our life that take up our time of worship. Somebody called out one of them. I was going to try to leave you alone. The things that we take into our mind and actually give space to in our mind, if we are not careful, if we are not fixed with the lens of victory for every encounter. Which means when I'm sitting there thinking, just thinking, nothing around me, just my thoughts are my thoughts about My father, what my father has told me. What my father has done, done for me. Who my father is, who my father has made me. These are victorious thoughts. This is victorious thinking. And as a man thinks, so he is so. If you are thinking victoriously and you have a system of thoughts that only lead you to victorious thinking, you will find that you will walk in victory. You will speak in victory, you will declare in victory, you will decree in victory, you will have an environment of victory. All because you know who you worship with your mind and your time and your heart and your spirit. Just the knowledge of it gives you victory because it means the enemy can't try to slip a fast one on you. Now the enemy has to work overtime. Can't just take you on high building and show you things that you want some of us worshiping. Zillow called it out. You have been staring at that dream house. Your dream house has more of your prayer time than the Lord. You know more numbers about your dream house than verses in numbers in the Bible. If you think more about it than the Lord. You found something that you were worshiping, and now that you know it and it's convicting and it's hard, it's time to make the adjustment to worship him and him only. It's a safe space. We all love them. It's a safe space. Some people's feelings are a little hurt. As I've always said for years, it's okay for your feelings to be hurt. Jesus will heal them too. Lord hurts my feelings all the time. Reading the Bible, it's a good thing. Means that I'm paying attention to who I am and who he's called for me to be and the difference between it. And I'm gonna work actively to make up the difference between the two. This is what it is to have a lens of victory. Victory says, I know who my provider is, I know who my protector is, and I know I am aware of who or what I worship. Then the end of the encounter, the devil left him, and behold, angels came and ministered to him. I'm going to move to my next encounter and I promise you there are so many. Please read your whole, whole, whole Bible, because there are so many. Thank you, Holy Spirit. There are so many minor. I want to call. I'll find a better word later, but I'll use this one for right now. There are so many minor encounters we have that are major victories, but we don't recognize them. And it is because the lens of victory is stripped of outcome too many times because of the world we live in and because of how we do. We watch sports. You win, you lose. How do you know you won? You look at the score. Someone has more, that means they won. Depending on if the number is higher, that means they won. If the numbers within a certain threshold, it means they won. If someone submitted, it means they won. Yet in the Kingdom, and I'm burying the lead. As they say in journalism, victory has nothing to do with outcomes. Victory is about obedience. I'm going to make this real plain. I got, like, one and a half more points, and then we're done. Here is your victory outline right here. This is the one at the top of the bar, and everything else comes underneath. Y' all want to know what victory looks like? You want to know? I'm going to tell you right now. Here it is. God said it, I did it. We're done. This is a victorious outcome every time. Global Family. God said it, I did it. God told me to do it, and I did it. The victory is not in the outcome. The victory is in the obedience. Because God is in charge of the outcome. I'm in charge of the obedience. He takes care of the outcome. So I just have to fix my mind and hear from him and obey. My job is to get the Word, and then my job is to do what he tells me to do. And when I do what he tells me to do, I've won. Scripture says the horse is prepared for the day of battle, but it is the Lord who delivers the victory. My job is to prepare. How do I prepare, Lord? What? What are you telling me to do, Lord? Where you telling me to go, Lord? Who you telling me who to talk to? Now I'm all out of my notes, but it's okay, because right now I can hear somebody. Well, how do I know I'm hearing from the Lord? It's one of my favorite questions. I get it at least once a week. How do I know I'm hearing from the Lord? Let me give you a couple. First and foremost, no one gets it completely right all the time. But that's not an excuse not to try. Amen. First thing you want to cultivate, if you want to make sure you're hearing from the Lord, is you want to cultivate private time with him. This is how you get to know the Lord. It's not just here on a Sunday. I promise you I can give you some things that will help you move forward, but the bulk, the meat of your relationship with the Lord is not on a Sunday. It's in the private time you cultivate with him. For someone right now, victory is just declaring that you will spend quality time with your father. The lens of Victory for you in this season is just. I'm going to take 15, 20 minutes to start my day. 15, 20 minutes at the end of my day. And I might even have a chando for lunch just so that I could talk to my father. I'm gonna spend time with the one who took the time to breathe life into me and wait for me in my mess to still come forth and receive his son. I'm gonna take time to hear from him. So, number one, I didn't write this down, but just catch it as you. As it goes out there, spend quality, quiet time with your father to get to know him. It does not have to be like office hours. There is no script. Yes, we have the model prayer, but it is a model. It's not meant for that to be the only thing you say to him. Y' all go out on dates. Oh, don't get nervous, because I heard six people laugh, but I know there's at least more than that here who go on dates. When you want to get to know somebody, what do you do? You go somewhere with them private. Don't get to know them in a noisy place. You can't have a conversation in a noisy place. Can't have a conversation with somebody. You're on your phone, they're on their phone. You both got two different things going on, but you're sitting together, uh, oh, I messed up somebody's date. When you want to get to know a voice for who they are, you find the time and the space. You cultivate the time and the space so that you can hear them clearly. And you do it often enough so that you eventually just know their voice. The next thing is outside of a prayer life and taking time to hear from your father is take time to read his word. Anything God gives you. Run it through the filter of has this come up in prayer? Have I read it in my word? I say this as often as I possibly can. The beautiful part about the flow, the living word of God flowing through your life. It doesn't matter what's happening. Global family, you know this. As long as you take the time to read the Word, I guarantee you you're going to read something that confirms what's happening in your now just stay in the flow of reading the word. I don't care where in it you are. Lamentations, numbers, revelation. Pick one, you need one. Genesis. Start in the beginning and just keep going. Don't stop. Keep going. Especially for those in Leviticus. Help me out, fam. Keep going. I know Psalm 119 is the longest one, I promise you. Keep going. Y' all who like to read Job when stuff go bad, but you never finish job. You have a hard week, you start in Job, never finish job. The minute it starts to look good, we're off of job. We back on Proverbs. Feeling good. Keep going. Because the time you spend in the flow of the living Word is what allows you to know his voice even more. So I'm spending quality time with my Father. I'm spending quality time with His Word. And then if I'm blessed enough, I've got quality people around me. I got destiny advocates around me. I got people around me who know the Word. I got people around me who know the Father. I got people around me who, when they pray, I know God heard that prayer. And so between these three things, the likelihood of you not hearing him correctly is very tiny. It can still happen, but I'm just trying to decrease that probability as much as humanly possible. This is what fixing a lens of victory on looks like. Because it starts with being able to hear him. Remember, as I said, this is your victory move. God told me to do it, and I did. It doesn't matter what the outcome is. Let me help you out. Not every outcome is gonna feel good. Make me run in this place. Not every outcome from hearing the Word of God and being obedient feels good. But it's effective because obedience, obedience is greater than. Greater than sacrifice. I've always said, I love that it's set up that way, because in order to sacrifice, you gotta obey. It's not a sacrifice if there's not obedience attached to it. So you need to learn. We need to cultivate and continue to be obedient to the Word of God, knowing that it's not always gonna turn out the way we want it to. It's not always going to feel good in that moment. But it's very possible that what God is telling you to do now is setting up your next. And it's going to be painful now, but it's setting up a healing in your next. And it's going to have you in a deficit now, but it's setting up your Increase next. Matthew 27:54. Oh, man, y' all messing me up. So we have this understanding. I'm sorry, I almost skipped all the way down. Too far down. Luke 9, 51, 56. So we understand that this Lens of victory. I know who my provider is, I know who my protector is, and I know who I worship. And then I find this encounter in the Word. And it struck me because it showed me a very key critical component in maintaining a lens of victory. It says now it came to pass when the time had come for him to be received up him as Jesus, that he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem and sent messengers before his face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him. So to paraphrase, Jesus says, I'm going through this village. He sends his disciples. He says, hey, let them know I'm coming. This is a custom in this society. If you're going to approach a village, you send people ahead, hey, let them know I'm coming so they can set up a place where I could stay, provisions where I'm going to speak. So this is a normal thing for people to do. It says verse 52. And sent messengers before his face. And as they went, they entered the village of the Samaritans to prepare for him. But they did not receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. They did not receive him because his face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. Let me plug some holes real quick. Jesus is Jewish. He lets people know that he is going through a Samaritan village to a Jewish location. The problem is the Samaritans and the Jewish do not have a good relationship. This is an antagonistic relationship in this time. So they find out where he's going and they reject him. A lens of victory does not allow rejection to keep you from going where you need to go. If I'm going to fix a lens of victory, I love how it's described in the New Kings. It said he steadfastly set his pace. In other words, God told him, before this encounter happened, you are going to the cross. So he fixed his face towards the cross. He's looking at where his Father has told him he should go. This was his whole mission and mandate here on this earth was to get to that cross. And he has decided this is the moment and the time to to go to the cross. Now he's making his way to the cross and there are people who should receive him because he is Lord. They don't receive him the way you would think you would receive Jesus. But Jesus says, I'm still going where I need to go. His eyes never wavered from the cross. If you're going to walk with a lens of Victory, please keep your eye fold focused on where God is telling you to go. And you're going to pass through places that reject you. You're going to pass through places that don't understand you. You're going to pass through places that are not going to honor your name the way your father honors your name. But it's not about that in that moment, in that time. It is about going where God told you to go. And where God tells you to go is not only going to take you through places that love you, it's probably going to take you through places that don't even know you. They don't like you like that because they don't even know you. Or in this particular case, they know where he's going and that's why they don't like him. There are going to be people in your life who have an idea of where you're going and they will fix themselves against you just because they don't like where you're going. And just because they don't understand why it is you're going where you're going does not mean you need to be taken off course. You have a lens of victory. I'm fixed to where I'm supposed to go. I'm heading towards where I'm supposed to go. God has told me this is where I need to go. I am going there. I will walk through the rejection and say, thank you very much. This is the Jesus way of doing things. This is the path of victory. This is the lens of victory. Jesus has but watch the disciples. And when his disciples, James and John saw this, they said, lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them as Elijah did? There's so much in this. Number one. The best you could do was something that was already done, said fire. We've seen this done before. Just call down fire like Elijah did. She said, oh, okay, wait, wait, wait. But he turned and rebuked them and said, this is it. Lens of victory. Key nugget. You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. The lens of victory is in always understanding the manner of spirit in where you go and who you are and how you encounter people. Victory is understanding. When I present myself where God has sent me, I. I am there in the manner, in the proper manner. And spirit, don't just show up, show up and look like him, show up and sound like him. Show up with what he has told you to do in that moment and do it. God said it. Do it. Because this encounter shows Me that while Jesus has his eyes fixed on the cross, his disciples have their eyes fixed on rejection, not understanding that their rejection of him was a part of the story. See, if you don't know the whole narrative, if you don't understand the full scope, the. If you don't understand the fullness, the entirety of God's plan, you will get caught up in the rejection of one moment, and you will miss getting to where you were supposed to be the whole time. And now they're gonna call down fire and kill people. Jesus said, no, that is not the brand. That is not us. He had to slow them down. He understood their zeal, but said, wait a minute. You do not know what manner of spirit you are. This is important. Rejection will give you a vision or give you insight to what manner of spirit you really are. There are times where rejection takes place just to show you what's really in your heart. It's easy to walk like Jesus when everybody love me, love me, love me, love me, accept me, accept me, accept me. Every time I do it, they say, yes and amen. And then we can all walk like Jesus. But can you handle the rejection like Jesus did? Because the rejection never changed his heart. The rejection never clouded his lens. He was focused on and clear towards the victory ahead. And the victory ahead was us. And so one of the lenses of victory that you must have fastened on you is knowing, as I said in the beginning, why you are where you are. For Jesus, it was knowing where he was going because he didn't have time to rebuke the Samaritans. That's the irony of it. He's not rebuking the Samaritans. He's rebuking his people because the Samaritans are playing their part in the story, which is to be oppositional. There's oppositional parts of your story that are a part of your story. Not everybody is supposed to agree with you as you do what God has called for you to do. Not everyone is called to understand you as you do what God has called you to do. Not everybody has to like where you're going as God has told you to go there. They're a part of the story because now I can see Jesus and know that his heart was so pure that those could reject him. And he knew that he was the express image of His Father and he could walk in any place and bring healing that they could not comprehend. And still he had to withhold that power because they were not ready for it. This is victory. Victory is I have the power to do it. But my mission tells me this is not the place. This is not the way it gets done. Me wiping the slate clean by breathing fire from heaven is not the way to get this done. Verse 56. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. I need to read that again. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. This is what I fasten onto my eyes. This is what my word is telling me. I look at my word and then I look up at the world. So as I'm looking at the world and I'm seeing a combative world and I'm seeing the destruction of men's lives, I can look at that which produces the destruction of men's lives and say, wait a minute. This doesn't match with my word. It also means, what am I going to make the decision to be like? Am I going to be like the world that I see? Or am I going to be like the word that governs who I am? Lens of victory says, down, up. It's like scuba glasses. You ever try to swim without scuba glasses? Deep. The deeper you go, the harder it is to see. Until eventually the pressure makes it so that you cannot see it all. But when you have the Word, when you have the Word that governs your life, when you have the fruit of your private time with your Father and your study time of His Word, and the wise counsel around you of those who also spend time with him. And the Word, when you have that lens of victory on your face, you can put the lens on, and it doesn't matter how deep you go, you can still see clear. So Jesus has to rebuke his disciples because they want to start burning stuff down. And that was not the point of him coming. They had to have an understanding. What is the manner of spirit that I'm walking? I want us to have that as a daily question. Put that on the top of your journal every day. What is the manner of spirit that I'm operating on? And if you can't name it, don't operate. Wait till it is revealed to you. Oh, this is the Spirit that I'm under. Okay, this is the Holy Spirit. Because I know the characteristics of the Holy Spirit. I know the fruits of the Holy Spirit according to my word. And if I find that it is not of those, then I'm of a different spirit. And now I need revelation on what that spirit really is and how I can get rid of that spirit. So that I can continue forward toward where I am supposed to go.
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Last verse.
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I promise we're done. Matthew 27:54. This then behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. As we can see, Jesus got where he said he was supposed to go. And the earthquake, the rocks were split and the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared. To many, this is a mind splitting, momentous occasion. This is what takes place. Jesus has yielded the Spirit and this is what happens. Verse 54 caught my attention. I hope it catches yours as well. So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake, they saw everything we read. They saw all this. They saw the veil torn, they saw the earthquaking. They see people coming out the earth and they're going into the cities, they see all of this. These are Roman soldiers. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, truly this was the Son of God. Let me set this up. Crucifixion was a Roman practice at this time. This was used for executions. So many people thought that Jesus was coming to topple or overthrow the government that was in place. So we had many who were enemies of this specific of Jesus and his people and of his mission. Now watch this. The centurion, these are Roman soldiers who do not believe out of their mouths, are declaring Jesus as son of the Most High God. See, this looks like a L. This looks like a loss because he was hung on the cross. This looks like a loss. What has happened? Our Savior is gone. Meanwhile, what is the first thing we see happen? Roman soldiers are declaring Jesus. The world sees it as an L. Oh, Jesus lost the battle. No, I just got Romans who don't even know me to declare me. And the whole mission was to get people to know and declare Jesus is Lord. And the first people we hear from this encounter are Romans. They're not even Jewish. The word's already spreading. We have to be mindful. This is why I said earlier, we're done. Don't use outcomes as. As a. What's the word? As. Too many words running through my head all at the same time. To confirm your victory. You want to confirm your victory? What did God tell you to do? Did you do it? There's your confirmation. Because the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the governors all thought that they had stopped the Jesus thing by hanging him. Meanwhile, all they did for their intensive purposes was make it worse for them, because we're still talking about Jesus now. And the belief of Jesus spread far beyond what they could have imagined. They were trying to quell his influence. Everything leading up to the cross expanded his influence. They thought he was losing, but he had already won. The lens of victory says, I'm not looking at the outcome. I can see. I'm taking on the mind of Jesus because Jesus said, I only do that which my Father shows me, tells me to do. Jesus heard it, Jesus saw it. Jesus did it. Victory done. I'm not looking at the battlefield. I'm not looking at the cross where he hung with two other people who were considered criminals. I have the luxury we do of looking at right now where millions and millions and millions of people know Jesus as Lord. He won. He won. The Pharisees and Sadducees were celebrating. Meanwhile, they really lost. And this goes back to where we started. We're done. Go ahead, stand up. If y' all sit down too long, y' all make me stay here for like a half an hour. Stand up. Pharisees and Sadducees thought they knew what victory looked like. But Jesus, because he could hear from his Father, knew what victory really was. And he modeled it for us, which is obedience to the assignment he was given. Victory. As long as Jesus continued to move forward through cities that rejected him, past people who wanted to harm him, even through the harm that was inflicted, everything that happened to him was all a part of his victory. Because when he says, I overcame it all, fear not, because I overcame it all, you can read it and see what he overcame. The lens of victory says my. My responsibility is my obedience. My responsibility is to hear my Father. My responsibility is to get what it is he wants for me to do. And I am victorious in this season when I hear what he told me to do and I did it. God said it, I did it. I am victorious in him. And the outcome is his. Who? Help me, Holy Ghost, for someone right now, I thank you. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I pray that you receive the victory of the outcome not being in your hands anymore. You've been stressing the outcome because you think that the specific possibilities you've calculated all the ways this could possibly turn out. Meanwhile, God says there are possibilities well beyond your thinking. So I'm prayerful that the lens of victory is fixed on us today and that it stays on us because it can get a little, ugh. You Know, keep the lens of victory on you so that as you fight, you know what you're fighting for and fighting through and going to. We just took some time to learn about the model of the ultimate victory, which was Jesus who died for our sins. Jesus as our Lord and savior. There are some in this house right now who want to start that journey to looking like him and sounding like him. I can feel you putting on the goggles of victory right now. This is an opportunity. Let me help you out because I had to do the same thing in my life. If you want to start a life where you want to look through the lens of victory, you want to walk with Jesus through this life and you have not done it before. Raise your hand if you want to start today day saying Jesus is my Lord and savior. Jesus who secured the victory is going to show me how to really, really win. If you want to start that today, go ahead and raise your hand. Global family, you can put your hand up in the chat because I know there's many of you out there as well. Amen. Amen. Here's what else I'm going to do. For those of you. Thank you, Holy Spirit. For those of you who. And I just said this too. For those of you who have made your outcomes your idol, you, worship outcomes in this moment, right now, if that's you, just put your hand up. We'll handle that right now. Heavenly Father, I thank you. You are the name above all names. There is none like you. And in this moment, we are releasing from our heart and releasing from our mind the outcome that we may receive the obedience to walk out what you're telling me to do. And father, we will put our trust in you. We will put our hope in you. We will put our faith in you, and we will put our faith in your word, in your instruction. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I thank you right now for the power of receiving and acting out instruction from the Lord. For anyone who didn't think they could and thought they were disqualified, I bind that, I cancel that. I cast that out. That is not your portion. In the name of Jesus. Because Father, we know you can use anyone to do anything at any given point in time. We just give you our hearts, ready to obey in Jesus name. Amen. Okay. All right.
- [55:36]
B
Hey, family. Well, I pray that you were just as blessed by this teaching as I was. I'm just so grateful again to be a part of a dynamic community full of love, full of revelation and and wisdom. One has been a movement that's been blessing people for over two decades, and I'm so glad that you got an opportunity to experience it. I also have a podcast called the called it's right here on wherever you're listening to this Spotify or Apple or wherever you're listening to this podcast. You can just look up the call T H E C A L L E D with myself, Ture Roberts. This is designed for entrepreneurs, leaders and business people. It's a weekly podcast and it will bless you. But hey, I enjoyed having you here. Meet us here next week. Check out the call. Much blessings to you. We'll catch you next time.