Pastor Jason Anderson - Audio

Today I want to talk to you about being back in the

Garden of Eden again. 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NKJV) says, "And so it is

written, ‘The first man Adam became a living being.'" The last Adam

became a life-giving spirit. And who is this last Adam? It is Christ.

There is to come no Adam after Him, but He is the Omega, breathing the

final word in man's relationship to God. As He spoke, it is finished.

And so the last Adam claims the prize that the first Adam could not

keep, bringing restoration to all that man fell from, and we who have

believed have become the planting of the Lord, and the only planting God

has ever made is the one in the garden He plants, as it states in

Genesis 2 that "the Lord planted a garden in Eden." So here we are, back

in the garden again. And here is the problem, most don't understand the

garden, the restoration, and so they work by the sweat of their brow,

and labor in great pain in birthing anything new, be it dreams or

success or business or child, and the earth rules man and gives only

thorn and thistle to children of the King, children of God. And so today

I bring understanding that you have been restored to the garden, and you

are not to be removed from it but are planted to remain, and in this way

God has done the planting, and you are doing the

tending.

Today I want to show you that grace elevates you. We

know that grace affords us righteousness and that grace convinces us we

are forgiven. Grace teaches us to live godly lives. Grace is the throne,

the throne that our Lord sits on. Grace gives you unmerited favor with

God, and Grace is the secretary for principle Edward Rooney in Ferris

Bueller's Day off. Did you know that grace elevates? And that your lips

are begging and empowered to speak the grace that elevates, because your

heart is full of God's grace, and it desires to break out and be seen,

displayed, recognized? Too many Christians today find themselves in a

low place, and then use the wrong tool to get out. They find a shovel

instead of the elevator - the shovel of complaining. And they dig in

with defeat, or anger, or the expectation of delay, not knowing that the

rope to raise them out of the pit has already been given. It is the

grace of God, and it has come to elevate you to a new height today. An

understanding of this rope will help you grab on with both hands and be

lifted up - the secret to promotion at your job, raises, new clients,

more influence, greater authority, marriage on a higher level,

relationships, friendships, or to see your children climbing higher. Are

you ready for a new elevation in your life? Grace

elevates!

November 27, 2016

Today I want to talk to you about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matthew 13:33 says the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took

and mixed into three measures of dough. If you move to a new nation you

will learn about living in that new nation, its rules and its

privileges. You'll need to know the speed limit, paying taxes, freedoms,

how it all works. There may be a different form of communication.

There's a lot of talk about the Kingdom of Heaven, I mean, a major theme

in Christ's teachings. Here He says it's like yeast? He warns us to

beware the yeast of the Pharisees. In Galatians Paul refers to yeast as

when we start to add work to our blessing. Well, you are righteous by

faith in Christ, and you also gotta... Jesus here is talking about the

Kingdom being like yeast. Are you familiar with the whole yeast thing?

The last supper is representation of the Passover, where there was bread

with no yeast and a sacrificed lamb. Then the next 7 days was no yeast

at all. What is this yeast business? As we talk about it, God is going

to reveal to you His grace and forgiveness through this study. The

teaching that you've heard about yeast, if you've heard one, is that a

little bit works through the whole batch of dough, just a bit of sin is

going to infect you and corrupt you entirely. Today you are going to

hear something different about yeast. The problem is, too many

Christians live a Christianity as though Jesus didn't die for us and

change everything, and so get ready for a complete mental

shift.

Today I want to talk to you about our struggle. In

Ephesians 6:12 Paul writes, "For our struggle is not..." First of all,

there is a struggle, and it is ours. I wish there weren't, but there is.

We all have struggles. Some versions say, "For we do not wrestle

against..." And it's literally describing a wrestling contest. Paul

wants to tell us what we don't struggle with. There is a struggle, and

here is what it isn't. Don't fight the wrong war so that you are

distracted from the real war. And here is the problem, you may be

fighting a battle that you aren't supposed to be fighting. You may be in

a war that isn't yours to be warring. And so all of your attention and

energy is being expensed into a distraction, and you've missed the real

battle entirely. Then when it's time to fight the real battle, your

barns are empty, you're walking onto a battle field emotionally

exhausted. We say, "My struggle is with my boss, I'm fighting with my

boyfriend today, he's such a cheater, I'm wrestling with some

republicant, or demobrat, that guy who is tailgating me, that's my fight

today!" In Ephesians 6:12 it says that our struggle is with

darkness.

Today I want to talk to you about family. It's always

been about family. God started with Adam and Eve, whom we all come from.

Consider the phrase, "The God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob." He calls us sons and daughters of God, and wants us to call Him

"Father." He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children…"

(Malachi 4:6). Romans calls us the brothers of Jesus, and Ephesians 5

tells us the church gathering is the bride of Christ, taking on a new

identity, and taking on the name of Christ. Family. There is a problem

in our world. The family is under attack.

Today I want to talk to you about the profile of a

disciple. Are you a disciple or a consumer? Consumerism is a culture

trait of today's society. "How was my experience?" Consumers evaluate,

review, they do not participate. They are focused on self and self's

needs. God did not call us to be consumers; He called us to be

disciples. We are not consumers of Christianity, we are disciples of

Christ. Church is not a retail outlet, a local restaurant chain, but it

is the family of God, not a place you go, but a home you return to.

Disciples are soldiers who are given authority, ability, assignment to

advance the Kingdom of God. Jesus' first quest upon hitting the ministry

was praying all night and recruiting disciples. His first order of

business was to train and empower disciples. He spoke about the

qualifications and requirements, to deny self, to carry your cross, to

be willing to be rejected, persecuted, even by family for the sake of

the love of Christ and the mission given at the Great Commission. He

left His disciples to grow the early church, empowered by the outpouring

of the Holy Spirit. He did not say to go into all the world and make

believers, He said to go into all the world and make disciples. Harvest

is plenty but the laborers are few? Pray!

Today I want to talk to you about prayer. The ability to

pray is our greatest advantage for change that we have. Prayer

repositions the heavens; it recalibrates earth into agreement with the

heavens. Without the declaration and participation of a man on earth,

God does not move from the Spirit into our physical world. He needs our

agreement to do His will on this planet. Consider even the salvation of

your soul. If man refuses to listen to God, discards God's will into the

trash like it were a distraction from selfish pleasure, then the destiny

of that man continues in its path towards destruction. Just one man or

woman praying God's will can change eternity. When did God raise the

dead without a man to pray for it? At what point was a blind eye opened

without a person on earth declaring it? Or which crippled man got up and

walked without a man first speaking the Word? Or why was man needed to

participate in the parting of the Red Sea, the water from the rock, was

it the angels who shouted that caused the walls of Jericho to fall, or

was it the priests and the army of Israel whose shout brought the great

victory? Consider for a moment the responsibility of us as born again,

spirit-filled Christians to pray and in this house, as Jesus himself

declared over His house, so we also declare it today, the House of the

Lord will be called a house of prayer! What does the Bible say? Does it

say in James that you have not because God doesn't want you to have? NO.

You have not because you ask not. My Mom and Dad, the greatest church

leaders ever, our founders - I lived in their home and I can tell you

that they prayed without ceasing for you, for this work that God is

building, and every word continues to echo into eternity. We have an

incredible prayer emphasis at Living Word, classes, etc. We are ALL

called to this kind of prayer. Psalm 32:6, "Let all who are godly pray…"

or II Chronicles 7:14, "If my people who are called by my name…" or

Isaiah 56:7, "… the House of God will be known as a House of prayer for

all nations." All. Today I want to show you 3 important directions for

your prayers.

Today I want to talk to you about turning trash into

treasure. In 1970 a French engineer purchased a chest for $160 to hold

his television. What he did not know was that he had purchased the big

brother of 2 chests made by Japanese royalty craftsman Mazarin that was

gifted to English royalty in the 18th century. The chest had been

wrongly labeled in an auction at the turn of the 20th century as a

Chinese chest, and made its way to this engineer. In 2013, after this

engineer passed, an estate appraiser recognized it, relabeled it as an

authentic Mazarin chest, and it sold to a museum in America for over 9

million dollars. God is in the business of upgrading, finding and

revealing great value. He is using the foolish things to confound the

wise. He finds Saul, He finds Matthew. The Israelites were enslaved, but

plundered Egypt without raising a sword. What man thought was trash, God

may find as treasure. Here's the problem, we get lots of trash in our

lives, piles and piles of crud sometimes, and if we aren't careful we

will miss out on the treasure that is in that trash. We may throw away

the things God brought us, quit early, walk away from the greatest gift

because we got tired, or persecuted, misunderstood or offended. What

Satan has meant for evil God can turn to good!

Today I want to talk to you about "not walking by

sight." Peter is on the water… walking. My sight is my reality. The

reality is, we can't step out and pay our bills. The reality is, every

time I love someone I get a broken heart. The reality is the car is not

starting. The reality is you cannot walk on water. It's soft. But as

long as Peter is staring at the Messiah, he's doing it. Then he checks

out reality, getting a quick update. Splash. Well if I'm not looking at

my reality, what should I look at? I Samuel 16:7 says, "For the Lord

does not see as a man sees." What do we see? Well, we see physical

stuff. We see the bank account. We see the symptoms. We see "I can't."

We see being stuck. "I'll never get out of this rat race!" We see

weakness. We see discouragement. This is a problem. II Corinthians 5:7

KJV says, "For we walk by faith and not by sight." I say to my wife,

"The reality is my hair is falling out, does it bother you?" She says,

"I walk by faith and not by sight." We see the dead end, we see the

storm, we see the wind and the waves. We see the mess ahead, and the

mess behind. God here is telling us to shut our eyes to the reality of

our world. When you close your eyes to your own reality and open your

eyes to God's reality, you'll bring the provision of health into your

reality of sickness. You'll bring the provision of wisdom into your

test. You'll bring the provision of joy into your reality of

discouragement and weariness.