Grace(Offering message)You had nothing to do with becoming righteous (II Cor. 5:21); you just have to respond to God’s grace. You receive, not achieve the Lord. After you are saved, then you do the works. Eph. 2:8-10- anything that leads you to boast is not grace. Titus 2:11 tells you that the grace of God teaches that you should deny ungodly and worldly lusts and live soberly and godly. Titus 3:5-8- salvation brings you to works. You are righteous, and you can do righteous works. I Peter 2:24- You are saved, even when you do not feel saved. You are healed, even when you do not feel healed. Your foundation is grace, and faith carries salvation on. Sometimes all you need to do is to receive. II Cor. 8:9 tells us that through grace, Jesus became poor, so that we might become rich. There is grace for you to be saved, healed, and made rich. You give, not out of dead works of sowing and reaping, but because you know all your needs are met. Authority (Learn to Say NO!)In Mark 1:22 the scribes were astonished at Jesus’ teaching, at what He taught. He taught and demonstrated His authority. Use your authority against thoughts, demonic spirits, compromise, sickness and disease, even the weather (Jesus rebuked the wind.). Reject those thoughts and speak in the authority of Jesus’ name. Say NO! to thoughts of depression and don’t want to be depressed. Speak the Word into whatever you need. Matt. 21:21-22,43- You do not ask the mountain to move. You SPEAK to it. If you do not use your authority, it will be taken from you. Pray in faith, not in fear or it’s like trying to get to Philadelphia on the turnpike from here by going west. It is not going to happen. Speak what you desire.

Heb. 11:1-3 Faith gives substance to your hope. Faith is present, but hope is future. You will act and move on your hope when it is faith. Faith is based on what you do not see. Rom. 4:17 tells us that God made a promise to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, when he was not a father at all, and he and Sarah were barren and old. What is important is how you act on what God has said. God calls those things that do not exist as though they did. John 14:1 tells us to believe in Jesus, not only in God. What do you believe? What is the object of your faith? Note in Mark 11:22-23 that in the Greek, it says to have the faith of God, or have the faith that God has. Faith is a tool. So what are you to have faith in? Mark 11:23 says to have faith in the words that you say and those things will come to pass. Recognize when you are in faith and when you are not. In Matt. 14:28-30 Peter walked on Jesus’ word, “Come”. A person does not “begin to sink” in the natural, but Peter did and cried out for help, and Jesus caught him. Remember: faith puts action to hope.

Matt. 25:14-23. Listen as Pastor Dale carefully develops an understanding of what the Parable of the Talents is really teaching us. Much of our understanding comes from the way our culture “interprets” its meaning. What is the meaning of a steward? It’s not what a steward does; a steward is entrusted with something (ex.: a calling, purpose, responsibility) and given power, authority, and blessing. Bible examples are: Abraham’s servant who found a wife for Isaac; Joseph and Daniel. The kingdom of God has a unique culture, and if we look at this parable in terms of our culture, all we will see is what we think is unfair. Accept your place- it’s for a purpose and reason. Rejoice in who you are and DO NOT BE PREOCCUPIED IN DISSATISFACTION, and DON’T COMPARE YOURSELF WITH OTHERS. In the Greek a talent was a measure of gold, whereas in American thinking we take it to mean ability. But look!- the talents were given to the servants BASED ON EACH ONE’S OWN ABILITY. God’s love is unconditional, but HIS BLESSINGS ARE CONDITIONAL! God wants you to increase your ability, so He can increase your blessing. Develop yourself. Do what you can with what you have where you are. If money becomes #1 in your life, you will go backward. Character comes first. Note in 25:19 it says, “After a long time…”. Do not be hasty to be rich. Grow up in the Lord. Learn how to handle finances. Any treasure we have is small in God’s eyes. WE MUST DEVELOP TO BE BIGGER THAN OUR PROBLEMS. Matt. 25:21 After the man in the parable blessed the servants who increased their talents, he told them to enter into the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is the goal and reward. It is NOT achievements and results, but OBEDIENCE to God. When you are obedient, you will walk in the joy of the Lord.

Communion: Pastor Armstrong shares on “It all comes back to the table; what happened on the cross”. Jesus knew what He was doing when He laid down His life. He was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. God said….over and over that the Word became dlesh. The example walked on earth so we’d know how to walk. The Seed was sown. Everytime we remember His body being sown, we put pressure on the covenant. When His power moves through us, it’s Him. The Word cannot be stopped. What happened on the cross was death-dealing. Following the “Great Exchange” (His Righteousness for our sin), punishment was involved, And Jesus took the full punishment. Ephesions 1:7, Galatians 1:4 Special bonus: Offering messsage by Pat Murphy, and portions of a Children’s ministry presentation.

Listen as Pastor Dale carefully develops how you receive God’s wisdom and plan for your life. I Cor. 1:30 and 2:6-13 are the main texts. The wisdom of God is to keep you out of trouble. You need to speak the wisdom of God, but you do not know what you are speaking, because it is a mystery. Why does God want His wisdom to be a mystery? One reason is so that you will search for it. You know you must search for it, because you can be sure it is there for your finding. Also, He hid it for your glory. Just as you may hide something so no one gets it, so God has hidden it for us since before the earth was created. He is not hiding it from us but for us. Furthermore, He is keeping the wisdom and the plan for your life hidden from Satan, so he cannot mess with them. God has prepared you for something from the beginning of time, and you will not get it through the eyes or the ears. Even prophesy should not lead you, but it should only confirm what the Holy Spirit has already put on the inside of you. So where has God hidden Himself? He has hidden Himself and His plan in your spirit, when you received the Holy Spirit. It is where the devil cannot get at it. How do you get it out? You get it out by speaking it out- in tongues, and then you are speaking the wisdom of God in a mystery. You can pray in the Spirit, and the revelation will come to you.

God wants to do miracles and to heal the sick by our hands. Pastor Dale teaches on the anointing: you need it to do what you are called to do. #1 You need to ask for the anointing and power. #2 It can be measured. #3 It can increase and be doubled. #4 It can be transferred from one person to another. #5 It can reside materially and has tangibility. #6 You have to qualify for it. #7 You can lose the anointing. Elisha’s anointing should not have been buried. God gets angry when we grieve His Spirit. If God tells you to do something, keep doing it until He tells you to stop.

James 4:7-5:5; Is. 58:6-8. Cleansing our hands (our deeds), purifying our hearts, putting our bodies under (fasting), giving, praying, and repenting are part of our drawing near to God.

Texts: John 7:37-39; Is. 28:12; Eph. 5:17-21. Choose to be hungry and to stir yourself up. Yield yourself to God and open your heart to Him. You can’t hear from God when you’re in fear and your spirit is “noisy”. Find out the will of God for you by pausing, praying the Spirit, giving thanks to God in Jesus’ name, submitting yourself to one another in the fear of God, and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Texts: Ps. 15:4; Num. 23:19; Mark 9:23; Mark 10:27; Luke 1:37; Acts 27:25; James 5:14, 15. Faith is of the heart, and this sermon affirms that faith is based on the integrity of God. Faith to believe for the impossible is not based on your trying to have faith, but on the integrity of God and His Word. It’s not man’s ability, but God’s integrity, dependability, and reliability. God honors and uses His Word.

Texts: Col. 1:15:22; Rom. 5:12; Luke 3:22-38; and John 9. Before we were in Christ Jesus, we were in Adam, which means we were born in sin and were open to sickness, disease, and poverty. Jesus brought an end to the Old Testament. Abound in grace and mercy. Pastor Dale exhorted us to read and study Romans 5.

Scripture texts: Heb. 4:12, Is. 55:10-11, and Rom. 10:17. The Word is alive and ministers to a person’s heart (spirit). It’s only when the Word is received in the heart that faith can grow as a seed. It also makes it possible to reach people of all cultures because it causes change in the deepest part of man. The Word continues to produce. Prosperity, faith, and your relationship with God all take place in your heart, not in your head (mind). Principles and moral values are mind issues, and when fear comes, the mind shuts down. To get people born-again, they must believe the Word. If you don’t have faith in your heart, then God’s Word is not in your heart. Open your heart to the Spirit and the Word of God.

Moses, Daniel, Joseph, and other Old Testament leaders did not know what we know, and that is the mystery Paul told about in Col. 1:25-27. What is the mystery? It is Christ in us. No other religion believes that deity can live in the heart of man. Rom. 8:9 tells us that God lives in us and that we are the temple of God, and if Christ Jesus does not live in us, we are not believers. Pastor Dale preaches on I John 4:1-4 and I John 2:20 and 27. Some false religions believe that Jesus came in the flesh, but they do not believe that He comes into our flesh, our hearts. Everything Jesus did was so that He could dwell in us. II John 7 and Col. 2:8, 18, 19 warn of deception. How can you not be deceived? Begin and end with Jesus Christ.

In Matt. 9:27-30 Jesus healed the blind men because they cried out to Him in faith, and Jesus said that it would be done to them according to their faith. In Mark 9:14-27 a man brought his son to Jesus after His disciples couldn’t heal him, and Jesus told the father that if he could believe, all things are possible. The father told Him he could believe, but asked Jesus to help his unbelief. He delivered the child of a deaf and dumb spirit, and when asked why the disciples couldn’t cast it out, Jesus said, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.” Was He talking about this kind of demon? No, He was talking about that kind of unbelief. In Mark 10:46-52 when blind Bartimaeus was healed by Jesus, he had to leave behind his beggar’s clothes. Be specific when you ask God for something, and don’t quit believing for your miracle. Get your faith from the Word. (Find out the difference between unbelief and doubt.)

Pastor Dale teaches on how you can be victorious in resisting the devil. James 4:7 and 8 lets you know that if the devil is not fleeing from you, then you aren’t resisting him and submitting to God. HAVE AN ATTITUDE OF HATE TOWARD THE DEVIL. Matt. 6:24 informs you that you can’t love God and love the devil and his works. In Is. 1:19 you learn that you need to be willing and obedient to eat the good of the land. Get ANGRY at the devil and sin, sickness, lack, lying, overeating… Jesus taught that the people, not just the Pharisees and scribes, have authority in Mark 1:22-27. SHUT UP THE DEVIL! TURN AWAY FROM EVIL! USE YOUR AUTHORITY! Replace a negative thought with a higher thought. Jesus gives you the victory (I Cor. 15:57) and leads you in triumph (II Cor. 2:14). You get into God, and you’ll repel evil. HATE EVIL.