Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
Window Of Opportunity
Could the recent election be a divine "Window of Opportunity" for national revival? We explore this intriguing idea and discuss how righteous leadership—rooted in biblical principles of faith and authority—can turn hope into reality. Join us as we unravel the concept of authority from its Greek origins to its implications for today's society, examining the transformative role Christians can play in reclaiming their God-given power to bring about positive change.
Get right into the message tonight. So it's been one week since the election and how many happy about the results of the election? Go ahead and shout about it. President-elect Donald Trump is already hard at work. He's established his cabinet members. You've seen the news rolling out on this about his various appointments and him and his team talking about how they're gonna get rid of what's broken and corrupt and they're ready to repair and rebuild from the damage that's been done over the last decade or more. But now we're coming into a time where this nation is ripe for revival. We're on the edge of something and we need revival, but it's ripe and ready for revival. We're on the edge of something and we need revival, but it's ripe and ready for revival. And I know Trump has said you know, during his term, you're going to get so tired of winning. And I'm not tired of winning, I'm glad to be on the winning side.
Speaker 1:But let me just point out that the result of this election, what we have, was not because and I know we had a lot of people doing a lot of hard work. It was an enormous effort and lift, people, prayed, people worked, people did all kinds of things. They poured everything into this because people wanted to save this nation. We wanted another chance at this nation. This nation was in desperate trouble and we needed another opportunity. Well, we got another opportunity. It was God's mercy he granted this nation and because of that opportunity, because of that mercy that God gave us, we have a window of opportunity where the timeline was closing and we could have lost this nation. God gave us some more time, and so I want to focus on that tonight. The window of opportunity. That's the title of tonight's message, and you know, one of the mandates of this ministry is God spoke to pastor and said teach what you take for granted. And so that's what I'm going to run on tonight. I'm going to teach on a little something that maybe I've taken for granted about this window of opportunity, but I'm going to be talking about authority tonight. In that context, proverbs 29.2.
Speaker 1:And so this is something that we've quoted here recently at church and I've often quoted here during this election. It says when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, and when the wicked man rules, the people groan. And we have certainly seen a lot of groaning over the last several years, and me personally, I'm sick and tired of groaning and I'm ready to rejoice, and so let's rejoice. But it's going to require and I'm ready to rejoice, and so let's rejoice, but it's going to require that the righteous be in authority. And so you know who are the righteous. Well, we are righteous. We, being the born again believers are righteous. And that may give you know.
Speaker 1:I've put this out in different places and had conversations with people, and some religious people are just real uncomfortable with the concept of us being righteous and saying so. And so if you want to make a religious person feel uncomfortable, say I am righteous, in fact I am the righteousness of God, and they'll quickly become uncomfortable. But I want to help you with the context and I want to help you with the understanding what goes into the meanings of some of these words, so that you'll be better equipped to help other people around. You know what the word says and rightly divide the word of truth. And so in 2 Corinthians 5.21, it says for he made him, so God made Jesus, made Christ, who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. And so there is a might there that we might become the righteousness of God in him. The might's on our side, that is true, but the might is taken care of. When you say yes to Jesus, when you receive salvation, when you receive what he's done. He has taken the sin of the world in one move. He took my sin, he took your sin, he took all of our sin so that we might say yes to him, and when we do, we become the righteousness of God in him. Romans 10.10 says for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. But it takes us to believe that what he's done really worked and that what he said is really true. And so we've got to get our believer connected with our speaker and we've got to believe and confess so that we can have what Jesus said we can have. With the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Speaker 1:But whenever I've made this comment, you know, when I've quoted Proverbs 29, 2, when the righteous are in authority, people will take that to mean, you know to think that I'm talking about Donald Trump. When Donald Trump the righteous is in authority and they'll say, well, donald Trump isn't righteous. Well, that's a call God's going to have to make. I believe he's a relatively new believer. I believe that he is born again and the fruit of his righteousness is increasing. But with any new believer there's stuff to learn and behaviors to change, and so don't confuse righteousness with perfection. There's not one of us that is perfect, but when God looks at us, he sees the blood of Jesus and he sees righteousness.
Speaker 1:But one of the responses that I get back comes from Romans 3, verse 11. It says there is none righteous no, not one. Well, there it is written in scripture Romans, chapter three there is none righteous, no, not one. Well, that's coming from a religious person refuting their righteous position in Christ. But this is an example of the word of God not rightly divided. So Romans, chapter three, verse 11, there is none righteous no, not one. There is no one who understands. There is none who seeks after God. All have turned aside. They have altogether become unprofitable.
Speaker 1:This is quoting a scripture out of Psalms. It comes out of the Old Testament and so you have to understand when we're reading scripture here, to understand what side of the covenant we're on. Are you part of the new covenant or are you left under the law of the old covenant? Are you stuck in the Old Testament or are we reading with New Testament eyes and revelation? And so this was quoting a condition of the lost and undone sinner without Jesus, and there is none of those who are righteous no, not one. But as soon as you receive what Jesus did, you then become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And so, to understand Proverbs 29, two, when the righteous, who are we talking about? Well, the Old Testament when it's talking about righteous. We'll get into that meaning here in a little bit. So there's an Old Testament word, a Hebrew word, and then we're going to look at the Greek word of these things and we're going to apply it to these scriptures.
Speaker 1:How does one become righteous? In the Old Testament? Well, there are examples of this. Romans 4.3, so just a couple pages over. It says For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And so the simple act of believing God, or having faith in God, or having faith that what God says is true, and then acting on it, that was counted unto Abraham as righteousness, and so it wasn't a work that you could earn righteousness. But faith pleases God, both in the Old and the New Testament, and it was counted to him. According to Romans 4, verse 3,. It was counted unto him for righteousness.
Speaker 1:You can go to the Hall of Fame of Faith and see other examples of this In Hebrews 11,. By faith, abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. He was righteous because he believed God and he obeyed God. He had faith in God, and so all through the Hall of Fame of Faith. Those are examples of those that you know. They obtained righteousness through faith in God. But in our case, god made Christ to bear our sins and was thus considered a sinner, so that we believers are considered righteous. So God evaluates and sees you based on the perfection of Jesus Christ, not the perfection of this flesh, not the perfection of our actions. There is none of us that are perfect and yet have attained perfection. But we are being perfected in our faith, in our walk. But that doesn't take away. We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, so don't let anyone tell you anything different. So, now that you understand, you are righteous, and so I want you to plug yourself in here.
Speaker 1:Proverbs 29 to when you, when me, when anyone who is under the blood of Jesus is righteous, when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. Well, the Old Testament had a Hebrew word there for righteous and it was really referring to the just and the lawful. And so when the just and lawful are in authority, the people rejoice. And so it wasn't quite the same meaning there in the Old Testament and so it wasn't quite the same meaning there in the Old Testament. Let me just say this right here In a lot of conversations with Christians, when they can't comprehend something they have no understanding of the circumstances around them, when things are happening outside of their understanding, they just throw up their hands and they say, well, god is in control.
Speaker 1:And at some point in their Christian walk they're going to express this God is in control. That phrase, god is in control, is a cop-out. It's a phrase that it's expressed when there's zero understanding of God's role and man's role, and they're not the same role. It's a way to blame God for the outcome of something when we didn't get what we wanted and without acknowledging that our action or inaction actually caused or yielded this result. On our side, I have done everything. I have done everything. It's really an arrogant way to put things, because I've done everything I can do. I have completed everything to perfection. It didn't come out the way I wanted it to, but God is in control, but God is in control. God is in control, and so he must have some higher reason why, even though I did everything just right why it came out this way, and so don't let yourself ever use that phrase that way.
Speaker 1:God is in control, he is sovereign. God is absolutely sovereign, but he is not in control. I'll say it again God is not in control. He, by choice, has yielded control to man. God does things in his sovereignty, but he will not violate his word. And so God works in concert with man. He accomplishes things on this earth. He fulfills his will with people here on earth, both born again and saved and righteous people and unrighteous and evil people. God accomplishes his will, but he does it through people, but he is not in control.
Speaker 1:And so, getting back to authority, when the righteous in the Old Testament, just and lawful, are in authority, when we apply a New Testament, understanding there, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus are in authority, the people rejoice. So let's look at authority Old Testament Hebrew word rabba means to increase, it means abundance, enlarge, excel, and so it's a picture of a people group being growing and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. They're excelling, they're enlarging, they're increasing, they have an abundance. And so with that comes the ability to influence and control. And so that's the Old Testament understanding. There, when the righteous, the lawful and just are in a position where they're increasing, they're in abundance, they're excelling, they have maximum influence and control on things around them. So that's the Old Testament understanding, the New Testament authority.
Speaker 1:Throughout the New Testament the Greek word exousia is used for authority. That means force, capacity, means freedom. It also means a mastery, it's a delegated influence or a jurisdiction. So that's the New Testament a force, capacity, freedom, mastery, delegated influence or jurisdiction. So let's go back to the very beginning in Genesis 1.27.
Speaker 1:So God created man in his own image, in the image of God. He created him male and female. He created them. Then God blessed them and he said to them be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, have dominion over. And then it lists all the creatures that we have dominion over. And so we're charged by God from the very beginning to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth, to subdue and have dominion over it. So from day one, as soon as man was created, he created male and female. He created them. We're created in God's image.
Speaker 1:And what did God do? He delegated authority. He said here's creation. Now I want you to fill it, I want you to subdue it, which means to take it by force, to tread down, to conquer, to bring it under bondage or into subjection. So there were some things that were out of control in creation and he required Adam and Eve to bring it under subjection, that's to subdue. And then he said have dominion over it. That's the Hebrew word, which means to prevail against, to reign and to rule.
Speaker 1:So from the very beginning, god created all of creation. Then he created man and woman in his image and delegated his authority to take it over and rule and reign over it, to have authority over it. So God assigned his authority to man. That's why I can say God is not in control. Why? Because man is in control. From the very beginning man has been in control. Now man sinned and fell short and let the devil come in, and it's been an entire mess ever since. But we know that when Jesus came, he came and won it all back. He brought man back to a restored position, back to its original intent, back to a relationship with God, back to his God-given authority. God has delegated his authority through his son Jesus, to us, and we know this by the Great Commission Matthew 28, 18 and 19. And Jesus spoke to them saying he starts off by saying all authority, all delegated influence, all jurisdiction has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and he gives us an assignment make disciples of all nations, baptizing in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so we, once again, through Jesus, have a condition of righteousness and we have the delegated authority that came from God, and so we were created to operate with that authority.
Speaker 1:Now here's a favorite scripture of pastors. Be careful when you quote this around, pastor. 2 Chronicles 7.14. I know a pastor gets frustrated when religious people quote this scripture as a remedy for the condition of our nation today. But I'm going to read this scripture 2 Chronicles 7.14. Now we're going to talk about this with the Old Testament application and the New Testament understanding. 2 Chronicles 7.14,.
Speaker 1:If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear them from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. And you know, this isn't this is a a uh, something that's written in the old Testament. It's God talking to his people. It's a condition here If my people who were, who were God's people, god's people were the Israelites In fact they were. Uh, you know, jacob had a name and he said you're not gonna be called by that name anymore, you're gonna be called Israel, and so it's God's people. God gave him a name the Israelites. That's God's people.
Speaker 1:If my people who are called by my name will, number one, humble themselves, that means they had to bring themselves back into a condition where they didn't know better than God and that they would pray and seek God and turn, then God would hear, forgive and heal. He would hear their prayers, he would forgive them and he would heal their land. So to humble, pray and seek, those are all good things and those are things that Christians ought to do today. We ought to stay humble, humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. We ought to pray. If you seek, you will find. If you knock, it'll be open. So there's nothing wrong with those things and they are applicable under our new covenant and finally to turn. Well, we should always turn away from evil and repent when we've done wrong. And so if I take that scripture and then plug in our our new covenant revelation, knowledge of who we are in Christ, our position in Christ and how this might apply to us and how it might apply to our nation, what then should God's people who are now called by his name we'll call them Christians because we're named with the, the title of Christ. We are Christians, we are Christ-like. If my people, christians who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek him and turn from their wicked ways, then God will hear, forgive and heal. I'll get to what God will do. I'll get to that in just a minute.
Speaker 1:But what, if anything, should the church who are called by his name turn away from? What should we repent from? Well, you know, as a nation, we're a Christian nation and we're founded on principles that come out of God's word. This was a gift. God gave us the opportunity to have this nation, but we neglected to operate in the God-given authority that we had, and so somewhere along the way we became complacent. The fight we kind of lost the fight out of us. We just wanted to live an easy life and raise our family and ignore the trouble. And just you know, if those people over there want to do wrong, we'll let them. And little by little we lost ground. We lost ground with our kids, we lost ground in our culture, and our culture declined and rotted with the absence of God. God was a big part of the culture at the founding of this nation. And now you look, you know, you look around and you see the absence of God, and the absence of God is evil, and so there is so much evil in our culture now. So what should the church repent from? We should repent from not operating in our God-given authority. Had we continued to operate in that level of authority, we wouldn't be in the trouble that we're in today as a nation.
Speaker 1:Matthew 16, chapter 16, verse 18 and 19,. Jesus is talking to Peter and he says on this rock I will build my church. And it was the rock of revelation, knowledge. Peter had just made a declaration that you are the Christ, the son of the living God. That was a declaration, that was revelation. Jesus said flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but my father, who is in heaven, and on that rock, on the rock of the declaration that you just said, I will build my church. I will build my church.
Speaker 1:The Greek word for church is ekklesia. It's not a word that Jesus used by accident. Ekklesia was the political assembly of the day. They were the group of people that would meet in the gates, in the town square. They would set policy for that city, for that country. They would make decisions. They had the power to declare peace and to wage war. And so that's what a political assembly was. It was a legislative body. It was called ecclesia. And so Jesus said I'm going to build something that never before existed. There wasn't a church before this moment.
Speaker 1:He says I'm going to build this new thing and it's going to have legislative authority, it's going to have influential capability, it's going to be able to declare peace and wage war and make policy decisions for that area. And so that's what the church is. It's the ecclesia. And then he says and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Jesus is building something that the gates of hell will not prevail against.
Speaker 1:And then he said I'll give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, whatsoever you bind on earth in the earthly and physical and natural realm will be bound in the spiritual realm, and whatsoever things you loose on earth in the earthly, natural, physical realm will be loosed or allowed in the spiritual realm. And so it's an allowing and a disallowing. Whatsoever things you allow down here will also be allowed up here. So there are spiritual things that are working, spiritual entities that are working that coincide with natural actions down here, and so whatsoever things you allow will be allowed, whatsoever things you disallow will be disallowed. That's a great picture right there of the authority that Jesus is giving to his church, his ecclesia, his legislative assembly, and we're expected to operate in that authority. And now I'm not just talking about within our country, our nation, at a national level. We're expected to operate in this authority on a daily basis in our own lives, in our own home, in our own places of work. Whatever pertains to our kids, to our family, we're expected to allow and disallow.
Speaker 1:And when parents stop being parents and started free-ranging their kids and letting their kids make decisions for themselves and decide what sex they wanted to be and what drugs they wanted to use and what brand of alcohol they want to drink and what brand of cigarette they want to smoke. When parents stop being parents and allow these things in the natural, well, there is a demonic power that's being allowed to operate in your kids' lives. When parents don't operate with parental, god-given authority, demonic powers will, and so there's an allowing and a disallowing. We've gotten things so backwards, so messed up as a culture, and so what's the remedy for that? To repent, to turn around and to go the opposite direction, to repent from not utilizing that authority. And so we've got to utilize that authority in our own personal lives.
Speaker 1:Whatever things you allow. If you allow sickness to remain in your body uncontended, uncontested, well, goodness, there's going to be a greater demonic force that comes along with that. We can't allow this stuff. We've got to disallow those things. When the devil comes and presents you with a gift, you better say no, thank you. Get behind me, satan, and start quoting the scripture to him. And Claire reminded me that we've got a couple of great testimonies in our own church here that are testimonies in the making. It's already a testimony, it's already a testament to those who are fighting the good fight of faith.
Speaker 1:When they had such terrible reports about physical conditions in their own bodies. They resisted that. You know the temptation is to say oh my gosh, I'm dying. The doctor tells you you're dying, you repeat that. Oh, I'm sick. The doctor tells you you're sick, you repeat that and you accept that. But if you speak God's word and you declare those things, you take authority in those things. You are disallowing things in the natural. You're also disallowing things in the spiritual realm and you're going to win that war because we have a God-given authority.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, the nation gets into trouble. We get into trouble in our own personal lives when we allow things to rule and reign in our lives. That ought not be so. This nation got into trouble when Christians became complacent and allowed the wicked to increase to operate in places of authority. So it's you know the Proverbs 29 too when the righteous are in authority. That's not just an elected position at the top I'm not talking about. You know, trump is the answer to all of our problems in our nation. That's not so you can put somebody in an office and they can be set up to fail. They have a measure of our authority because we delegated it to them.
Speaker 1:In this nation, we delegate, through an election, people who serve us in a position with an office title. We delegate our authority for Donald Trump to serve in the presidential office, for JD Vance to serve in the vice presidential office, for Greg Abbott to serve in the governor's office. Our state representatives, our senators, they serve in an office and they are ministers of God for the purpose of righteousness and they don't operate with any authority that they didn't get from us, we the people, and we, the people, we the Christian people, received our authority from God and so, yes, when the righteous are in authority, it really the condition of our government is a reflection of the people who are operating it, the citizenry who are operating it. If you end up with a righteous, lawful government, it's because the people promoted righteousness and lawfulness and we delegated our authority that way. If we don't care, if we allow demonic powers to operate, if we allow chaos to run rampant, if we allow the devil to move in our life and our families and our kids and our homes and our schools, then we're going to end up with a government that's reflective of that culture, and I'm so grateful that our culture, we're going to end up with a government that's reflective of that culture and I'm so grateful that our culture now has begun to rise up, the church has begun to rise up and the government that's being installed is more of a reflection of the wishes of the majority of the people of this nation that want godliness, that want righteousness, that want a lawful society, and so we see that being reflected. Want righteousness, that want a lawful society, and so we see that being reflected.
Speaker 1:But getting back to 2 Chronicles, 7, 14, the second part of that, the God side, what he will do. If we do this, if my people who are called by my name will humble, pray, seek and turn, then God will hear, forgive and heal. The Old Testament, you know, God operated in concert with man, but he did things for man because man was at a position to be an authority and so God was operating at that level. He would do things for them. If you do this, I'm going to do this. But when Jesus bought our righteousness, made us righteous, brought us back in good standing, brought us into communion with God and gave us his delegated authority, he gave us the gospel of Christ, which was the power of God unto salvation. We operate with the dunamis power of God and the delegated authority.
Speaker 1:God is not doing things for us. He does not work for us like that. We can't demand that God do anything for us here on earth. What's really happening here is God is expecting us to operate with what he's given us and our position that we've been reestablished in. We're expected to operate that and to heal our own land. The remedy for a land that's sick is to bring godliness and righteousness back in there and to bring lawfulness back in there, and that's what this nation has begun to do.
Speaker 1:I'm so grateful for the window of opportunity that God has given us. We came that close to losing a nation that close, but God in his mercy, has given us a window of opportunity. That means we have a little bit more time to change this culture, not to change the government. The government will be a reflection of the culture and what the culture wants, and so we have got to put the righteous back in authority. At our level, that's the greatest level of authority. We, the people, godly people, christians, born-again believers operating with the authority that God has given us, will then yield a government that operates in a more righteous way. And so when the righteous are in authority, when we start operating with that God-given authority in our lives, in our homes, with our families, in our places of work, this nation will begin to heal, and so God's expecting that of us right now. So when people pray and expect God to do something to heal our land, it's not going to happen, and that's why your pastor gets so frustrated because people don't understand, they don't have the revelation to know their position in Christ and they're still expecting God to do something.
Speaker 1:Jesus, take the wheel and they pull the steering wheel off their car and throw the wheel up in the air. What's the result? A car wreck, because God's expecting them to steer the car. He is not going to take your steering wheel and steer your car for you. You're in control. God is not in control of your car. You are in control of your car and you have the ability to steer right, to steer left, to accelerate, to brake, to put it into reverse. You are in control and God has given us that control and expects us to operate with that control.
Speaker 1:Proverbs 8.13,. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil Pride and arrogance and every evil way and the perverse mouth I hate, and so we want to help people around us. We have an opportunity to bring the fear of the Lord back into our homes, back into our places of work black, back into, uh, our circles of influence, with our friends, um, people that we interface with. We need to bring the fear of god back, to care more about what god thinks about what's going on than what people think. The fear of the lord. If you fear the lord, you hate evil, and we'll. We're not going to be afraid to call evil evil. We're not going to be afraid to call evil evil. We're not going to be afraid to declare the pride parades, the pride and the arrogance. We're not going to be afraid to call it an evil way, because God does.
Speaker 1:In Ephesians 5, verse 8, it says for you were once in darkness, so this is pre-salvation. You were once in darkness. You were once in darkness, so this is pre-salvation. You were once in darkness, but now you are children of light. You are the light of the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
Speaker 1:And so it's not enough to just say I'm not going to associate with that, because that's evil. That's perverse. That's dark. I'm not in darkness. I'm not going to associate with darkness anymore. That's good. We ought not associate with darkness, but don't be afraid to call darkness darkness. Don't be afraid to call evil evil In fact. Darkness, darkness. Don't be afraid to call evil evil In fact.
Speaker 1:When you see it, we're charged according to this verse. We are charged to expose evil, to expose darkness, to expose the evil plans. Now is not the time to relax. We came so close to losing it, but God's mercy gave us a window of opportunity. That means we have a short time to expose evil, to expose darkness. We don't quit while you're ahead. Don't relax. Just because we had a win, it's not a win. It's not the end game. It's not the end, the be-all of everything that we've been fighting for.
Speaker 1:Our ultimate goal was not to put Donald Trump in office and to take back the House and the Senate. Those are tools for righteousness and you know, I pray that they get used for righteousness. That way they're ministers for God's righteousness in those offices. But we have such a culture problem across this land and now we have an opportunity to save these people, to snatch them out of that. Don't let your kids fall prey to this stuff. Love your kids enough to tell them the truth. They don't get to make life decisions for themselves. You're the parent. You have an authority. Operate with that, rule your house well. Don't let sickness come in your body and stay. Resist that stuff. You're the righteousness in Christ and it says when the righteous are in authority, you're the righteousness in Christ and it says when the righteous are in authority, you're the one in authority. The people rejoice when you're operating in your God-given authority, then there's a rejoicing, and so let's continue the rejoicing. We had a big win, but we've got more wins to have. We've got a culture to save.
Speaker 1:The time for revival is now. It is ripe with harvest and we need to continue this so that it turns into a nationwide revival. You know, revival is the inrush of the Holy Spirit into a body that threatens to become a corpse, and we had a body that was threatening to become a corpse. But we have a window of opportunity, a little bit more time, and so let's get busy increasing and enlarging our influence for righteousness. Everywhere we go, we are witnesses for him with evidence. We are a light that shines in darkness. Our life ought to reflect these things, and so I hope that's an encouragement for you tonight. Let's take advantage of this window of opportunity. We don't have long. He's coming back for a church soon, and let's get caught. Whatever happens, let's.