Join us for online services with Priscilla Shirer and our Hillsong East Coast Team. We’re excited to offer church exclusively online live at 10AM every Sunday available for streaming On Demand. Chat with us live and watch together as a family.
welcome to hillsong east coast church
online
if you’re joining us for the 10 a.m
service welcome we’re glad to have you
we’d love to see you in the chat tell us
how you’re doing let us know where
you’re watching from
service will be made available to watch
on demand so you can send this link to
your family and friends
so they can join you this month at
hillsong
we are celebrating hispanic heritage
month national hispanic heritage month
traditionally honors the culture and
contributions of both hispanic
and latino americans as we celebrate
heritage rooted
in all latin american spanish-speaking
countries today
my friend karen has joined us and is
going to pray for us in spanish and
karen you’re from panama right
iglesia vamos juntos
necessity
amen let’s worship church
there’s a grace when the heart is under
fire
another way when the walls are closing
in
and when i look at the space between
where i used to be
and this reckoning
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there was another in the waters
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died for me there is another
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[Applause]
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there is
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holy mackerel
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oh
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oh
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is
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is
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foreign
there is no other name but the name that
is
all the things
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is
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me
i know
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[Applause]
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me
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cause i know
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[Applause]
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cause
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i need you more than anything
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you make of me
so help me
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is
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i need you more than words can’t say
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let your thoughts
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until be father’s will is done
in me
so help me god
breathe on my weakness
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is
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[Applause]
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is
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my
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oh
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[Applause]
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is
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is
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spirit lead me where my trust is without
boys
let me walk upon the waters
wherever you would call me
my faith will be made stronger
in the presence of my savior
cause we really be one of my trust is
without borders
let me walk upon
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wherever
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my
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[Applause]
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and keep
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i am
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mine
thank you team i hope that you enjoyed
that incredible time of worship and i
have the privilege of introducing right
now who is going to be
preaching to us and i am excited she is
a phenomenal
wife mother preacher author and i am
talking about the one and only
priscilla shire and she is family not
just here on hillsong
east coast but really hillsong all over
the world and every time priscilla steps
onto a stage or onto a screen
you are going to be blessed by it and
she just has a phenomenal gift of
teaching the word inspiring people and i
believe that today is going to be no
different so get out a notebook
sit down focus in this is about to be an
incredible time we are praying that god
is about to speak to every single person
right now enjoy this word hey there
hillsong new york family
i’m thrilled to be able to have an
opportunity to be back with you you know
the only thing i regret is that i’m not
back with you like for real that we’re
not all together
but man so much has gone on in the last
year and yet look here we still
are god is still good he’s still
faithful we’re still being fed by the
church
whether it’s online or however it comes
to us it’s just a testament to the power
of god that it is not contained
to brick and mortar that we can still be
ministered to and so the fact that
i’ve been invited to participate with
that today in your life feels like a
gift to me
we love jerry and i my family we love
you all so much
so to carl and laura and the whole team
listen i want you to know that we’re
grateful that you’ve included us in your
ministry
and i want you to know that i’m praying
for you your whole church um y’all are
right in the middle of
a real hot spot when it comes to
everything that is happening in our
culture
and i want you to know that we’ve been
very mindful of you thinking about you
and asking god to give you clarity to
give you protection
and to give you provision in ways that
man you’re going to look back on
and recognize the fingerprints of god
and what a beautiful testimony he’s
giving you
during this time so again i’m praying
that what i have to share today as
simple as it is
will be an encouragement to you that
it’ll be exactly what god
wanted to say to you today to give you
the the encouragement that you need to
buoy you up you know
so that for what’s coming in the next
week or two or
several months or what you’ve even been
through
it gives it some frame of reference some
perspective
that there’ll be hope attached to it um
as a result of what he wants to share
with us
and i’m praying listen i want you know
i’ve been praying for you that the soil
of your heart has been tended to receive
the seed of god’s word today this is the
thing we don’t know
while we’re going through certain stuff
in life the crisis that we faced
the surprise diagnosis or phone call
that you got
the betrayal that you experienced the
hard time you’ve had in relationship
dynamics
as they’ve all changed so much for us
and our families and our friendships
sometimes we don’t even recognize that
god is using those
to make our hearts softened that without
those dynamics our heart would be
hardened
and wouldn’t be tender enough to
actually have this seed of his word
planted deeply and firmly so that’s what
i’ve been asking
been asking god to soften the soil of
our heart so that we can hear him
and i mean really hear him so that our
lives are transformed
so let’s pray together and see what it
is that god wants to say to us
lord i thank you i thank you that your
word is living
active sharper than any two-edged sword
lord i pray that in these next few
moments you would do what you do
take these simple thoughts drill them
deeply down into our souls
make us different after we hear your
voice today in jesus name i pray
amen amen my niece’s name
is karis we’ve called her care bear
since the day that she was born
you know she’s a grown woman with
children now and i still call her care
bear uh but karis when she was little
i remember on this one occasion she was
at my parents house so her grandparents
house we were all there hanging out
and she was running around in the
backyard and this stray dog came
out of nowhere the dog was barking
and in her mind this dog was incredibly
vicious
and was getting ready to attack her we
were a little bit older so we could see
that the dog really wasn’t that big
and the dog really wasn’t going to do
any damage he was probably just hyper
and active and excited to see some
humans in the backyard that day
but takerus at three years old really
small
that dog looked vicious and so she was
running away from this dog in terror
now you know the more you run the more
the dog thinks you want to play
so the dog is chasing her and chasing
her more frantically and more feverishly
and barking more loudly and the more all
of that escalated
the more fear was wreaked in karis’s
heart
so she ran she ran and my dad her
grandfather
saw the chaos outside walked outside
onto the back patio
opened up his arms so that karis would
be able to run directly into his arms
so she ran as fast as she could ran
directly into his arms
and he scooped her up and once he
scooped her up
she was now high above the ground level
where the dog was
she looked down at the dog looked back
into the face of her grandfather
looked back down at the dog looked back
up into the face of her grandfather
over and over again tears streaming down
her face
finally she was able to compose herself
and wipe them away as the dog continued
to bark
and she looked down at the dog finally
and said nae
now everything changed because she was
in her father’s arms
and she was looking into her
grandfather’s
face everything changes based on what
you are
looking at that’s the challenge i have
for you today
what are you looking at because listen
there’s so much to see
when you scroll past your twitter feed
when you scroll through your instagram
feed when you watch the news whatever
channel you
tend to watch no matter where you are
your vision is centered you’re gonna see
and look at things that are vying for
our attention
and some of those things when we give
them our attention they cause
discouragement to settle in on us i mean
you can literally
feel it the anxiety like a cloak
weighing you down
burdening you keeping you up at night
making the tears fall from your eyes
if you look at your problems too long in
your personal life
or the struggles that we’re facing
collectively in our culture
and in our world if you look at them too
long they’re gonna make the tears flow
from your eyes they’re gonna make your
heart
palpitate they’re gonna keep you from
being able to have a sense of stability
emotionally and mentally in your life so
i
ask you again what are you looking at
what are you giving your attention to
doesn’t mean avoidance
doesn’t mean denial it doesn’t mean
awareness of the realities that you were
facing
in your relationships or in dynamics
that we’re facing
culturally it doesn’t mean you’re not
aware it just means that you give
not just the same amount of attention
but you give an
escalated prioritized amount of
attention
that you are looking at who your god is
the promises that he has declared and
his truth as he has written it down in
his word
i’m asking you where have you been
looking
what have you been giving your attention
to maybe so much of the struggles that
we’ve had
to have a sense of peace and stability
and ease is because we’ve been
fixing our eyes on the wrong thing
the writer of hebrews would put it this
way fix your eyes on jesus
he’s the author he’s the finisher of our
faith meaning
he is still sovereign he is still in
control he’s still seated on the throne
he still is who he said he is and he can
still do everything that he says
that he can do nothing that is happening
in your personal life or mine
in our culture or yours nothing that is
happening is outside of the control of
our great god
but you might forget that if you keep
looking at the chaos swirling around you
you’ve got to be intentional so do i
about meditating on the truths of god
about looking into them and finding out
what are his promises that he declares
to be true
about my family about my health about my
son
about my daughter about my church about
my country
about my culture that i live in what has
he declared to be true
i’m gonna meditate on this more
than i meditate on everything else where
have you been fixing your eyes
there is a story in scripture that i’m
continually drawn back to i have been
for years
in fact in second chronicles chapter 20
if you still use a bible you know a
bible with actual paper pages
and you want to turn back there with me
you can otherwise your iphone your
ipad any manner of ines that you have
available to you you can get to second
chronicles it’s in the old testament
there’s a first chronicles but also a
second chronicles
and in second chronicles chapter 20
there is a verse that leaps out at me
every time i see it
part of the reason it leaps out at me is
because i’ve underlined it and i
underlined it back
in 2010 okay so i have several things
that i’ve underlined throughout
this bible that my parents gave me when
i was about 17 years old
different color highlights different
color underlines and
i i just value this bible so much
because it’s actually like a little bit
of a track record
of my relationship with god back in 2010
for reasons i don’t know
i underlined this verse i can’t remember
what was happening
but i put the the date right beside it
it was december
of 2010 about 10 years from where we are
right now 10 years ago and i underlined
this verse
it’s a verse that still speaks to me as
poignantly today
as it did back then and listen if you
underline stuff or highlight stuff on
your electronic bible or your paper
bible
this is a verse that deserves to be
emphasized
second chronicles chapter 20 verse 12.
king jehoshaphat prays and says
we are powerless god before this
great multitude who are coming against
us
we don’t know what to do but
our eyes are on you
i’ma read it again jehoshaphat prays
he’s honest
and he says because of this great
multitude we are
powerless and we don’t know what to do
but lord this is one thing we do know we
do know where we’re setting our
eyes our eyes are on
you jehoshaphat was the king of judah
and he was a good king he was known for
revering god he was known for
leading people into relationship with
god he was known for acting resolutely
and trying to get everyone under his
jurisdiction to honor yahweh
as the one true god in fact what’s so
interesting
is that that is actually what comes
right before this segment of scripture
in chapter 20
where we’re going to find out what made
jehoshaphat have to pray like that
what made this king who had so much
power at his disposal
who had tactical teams at his disposal
who had weapons and
armor at his disposal what is it that
would make a king
that great call out to god and say i am
powerless
and not only am i powerless i’m plan
less
this multitude this army this trouble
that i’m facing
is so chaotic and so overwhelming and so
disparaging that i know i am powerless
in the face of this multitude what would
make a king
pray like that right before chapter 20
where all of that unfolds the last line
of the previous chapter
the verse that came right before that
tells us that jehoshaphat
acted resolutely and he was upright
now listen i think that’s interesting
that the verse that
comes right before all of this chaos
unfolds in chapter 20 is a verse telling
us
that this king has made a decision to
act resolutely and to honor god
now if this don’t tell us about the
schemes of the enemy i don’t know what
does
because i can tell you right now as soon
as you make the decision to honor god in
some area of your life
as soon as you decide that you’re going
to be resolute in your
integrity that you’re going to honor god
in the tithes and offering
that you’re going to offer the
forgiveness that the spirit of god is
telling you
to offer that you’re going to lead your
family in the ways of the lord that
you’re going to honor your commitment
to be in the word of god on a daily
basis as soon as you
like the king of judah determined to act
resolutely you can know
that chapter 20 is on the way and in
chapter 20
there is a multitude that is going to
come against you
a scheme of the enemy to try to water
down the resolution that you were making
and in this day and age you need to know
that the enemy is scheming against you
and against me particularly right now as
the people of god
because more now than ever our light
needs to shine
now more than ever we need to be salt so
that people can
taste and see that our god is good he’s
going to try to water down our
resolutions
so jehoshaphat makes this resolution and
the very next
chapter chapter 20 he finds such a great
multitude coming against him
that he admits i feel like i’m powerless
i feel like i don’t even have a plan to
be able to handle
this army this multitude that has come
up against me but this
i do know my eyes lord are going to be
on you so follow me back up to the first
verse of chapter 20 and you’ll see what
was happening in jehoshaphat’s
experience
it says now after this after what
jehoshaphat’s resolution to honor god
right after that resolution it says that
the sons of moabite
and ammon together with the men unites
came to make war against jehoshaphat now
let’s just let that sit right there for
a moment
we’ve got not one army not two armies
but three armies that have chosen to
come up against
jehoshaphat the moabites the ammonites
and the minionites now what you should
know is that two of those armies
judah had faced before two of them
weren’t new
the moabites and the ammonites were two
people groups
that judah had faced previously you can
find record of it throughout the old
testament
those two particular enemies that had
come up against
judah they had made war against them
before in other words
judah knew about the strategies of those
two particular enemies
they had faced them before they had
probably studied their tactical
plans they were aware about these two
enemies
and so had it just been these two armies
that had come up
against the king of judah i wonder if
verse 12
would have ever been uttered i wondered
if jehoshaphat would have ever said lord
i don’t have the power
god i don’t have a plan but my eyes were
are on you
i wonder if it was just those two would
jehoshaphat’s prayer
not have been as fervent as specific
i wonder if he had been as intentional
about
focusing on yahweh and having his eyes
secured to yahweh
if his circumstances had not been quite
as dire
because he’d face these two enemies
before just like those enemies
you’ve faced before you know the ones
that honestly if you just pay a little
bit of attention you can see them coming
because they’re nothing new
you know the trouble you had in your
marriage in year two now you’re dealing
with it in year
twenty it ain’t nothing new it’s just an
escalated version of the same
difficulties you were having before
or that child now you know he’s 15 and
the stuff you’re dealing with
at 15 really when you think about it
it’s the same stuff you were dealing
with when they were three
it’s just an escalated version of the
exact same issues
or the anxiety that you face this is not
a new anxiety
it may be attached to a new scenario but
honestly if you look back
you can see that this is the same kind
of anxiety that overtakes you
about these kinds of issues and you’ve
been dealing with this for the last
decade or so
if we are careful and if we are watchful
and if we are mindful we can actually
see that the enemy ain’t that creative
the enemy
has always come to steal to kill
and destroy and if we’ll just take a
moment we’ll be able to detect where his
fingerprints are
where he tries to stop us or discourage
us or to cause us to think
that we are defeated even though he
knows he can never defeat us if we are
sons
and daughters of the most high god have
you paid attention
about the enemies the issues the
dilemmas
the schemes the tactics that the enemy
has been trying to use against you
because if you and i will look carefully
we’ll see
that he’s been trying to trip our child
up in that way for a long time
he’s been trying to trip our marriage up
in that same way
in different varied forms but that same
general direction for a long time
he’s been trying to discourage us in our
ministry or in our careers or on our
jobs
culturally and collectively he’s been
trying to trip us up in that same way
for a long time these
ain’t new enemies and when you are
facing the same
enemy over and over again that means you
should be
girded you and i should be prepared we
should be
proactive about making sure we can stand
firm against that scheme of the enemy i
was thinking about this in relation to
my son
jc he’s my second son i have three boys
jackson is the oldest
jerry jr is my middle son we call him jc
and then
jude is my youngest they’ve been with me
to hillsong new york many many times
and my second son had an allergic
reaction early on in his life to the
change in seasons and you know
we’re in texas so around the fall and
coming out of winter into the spring
we could have 40 degrees one day and
then you know 78 degrees
degrees the next day it just fluctuates
and goes up and down
and he was having um allergies and
related to that but it seemed to be more
than allergies
it was something with his bronchial
tubes his respiratory system just was
not responding well i took him to the
doctor
and she said yeah his bronchial tubes
are definitely inflamed
but she said i really don’t want to
label him an asthmatic because i think
it’s something that really we can get
under control but she said priscilla
here’s what i need you to do
i’m going to give you a a breathing
system so that he can have
treatments at home he’ll give you a
little a little um antibiotic that
you’ll put inside of this little
breathing system you’ll put it on his
nose and and put it
in the mask and have him breathe through
it so that he can ingest this medication
into his bronchial tubes and she said
priscilla
don’t wait until he’s wheezing to do it
do it proactively meaning if you can see
because the meteorologist is telling you
that the weather is getting ready to
change suddenly we already have enough
years
enough track record with jc’s health to
be able to know
in advance that if the weather’s going
to shift suddenly
he’s going to have a bronchial reaction
to it so priscilla
if you as a responsible parent will be
mindful of the weather changes and will
proactively give him
this um preventative medication
beforehand
it will keep his lungs or his bronchial
tubes from spasming in the way they’ve
been spasming in the past
it would be irresponsible parenting for
me to know
how his bronchial tubes are going to
react and not prepare
proactively think about the ways
that the enemy has been seeking to take
advantage of you in the past
think about the ways he’s tried to make
you feel unstable or he’s tried to
infringe upon the sanctity of your
marriage think about the ways
he’s trying to trip your son or daughter
up because of the weaknesses that they
already have in their flesh or the
tendencies that they may have
think about them and pray to that end
search the scriptures for the promises
of god in regards to that specific issue
post those promises in your home so that
you can have
your whole family alert to what god says
in that regard
paul says ephesians chapter 6
put on the full armor of god so that you
can stand
firm against the schemes of the enemy
what are some things that you were
facing that honestly when you think
about it it’s like these
two enemies that jehoshaphat’s judah was
facing
they’re nothing new we’ve faced these
enemies before
so for jehoshaphat two of these were
common enemies
so the reason why in verse 12
jehoshaphat likely says i’m powerless
and i’m plan less i can’t even come up
with a plan even if i had the power
i wouldn’t have the insight the
knowledge the discernment
the wisdom to be able to figure out a
plan to stand against this multitude
the reason why he says it is because of
this
third army it’s the minionites it’s the
alliance and the merging of all
three of these difficult situations
these
armies these multitudes coming against
them
all at one time that’s what
causes him to say i’m powerless that’s
what causes him to say i can’t even come
up with a plan
the reality is that for many of us
it’s not just the pandemic it’s that the
pandemic was piled on to a time in our
life where we already were dealing with
our own problems
it’s not just the isolation it’s the
isolation
layered on top of the issues we were
already dealing with it’s not just the
virus it’s the virus
piled onto the fact that we felt like we
couldn’t get victory
before any of this started it’s not just
the new army it’s that we were already
dealing with other ones when the third
one showed up
so now we feel like we’re surrounded on
all sides
kind of reminds me of the children of
israel in exodus chapter 13
right after they’ve been freed from
egypt they come up against the red sea
it’s not just the red sea that actually
causes the problem
it’s that pharaoh and the egyptian army
are coming up behind them
and scholars say that there would have
been so many thousands of them that they
would have spanned out around the
west and the east side of the children
of israel as those refugees
tried to escape to the promised land so
it wasn’t just that the red sea was in
front
it’s that pharaoh and his army were
behind and besides so they were
surrounded on all sides i know that you
know how that feels because i know how
it feels
it’s when you’ve got a struggle in this
part of your life and then another one
pops up on this side of your life
and then just when you feel like you’ve
taken care of that one then this one
pops up
and then just when you got a little bit
of a handle on that one then this one
pops up
and then when your personal life is a
little bit settled today then culturally
something strikes up in our country or
in our culture
or in our world or in the life of a
friend
and all of a sudden you’re surrounded
all over again and in the face of all of
that
surrounding calamity and chaos
sometimes we can say exactly like
jehoshaphat did
now i can admit i’m powerless
i do not know what to do but here’s what
we can say
even when we are powerless and even when
we are plan
less we can say i don’t know what to do
but this i do know
my eyes are gonna be fixed on you
fixing your eyes on jesus when you’re
surrounded
is what i believe is one of the benefits
it’s one of the outworkings
of god’s purposes when he allows his
children to be surrounded by difficult
circumstances
i always hesitate to say when god has
caused something i’ve heard folks say
maybe that god
has been the cause of some of the
negative things that we’ve been facing
in our country and in our culture and in
our world i always hesitate to say what
god
is or is not doing but this i do know
everything that happens in your life in
mine in my country
in yours in my culture and in yours
everything that happens has to first
pass through the fingers of god
before it ever enters in into our
experience so whether or not god caused
it
i don’t know but this i can say with a
sure
level of certainty he has allowed it
and if he’s allowed it that means it’s
going to be for your good and it’s going
to be for his glory
that means there’s something that is
supposed to be birthed out of it
if we’ll just pay attention and keep our
eyes fixed on jesus
not only will us keeping our eyes on him
like charis
keeping her eyes on her grandfather was
able to give her a sense of steadiness
and security and stability even though
trouble was still
um in her sphere of influence not only
will it keep you stable
but it will allow you to see that there
is a good god
who is still seated on the throne who
has not been displaced
from his position of omniscience and
omnipresence
and sovereignty and complete control he
is not surprised by the things that have
surprised us
why would he allow them we may never
know on this side of eternity
but what we can know is that our god is
good that he is faithful
and if nothing else all of the chaos
that is swirling around us
and the multitudes that we are facing in
our midst they
may make us afraid as they do with
jehoshaphat in
second chronicles chapter 20 you’ll see
jehoshaphat say i’m afraid
i don’t know what to do but
you can make the commitment that your
eyes will be on jesus
change the way you handle this situation
it’ll change the way you face the
difficulty
it’ll change the way you wake up each
day instead of being hopeless like so
many others
and they are now questioning their faith
and they are doubting who
god is when you keep your eyes focused
on the character of god
when you refuse to allow yourself to
question
who god is you can ask questions of god
without questioning god do you see the
difference in the little nuance there
ask your questions i’ve got mine i’m
sure you’ve got yours
but you and i can ask questions about
our situation
and about all of these multitudes that
we are facing without questioning
the character of god keep your eyes
on jesus jehoshaphat says my
eyes are fixed on you and if there is
one thing
that being surrounded on all sides is
supposed to do in our lives
it’s supposed to refocus our attention
so that since we’ve tried everything
else and since we’ve run to all these
other resources
and we’ve found them lacking that there
is no solution that
they’re not powerful enough that they’re
not calculated enough that they’re not
diligent enough that they are not
able to stand up against this great
multitude that we are facing
finally this kind of difficulty is the
one that makes us drop to our knees
and look to the hills from whence cometh
our help do you realize
this is what he’s been after all along
refocusing our priority
our attention calling us back to him
calling us back to a fervent fresh fiery
relationship with him
where we don’t just you know read a
verse a day to keep the devil away where
we don’t just
say a casual prayer because it’s what
we’re supposed to do where we don’t just
tune into online services
because it’s what we’re supposed to do
since we can’t go to
actual church anymore the least i can do
is give god this hour
of tuned in fellowship with him on a
sunday it’s got to be about more than
that
jehoshaphat says my eyes daily
are now going to be fixed on you that’s
intentional
it’s deliberate it’s proactive
it means that you are making it a
priority to meet with god over the
scriptures
in a time when so many people are
choosing now
to trust the opinions of everyone else
they’re choosing to hear and lean into
and
look to everyone else as the source of
truth this is the time
when the sons and daughters of god fix
our eyes back on the truth of god’s word
that we cultivate friendship with god in
prayer
that we remind ourselves that the holy
spirit of god lives on the inside of us
so that we can have
insight and revelation and walk in
wisdom
and discernment and integrity all the
days of our life i don’t know what the
army is
that has surrounded you i don’t know the
multitude
that has surrounded you i could tell you
the multitude that’s surrounding me
and second chronicles chapter 20 verse
12 reminds me that when i
am surrounded when i feel powerless
and when i can’t even come up with a
plan because stuff has gotten too thick
for me to even come up with a plan this
is the one thing i can do
i can make sure my eyes are focused
on jesus i want to be
vulnerable with you for a moment and
tell you
that since i last saw you in person
uh there has been so much that has
happened in my life
difficult stuff i feel like i’ve been
surrounded on all sides kind of like
jehoshaphat was explaining a few moments
ago
surrounded by difficulty obviously
there have been so many things that have
surrounded all of us globally
but even before we got to 2020 can i
just tell you that the 18 months leading
up to it were particularly trying and
difficult for
me and for my family it started a couple
of years ago when
my uncle my dad’s brother passed away
and then six months later my cousin
winter
she was not just my cousin she was my
best friend she suddenly died
at 37 years old left a husband and
four young girls she was fine
we were planning to go to the movies the
next day as a matter of fact i still
have the boxes on my phone as we were
boxing each other back and forth
about what movies we were going to go
see together the next day
and then suddenly she had a malfunction
of the heart and her heart stopped
beating and she died
six months after that my aunt my dad’s
sister so this is the same side of the
family she passed away
three months after she passed away my
uncle james
her husband died
we were just trying to catch our breath
reeling from all the losses
in our family when just several months
later
another cousin in her 30s
passed away from a mass that they found
in her chest
just a couple of weeks after she started
coughing and realized that there was
something that even needed medical
attention
she left a husband and two small
children
and then all of this time my mother’s
health had been ailing
it was a diagnosis of cancer a rare and
aggressive form of cancer that had come
out of nowhere my mom was an
extraordinarily
healthy 69 at the time 69 year old woman
she still went to the gym she ate right
she was healthy and active and
we had a great relationship our whole
family and
the doctors told us that there was a
cancer that they had found there was
nothing they could do about it we tried
everything that we could but in december
2019 we could see that my mother’s
health was rapidly
declining just about the time when my
mom was
getting to her 70th birthday december
1st of 2019
right around those days as we were now
taking care of my mother pretty much day
and night my sister and i sort of moved
back in
we’re there during the nights and there
during the day
right about the time that december
rolled around and we were all focused on
her
my grandfather my father’s father
who we affectionately called to daddy he
passed away at 90 years old
and so i remember right there at the
beginning of december celebrating my
mother’s 70th birthday
at the same time i was jumping on a
plane my husband and i
to rush with my father to go see his
father before two daddy
passed away our beloved grandfather and
then having to be there to funeralize
him while half of us siblings stayed
home with my mom
to take care of her and so it was just a
juggling of emotions and
hardship and struggle we felt surrounded
on all sides
and then it would only be about 30 days
later
on december 30th 2019 that my mother
would slip away to eternity
while her four children and my dad were
all surrounding her
we funeralized my mother a week after
she died
and it would be a week later that i
personally would have to go into surgery
for them to remove the upper lobe of my
left
lung because of something that they
found there that had to be
taken out and the only way to get it was
to remove the whole lobe
of my lung that took us into january of
2020 when i had that surgery
and then while still trying to even get
my breath back reeling from that surgery
and then the losses especially the loss
of my own
mother then of course for all of us
the pandemic hit civil unrest
racial unrest bubbled up to the surface
in our country the political climate
became
more adversarial the chaos was swirling
around us if there’s
ever a time in my life and i’m sure in
your life as well
that we feel like jehoshaphat where
we’re surrounded on
all sides that time is right now and
here’s what i came to tell you
that the solution and the encouragement
is tucked away in elijah’s prayer admit
that you are powerless
god i can’t do it i can’t have emotional
stability
and security i can’t even take care of
my own physical
body i can do the best that i can but
still even when i’m doing the best that
i can
there are inner workings of my physical
frame that only you can tend to
so father even with the best that i can
do in my relationships or in my finances
or being an instrument to be used in
culture for your glory
and to stand up for righteousness and
justice i can do the best that i can do
but father i recognize that against an
army like this
with everything i see happening on my
twitter feed and my instagram feed on
social media on the news channels
that i’m watching with enemies like this
i admit like jehoshaphat did
i am powerless against this great army
and not only am i powerless but god i am
playing
less i don’t even i don’t even have a
plan
the highest heights of my wisdom
can’t even figure out how to handle this
difficulty i’m having in my personal
private life
or in the culture and country in which i
live father i am powerless against this
great multitude
and i don’t know what to do
but here’s what i can tell you my eyes
my eyes are on you
here’s what i wonder i wonder if that
is what he’s been after anyway
a church whose eyes are back on him
not the programs not the buildings
not even the services collectively
gathering physically like we’ve grown so
used to
and of course we’ll come back to at some
point but i wonder
if this is the time where he wanted to
shake us awake out of spiritual
complacency
and draw us back to him get your eyes on
me
he calls out to the church to you and to
me
let’s look back to jesus the author
and the finisher of our faith he is
still
where our help comes from one of my
favorite movies in recent years was
the incredibles 2. i like the
incredibles the first one
and the second one but i gotta tell you
if you didn’t see the second one
you must because it was really good and
in this one elastigirl
you know the wife she kind of comes up
to the forefront just a little bit and
so do the children
they are all using uh mr incredible
elastigirl and their kids
those kids are all using all their
superpowers that they have to stand
against the evils of the day
and at one point elastigirl in true
mother fashion she’s worried about her
kids there are just too many demands on
them there’s too much they’re having to
do
they’re they’re basically having to grow
up real quick and
mature in their super power skills real
quick and she’s worried about them
and she says to her husband in a sweet
moment
she says to him but they’re just kids
mr incredible looks back at elastigirl
and says
yeah but they’re kids with power
whether or not they choose to use that
power is up to them
but they sure do have access to it
listen to me yeah you’re a child but
you’re a child
of god you’re a child with
power and that power is found when our
eyes
are fixed on jesus
lord i thank you that you are worth
looking at
i thank you that the answers that we
need in our personal private lives
and collectively as a church and as a
globe the answers we need are
found in you father by your spirit would
you give us
the tenacity would you give us the
discipline
would you give us the encouragement to
look to you
and you alone you are where our help
comes from
in jesus name amen
thank you so much priscilla that was an
incredible life-changing message i don’t
know about you but i couldn’t take notes
fast enough i wanted to let you know
about our marriage workshops that are
starting this month if you’d like more
information about how to sign up or
you want to know about how to join a
connect group or pray with the pastor
today please head to the link below
in church thank you to everyone who’s
giving we cannot make church happen
without you
you can go ahead and click on the link
in the description if you’d like to give
today
we love you church see you next sunday
holy spirit of the world
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in the presence of
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is
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of my savior’s
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presence
holy spirit
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oh
um
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so
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in your life whatever’s going on right
now god’s eyes
are on his promise for you and for your
life
and for your resource as well
so let’s take a hold of this covenant
promise
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whatever this next record was going to
be it needed to be something that
belonged to
this generation what young and free has
always been and that’s
young people loving god and seeing the
kingdom of heaven
on earth all we want to do is bring
songs that the youth can run with then
it becomes
their anthem so we decided let’s record
at summer camp
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that’s the most true expression of our
youth a record for our youth group and
by our youth group
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is
hey let us know if any of these ring a
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bell
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oh hey hey bye
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sorry
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so
all right does anyone have any prayer
requests we actually have a prayer
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request
thanks to technology it’s now easier
than ever to contribute when it comes to
giving
here’s how download the hillsong usa app
on your smartphone
after opening the app select your campus
then select give online and then tabs
and offering
now you can enter the tithe amount you
can even activate the reoccurring giving
options
this will allow you to give a regular
preset amount automatically
you can select weekly bi-weekly monthly
or the beginning and middle of the month
and even select the day of the week that
you’re giving is processed
thank you for investing into the lives
of others
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i was searching for something
something
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i can’t make sense
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without
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need jesus else i need your love
i need your love i don’t want anything
else
i need your love
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i won’t take you for granted
how could i go without
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i don’t want anything else
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all right i need every voice
is
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i need your love
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is
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[Applause]
woof
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this is
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is
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is
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is
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to streets
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heavenly
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[Applause]
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lift your voice to the sky
praise the lord
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he is
left behind have you ever seen such
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he is
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is
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see me
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is
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lift your voice to the sky
praise the lord
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you