Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey everybody, thank you for tuning into pray dot com Radio.
My name is Mike Kai, the senior pastor of Inspired
Church in Hawaii. Be sure to check out my channel
on pray dot com and for more messages and other
great content. You can also head over to www. Dot
mike ki dot tv for leadership resources, podcast information, and
(00:23):
ways to connect from Hawaii to wherever you are listening from.
I hope you enjoyed this message right here on prey
dot com Radio. I want you to open your Bibles
Genesis chapter fifteen, Genesis fifteen, and we're gonna continue our
series in faith. And I really thought that we needed
a message or a series on faith. I've felt that
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in our state or even in our own church that
I was concerned that we were beginning to dumb down
the dreams and dumb down the vision that God had
for us because of everything that's gone on in our
in our society today. And a lot of this is
real and some of it is overreach, and so I
just wanted us to really believe that God was going
to do something in our lives no matter what is
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going on in us or especially around us, in the
name of Jesus and so last night I was up late,
I was taking notes, just trying to fall asleep, and
I'd wake up again because something else was coming to
my mind, and I'm gonna kind of deviate from the message.
So if you didn't get to listen to our message
a couple of weeks ago, please go ahead, go go
on our app and download that and go watch some
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of our our old messages. Oh they're not old, they're
still fresh. You know what I mean, two weeks is
still fresh. Somebody say, amen, it's still good. And so
when I think about this, I wanted to talk to
us about what is how important it us to continue
to be people who have faith, not just people of faith,
but people that always have faith. Now more than ever,
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we need that faith. We need to bust through, we
need to trust God. We need to look at greater
things than ever before. Hebrews Chapter eleven, verse one says this. Now,
faith is the substance. Everybody says subs it's the substance
of things that are hoped for, and then the evidence
of things that are not yet seen. And now, right now,
maybe you can't see this coming to pass. Maybe you
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can't see it actually happening but when you have faith,
it is the things that you hope for and you're
trusting in God. I question to you today is what
are you hoping for? What is your vision? What are
you thinking about? What is really what is the vision
for your life? Vision? Vision is really important because vision
is what you believe for, what you're seeing for, what
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you're contending for, what you're praying for for. Maybe for
some of your vision is or the dreams for your
life is to own a house or and I be
believe even in this economy, while skyrocketing prices are going up,
I'm still believing that you will be able to own
a home one day in the name of Jesus. Okay,
may not be this turnaround. You might have to wait
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for the downturn and pick that up whatever it is,
if there is much of a downturn, but you have
to you still can in the name of Jesus, because
I really believe we belonged to God's economy before we
belong to man's economy. I mean, there's a global economy,
but God has always superseded the global economy every single
time I've been through a global financial crisis. And we
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built this church during the global financial crisis when they
told us that we couldn't occupy this building, that there
was no way. When they told me at the time,
it was one hundred and twenty one hundred and seventy
five dollars a square foot. Pastor Mike, multiply that by
thirty seven thousand square feet at the time, and I said,
there's no way, we can't do it. And I just
said I pulled a rabbit out of the hat. I
didn't know what I was saying. I was a naive pastor,
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and by faith, I said, no way, We're doing it
for thirty seven dollars a square feet. And the architects
loved me. They laughed at me, but they still loved me.
They said, that's not possible. Guess what. We did it
for thirty five dollars a square foot three model the
first time in twenty ten, but the second go around
it was about two hundred twenty five dollars a square foot.
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But that's okay, moving right along. We had money for it,
we were positioned for it. I I want you to
think about this. When God spoke to a brahm and
he called him out of the irv of the Caldis
Genesis chapter twelve was very very important. In Genesis chapter twelve,
you've heard this before. God told Abram go to the
land that I will show you. He called him out
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of a place called Irv the Chaldees. He wasn't necessarily
following God at that time, but he heard God's voice,
and whenever you hear the voice of the Lord, it
just becooves someone that you've got to go follow that voice.
And he followed him, even though his father was a
worshiper of different idols. And he called him into Irv
the Caldis, out of that place and into a land
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called Canaan what you and I know today as Israel.
And while he called him there, of course, he had
moments in his faith where he was rattled. Of course,
there were moments in his time Honolulu that he struggled
with what God was saying to him. As a matter
of fact, he did what we probably all would have
done at one point, and he during a fabot, he
actually goes down to Egypt, and while he's there, he
makes a big misus take out of his fear. He
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tells his wife, I know you're hot, babe, I know
you're old, but you look hot. I know you seventy,
but you look like you're thirty, and so would you please,
would you please tell everybody that you're my sister. Bad move,
because now Pharaoh says, oh, she's available, that's your sister,
and so he takes his wife, and all of a
sudden she becomes a property of Pharaoh. And as a
result of that, now a plague comes into his family.
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He's nerve, I mean, he's he's afraid, and so he
kicks him out. But while he kicks him out, he
gives them gold, silver, servants, livestock. He is richer when
he leaves Egypt than when he first arrived. But you
gotta be careful what you wish for, because now when
he's out there, now they bring along a servant and
her name is Hagar, and Hagar becomes the maid servant
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of Sarai, and SARAHI and Abram have a child through
Hagar the maid servant, and his name is Ishmael, and
we got problems ever since. So when you look at
all of the things that Abram began to do, he wavered,
and even though he wavered, God said it was credit
to him as righteous because he believed God. And if
you've ever wavered in your faith before, if you've ever
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wrestled with what God told you, well welcome to the club.
Because a lot of people of faith have done that before.
But they swore steadfast and they never gave up, no
matter what their circumstances were around them. So now, when
I look at this. In Genesis chapter fifteen, verse one,
it says, sometime later, would you say, say some time later?
Sometime later? It is about ten years later. Ten years later,
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the Bible tells us that the Lord spoke to Abram
in a vision and said to him, do not be afraid, Abram,
do not be afraid, he said, for I will protect you,
and your reward will be great. In the NIV, I
love it how it says in the NIV. The Anibi
NIV says, I am your shield and your very great reward.
Now imagine if God said that to you, that would
be enough for me. Thank you. You're my shield and
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my reward. But Abraham or Abrahm at this moment replied,
he says, Oh, Sovereign God, what good are all your
blessings when I don't even have a son, and since
you've given me no children. In Liezer of Damascus. My
servant in my household will inherit all of my wealth.
You have given me no descendants of my own, so
one of my descendants will be one of my servants
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will be my heir. And then the Lord said to him, no,
your servant will not be your heir, for you will
have a son of your own, and you who will
be your heir. And then the Lord took him, and
the Lord took him Abram outside and sent him look
up into the sky and count the stars if you can.
That's how many descendants you will have. He says. The
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Lord took him outside, outside of what outside of his tent.
He was in his tent, And while he was in
his tent, the Lord visits him and encourages him in
that moment, and in that moment, God begins to reveal
his plan to him. He says, look up into the sky,
count the stars if you can, and that's how many
descendants you will have. And a brahm believe the Lord.
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And the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.
Last night, when I was awake last night and I
could and go to bed, I woke up early this
morning because my clock is on a ford six hour clock, right.
So I was in Atlanta and North Carolina. So I
just got home the other day. So of course I'm
up at four o'clock in the morning. And while I'm
up at four o'clock in the morning, God begins to
formulate more to this message. And when Abram gets taken
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out of the tent and God appears in his tent
and takes him out of his tent, he shows him
all the stars. I began to think about Isaiah chapter
fifty four, verse too, the three Isaiah fifty four verse too.
The three and the NIV up on the screen says,
enlarge the place of reverten. Everybody say in large right,
stretch your tent, curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen
your chords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out
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to the right and to the left, and your descendants
will dispossess nations and settle in desolate cities. When I
began to read that verse, about ten years twelve years ago,
we were looking for a place. We couldn't find the
place for our church. We were always meeting in that
hot elementary school. God blessed the hot elementary school at
way Kel. Although I didn't like it. I despised it.
I'm grateful for it. Are you ever grateful for those
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little moments in your life when you lived in that
small apartment, or you were just living off of one income,
or you were doing everything that you could to try
to make it right. And I thank God for those days.
But I remember when we were looking at this building.
I would look at this building and I wavered in
my faith. I was like, yes, that's our building. And
then the other part was like, it's not gonna happen.
I don't think it's gonna happen. There are times like, yes,
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that's our building. The other time I would think that's
probably not gonna happen. It's is probably I started talking
myself out of the vision. Have you ever talked yourself
out of something that was going on? Did you just
do that in the last fourteen months? Did you say, oh,
we'll never be able to do that. Oh, that's probably
not gonna happen. I want to stir up your faith again.
I want you to believe for greater things because here's
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a couple of things that we do. Number One, we
dumb it down, we shrink it down. Were just like, oh,
we instead of supersizing it, we you know, we happy
meal it. I just thought about that just now. That's amazing.
We had supersized dreams. Now we got happy meal sized dreams.
And I remember when I was going for this building,
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and I'm telling you I was not the only one
going for it. Randy Kimura with me, Roger Archer, one
of my closest friends from Seattle. We would lay hands
on this building. But I just never really I wanted it,
but I never realized it would be a reality. Before that,
this was a furniture store. Before that, it was a
grocery store. And then it was empty for about a
few years and nobody was in it. They were just
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using it a construction site and they would store stuff,
old computers all in this corner right here. There was
no bleacher seats. It was just straight flat all the
way back. There were no walls in it. There were
no offices, no children's ministry, no little McDonald's gym out
there in the corner. I'm just giving McDonald's some press today.
I don't even eat that stuff. But hey, but I'm
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telling you right now, I was believing it. And I
remember that I would lay hands on this building like
this spready ego doesn't look good. But I was spreadygo
on against the wall, and I would pray in the spirit.
I would pray and contend for it. And then there
would be times that I was getting rejected. They didn't
even want to to give us the time of the
day to even have this building. And I remember, and Honolulu,
I'm contending for you guys to get your own building.
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I know Meli Lani has one. Meli lan you gotta
contend for Honolulu to get one because you got one.
And we're believing even for our copple A location to
start doing construction this year. We're believing for it, believing
for it. Even though the prices are forty percent higher,
We're still believing for it. Because you know why, God
responds to faith. He responds to faith. It's impossible to
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please God without faith. That's not just me, that's Bible.
So if you want to see God move, sometimes you
got to make the first move, but you got to
make sure that you make sure he called you, right, Rachel,
you got to make sure that He called you. And
you can't just go on recklessly by yourself. And so
I remember when we downsized it and I remember that
I was looking at warehouses in Ypo. If you're not
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from here, that's five minutes up the street. That's an
industrial area. I was looking at warehouses. I was looking
at five thousand square foot warehouses when this was thirty
seven thousand square feet. And I remember there was a
day where I would thought that we'd lost the opportunity
and to hope for this. But then there was a
door that God provided and we walked in. In Isaiah
chapter fifty four, verse two to three came in my devotions.
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It said, open your tent curtains wide, stretch out your cords,
lengthen your stakes, for you will move to the left
and the right, and you will dispossess nations. And I
was like, dispossessed nations. I even grabbed this, this is
a nation. We're gonna dispossess this nation. This is a nation.
It's crazy. When you got faith, you grab anything you can.
And we grabbed that dream, when we grabbed that hope,
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and it became a reality. But I remember when Daniel
Lahman was leading worship and he was a y wham guy,
and the why wham guys you never know where they're going. Man,
you just never know. And he was up there propheesying,
asays Pastor Mike, you receive prophetic words. And I said,
only if I send you through my church council. From
my church council, you meet with them, and that would
take too long. And he goes to be Okay, he says,
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the Lord says, your dreams are too small. And while
he's strumming a guitar, felt like roberta Flax strumming my faith, liss,
it's things singing my life with Stop it. Don't do
that to me. Don't add a prophetic word with musical instruments.
That's that's that's terrible manipulation. And he did it to me,
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and I remember going, oh, my dreams are too smool.
I wonder if how many of you your dreams are
too small? I wonder how many of it's in this
in Honolulu and Meleilani and online family. I wonder how
many of us have dumbed down the size of our
dreams and our goals because of the circumstances that have
been around us. So I began to look at this,
What is our What is our vision? Your your vision
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is to get here? Right? Where do you want to
be as a family. Where do you want to be
as an individual? What do you want to do with
your career? What do you want to do with your calling?
But along this way, if you are here, you know what.
It's going to take faith. It's going to take faith.
But when we when we have faith, let me tell
you the things that you do when you have faith.
The first one you're gonna do is what you are
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going to actually put it up on the screen. In Huback,
just chapter two, verse two, it says, write the vision down,
make it plain, and run with it. So who reads
it can run with it. So what do you do?
The first thing you gotta do is number one, you
got to write it down. You got to write it.
The second thing you gotta do is you gotta make
it plain. The third thing you gotta do is you
got to give it legs. You got to run with it.
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So when you write it down, where do you write
it down? Well, you can write it down in your journal,
but you know where I like to write my stuff
down on my mirror. I write it in my mirror.
So after this, go to office, Max, go get a
whiteboard pen. If you don't have one, whiteboard pen, don't
get an El Marco. You're gonna regret it. Don't get
a SHARPI You're gonna regret it. Go get an el Marco. No,
don't get a whiteboard pen and write down on your
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mirror at your home the vision that you have for
your family, the goals that you have, and you look
at it every day. Number one, you gotta write it down.
Number two, you gotta make it plaine, Plain for you
to understand, Plain for you to see all the time.
And then you got to give it legs. What do
I mean by legs. I mean you gotta work it.
I mean it's gonna take a lot of work. And
when you begin to work this plan that God has
for you, then it becomes amazing. Because then Abraham's it
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says in verse seven. To Abraham, it says, then the
Lord told him. He says, I am the Lord who
brought you out of earth the Chaldeans to give you
this land as your possession, and mele Lani, it says
in verse eight. But Abraham replied, he says, oh, Sovereign Lord,
how can I be sure that it will actually I'll
actually possess it. So he already has two moments of
doubts sounds like us. He goes, at this moment, he's doubtful.
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It says that. The first one, he says, Oh, Sovereign Lord,
I don't even have a descendant. I don't even have
a son. I don't even have a child. I'm gonna
have to give it to my number one servant. His
name is Iliezer, and I love him, I trust him,
but I don't want him to get it. I want lineage.
I want land, and I want lineage. And so what
does God do? God reassures him. He goes, come outside
of the tent and let me show you. He must have.
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Give him a perspective, enlarged the place of your tent.
I want you to see all the stars in the sky.
This is how many people that you're actually gonna have
in your family. Then he does the second thing. He goes,
oh God, what good is it if I don't have
a descendant. But now, also, Lord, I got a problem.
How am I actually gonna possess it? So now the
Lord I can see him getting irritated. So what does
he do? He takes him outside and he tells him
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to do these three things. He says, bring me a
three year old heifer, a three year old female goat,
and a three year old ram, a turtle, dove, and
a young pigeon. In other words, I want you to
bring these animals, these carcasses, because you know what we're
about to do, Abram. We're about to cut a covenant.
We're about to make a covenant with one another. And
that covenant means that you're gonna have to cut these
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in half, and there will be blood shed. The blood
will shed into this place more a little bit more
of a ravine, the blood from this. You're gonna take
these two birds, You're gonna break their necks, and their
blood's gonna go in here. You don't have to cut
them in half because they're too tiny, right, he says, Now,
we are making a covenant. We're not making a contract,
because contracts get broken all the time, terms of contracts
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get changed. But what we're gonna do now is we're
gonna cut a covenant, Medilani, and a covenant is more
sacred than a contract. When there's a covenant, there are
terms that go along with this covenant. And this is
going to be powerful. And so what God does is
he begins whenever there is a covenant in that ancient
part of the world, the covenant. Let's say you have
a future son in law and a father. Let's say
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I have two business associates that it has to do
with something that is very important. They cut this covenant.
They take these animals, and there was everything about the blood,
and the blood would pour into this ravine and the
person with the lesser importance would walk through that blood first,
and it would be like, my life be like these
animals if I do not fulfill my end of the
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covenant brutal. Back then, now we just got lawyers, you
know what I'm saying. But back then they cut stuff
and they cut people after that, and so now instead,
though the Bible tells us that a bram didn't even
have to walk through. The smoking firepot goes first, along
with the flaming torch, and that is the presence of
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the Lord, and the presence of the Lord goes through.
But before it goes through, and I get ahead of myself,
a braan had to protect all of these sacrifices because
now all of a sudden, the vultures start to descend. Now,
you know, if you never lived in the desert, and
I've never lived in the desert. But I've seen enough
cartoons that vultures. Vultures are nasty animals. You don't want
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to eat a vulture. You don't want to eat a falcon.
They eat on dead carcasses of animals. They eat rodents
and this stuff. The vultures were coming down to take
away his sacrifice. And there are gonna be times in
our lives that the enemy is going to try and
swoop down and take away something that is important to us,
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and you have to be able to defend it. You
have to be willing. And the Bible tells us that
a braan begins to chase it away, he begins to
show it away, and then he begins to fall into
a deep sleep, and then terrifying darkness comes and is
prophesied of what Israel will look like four hundred years
from then, and they will be in captivity and slavery
in Egypt, but he will bring them out. And when
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God brings them out, they will be richer and better
than ever before. And it says in verse seventeen that
after the sun went down and darkness fell, that Abram
fell into a deep sleep, and a smoking firepot and
a flaming torch passed between the halves of the carcass.
Abram didn't even have to walk through it. God did
it all. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram
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that day, and he said, I have given this land
to your descendants, all the way from the board of
Egypt to the great Euphrates River. The land now occupied
by the Kenites, the Kenezites, the Catamites, the hit Sites,
the Parasites, the Raphites, the Amorites, Canaanites, Gergoshites, Jebuzides, mosquito bites,
and electrolytes, and my goodness, that's a lot of Heites.
And when you think about all of the different things
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that are sabotaging your vision, attacking your vision, and what
is attacking your vision are like vulture. They're feeding off
of things that were once alive, that were once sacrifices,
that are now being turned into nothing more than just
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dead carcasses. And there are sacrifices that you have made
in your life. There are dreams and visions that you
need to sacrifice for that you cannot allow to just
turn into a dead carcass. You cannot degrade it down
to a dead carcass. It is still alive. There is
blood in it, and that blood is important, and it
is in the blood that you and I are saved.
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God goes before us don't. So there are gonna be
times that you don't have to do a thing, But
most of the time you have to understand some things
that are going to sabotage it. Like I said, this
was late last night. So here it is number one.
What is sabotaging it? Number one is gonna be fear.
I don't think I can do it. I don't think
I'm gonna be able to accomplish it. I don't know
or even doubt. Have you ever talked yourself out of
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your own vision? I have. I've talked myself out of
my own vision before. I've had my own self talk.
I've said things to myself. I'm not crazy. I do
talk to myself once in a while. You know I'm
talking about and when I'm talking to myself, I believe
I'm talking to the Lord at the same time, because
he's listening to me. And so I've dumbed down my vision.
I've supersized it down to a happy meal, and I've
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looked at things differently. I said, there's never there's no
way that we're going to be able to accomplish it.
But you know what, we have to flip that because
Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a
mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, come on.
You know why we grow mountains in our minds, and
Jesus said, you can say to this mountain, be removed.
We're always turning mountains from mohills and mohills into mountains.
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And God wants us to take the faith that you
have right now, even if it's a little bit of faith,
and God can work with that faith. Don't dumb and down,
don't doubt it. Here's the second thing. And the second
thing is this, what do we do? We scheme and
when we scheme, we get involved a little bit too
much because what God wants us do. He definitely wants
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you to plan, but he doesn't want you to scheme
because when we scheme, we turn into what his grandson
Jacob was like. Jacob was a schemer. Jacob would work
the angles, Jacob would manipulate the situation. Jacob knew how
to use people. And that's when we scheme, and we're
not trusting God as much anymore. Because we are moving
him out of the plan, because we are scheming for
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what we want. God says, don't worry, don't worry about it.
I want you to plan, I want you to work,
but at the same time, I don't want you to scheme.
Here's the third thing. We overthink What are you overthinking
of right now? Like? What do you what are you
obsessing over? What do you? What are you what are
you getting ocd about? Because when you overthink a situation,
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you're again taking it into your own hands because it
is a partnership with God. But you can't overthink things
because when you begin to overthink things, this is when
the anxiety comes. This is where you trust you more
than you trust God. This is where you begin to
lose your authority over the situation. Because the more you
believe by faith, you actually get increased authority. So every
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battle that I've ever fought actually gave me more authority.
Think about this for a moment. Every time I won,
I have more authority. Every time I've overcome, I have
more authority over the thing that I've overcome. Every time
I've moved into a new situation where God has given
us a new platform, we gain more authority. But every
time I lose my authority is because I overthought things
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and I ended up trying to work the angles. I
hope this is helping somebody. Thank you, you sure, thanks,
I receive it. Okay, now listen, watch this. I got
one more on this. We cruise. Ah, God got this.
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God's got this. I know. I believe God's got this.
But not without you, not without your sweat equity, not
without our travailing and prayer, not without our contending. Because
when we begin to see all the things that God
is doing, let me tell you what begins to actually
happen when we begin to do these things, when we
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begin to trust God. Like I said, it's not the
same message that it was last night. This is totally changed.
Here it is. Here are three things that are important
to accomplishing the vision of your life. First one is
you've got to be in the word. I've heard a
statistic last week. I don't know how accurate it is,
but it says sixty five percent of Christians only read
(24:32):
their Bible twice a month. I was like, really, okay,
then I'm part of the thirty five. Right, we got
to read it more? Right? Of course, you're the pastor. Yeah,
but it doesn't matter if I'm the pastor. What do
you want to see in your life? Because because faith
comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God.
So the word of God increases your faith. So if
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you're not reading the Word, then you're probably more fragile
and double minded because you're not in the word. So
get back in the words. Somebody say, amen, get back
in the Bible, plan, download our app do something in
order to increase the word. Number two. Second thing you
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gotta do is you've got to pray. I know, Pastor
and mic that's so simple, this word and prayer. Wow,
that's elaborate as Yes, this is elaborate as I can
get pray. And when you are praying, you are contending
for you, you're travailing, you are contending. Here's the third
one third one. You gotta work. You have to work it.
(25:38):
It's important that you work, put in the work for
all of this to happen from here to here and
to hear that all of this work is going into
everything that you're contending for and you're praying for, because
when you do, you see the results. Don't allow the
enemy to sabotage your sacrifice. Don't allow the enemy to
(26:00):
steal away your offering. Don't allow the enemy to take
away the dreams that you have for your family and
for your own life. Make sure that you trust God
with everything that you're doing, because a Bram is amazing.
What I love about a Bram is it is unprecedented.
After the Tower of Babel and after Noah, unprecedented, nobody
(26:20):
else had received what a Bram received up into that,
it was only Noah. And then God started all over again.
He did his own grandar reset. And after that grandar
reset and joining they tried to build a Tower of Babel.
What does he do? God calls him out of a
place that he has never been to before. He calls
him into ear of the Chaldeans. Then he calls him
(26:41):
into a land of Canaan that he never heard of,
never never been to in his life. But God begins
all over again. And God can start again, Like he
can start again with your dream, He can start again
with your family. He can start again when you've moved back.
You might have moved back into your parents' home because
what happened, God can start again. You might have moved
(27:01):
back into back to Hawaii or to Hawaii for the
first time, and you're going great, the most expensive state
in the country. I can't even get a rental car.
God's got you. God has you. Maybe you started with
a different job. Worship team can come up. There must
(27:22):
be wondering he didn't even give his original four points. No,
I didn't. You can go watch it on our app.
I felt God wanted me to message mess with this
message and do it differently at disservice. It might not
be like that at the next service, but this is
the way God wanted it a disservice. Listen, anything worth
(27:45):
while doing is going to take faith, and anything that
takes faith will be attacked. It will be attacked. It's
going to come from the outside and it will come
from the inside. It'll be circumstances, circumstantial, but it will
(28:09):
also come from within your own life. Insecurities will come up,
doubts will arise, you will wrestle, you will struggle, you
will second guess yourself. Many times. You're going to ask
for a lot of advice, or you may not even
(28:29):
ask for advice at all. You might get paralyzed and
not make any moves because you're fearful. You may not
even open that envelope that arrived in your mailbox. Some
of you even stop going to your mailbox because you're
afraid of the news that is in that mail But
(28:50):
God can do anything at any time as long as
you're stepping out in faith. Faith. Go back to this.
Anytime anybody did anything great for God, it took faith.
It will cost you. There will be sacrifice, there will
(29:14):
be tears. There will be some blood, but I mean blood,
I mean the blood of Jesus all over this. And
when God begins to move powerfully, you always remember that
you have a new level of authority. Because when you
get that new level of authority after stepping out in faith,
the next battle doesn't seem as big as the one before.
(29:36):
The previous battle is always a smaller battle. You understand that.
But now, when you're entering into a new realm of
spiritual authority. You've heard it said before, new levels, new devils. Now,
I know I'm probably going a little bit deeper than
I want to, but I'm just going to bring it
up anyway. New levels bring new devils, and some people
don't want them, don't want the new fights, so they
(29:57):
stay back says, I've already I've been there before, or
I know what that's like. I see my family, see
my friends, they're contending, and all bad stuff can happen. Well,
then the devil's got you in check. I've got you comfortable,
I've got you fearful, So I've got you in check.
So you're not that much of a threat until the
people who are stepping out and speaking out, and when
(30:19):
they step out in faith, then you become a threat
to the enemy. But what God does is when a
Bram begins to step out and he faces one of
the biggest tests he has ever gone through. Number one,
he's gone through the trust test. What's the trust test?
Should I go to Egypt? Should I stay in Canaan
and wait out this famine? The trust test? Second test?
(30:42):
Should I let my nephew lot pick first or should
I pick first. I'm the elder, I should pick first,
but I let my nephew pick first. The nephew picks first,
God blesses him. That's another trust factor. The third one,
he complains, and I don't blame him. He complains twice
because I have no servant. I needed the sh pearance.
God steps in fine will cut the covenant and you're
(31:03):
gonna freak out, and I'm coming right through this and
you will see the darkness. And in the darkest times
of your life, this is where you don't even have
to walk. God walks first. And when he walks first
and he moves before you, he says, Now, on this situation,
never mind the fear, never mind the scheming, never mind
the overthinking, never mind the cruise control. This is when
(31:24):
I do what only I can do, and He does
it in moments like these. And he does this on
a cross on Calvary where he didn't need none of
our help. He didn't need any of us to do
anything because nobody else did anything except for four people,
five people that stood at the cross and watched, that
loved him. These are the times where there are gonna
be times that you don't have to do a thing,
(31:45):
and there are gonna be times that you have to
do a lot. And if you're going through a medical crisis,
you exhausted every single thing, there's nothing you can do.
All you can do is trust God. If you're fighting
for your marriage and only one person wants it and
you're ruggling right now because they're not thinking straight. They're blinded.
Let me tell you this is when only God can
(32:05):
do what God can do. These are those moments only
God can do what God can do. Those other moments
we're working, working, working, and all you can do at
some point is go, I can't do anything. Only God
can do this. It'll be like that in a medical situation.
It could be like that in a bankruptcy. It could
be like that in a business. It could be like
that in your love life and there's nothing you can do.
(32:25):
You've done everything, and all you can do is let
go and trust God. And I think this is where
this is where we wrestle. This is where we struggle
because everybody, a lot of people in this church are hustlers,
Holy hustlers, that's what I like to call it. They
put in a lot of work, they make a lot
of things happen. They know how to make moves. They
don't know how to control things. But there's gonna be
(32:47):
this time where you just gotta let it go and
not walk away. But you rest, and you rest and
you rest in the Lord. How many of you here
today they're saying past Like that last part that you
just talked about, that's that's where I'm at right now,
and raise your hand. I want to pray for you.
Just want to pray for you. No shame in that game.
That's where I'm at right now. One of the spectrum
(33:11):
of things that I prayed for, Honolulu. If that's you,
raise your hand and stand up, Menilanie. If that's you,
raise your hand and stand up. If that's you right
here in this room, stand up right now. I want
to pray for you. Don't worry about the person next
to you. They love you, Okay, don't worry about it.
We're gonna pray right now. Father. There are times in
our lives, Lord, when we we we don't know what
to do. There's nothing else that we can do. We've
(33:33):
tried a lot, maybe we're there's maybe we we've almost
almost exhausted every resource, almost or maybe we're at that
place where we've exhausted it all. But Lord, I know
that we let go and only you can do what
you can do. And so Lord, I pray on our
behalf that you'd move in power, that you'd move in strength, Father,
(33:55):
that you would even change our hearts in the letting go, Lord,
that we would see things differently on this perspective that
we would find rest in you rather than fighting all
the time, rather than wrestling, rather than travailing. Ah, Lord,
we just we rest in you. Doesn't mean that we
take our foot off the gas, doesn't mean that we stop,
doesn't mean that we slow it down. It means that
(34:17):
we rest in you, knowing that only you can do
what you can do, that we can't do what you
can do. So we let go at some time and
we say, Lord, we trust in you, and we rest.
We asked that you move before us. We asked you
go before us in the darkest valleys of our lives
where we think that we've got to walk through it. First,
you say, I walk, you watch I do the rest.
(34:40):
And that is what Abraham went through, the smoking firepot
and the flaming torch went before him in the darkest
vision that he had ever had to date, where there
was blood all over the place, figuratively and physically.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
But Lord, you moved, and you did. You moved and
you so, Lord, may you move and only do what
you can do.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
As we've cut things, we have halved it, and we
have arranged it, and we are ready to take that
walk because we know that you're serious, you say, I've
got this walk, You rest and you watch while I
do what I do. So Lord, we lifted up to you.
We thank you for your provision, for your touch, for
(35:26):
your power, for your grace, for your patience, for your mercy,
for your forgiveness. For your love then flows in us
and through us. We love you, Lord, We bless you
in the name of Jesus, and everybody said, Hey, everybody,
thanks again for tuning into pray dot com Radio. To
find more of my messages, podcasts, and leadership resources, go
(35:47):
to pray dot com or head directly to my website
at mike Kai dot tv mike Kai dot tv for
curated content. Once again, this is Mike cot, senior pastor
of Inspired Church in Hawaii. Thank you so much for
joining me on pray dot com Radio. Aloha and God
bless
Hey everybody, thank you for tuning into pray dot com Radio.
My name is Mike Kai, the senior pastor of Inspired
Church in Hawaii. Be sure to check out my channel
on pray dot com and for more messages and other
great content. You can also head over to www. Dot
mike ki dot tv for leadership resources, podcast information, and
(00:23):
ways to connect from Hawaii to wherever you are listening from.
I hope you enjoyed this message right here on prey
dot com Radio. I want you to open your Bibles
Genesis chapter fifteen, Genesis fifteen, and we're gonna continue our
series in faith. And I really thought that we needed
a message or a series on faith. I've felt that
(00:45):
in our state or even in our own church that
I was concerned that we were beginning to dumb down
the dreams and dumb down the vision that God had
for us because of everything that's gone on in our
in our society today. And a lot of this is
real and some of it is overreach, and so I
just wanted us to really believe that God was going
to do something in our lives no matter what is
(01:07):
going on in us or especially around us, in the
name of Jesus and so last night I was up late,
I was taking notes, just trying to fall asleep, and
I'd wake up again because something else was coming to
my mind, and I'm gonna kind of deviate from the message.
So if you didn't get to listen to our message
a couple of weeks ago, please go ahead, go go
on our app and download that and go watch some
(01:28):
of our our old messages. Oh they're not old, they're
still fresh. You know what I mean, two weeks is
still fresh. Somebody say, amen, it's still good. And so
when I think about this, I wanted to talk to
us about what is how important it us to continue
to be people who have faith, not just people of faith,
but people that always have faith. Now more than ever,
(01:50):
we need that faith. We need to bust through, we
need to trust God. We need to look at greater
things than ever before. Hebrews Chapter eleven, verse one says this. Now,
faith is the substance. Everybody says subs it's the substance
of things that are hoped for, and then the evidence
of things that are not yet seen. And now, right now,
maybe you can't see this coming to pass. Maybe you
(02:11):
can't see it actually happening but when you have faith,
it is the things that you hope for and you're
trusting in God. I question to you today is what
are you hoping for? What is your vision? What are
you thinking about? What is really what is the vision
for your life? Vision? Vision is really important because vision
is what you believe for, what you're seeing for, what
(02:33):
you're contending for, what you're praying for for. Maybe for
some of your vision is or the dreams for your
life is to own a house or and I be
believe even in this economy, while skyrocketing prices are going up,
I'm still believing that you will be able to own
a home one day in the name of Jesus. Okay,
may not be this turnaround. You might have to wait
(02:53):
for the downturn and pick that up whatever it is,
if there is much of a downturn, but you have
to you still can in the name of Jesus, because
I really believe we belonged to God's economy before we
belong to man's economy. I mean, there's a global economy,
but God has always superseded the global economy every single
time I've been through a global financial crisis. And we
(03:14):
built this church during the global financial crisis when they
told us that we couldn't occupy this building, that there
was no way. When they told me at the time,
it was one hundred and twenty one hundred and seventy
five dollars a square foot. Pastor Mike, multiply that by
thirty seven thousand square feet at the time, and I said,
there's no way, we can't do it. And I just
said I pulled a rabbit out of the hat. I
didn't know what I was saying. I was a naive pastor,
(03:37):
and by faith, I said, no way, We're doing it
for thirty seven dollars a square feet. And the architects
loved me. They laughed at me, but they still loved me.
They said, that's not possible. Guess what. We did it
for thirty five dollars a square foot three model the
first time in twenty ten, but the second go around
it was about two hundred twenty five dollars a square foot.
(03:58):
But that's okay, moving right along. We had money for it,
we were positioned for it. I I want you to
think about this. When God spoke to a brahm and
he called him out of the irv of the Caldis
Genesis chapter twelve was very very important. In Genesis chapter twelve,
you've heard this before. God told Abram go to the
land that I will show you. He called him out
(04:18):
of a place called Irv the Chaldees. He wasn't necessarily
following God at that time, but he heard God's voice,
and whenever you hear the voice of the Lord, it
just becooves someone that you've got to go follow that voice.
And he followed him, even though his father was a
worshiper of different idols. And he called him into Irv
the Caldis, out of that place and into a land
(04:39):
called Canaan what you and I know today as Israel.
And while he called him there, of course, he had
moments in his faith where he was rattled. Of course,
there were moments in his time Honolulu that he struggled
with what God was saying to him. As a matter
of fact, he did what we probably all would have
done at one point, and he during a fabot, he
actually goes down to Egypt, and while he's there, he
makes a big misus take out of his fear. He
(05:01):
tells his wife, I know you're hot, babe, I know
you're old, but you look hot. I know you seventy,
but you look like you're thirty, and so would you please,
would you please tell everybody that you're my sister. Bad move,
because now Pharaoh says, oh, she's available, that's your sister,
and so he takes his wife, and all of a
sudden she becomes a property of Pharaoh. And as a
result of that, now a plague comes into his family.
(05:22):
He's nerve, I mean, he's he's afraid, and so he
kicks him out. But while he kicks him out, he
gives them gold, silver, servants, livestock. He is richer when
he leaves Egypt than when he first arrived. But you
gotta be careful what you wish for, because now when
he's out there, now they bring along a servant and
her name is Hagar, and Hagar becomes the maid servant
(05:42):
of Sarai, and SARAHI and Abram have a child through
Hagar the maid servant, and his name is Ishmael, and
we got problems ever since. So when you look at
all of the things that Abram began to do, he wavered,
and even though he wavered, God said it was credit
to him as righteous because he believed God. And if
you've ever wavered in your faith before, if you've ever
(06:04):
wrestled with what God told you, well welcome to the club.
Because a lot of people of faith have done that before.
But they swore steadfast and they never gave up, no
matter what their circumstances were around them. So now, when
I look at this. In Genesis chapter fifteen, verse one,
it says, sometime later, would you say, say some time later?
Sometime later? It is about ten years later. Ten years later,
(06:26):
the Bible tells us that the Lord spoke to Abram
in a vision and said to him, do not be afraid, Abram,
do not be afraid, he said, for I will protect you,
and your reward will be great. In the NIV, I
love it how it says in the NIV. The Anibi
NIV says, I am your shield and your very great reward.
Now imagine if God said that to you, that would
be enough for me. Thank you. You're my shield and
(06:49):
my reward. But Abraham or Abrahm at this moment replied,
he says, Oh, Sovereign God, what good are all your
blessings when I don't even have a son, and since
you've given me no children. In Liezer of Damascus. My
servant in my household will inherit all of my wealth.
You have given me no descendants of my own, so
one of my descendants will be one of my servants
(07:11):
will be my heir. And then the Lord said to him, no,
your servant will not be your heir, for you will
have a son of your own, and you who will
be your heir. And then the Lord took him, and
the Lord took him Abram outside and sent him look
up into the sky and count the stars if you can.
That's how many descendants you will have. He says. The
(07:31):
Lord took him outside, outside of what outside of his tent.
He was in his tent, And while he was in
his tent, the Lord visits him and encourages him in
that moment, and in that moment, God begins to reveal
his plan to him. He says, look up into the sky,
count the stars if you can, and that's how many
descendants you will have. And a brahm believe the Lord.
(07:53):
And the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith.
Last night, when I was awake last night and I
could and go to bed, I woke up early this
morning because my clock is on a ford six hour clock, right.
So I was in Atlanta and North Carolina. So I
just got home the other day. So of course I'm
up at four o'clock in the morning. And while I'm
up at four o'clock in the morning, God begins to
formulate more to this message. And when Abram gets taken
(08:16):
out of the tent and God appears in his tent
and takes him out of his tent, he shows him
all the stars. I began to think about Isaiah chapter
fifty four, verse too, the three Isaiah fifty four verse too.
The three and the NIV up on the screen says,
enlarge the place of reverten. Everybody say in large right,
stretch your tent, curtains wide, do not hold back, lengthen
your chords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out
(08:40):
to the right and to the left, and your descendants
will dispossess nations and settle in desolate cities. When I
began to read that verse, about ten years twelve years ago,
we were looking for a place. We couldn't find the
place for our church. We were always meeting in that
hot elementary school. God blessed the hot elementary school at
way Kel. Although I didn't like it. I despised it.
I'm grateful for it. Are you ever grateful for those
(09:01):
little moments in your life when you lived in that
small apartment, or you were just living off of one income,
or you were doing everything that you could to try
to make it right. And I thank God for those days.
But I remember when we were looking at this building.
I would look at this building and I wavered in
my faith. I was like, yes, that's our building. And
then the other part was like, it's not gonna happen.
I don't think it's gonna happen. There are times like, yes,
(09:22):
that's our building. The other time I would think that's
probably not gonna happen. It's is probably I started talking
myself out of the vision. Have you ever talked yourself
out of something that was going on? Did you just
do that in the last fourteen months? Did you say, oh,
we'll never be able to do that. Oh, that's probably
not gonna happen. I want to stir up your faith again.
I want you to believe for greater things because here's
(09:42):
a couple of things that we do. Number One, we
dumb it down, we shrink it down. Were just like, oh,
we instead of supersizing it, we you know, we happy
meal it. I just thought about that just now. That's amazing.
We had supersized dreams. Now we got happy meal sized dreams.
And I remember when I was going for this building,
(10:03):
and I'm telling you I was not the only one
going for it. Randy Kimura with me, Roger Archer, one
of my closest friends from Seattle. We would lay hands
on this building. But I just never really I wanted it,
but I never realized it would be a reality. Before that,
this was a furniture store. Before that, it was a
grocery store. And then it was empty for about a
few years and nobody was in it. They were just
(10:24):
using it a construction site and they would store stuff,
old computers all in this corner right here. There was
no bleacher seats. It was just straight flat all the
way back. There were no walls in it. There were
no offices, no children's ministry, no little McDonald's gym out
there in the corner. I'm just giving McDonald's some press today.
I don't even eat that stuff. But hey, but I'm
(10:45):
telling you right now, I was believing it. And I
remember that I would lay hands on this building like
this spready ego doesn't look good. But I was spreadygo
on against the wall, and I would pray in the spirit.
I would pray and contend for it. And then there
would be times that I was getting rejected. They didn't
even want to to give us the time of the
day to even have this building. And I remember, and Honolulu,
I'm contending for you guys to get your own building.
(11:07):
I know Meli Lani has one. Meli lan you gotta
contend for Honolulu to get one because you got one.
And we're believing even for our copple A location to
start doing construction this year. We're believing for it, believing
for it. Even though the prices are forty percent higher,
We're still believing for it. Because you know why, God
responds to faith. He responds to faith. It's impossible to
(11:31):
please God without faith. That's not just me, that's Bible.
So if you want to see God move, sometimes you
got to make the first move, but you got to
make sure that you make sure he called you, right, Rachel,
you got to make sure that He called you. And
you can't just go on recklessly by yourself. And so
I remember when we downsized it and I remember that
I was looking at warehouses in Ypo. If you're not
(11:52):
from here, that's five minutes up the street. That's an
industrial area. I was looking at warehouses. I was looking
at five thousand square foot warehouses when this was thirty
seven thousand square feet. And I remember there was a
day where I would thought that we'd lost the opportunity
and to hope for this. But then there was a
door that God provided and we walked in. In Isaiah
chapter fifty four, verse two to three came in my devotions.
(12:13):
It said, open your tent curtains wide, stretch out your cords,
lengthen your stakes, for you will move to the left
and the right, and you will dispossess nations. And I
was like, dispossessed nations. I even grabbed this, this is
a nation. We're gonna dispossess this nation. This is a nation.
It's crazy. When you got faith, you grab anything you can.
And we grabbed that dream, when we grabbed that hope,
(12:33):
and it became a reality. But I remember when Daniel
Lahman was leading worship and he was a y wham guy,
and the why wham guys you never know where they're going. Man,
you just never know. And he was up there propheesying,
asays Pastor Mike, you receive prophetic words. And I said,
only if I send you through my church council. From
my church council, you meet with them, and that would
take too long. And he goes to be Okay, he says,
(12:56):
the Lord says, your dreams are too small. And while
he's strumming a guitar, felt like roberta Flax strumming my faith, liss,
it's things singing my life with Stop it. Don't do
that to me. Don't add a prophetic word with musical instruments.
That's that's that's terrible manipulation. And he did it to me,
(13:21):
and I remember going, oh, my dreams are too smool.
I wonder if how many of you your dreams are
too small? I wonder how many of it's in this
in Honolulu and Meleilani and online family. I wonder how
many of us have dumbed down the size of our
dreams and our goals because of the circumstances that have
been around us. So I began to look at this,
What is our What is our vision? Your your vision
(13:41):
is to get here? Right? Where do you want to
be as a family. Where do you want to be
as an individual? What do you want to do with
your career? What do you want to do with your calling?
But along this way, if you are here, you know what.
It's going to take faith. It's going to take faith.
But when we when we have faith, let me tell
you the things that you do when you have faith.
The first one you're gonna do is what you are
(14:02):
going to actually put it up on the screen. In Huback,
just chapter two, verse two, it says, write the vision down,
make it plain, and run with it. So who reads
it can run with it. So what do you do?
The first thing you gotta do is number one, you
got to write it down. You got to write it.
The second thing you gotta do is you gotta make
it plain. The third thing you gotta do is you
got to give it legs. You got to run with it.
(14:25):
So when you write it down, where do you write
it down? Well, you can write it down in your journal,
but you know where I like to write my stuff
down on my mirror. I write it in my mirror.
So after this, go to office, Max, go get a
whiteboard pen. If you don't have one, whiteboard pen, don't
get an El Marco. You're gonna regret it. Don't get
a SHARPI You're gonna regret it. Go get an el Marco. No,
don't get a whiteboard pen and write down on your
(14:47):
mirror at your home the vision that you have for
your family, the goals that you have, and you look
at it every day. Number one, you gotta write it down.
Number two, you gotta make it plaine, Plain for you
to understand, Plain for you to see all the time.
And then you got to give it legs. What do
I mean by legs. I mean you gotta work it.
I mean it's gonna take a lot of work. And
when you begin to work this plan that God has
for you, then it becomes amazing. Because then Abraham's it
(15:10):
says in verse seven. To Abraham, it says, then the
Lord told him. He says, I am the Lord who
brought you out of earth the Chaldeans to give you
this land as your possession, and mele Lani, it says
in verse eight. But Abraham replied, he says, oh, Sovereign Lord,
how can I be sure that it will actually I'll
actually possess it. So he already has two moments of
doubts sounds like us. He goes, at this moment, he's doubtful.
(15:33):
It says that. The first one, he says, Oh, Sovereign Lord,
I don't even have a descendant. I don't even have
a son. I don't even have a child. I'm gonna
have to give it to my number one servant. His
name is Iliezer, and I love him, I trust him,
but I don't want him to get it. I want lineage.
I want land, and I want lineage. And so what
does God do? God reassures him. He goes, come outside
of the tent and let me show you. He must have.
(15:53):
Give him a perspective, enlarged the place of your tent.
I want you to see all the stars in the sky.
This is how many people that you're actually gonna have
in your family. Then he does the second thing. He goes,
oh God, what good is it if I don't have
a descendant. But now, also, Lord, I got a problem.
How am I actually gonna possess it? So now the
Lord I can see him getting irritated. So what does
he do? He takes him outside and he tells him
(16:14):
to do these three things. He says, bring me a
three year old heifer, a three year old female goat,
and a three year old ram, a turtle, dove, and
a young pigeon. In other words, I want you to
bring these animals, these carcasses, because you know what we're
about to do, Abram. We're about to cut a covenant.
We're about to make a covenant with one another. And
that covenant means that you're gonna have to cut these
(16:36):
in half, and there will be blood shed. The blood
will shed into this place more a little bit more
of a ravine, the blood from this. You're gonna take
these two birds, You're gonna break their necks, and their
blood's gonna go in here. You don't have to cut
them in half because they're too tiny, right, he says, Now,
we are making a covenant. We're not making a contract,
because contracts get broken all the time, terms of contracts
(16:56):
get changed. But what we're gonna do now is we're
gonna cut a covenant, Medilani, and a covenant is more
sacred than a contract. When there's a covenant, there are
terms that go along with this covenant. And this is
going to be powerful. And so what God does is
he begins whenever there is a covenant in that ancient
part of the world, the covenant. Let's say you have
a future son in law and a father. Let's say
(17:18):
I have two business associates that it has to do
with something that is very important. They cut this covenant.
They take these animals, and there was everything about the blood,
and the blood would pour into this ravine and the
person with the lesser importance would walk through that blood first,
and it would be like, my life be like these
animals if I do not fulfill my end of the
(17:38):
covenant brutal. Back then, now we just got lawyers, you
know what I'm saying. But back then they cut stuff
and they cut people after that, and so now instead,
though the Bible tells us that a bram didn't even
have to walk through. The smoking firepot goes first, along
with the flaming torch, and that is the presence of
(17:58):
the Lord, and the presence of the Lord goes through.
But before it goes through, and I get ahead of myself,
a braan had to protect all of these sacrifices because
now all of a sudden, the vultures start to descend. Now,
you know, if you never lived in the desert, and
I've never lived in the desert. But I've seen enough
cartoons that vultures. Vultures are nasty animals. You don't want
(18:23):
to eat a vulture. You don't want to eat a falcon.
They eat on dead carcasses of animals. They eat rodents
and this stuff. The vultures were coming down to take
away his sacrifice. And there are gonna be times in
our lives that the enemy is going to try and
swoop down and take away something that is important to us,
(18:45):
and you have to be able to defend it. You
have to be willing. And the Bible tells us that
a braan begins to chase it away, he begins to
show it away, and then he begins to fall into
a deep sleep, and then terrifying darkness comes and is
prophesied of what Israel will look like four hundred years
from then, and they will be in captivity and slavery
in Egypt, but he will bring them out. And when
(19:06):
God brings them out, they will be richer and better
than ever before. And it says in verse seventeen that
after the sun went down and darkness fell, that Abram
fell into a deep sleep, and a smoking firepot and
a flaming torch passed between the halves of the carcass.
Abram didn't even have to walk through it. God did
it all. So the Lord made a covenant with Abram
(19:27):
that day, and he said, I have given this land
to your descendants, all the way from the board of
Egypt to the great Euphrates River. The land now occupied
by the Kenites, the Kenezites, the Catamites, the hit Sites,
the Parasites, the Raphites, the Amorites, Canaanites, Gergoshites, Jebuzides, mosquito bites,
and electrolytes, and my goodness, that's a lot of Heites.
And when you think about all of the different things
(19:49):
that are sabotaging your vision, attacking your vision, and what
is attacking your vision are like vulture. They're feeding off
of things that were once alive, that were once sacrifices,
that are now being turned into nothing more than just
(20:10):
dead carcasses. And there are sacrifices that you have made
in your life. There are dreams and visions that you
need to sacrifice for that you cannot allow to just
turn into a dead carcass. You cannot degrade it down
to a dead carcass. It is still alive. There is
blood in it, and that blood is important, and it
is in the blood that you and I are saved.
(20:32):
God goes before us don't. So there are gonna be
times that you don't have to do a thing, But
most of the time you have to understand some things
that are going to sabotage it. Like I said, this
was late last night. So here it is number one.
What is sabotaging it? Number one is gonna be fear.
I don't think I can do it. I don't think
I'm gonna be able to accomplish it. I don't know
or even doubt. Have you ever talked yourself out of
(20:53):
your own vision? I have. I've talked myself out of
my own vision before. I've had my own self talk.
I've said things to myself. I'm not crazy. I do
talk to myself once in a while. You know I'm
talking about and when I'm talking to myself, I believe
I'm talking to the Lord at the same time, because
he's listening to me. And so I've dumbed down my vision.
I've supersized it down to a happy meal, and I've
(21:14):
looked at things differently. I said, there's never there's no
way that we're going to be able to accomplish it.
But you know what, we have to flip that because
Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a
mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, come on.
You know why we grow mountains in our minds, and
Jesus said, you can say to this mountain, be removed.
We're always turning mountains from mohills and mohills into mountains.
(21:38):
And God wants us to take the faith that you
have right now, even if it's a little bit of faith,
and God can work with that faith. Don't dumb and down,
don't doubt it. Here's the second thing. And the second
thing is this, what do we do? We scheme and
when we scheme, we get involved a little bit too
much because what God wants us do. He definitely wants
(21:59):
you to plan, but he doesn't want you to scheme
because when we scheme, we turn into what his grandson
Jacob was like. Jacob was a schemer. Jacob would work
the angles, Jacob would manipulate the situation. Jacob knew how
to use people. And that's when we scheme, and we're
not trusting God as much anymore. Because we are moving
him out of the plan, because we are scheming for
(22:21):
what we want. God says, don't worry, don't worry about it.
I want you to plan, I want you to work,
but at the same time, I don't want you to scheme.
Here's the third thing. We overthink What are you overthinking
of right now? Like? What do you what are you
obsessing over? What do you? What are you what are
you getting ocd about? Because when you overthink a situation,
(22:45):
you're again taking it into your own hands because it
is a partnership with God. But you can't overthink things
because when you begin to overthink things, this is when
the anxiety comes. This is where you trust you more
than you trust God. This is where you begin to
lose your authority over the situation. Because the more you
believe by faith, you actually get increased authority. So every
(23:07):
battle that I've ever fought actually gave me more authority.
Think about this for a moment. Every time I won,
I have more authority. Every time I've overcome, I have
more authority over the thing that I've overcome. Every time
I've moved into a new situation where God has given
us a new platform, we gain more authority. But every
time I lose my authority is because I overthought things
(23:28):
and I ended up trying to work the angles. I
hope this is helping somebody. Thank you, you sure, thanks,
I receive it. Okay, now listen, watch this. I got
one more on this. We cruise. Ah, God got this.
(23:49):
God's got this. I know. I believe God's got this.
But not without you, not without your sweat equity, not
without our travailing and prayer, not without our contending. Because
when we begin to see all the things that God
is doing, let me tell you what begins to actually
happen when we begin to do these things, when we
(24:11):
begin to trust God. Like I said, it's not the
same message that it was last night. This is totally changed.
Here it is. Here are three things that are important
to accomplishing the vision of your life. First one is
you've got to be in the word. I've heard a
statistic last week. I don't know how accurate it is,
but it says sixty five percent of Christians only read
(24:32):
their Bible twice a month. I was like, really, okay,
then I'm part of the thirty five. Right, we got
to read it more? Right? Of course, you're the pastor. Yeah,
but it doesn't matter if I'm the pastor. What do
you want to see in your life? Because because faith
comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the Word of God.
So the word of God increases your faith. So if
(24:53):
you're not reading the Word, then you're probably more fragile
and double minded because you're not in the word. So
get back in the words. Somebody say, amen, get back
in the Bible, plan, download our app do something in
order to increase the word. Number two. Second thing you
(25:14):
gotta do is you've got to pray. I know, Pastor
and mic that's so simple, this word and prayer. Wow,
that's elaborate as Yes, this is elaborate as I can
get pray. And when you are praying, you are contending
for you, you're travailing, you are contending. Here's the third
one third one. You gotta work. You have to work it.
(25:38):
It's important that you work, put in the work for
all of this to happen from here to here and
to hear that all of this work is going into
everything that you're contending for and you're praying for, because
when you do, you see the results. Don't allow the
enemy to sabotage your sacrifice. Don't allow the enemy to
(26:00):
steal away your offering. Don't allow the enemy to take
away the dreams that you have for your family and
for your own life. Make sure that you trust God
with everything that you're doing, because a Bram is amazing.
What I love about a Bram is it is unprecedented.
After the Tower of Babel and after Noah, unprecedented, nobody
(26:20):
else had received what a Bram received up into that,
it was only Noah. And then God started all over again.
He did his own grandar reset. And after that grandar
reset and joining they tried to build a Tower of Babel.
What does he do? God calls him out of a
place that he has never been to before. He calls
him into ear of the Chaldeans. Then he calls him
(26:41):
into a land of Canaan that he never heard of,
never never been to in his life. But God begins
all over again. And God can start again, Like he
can start again with your dream, He can start again
with your family. He can start again when you've moved back.
You might have moved back into your parents' home because
what happened, God can start again. You might have moved
(27:01):
back into back to Hawaii or to Hawaii for the
first time, and you're going great, the most expensive state
in the country. I can't even get a rental car.
God's got you. God has you. Maybe you started with
a different job. Worship team can come up. There must
(27:22):
be wondering he didn't even give his original four points. No,
I didn't. You can go watch it on our app.
I felt God wanted me to message mess with this
message and do it differently at disservice. It might not
be like that at the next service, but this is
the way God wanted it a disservice. Listen, anything worth
(27:45):
while doing is going to take faith, and anything that
takes faith will be attacked. It will be attacked. It's
going to come from the outside and it will come
from the inside. It'll be circumstances, circumstantial, but it will
(28:09):
also come from within your own life. Insecurities will come up,
doubts will arise, you will wrestle, you will struggle, you
will second guess yourself. Many times. You're going to ask
for a lot of advice, or you may not even
(28:29):
ask for advice at all. You might get paralyzed and
not make any moves because you're fearful. You may not
even open that envelope that arrived in your mailbox. Some
of you even stop going to your mailbox because you're
afraid of the news that is in that mail But
(28:50):
God can do anything at any time as long as
you're stepping out in faith. Faith. Go back to this.
Anytime anybody did anything great for God, it took faith.
It will cost you. There will be sacrifice, there will
(29:14):
be tears. There will be some blood, but I mean blood,
I mean the blood of Jesus all over this. And
when God begins to move powerfully, you always remember that
you have a new level of authority. Because when you
get that new level of authority after stepping out in faith,
the next battle doesn't seem as big as the one before.
(29:36):
The previous battle is always a smaller battle. You understand that.
But now, when you're entering into a new realm of
spiritual authority. You've heard it said before, new levels, new devils. Now,
I know I'm probably going a little bit deeper than
I want to, but I'm just going to bring it
up anyway. New levels bring new devils, and some people
don't want them, don't want the new fights, so they
(29:57):
stay back says, I've already I've been there before, or
I know what that's like. I see my family, see
my friends, they're contending, and all bad stuff can happen. Well,
then the devil's got you in check. I've got you comfortable,
I've got you fearful, So I've got you in check.
So you're not that much of a threat until the
people who are stepping out and speaking out, and when
(30:19):
they step out in faith, then you become a threat
to the enemy. But what God does is when a
Bram begins to step out and he faces one of
the biggest tests he has ever gone through. Number one,
he's gone through the trust test. What's the trust test?
Should I go to Egypt? Should I stay in Canaan
and wait out this famine? The trust test? Second test?
(30:42):
Should I let my nephew lot pick first or should
I pick first. I'm the elder, I should pick first,
but I let my nephew pick first. The nephew picks first,
God blesses him. That's another trust factor. The third one,
he complains, and I don't blame him. He complains twice
because I have no servant. I needed the sh pearance.
God steps in fine will cut the covenant and you're
(31:03):
gonna freak out, and I'm coming right through this and
you will see the darkness. And in the darkest times
of your life, this is where you don't even have
to walk. God walks first. And when he walks first
and he moves before you, he says, Now, on this situation,
never mind the fear, never mind the scheming, never mind
the overthinking, never mind the cruise control. This is when
(31:24):
I do what only I can do, and He does
it in moments like these. And he does this on
a cross on Calvary where he didn't need none of
our help. He didn't need any of us to do
anything because nobody else did anything except for four people,
five people that stood at the cross and watched, that
loved him. These are the times where there are gonna
be times that you don't have to do a thing,
(31:45):
and there are gonna be times that you have to
do a lot. And if you're going through a medical crisis,
you exhausted every single thing, there's nothing you can do.
All you can do is trust God. If you're fighting
for your marriage and only one person wants it and
you're ruggling right now because they're not thinking straight. They're blinded.
Let me tell you this is when only God can
(32:05):
do what God can do. These are those moments only
God can do what God can do. Those other moments
we're working, working, working, and all you can do at
some point is go, I can't do anything. Only God
can do this. It'll be like that in a medical situation.
It could be like that in a bankruptcy. It could
be like that in a business. It could be like
that in your love life and there's nothing you can do.
(32:25):
You've done everything, and all you can do is let
go and trust God. And I think this is where
this is where we wrestle. This is where we struggle
because everybody, a lot of people in this church are hustlers,
Holy hustlers, that's what I like to call it. They
put in a lot of work, they make a lot
of things happen. They know how to make moves. They
don't know how to control things. But there's gonna be
(32:47):
this time where you just gotta let it go and
not walk away. But you rest, and you rest and
you rest in the Lord. How many of you here
today they're saying past Like that last part that you
just talked about, that's that's where I'm at right now,
and raise your hand. I want to pray for you.
Just want to pray for you. No shame in that game.
That's where I'm at right now. One of the spectrum
(33:11):
of things that I prayed for, Honolulu. If that's you,
raise your hand and stand up, Menilanie. If that's you,
raise your hand and stand up. If that's you right
here in this room, stand up right now. I want
to pray for you. Don't worry about the person next
to you. They love you, Okay, don't worry about it.
We're gonna pray right now. Father. There are times in
our lives, Lord, when we we we don't know what
to do. There's nothing else that we can do. We've
(33:33):
tried a lot, maybe we're there's maybe we we've almost
almost exhausted every resource, almost or maybe we're at that
place where we've exhausted it all. But Lord, I know
that we let go and only you can do what
you can do. And so Lord, I pray on our
behalf that you'd move in power, that you'd move in strength, Father,
(33:55):
that you would even change our hearts in the letting go, Lord,
that we would see things differently on this perspective that
we would find rest in you rather than fighting all
the time, rather than wrestling, rather than travailing. Ah, Lord,
we just we rest in you. Doesn't mean that we
take our foot off the gas, doesn't mean that we stop,
doesn't mean that we slow it down. It means that
(34:17):
we rest in you, knowing that only you can do
what you can do, that we can't do what you
can do. So we let go at some time and
we say, Lord, we trust in you, and we rest.
We asked that you move before us. We asked you
go before us in the darkest valleys of our lives
where we think that we've got to walk through it. First,
you say, I walk, you watch I do the rest.
(34:40):
And that is what Abraham went through, the smoking firepot
and the flaming torch went before him in the darkest
vision that he had ever had to date, where there
was blood all over the place, figuratively and physically.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
But Lord, you moved, and you did. You moved and
you so, Lord, may you move and only do what
you can do.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
As we've cut things, we have halved it, and we
have arranged it, and we are ready to take that
walk because we know that you're serious, you say, I've
got this walk, You rest and you watch while I
do what I do. So Lord, we lifted up to you.
We thank you for your provision, for your touch, for
(35:26):
your power, for your grace, for your patience, for your mercy,
for your forgiveness. For your love then flows in us
and through us. We love you, Lord, We bless you
in the name of Jesus, and everybody said, Hey, everybody,
thanks again for tuning into pray dot com Radio. To
find more of my messages, podcasts, and leadership resources, go
(35:47):
to pray dot com or head directly to my website
at mike Kai dot tv mike Kai dot tv for
curated content. Once again, this is Mike cot, senior pastor
of Inspired Church in Hawaii. Thank you so much for
joining me on pray dot com Radio. Aloha and God
bless
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