Kevin O'Dea: Come on. Come on. Come on. Give him praise. Hallelujah. Yeah.

Kevin O'Dea: And you have access to that God. You have

Kevin O'Dea: access to that God. Man, God has been so good. If you have, if

Kevin O'Dea: you've been in attendance to the conference in any shape, any of the days,

Kevin O'Dea: would you just lift your hand? You've you've been a participant. Has it been a

Kevin O'Dea: good week? Has it been a good week? Good. Good. I'm so

Kevin O'Dea: glad, and I'm so thankful to, everyone who has,

Kevin O'Dea: come and all of the work that has gone behind the scenes.

Kevin O'Dea: The worship team has done a phenomenal job leading us. All of you

Kevin O'Dea: people up in the loft that have been working behind the scenes in the tech

Kevin O'Dea: areas, we so appreciate you. All of the volunteers

Kevin O'Dea: who have worked with our kids and our teens all week

Kevin O'Dea: long have done a phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal

Kevin O'Dea: job. All of the people manning the tables, the ministries,

Kevin O'Dea: we are so just so grateful. It takes an army to be able to

Kevin O'Dea: do, what we did this week, and I'm so grateful. I do want

Kevin O'Dea: to recognize a few key individuals,

Kevin O'Dea: that I believe really just, there would be no conference

Kevin O'Dea: without without these with the without these people. So if you are

Kevin O'Dea: Joshua McLeod, would you come? If you are Dustin Theater

Kevin O'Dea: individuals, have been here, you know, of course

Kevin O'Dea: the paid staff is here through the week working on things, but these these

Kevin O'Dea: guys have just been laboring behind the scenes,

Kevin O'Dea: tirelessly, very joyfully, tirelessly,

Kevin O'Dea: tying balloons, blowing balloons, cooking dinners, getting things organized,

Kevin O'Dea: saying God this way, that way, and stay here, and don't do that, and do

Kevin O'Dea: this, and all of those things. And, what I

Kevin O'Dea: love so much about this group is that if we

Kevin O'Dea: didn't do this moment, your treasure would've been in heaven and

Kevin O'Dea: you're totally fine. But I believe that the word says, render honor

Kevin O'Dea: where honor is due. And you guys, we just honor you. I thank you for

Kevin O'Dea: making helping make the vision of All Access Conference come to

Kevin O'Dea: fruition, for putting up with my shenanigans, and all of the all of

Kevin O'Dea: the staff and working with us. You guys are the

Kevin O'Dea: best. Would you guys show your appreciation and love for this team?

Kevin O'Dea: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Kevin O'Dea: God is good and God saves the very best right now and I don't wanna

Kevin O'Dea: take any more time from our guest speaker. Would you please welcome Tim

Kevin O'Dea: Hooper?

Love you.

God is good, amen? Come

thou fountain of every blessing, prone to

wander, Lord, I feel it. It's so good to be in this place, but you

know, we are in a broken world.

We're in a broken world. It's so good to be reminded of who God

is. Amen? Did they do a good job or what? Wow.

Every book of the Bible, God is something to us. In

our relationship with him, the spirit relating and speaking to

us speaks into the moment who God is for us

in that moment. And there's no way

I can take any of what I've written scribbled and chicken scratch and crossed

out and added to and said, God, maybe this direction or maybe that direction. There's

no way that I can take that and apply it to this group

today. So I pray, pour it out and

God would you just fill this pray, would you come meet with us today?

That's our prayer in Jesus' name. So praise God

for everything that's already happened in the conference. Barby was

preaching last night and said, the 3rd day wonderful things

happen. And it was funny because as I was reading back through theatre

text for today, there was a 3rd day in there. And I was

like, Wow. And then it said in on the 4th pray. And so we're God

get to that. So you are here on the 4th day. Can I get an

amen? You're here on the 4th pray. It's been amazing. And

I don't take for granted being put at the tail end of anything.

I come from a big family and we pray that,

that you exercise faith being at the tail end of the family because the

Hebrews says, you know, faith is the substance of things hoped for and the

evidence of things not seen. And, if you were at the tail end of the

family, that was the platter of meat. It was the substance of things hoped

for on that end of the table. And when it got down to you, it's

was the evidence of things not seen. So, you know, being at the tail

end, I don't take for granted, but if you were not able to hear some

of the messages. I got to sit in Kevin's house yesterday

afternoon and he just poured his heart out about the Spirit

of don't pray in the hallway, God's door is wide open

and oftentimes we've built the hallway all access to Him.

And then he Holy me about, he said, if you get the chance to go

watch Justin's message about putting our entire yes on the table,

just everything, all in. And I will tell you

that that is probably the battleground in all of our hearts,

because right here in this moment, I'm all in. Are we all in this

morning? Yes. We're all in. But the battle

is real. We walk out that door, the battle is real. There is

warfare, spiritual warfare, and somebody in the

enemy's kingdom is saying, oh, pray. What's going on at

Springhouse Church this morning? And they're God be on the lookout, they're gonna be

looking for every opportunity to distract us. And then Barbee came on

the 3rd day and talked about the veil being torn from the

bottom down. It's funny. We're getting on a plane. My son Jeremy is here with

me this morning. We're getting on a plane, first time on a commercial airline.

And we were Ghost looking out the window waiting for our pray, there were several

delays, and we were looking at the fin on the top. And I said, How

thick do you think that thing is? Because we were looking at the wheels, and

you know, we all think an airplane wheel is about this big, but then I

was looking at the ground coordinator with the thing and it's up to here on

him. So, I stood up in the terminal and I'm like, dude, that's like a

tractor tire. Like, these wheels are massive. I said, how thick do you

think that that that fin is? And then Barbie got up here and talked

about horses couldn't even tear. If you tied 2 horses on either side of

that veil, it could not have been torn. But God tore it from

the top down. Only God can tear

the veil of our heart open of the Holy of Holies and give us

all access because of Christ and his finished work on the 3rd

day. And then Kevin got out this morning and literally cut

to the heart of our disappointments.

Our disappointments. And I want to pick up right there where

God and if you didn't get a chance to attend because of work or life

or schedule, please go back. They're right on the line. Watch

from start to finish. Go binge All Access because I

think God does not want us to forget that we have

access. There's only one power in this earthly kingdom

that wants us to forget that we have all access to the throne,

and that is the enemy, and he's a defeated enemy. His days are

numbered, ours are eternal, and if he can just get us to be

distracted from the all access posture we

have, then he can win

some of the battles, because he's already lost the war. So,

go back and binge it. But he talked about the disappointments.

And it was so funny because as I prayed about what to preach, I was

considering John 11 and near to the heart of God, which

you just completely did church a fantastic job with this morning.

It's amazing. But what God gave me was,

Tim, I want you to share the message on where am I

looking? All of us can ask ourselves that question this morning,

where am I looking? And we'll go to the word of God.

In Psalm chapter number 25 verse 15, I'll read this out

of the, NIV version, it's on the screen. If we could all stand, we'll read

this together, and then we'll pray and then get into the message. But

in Psalm chapter number 25, verse 15, David

writes, and we'll read it together, My eyes are

ever on the Lord, for only he

will release my feet from the snare. Let's read it one more time.

My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only

he will release my feet from the snare. You may be seated.

Let's pray. Father, our eyes,

Our eyes, God. Will you just show

us, Lord, like Joshua just got up here and said, Lord,

the complainers and the those

me, the complainer, me, the one who forgets to

worship in the suffering, God, my eyes

quickly are shifted off of you to

the waves around me. Lord, would

your spirit just lovingly and mercifully point out in our hearts

where our eyes are, God. And

will you just help us to shatter all of the

lives of the enemy. All of the

fear that he has spoken

into our lives through maybe the lives of others,

maybe through past hurt, maybe through the disappointments,

but he has caused us to be fearful

of looking up into your loving,

matchless, wonderful face. Would

you shadow those lies? Would you show us where our eyes are this morning?

In your name, your precious name of

Jesus. Amen. So in Psalm, David writes

this, and I thought about our eyes. Scientists tell us that our vision, the sense

of our vision, takes 50% of our brain.

It's it's the it's the Ghost engaged sense is our

eyes, our vision. And you know, our eyes do

not see. Some people say, and I'm going to ask all of us, where are

we looking? Some people say about faith, about God, about belief in God,

they say, well, I'll see it when I believe it. Anybody ever hear that? I'll

see it when I believe it. Well, that's actually a myth, and I'll tell you

why. We bought this old house in Virginia, and

we bought this old house, and it's from 19 thirties. And so, you know, big

massive oak trees, the leaves have fallen, the soil, they've turned to soil, and

the ground, you know, over time, the ground builds up. So the ground has raised

a good foot over the last 80 years. And so the garage

we we we dug it out a little bit and we put pavement in the

garage but the garage, the eaves of the garage hang down just

enough Ghost enough to where a 5 foot, you

know, 10 guy or gal would clear just fine.

But this 5 foot 11 guy doesn't clear just fine. The

problem is my eyes are about 5 foot 7, somewhere in

here. And that 5 foot 11, that little point of my head

is right here. So I come out of the garage and I'm looking down.

Pray I say I was looking? Oh, yeah. Down. So I'm looking down, I come

out of the garage, trying to answer a few texts before I'm in the house.

I walk out of the garage and Ghost BAM! Right into this little

point of the eave. It's just BAM! I'm like you know? I

didn't see that coming. But see, that's the myth. I'll see it.

I'll believe it when I see it. No. I believe it and I didn't see

it. Like, I believe it hit me right there. But here's the thing. Right? Where

were my eyes? My eyes were down. I was looking down. You

know, in life, we look down a lot. You know, it's it's

part of it's just just here like, gravity.

We have gravity that is called the little g. You know, gravity. You know, I'm

a runner and people always say, oh, that little Jesus God catch up to you.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know. It will. Right? Generosity. Gravity. What does it

do? It pulls us down. The weight of this life

pulls us down. The things that maybe just entered into

our life by surprise, the diagnosis, the news, the

relational issue, they pull us down, they weigh us

down. It's not any of our fault, but it is

a problem that each of us live with. It's the reality. This

thing body have a phone on in their pocket somewhere on them? Yes. How do

we live without this thing anymore? Somebody said when phones had cords,

people were free. They came unplugged and now we're tied

up. But, so we're always looking down. Right? And

it's just this posture. And I think whether

it's by choice or just by default,

our gaze has shifted downward.

But see, our eyes don't they're not really what sees, it's our brain. In

Ephesians, Paul calls them the eyes of our heart. And in our

life a lot of times I know our physical eyes may be looking down

but the eyes of our heart have shifted downward.

Discouragement. Disappointment. They've

shifted our eyes downward. I was driving home from,

from, not Nashville. That's past life. I was driving

home from D. C. Back to Central Virginia,

considering some of the diagnoses and things my wife had been through on her 2nd

round of cancer, and I was just

downcast. And I was driving and, you know, kind

of weaving in and out of the lanes, trying to make it home as best

I can, just in the hubbub of life,

just driving back. And it was a long day, a great day, nothing was

incredibly wrong. There were some diagnosis things we had to deal with, nothing major at

this moment in time. She was working through Ghost towards the end of

her treatments, but I was just discouraged. It's been a long 3

years, second round of cancer. I'm just

discouraged. And I'll never forget, I

was just looking and you know how a truck will pass you as you're Holy

in traffic? It passes you this way, then it passes you that pray, and you

feel like you're going backwards, because it's going faster than you are. I had

one of those moments of, like, woah, a little equilibrium loss. And so I looked

over, I'll never forget, it was one of Lauren Daigle's buses. And it

just said, Look up, child. All plastered across

the side. And I'll never forget in that moment the Holy Spirit whispered and

said, don't forget to look

up. It's just a simple reminder. My my mom, I I God to

go speak at her church in Cedar Rapids. They had just lost

her pastor, 56 year old, healthy, runner,

fit, diagnosed with brain cancer, and within a year, gone.

And I was going to fill the pulpit and I said, God, what do I

say to a church who just lost their dearest

friend?

And he said, just what I told you on the interstate.

Just look up. And if we could

end this conference just remembering

to look up to the throne room, where we

are seated with Christ, heirs to Christ. If we can

remember, we're not there yet,

but we will be and we are spiritually seated with Christ, if I can

just remember to look up. Not because I got it

all right first, not because I got all of it together

Ghost. Now, I'm ready. Daddy's God to be pleased. No, he's

already pleased. I can just remember to look up.

Kevin was talking about letting him have the final say.

And I thought about some of the reasons I don't look up. I'm

afraid. I'm afraid it's God be no again because I told

him it was a no when really it's a no now cause there's a greater

yes coming. I love the line of the song that says, if it's not

good, then He's not done with it yet. I love that,

because I can come looking up in confidence, in steadfast

hope that He gets the final say. I can look up, I

can overcome my fear that I'm not good enough, and daddy's not

pleased, or father king, father God almighty. And I love what Barbie

said. We need to raise our vision, our view, our the eyes of

our heart and how mighty God is. The demon is in front of us,

but the mighty army of angels, go back and listen to this morning's message.

The mighty army of angels. Joshua, thank you for the vision. The

mighty army of angels standing behind us. He looks ferocious

because he's scared, and we're scared of him till we turn around and realize God

is fighting for us. We need to look up. We need to see mighty

King God on our side, and we have all

access to Him because of Jesus and His blood.

Look up, child.

So the garage taught me that I gotta look up. Something else

taught me to look up. I was driving to Roanoke to speak Roanoke, Virginia to

speak. And, I'm driving over there and I'm talking to our senior vice president.

I'm like, yeah. I'm headed over to Roanoke to speak. And and he said, oh,

I bet you, you're gonna go see the star. I'm like,

the star? The star do we have the picture of the star? Is

it in the slides? There we go. He said, I bet you we're going to

go see the God star. I was like, what's the star? Now, I had just

moved from Nashville to Virginia. I wasn't totally accustomed to all the natural

wonders and man made wonders, but this is the largest man made star in the

world. I was like, wow. So he said, the star.

He said, you don't know what the star is? I was like, no, I've never

heard of the star. He said, you need to go see the star. So he

gave me a little rundown. Well, I got up to speak. I was speaking to

all these people from Roanoke about how to market their business and sales and

whatnot and all this. And and I and I brought it up. It was it

fit into the story. So I, like, brought it up. So I was driving out

here this morning, and this guy told me, I need to go see the star.

He asked me if I knew where the star Holy. I said, no. And the

whole room gasped. Whatever. So I went

so afterwards, I got done speaking. My buddy came up, Scott. He said,

he said, Tim, do you have some time? Do you have to rush out anywhere?

I'm like, no. I don't. He said, could I drive you up to see the

star? So he drove me. We got in his truck. We drove up

this little winding road, bikers coming up and down. The ones that were

going up, I was like snickering. I was like, how on the, you know, these

guys with the cabs, like, you know, let's pick us up. And I was like,

dude, I mean, they're going to see the star. I mean, it's this windy, steep

pray, and we're getting up there to the top. And I was asking him on

the way. I was like, so, like, how big is it? He's like, oh, it's

massive. Well, I've never seen it. Can you see it from Interstate

81? He's like, yeah. Can you see it from this? And I've been on those

highways. We came down pray 81 every trip

over to Virginia from Nashville. I'm like, how did I not see

the star? And the answer is pretty

obvious. I wasn't looking up. I was looking

at my GPS. I was looking in the back at the 4 kids. Maybe I

was looking down, hopefully not texting and driving. Maybe I was looking at the

speedometer. Maybe there was a police car behind me and I was checking that just

right, you know how you just keep your eyes around, speedometer. I don't know

what it was, but there was something, all those trips, that I didn't look

up to see the

star. I want to go to scripture and read a passage

and then just make some correlations. Hopefully, practically, leave us

with a few things we can leave here. And

in our life, when it's chaos or

confusion or our spirit we can't hear because the noise of the storm

is so loud, we can go back and say, but here's

where I stand. Here's what I do. Here's what I

remember to look up. So in 2nd Chronicles, chapter 20 if you

have your Bibles, it's a longer passage, it won't be on the screen, but I'll

read through. It says, 2nd Chronicles, chapter number

20. Jehoshaphat, he's faced with a

situation. And I'll just read through and we'll make some practical application, then

we'll wrap up. After this, the Moabites and Ammonites,

and with them some of the Mennuites, came against Jehoshaphat for battle.

Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, a great multitude is coming against you from Edom

and beyond the sea, and behold they are in right at the gate, basically.

And then Jehoshaphat was afraid and set

his face to seek the Lord. Then

Josh was afraid. I want to stop right there. Have you ever

had news come to you? He was not expecting these men to come to him

and say, there's a prayer. The enemy's at the gates. Would you, by show of

hands, tell me, have you had a problem? Have you had something come into your

life recently? A bill, a diagnosis, some sort of

news that just took you by surprise? By a show of hands,

yes. We're human. It happens. We're in a broken

world. And here we are. A battle has been waged against

Jehoshaphat. Secretly, they're all ganged up on him. They're

at the back door and he is

afraid. He's afraid.

So we see Spirit away, there's a problem. It's unexpected.

It's a surprise. He's that, this word, pray,

means alarmed. He's alarmed by it.

He's fearful. Now

in chapter number 19, Jehoshaphat was

busy. In 19, he's busy. He's fortifying

the army. He's building walls. He's building cities.

He is restoring God's house. In 19,

he's busy fortifying the kingdom. He's

been doing all the right things. And sometimes, some of us have

this in our heart to say, God, why

me? I've been doing all the right things.

I'm sure in that fear, he had that alarm,

that question, why me?

But it says, just down here, it says, then Josh, if I was afraid and

set his face to seek the Lord. I love this. He

was afraid and he set his face to seek the

Lord. We see right there, we see a prayer, but then we see a priority.

And I think this is where Tim misses the boat

so many times. I start going to my own wisdom. I

start figuring out a solution or I go to chat g p t No. I'm

just You're going we're going to find an answer

elsewhere. But Jehoshaphat's pray. He sets

his face toward the Lord. He makes it a priority

that the word set means a resolve, a firm resolve

to seek the Lord. Matthew 633

says, seek first the kingdom. How many times is that

5th or 7th or 21st for me? Because Ghost, I was

seeking my own counsel, online counsel,

complaining to my friend's counsel, complaining more to my friend's

counsel, arguing with my friend's counsel. Right?

And then finally, in surrender, I come to God. But he said, he was

afraid and then number 2 Spirit. You say, Tim, I'm failing.

Like you, Tim, I'm failing in the priority.

Well, let's rewind to chapter 18, because

Jehoshaphat in chapter 18 also was failing in the priority.

Pray? He learned from failure. Failure is the greatest

teacher. And besides, you have

nothing to fear. I was told at breakfast this morning, you have nothing to feel

theatre fear, because we're all going to fail. Just let let that be know,

we're all going to fail. But, we have an advantage being sons and daughters

of God, because when we fail, he redeems our failure.

Can I get, wow? When we fail he redeems our failure. We have

nothing to fear. But in 18, Jehosh

phat fails. Why? Because Ahab comes to him and says, hey, body.

How would you like to reunite the kingdom, buddy? I'm going to war

against these guys, and I would love for you to be along. Just tag along

and, help me out. We'll reunite the kingdoms. He

paints this grand vision. Ahab is a great politician. And he Oh, did I

just say that? I'm sorry. But, anyway, we're God to do this. And

Jehoshaphat, he's been the king to

pursue the Lord, but he thinks this sounds really good. He kind of

gets his pursuit of discipleship and following Christ mixed

with politics here. He really does. And he

says, sure, Ahab. Well, then that ego of

reuniting the kingdom blinds him so much to the fact

and I read this in EMT. I'm like, how in the world did

Ahab convince him to do this? Ahab says, I'll tell

you what you do. You dress up like me,

so everyone won't think you're the king. How did you like,

how? So then, sure enough, he gets into the

war. He gets singled out.

God commander of the enemy army says, don't go for anybody else but the king.

They see the king's clothes and they're after Jehoshaphat, and he's running

for his life. Ahab gets killed in the

battle, as prophesied by the Lord, by a pure accident.

Jehoshaphat barely makes it out, dressed as the king.

And so here he is, rebuilding the

army, doing all the right things, problem comes and he

sets a priority. He says, I learned from my mistake. I learned

from my failure. I set a priority. I'm God look

up. I am gonna first look up. Not second, 3rd, First

look up is God be my priority. If you're failing in that today,

contrast it. Just contrast it to what you've done before and say,

God, help me to remember to look up. He will

redeem.' Here's here's just a

practical solution too. So I wear

contacts in Nashville. And I don't live here anymore. But when I was

in Nashville, I wore glasses more because in the spring, right about now, the

pollen count goes from 0 to 96. Right?

And, the sneezing starts happening. It was always

horrible being at work and then the contact's in the back of my eyeball. And

the rest of the pray, I'm like fighting, trying to get that contact out of

the back of my eyeball. So, I just wear glasses a lot. Well, so anyway,

I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I would reach for

was my glasses. Without my glasses

on my face, I was stumbling around, because I'm blind as a bat. So I'd

be stumbling around the bedroom. And sometimes they'd fall between the thing, or the kid

crawled in bed and cracked them in half or whatever, so you're trying to make

them work. Right? That's happening. So you're going around without your glasses,

you're stumbling. You're tripping. You're stubbing your toe. So practical application is

I'm God to ask this. What is the first thing you pick up in the

morning? What is the first thing you look at? I

talk to executive teams all the time. You know how high percentage look at

their inbox, their email very first in the morning? Some of

us, social media, first thing in the morning. TikTok, first thing in the

morning. Where are we looking? Where are you looking?

Ghost priority. What am I going to determine when

I lay my head down is going to be on my phone first thing.

Maybe I'm God to text myself some lyrics to a song. Maybe I'm

gonna text myself a Bible verse, the verse of the day. What am

I looking at first? Is the priority there? Well, then

we see the priorities there. He says, he set his face towards the

Lord, and then he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah.

And I love this because there's a problem. He makes a priority, but

then he's, he has a proclamation. He has a

proclamation. He proclaims a fast throughout all of

Judah and he assembled to seek help from the Lord. All

the cities of Judah, and they came to seek the Lord. And

Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem in the house of the Lord,

before the new court and said, and he lifts up his voice to pray.

So before the prayer, there's a proclamation. We are going to fast.

I love all the leaders across this stage today and yesterday, I'm sure

in the Ghost few days of this conference that proclaimed,

come up here. This is all access. There's no special pass here.

Come claim what God has for you.

You say, Tim, I'm not the king. I can't proclaim

a fast for all of Smyrna, all of Murfreesboro, all

of Rutherford County, all of Nashville, all of Richmond,

Virginia, wherever you're at in the world. I can't proclaim a fast, but let me

tell you in here, you're a mom. You've got 2 kids.

You're a teacher. You have a classroom. You're a worker

with you have a team. You're a father who

has a family. When's the last time I've proclaimed

something to my family? I've proclaimed a word of the

Lord to my family. I've pulled the Bible out, dusted it

off, and read and said, we are going to I'm sorry, family. I'm

sorry. I take the responsibility for having not

led in this department, but I am not perfect. I am bought

with the blood. I have access to the throne. I'm going to

proclaim for my family that we're God to follow

Christ. I'm going to make a proclamation. I'm going to make a

proclamation, we're going to pray together. I'm going to make a proclamation that we're going

to love differently. That I'm going to treat your mother differently. I'm

going to make a proclamation for my team that it's going to be the

golden rule, treat others like we'd want to be treated. I'm going to make proclamations

that are kingdom minded proclamations. This is what Jehoshaphat was doing.

You don't have to be a king to make a proclamation. But what I'll tell

you about the proclamation is, there is freedom

from fear in the proclamation. He was

afraid. He made the priorities seek help from the Lord. And then

he said, I'm God to proclaim a fast.' There is freedom. When the

proclamation's out, it is out body. There's no taking it

back. Somebody now knows. The enemy wants us in isolation.

The enemy does not want anybody to know.

Proclaim the promises of God. Make a

proclamation. And even if you don't know the word to proclaim, proclaim a

Ghost, proclaim prayer, proclaim repentance,

proclaim humility, a humbleness of heart. The sign of this

was brokenness in the Holy Testament, was rendering of the clothes like Barbie

talked about with Esther, and putting ashes on the head. You didn't have to

know what to do in that moment. You just had to say, I'm

here. I'm proclaiming I'm here till I hear it. It's like Jacob.

I will not let you go until you bless me. He didn't even realize what

that meant. It meant a limp and it meant a lot of things that

he never planned on, but he made a proclamation, I will not

let you go. Who needs to make a proclamation

today to God and to your family, to your team, to

your siblings, to somewhere in your life that

there's something here I don't know, I'm afraid of, but I'm making

a proclamation over this area. You don't have to

be a king to make a proclamation.

I love the song that says, I will speak to my

fear and I will preach to my doubt that you were

faithful then and you'll be faithful now. And I don't even know what that looks

like, but I will speak to my fear and I will preach to my

doubt. Make the proclamation. And then we see the prayer.

And the prayer says this, O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God

in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations.

In your hand are power and might. Amen? Amen?

He is our Father God because of Christ. But you

have an enemy out there who wants to destroy you.

He is our warrior king. Amen. And we don't

have to fear that warrior king anymore because of Christ, but all of

our enemies must fear that royal king. And we have

access, all access to his power and

his might, so that none is able to withstand you. And then

he puts heaven on notice. He says, did you not our

God drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people,

Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your

friend? I love the question here. He's putting heaven

on notice. Did you not?

And they have lived in it and have built for you in a sanctuary for

your name, saying, if disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment,

pestilence, famine we will stand before this house and before you, for your

name is in this house and cry out to you on our affliction. And

you will hear and save. And

now behold, this great multitude has come against us to invade us,

to destroy us. And

then he ends his prayer. He says, oh, our God,

will you not execute judgment on them for we

are powerless.

For we are powerless. I want

to stop right there. We are powerless.

In chapter 19, Jehoshaphat has built an

army of 1 point 2,000,000

fighting men. He

is not a wimp. He knows what war looks like.

He's been willing to fight before. He has a

massive army and yet the humility

here to say, we

are powerless. I want to say

this, he he he prays. There's the prayer,

he has a priority to seek God first. He makes a proclamation and

then he prays. And in his prayer, I realize a few things. He

has reflection. He goes to the journal. He goes to the stone

of Ebenezer. And he says, did you not? Did you not?

But then there's humility. He says, we have

no might. It reminds me of the verse that says, not by

might nor by power, but by my

Spirit, says the Lord.

By my spirit. I

believe that humility. We are powerless.

I am refusing. I am absolutely saying

no to my own counsel, God. I'm saying

no to my own resource, God. He had a

1,200,000 fighting men.

But, Tim likes to look at my bank account and say, can we or

can we not?

I like to look at my time and say, do I have the

time or do I not?

Jesus said, you can't serve God and man and money. And and Jesus

said that in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. He created time.

He is a star breather, like Kevin reminded us. He is timeless.

We are time bound. But see, that's our counsel.

He says, we are powerless, oh Lord. He says,

I refuse to rest in my own

sustenance. I want you to be our sustainer.

There's a humility in that. There was also a public prayer here. I believe

there is time for pray, in the closet

prayer. But I believe that our church, like Jesus said in the New

Testament, he said, we've made his house a house of commerce

and we've turned it away from being a house of prayer. And I

will tell you, this is where I sin the most. This is

the sin that so easily clings to me and besets me in my pray,

is a prayerless life. God is

calling his people in this age of apostasy.

He's calling his people to pray. He is asking he is

just looking for a community of believers to gather in public

prayer to say, Holy spirit, blow on the embers. Holy

spirit, do something. Do a new work through us.

So many of us grapple with how do we be Christ in this generation.

We don't know how to be Christ in this generosity, and the church

has lost its salt in this generation. We need a breath from heaven

to say, Holy spirit, show us how to be the church.

We have to gather in prayer again. Jehoshaphat

proclaimed, then he prayed in a public pray. And he

ends his prayer with this. He says, we do

not know what to do. Have you ever

stopped praying because you didn't know how to pray? Or you didn't know what words

to say? Come on. Right? Come on. Somebody else

prayed so eloquently and you said, I have nothing to say. I want you to,

next time that thought comes into your mind, proclaim, God, I

don't know what to say. That is one of the most powerful prayers you can

ever pray. And it will shatter fear. It shuts the enemy up because

he's God to push that button all day long. Yeah, you don't know what to

pray. Or you're going to look stupid when you try to say

something. They're God to laugh and he's going to tangle you in fear

not to open your mouth and proclaim in prayer the goodness of God.

So, Jehoshaphat, the king who's supposed to have all the answers,

we do not know what to do, but our eyes are

on you.

Here we stand. Our eyes are on you.

There's the star. Now, every time I drive through Roanoke,

there's the star. I just need somebody to tell me, remind me, there it is,

and by the way, look up. And every time I drive through Roanoke, I'm like,

I'm God see the star because I'm looking for it. I'm looking

up. And Jehoshaphat Ghost reminded the entire congregation, I I'm the

king. I don't know what to do. God, I don't know what to do. We

don't know what to do. But our eyes are on you. And when we pray

that in humility, guess what happens? Go to the next church. Because once

he drove me up there oh, man. I was like, oh, there's

the airport over there. I took my son to that Roanoke airport. And, oh, what's

that big building? That's the hospital. Did you know Roanoke's known for its hospitals? I

said, I didn't know that. I was like, man. Look at those Blue Ridge Mountains.

Aren't those beautiful? And I just stood up there. I took a panorama. I took

a selfie. I did everything. It was so beautiful. The view

was totally different. And you know what happens when we turn

our eyes to pray to God and when we start seeing

him and oh my goodness his face is lovely. He's

not looking at me in anger. He's looking at me in acceptance and love. And

oh my goodness he says that the verse before in Psalms

that God read that whole Psalm 25. But the verse before says

that those who are committed to God set their face towards God.

He is a friend. He's he's used the word fellowship. And that word friendship means

he gives the secret counsel to. He gives the secret counsel

to. See, when we change the way we look at things, the things we look

at change. Wayne Dyer said that quote, but you know what? So powerful about that

quote from a spiritual perspective, God changes the way we look at things. We

don't have to change the way in our own power. God does the work, brings

us to his vantage point, and lets us see his secret counsel.

He knows the beginning from the end. He may not show us the end, but

he's God to give us the hope and the belief that this is not the

end. I have the final say and it's going to be beautiful.

If it's not good, it's not done. And then

Ghost right after this, I'm going to summarize this, but Jahaziel stands up. Jahaziel

is the Levite. Jahaziel stands up, full of the Spirit,

says the spirit move into Jahaziel. And Jahaziel

says, stands up, and he says this, he says, King, I have a word from

the Lord. And he says, I have a word and here's the pray.

You are going to be delivered. Who says, that's a good promise right

there? I'm going to be delivered. I have access to the king. I am going

to be delivered. I have a promise. And he said, and

here is the plan. And Jahaziel gives him the plan. Now, let me ask you

this. Jahaziel was around 2 chapters earlier. Jahaziel

saw Micaiah, who stood up as a prophet, told

Jehoshaphat, do not go with Ahab, and they had him thrown in jail.

I want to ask, who are the Jehazials in the room who are fearful right

now? Because Jehaziel had to be a little scared to get up and give the

word of the Lord to the king.

Who is a friend in this room right now, who the Spirit of God

is moving, giving you a word and you are to give that word to

body? You are to prophecy over somebody's life. You are to speak in

and edify somebody's life, or come alongside and encourage somebody's

life. Jahaziel, not by his own might, he said the Spirit of

the Lord moved because of the humility of the king, because of the prayer

in public. The Spirit of the Lord moved, and Jahaziel stood up and gave

the plan and the promise to the king.

And the worship team can come out, because we're wrapping this thing up. Because guess

what happens. The plan is get all your mighty chariots

together. Get all your horsemen. Get all the 1,200,000 that you've

amassed. And we're God to engage in this valley. We're going to set traps.

We're going to Ghost crush the enemy. Yes? No.

This was not the plan at all. The

plan was can you just step forward with me?

The plan was can you just walk like forward? I'm going to walk behind you.

The plan was that the soldiers were going to walk behind the Levites.

And these people were going to walk into battle. These

people who are hopeless against the spear, helpless

against the sword, were God to lead the army into

battle. You can back up Ghost for now, so you have to stand right at

the edge. They're God to lead. This is bizarre.

This is unconventional. This is what we call the upside down

economy. This is God math, not ours.

God miracles, not our plan. God,

star breather, master of all the universe, who sees the beginning from the end,

says, guess what theatre God to do? Now, they weren't just walking. Guess what they're

gonna do? They're gonna praise. We are gonna

praise Yahweh. Yeah. Capital l, capital o, capital

r, capital d, Yahweh. We're gonna sing praises to Yahweh. Do you know

they never lifted a sword? Do you know that Moab Moab turned about and

said, they killed each other. When they came up over the hill into the

valley, everything was a dead body. Gone.

Because the Bible says God inhabits the praise of

His people. And so, in the devastating

moment, in the problem, in the fear, in the alarm,

in the time where you do not know what to do, to pray,

God, my eyes are on you, and I am God choose to

pray? He said, it was a loud praise. They went

out loudly praising. I love the song that says, you have a

lion in side of your lungs, so get

up and praise the Lord. You might not know what to

say, just praise the Lord. Let

your vocal speak. When you're a baby, you don't know how to put a

word together and all you say is, oh, and mama and

daddy come running, just praise the Lord. Just

make noise to the Lord. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all

ye lands. You talked about Paul and Silas. This is written right

here. So Paul and Silas, they're in their tomb. They pray, the earth shattered.

Peter saw the waves, but Jesus was reaching down his hand. And then

Paul in Hebrews saw a great cloud of witnesses. He pray. He saw

when the praise happened, the provision came. Elijah saw what no one

else could. He saw the the the the armies

of God surrounding him. In the praise, what are you gonna

see? How are you gonna praise? It happens when our eyes look to

the king, when our eyes look to all access and say,

God, I need you. I'm God praise you. I'm

gonna praise you anyway. I'm gonna end with

this, Job and when Job was plagued with all of these,

his kids were lost to the plagues and his animals, his herds, everything

gone. And then the boils, he's church with boils. He's sitting

there and he says, when I'm tried and

purified, I'll come forth as gold.

And I always thought that was such a beautiful verse. And then when Jen was

going through her 2nd round of cancer, I became very, very

bitter. I became disillusioned.

The Ghost time made sense second time, like, why God? Why are you doing this?

And why to her? And God, the Holy Spirit and I wasn't, I wasn't bitter

towards him. I was bitter at the circumstance. And the Holy Spirit said, I want

you to read Job. And I got to the end of Job. I'm going to

read this first because it's so powerful. But the end of Job, in Job chapter

42, this is after God has spoken to Job. After

Job put God on trial, then God came and spoke to Job and showed His

power and might. And Job said this. He

said, therefore I have uttered what I did not

understand, Things too wonderful for me church I

did not know. He said this. He said, I had

heard of you by the hearing of the ear,

but now my eyes see you.

And, I'll tell you that sometimes I want gold.

I want to believe that there's gold on the other side of this trial.

When I'm tried and purified, I'll come forth as gold. And I believe that's pray

promise. But sometimes my gold is tomorrow or next

year, and it's not maybe on my timetable.

But Joe gets to the end and as he praises, as he sees who God

is, as he lifts his eyes, he says, I had heard of you before.

I had heard of you with my ears. I heard of the goodness, he said,

but now I see you.

And it changed everything for him. His circumstance changed,

yes, but sometimes we just have to set our eyes on God. Just look up

child and say, now I see you.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His

wonderful face. And the things of earth,

they grow strangely dim in the light of his glory

and grace. Church, I just wanna encourage you, let's

assemble, let's encourage, let's

remind each other that we have all access, when

we simply just look up and say,

almighty God, here I am.

Kevin O'Dea: Stand with me this morning. As we close this

Kevin O'Dea: out, we're God to proclaim a song that we've been singing for many,

Kevin O'Dea: many weeks here. We trust in God and let's testify

Kevin O'Dea: this morning of the goodness of our Lord. Let's, let's worship.