Hearing His Voice Through Submission — Shane Idleman

And I'm talking tonight about hearing God's voice, and we're on part five in a series on hearing God's voice. And the title tonight is, do you have your pens handy? Hearing His voice through, there you go, there's a word up there, submission.

I didn't want to put that word in there because some people would be running for cover and they'd head to the door and you know, you see it sometimes, they look at the bulletin and say, oh, I'll come next week then, and they head out.

So I want to just sneak attack you on that one. Hearing God's voice through submission. And I like what K .P. Yohannan wrote in a book that I'm recommending entitled, Touching Godliness. He said, why is it our flesh hates submission and resists learning about it?

Is it because submission requires brokenness, humbling ourselves, choosing to become a lamb and not a wolf? And I think he's right there. Submission is difficult. Most won't like this sermon because it goes against our very nature.

We have a hard time submitting to God, let alone others. Right? Let's be honest, why do we cringe at this word? Why do we cringe at this word submission? Because a lot of times we link it with failure or retreat or I was wrong.

And really it has nothing to do with any of those things. So let's talk about what it has to do with. But when we talk about this area of submission, we have to remember that God's principles are guardrails, not roadblocks.

You've heard me talk about that before, right? God's principles are guardrails through the canyons of life. They're not roadblocks. So any time we look at his principles, there's a reason behind that and there's victory there, there's peace there.

And if submission is so bad, just look at all the problems that rebellion is causing. Think about that. If submission is so bad, look at all the problems that rebellion is causing. From broken marriages to prodigals to fights to quarrels to church splits to you name it.

A lot of it has to do with this area of submission. God's laws free us and I think we forget about that because we think of God's laws or God's principles and oh, I can't do this. But they actually free us.

God's principles free me from shame and guilt. They release me from addictions and fear and anxiety. His laws are protecting us. We have to remember that God's principles protect the Christian, they protect the believer.

It's nothing to fear, they're actually something to cherish. And think about this as well. God's creation submits to the laws of the creator. God's entire creation submits to the laws of the creator. Try resisting gravity.

You're not gonna get very far, right? The second law of thermodynamics and all these things that scientists are understanding. God has established certain laws that his creation must submit to. What about God's son?

He submitted to the will of the father, right? It was the will of the father to go to the cross. Lord, if there's any other way, God the father, father, can you imagine him in the garden of Gethsemane praying, Lord, if there's any other way, any other way, now's the time to do it.

Change the course of history, do whatever it takes, father, if there's any other way, and that's the prayer that God could not answer because there's no other way, and he submitted to the will of the father.

And then isn't it ironic that Jesus submitted to Caesar? Pay taxes? Didn't cause some big revolt there in the Roman Empire? And then did Christ submit to his parents when he was being raised? I mean, we can assume so, right?

I don't think he rebelled. And there's this area of submission that we see throughout scripture. And here's what happens, submission brings order, and it can lead to peace. And here's a famous scripture from Philippians 2 .8, and being found in the appearance of a man, Christ, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

See, if you just stop and you think about Christ coming down from heaven, humbling himself, taking on sinful fallen flesh, it's like jumping in a septic tank and then getting out and walking around. How would that, that's what, he took on sinful flesh and became obedient to the point of death, not just any death, not a noble death, a death that was looked upon as an accursed thing to be hung upon a tree, the worst possible death you could imagine.

So we see this complete act of submission from the father's will onto submission, onto obedience, onto the cross. And so it's throughout history, this area of submission. So what is submission? Well, let me, you're probably thinking in your mind, yeah, this or that, or husbands and wives and kids, and let's just define submission.

Submission is, and this sermon is for me too, right? Not just, oh, are you guys out there? This is for me too. Submission is submitting to God's authority. I have to submit to God's authority, and then submitting to it and obeying it with a cheerful heart, those he has put over me.

Might say, well, it's easy for you to preach, pastor. You don't, you know, you're the pastor of the church. Well, guess what? I just wrote this down. I have to submit to God in the morning, and then I submit to the needs of my family, and then I submit to the needs of those I'm serving, and then I have to submit to traffic laws in order to get there, and then I have to submit to flexible schedules, who my schedule seems to be really flexible nowadays, and then I have to submit to my plans being ruined, and then I need to go back and submit to the needs of the family, the needs of the church, and then I have to submit to the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, all in one day.

We live a life of submission, whether you believe it or whether you realize it or not, and any time we fail to submit to those things, what happens? That's where chaos comes in. That's where confusion, that's where anxiety and stress and fighting, fighting against God, fighting against the system, and you know, good old America, right?

1776, coming in with rebellion, then you got the rebel yell, the rebel yell, then you got the 1960s, let's rebel against authority, and now all the kids are rebelling against their parents, and we have this rebellion culture.

That's why we don't like the word submission, but of course, I have to throw a disclaimer in there. There are isolated situations where those who are over us clearly disregard God's authority or where severe abuse is occurring.

In those cases, we need to remove ourselves or disobey the authority, because in order to obey them, I must disobey God. The funny thing is, this is an exception, not a rule, but people make it the rule and not the exception.

Oh, I'm being abused at work. Well, welcome to the crowd, welcome to the world. I remember one of the hardest jobs I've ever had was in 2001, 2002, 2003. I was hired from a local water district, I won't say which one, and I was hired to be their heavy equipment operator.

It meant tearing up streets, crossing gas lines, Edison lines, Verizon, high voltage. It was a stressful job, and I had the taskmaster from hell above me. This guy had this complex that he was gonna boss everybody around, make them work certain hours.

I mean, it was unbelievable, the words he would say, how he would treat people, but he never caused me to disobey God. He didn't say, we're gonna go pray at that temple on our lunch breaks, things like that, and God actually used that to break me.

He used that heavy taskmaster. Oh, it's time to get off? Well, I need another hour of you guys, and he knew I was a Christian, and that was the hard part. Later, I was able to witness to him when I left there, and different things, but that was a hard, very hard environment.

Do you know how many times I honestly went home and was gonna quit? At least a dozen, at least a dozen, but you never quit when your emotions are high. When you leave a job, God usually opens another door, or he'll give you peace, or you'll be able to leave on good terms, or the right way, so he used this unbearable situation to really break me more.

What it showed me was how prideful I was, because I go from running multiple fitness locations, making a lot of money, wearing a suit and tie, to now I'm digging ditches, or the jigging bar, down here trying to cross the gas main with this guy yelling at me.

Man! But see, we don't understand. A lot of times, we can't humble ourselves. We think we can, but to really be humbled, God has to humble you, because you'll pick and choose how you're humbled, but when God does it, the refiner's fire is intense, and it's there.

I would go home, and I would, I mean, I didn't even know, because once I rededicated my life cursing, that used to be a, well, in construction, I mean, that's how you get by. You curse, you do that. Some of these words, like, Lord, they're coming back in my mind.

I haven't said those words in three years. Why, what are you, what, and just through that, I remember one time, I chewed out the guy, and said, I'm gonna take you out right now, and I just left in my truck.

I can't stand this guy. I'm gonna beat him up. And so what did I have to do? Go home, apologize, come back to work. It's this process. So my whole point is this. Sometimes, unbearable situations aren't necessarily to go and bail out of.

Sometimes, God's put us in that fire to let, refining that fire. He's chipping away certain things, but it wasn't abusive environment. He wasn't telling me to go pray to Allah, and to go pray to this guy.

You know, all these things that aren't, you know, that are clear scriptural commands, and one of the big scriptures that we use in this area is Acts, I don't have time, but you can turn to Acts 4, and read the whole account, that these people were ministering in Jesus' name, in the Sanhedrin, and said, what are we gonna do with these people?

They're causing a whole uproar. And they said, well, well, here's what we'll do. We'll release you, but don't ever preach again in Jesus' name. And they said, well, hey, you take that to God, but as far as we're concerned, we listen to God, and not you.

We're going to have to preach in Jesus' name. But those verses you can't use on, well, I'm not gonna pay taxes, or I'm not gonna work for this hard person. You can't take scripture out of context. If somebody's telling us to do something that clearly disregards God's word, then we have grounds.

Look at this other, you see a lot of denominational splits happening right now, right? Presbyterian, Episcopalian, you know, all these things. Now the Methodists are going kind of in that direction, and they're wanting everybody in the whole denomination to embrace gay marriage and ordain gay clergy.

And see, that's, oh, can't do that. See, now I've gotta step away from that. Now I've gotta step away from, though you were my spiritual covering, and though I was submitted to your authority, now you're going in a direction that God clearly does not approve of, so now I've gotta go a different direction.

So in order to obey God, I've gotta disobey you. But those are very isolated situations. They don't occur that often. The majority of the time, we just don't wanna submit to authority, right? This is the shootin' straight time, 4 p .m.

I can't shoot the 5 .30 service straight. I can shoot you guys straight, though, right? Constant state of submitting. But when I rebel in these areas, submitting to God in the morning, and then submitting to the needs of my family, and then submitting to those in need, and then submitting, and the plans are being changed, and the traffic, you know, we're always submitting.

And when I don't submit to those things, there's rebellion and there's chaos in my life because I'm fighting against God's ordained structure of submission. Well, let's draw a distinction, as well, between a doormat and submission.

Because any time I talk about this individually, people are like, I can't just be a doormat. No, was Jesus Christ a doormat? Who in their right mind would say, yes, he was? Yeah, he just, people walked all over him.

Really? I've got a lot of scripture references I can point you to where he called people out, as well, and he stood up, he was a lamb sled to the slaughter, but he opened not his mouth, but yet he had the power to wipe out that entire generation.

That's strength under control, and that's what submission is. Here's the difference. We submit our strength and our will to the will of the Father. Submission. In other words, if somebody upsets me, I have the strength to probably beat them up, and I have the will to send nature to do it, but I'm gonna submit to what God wants me to do.

So it's strength under control. When I submit, I'm not saying I'm weak, I'm wrong, I'm this person, I'm so broken, I'm just this weak person. Submission's saying, I'm submitting. I could do something bad right now and say something wrong.

I could do that, but don't say that, though, because then that just adds fuel to the fire, but in your mind, you're saying, I know I feel like this, but I'm submitting to what God wants me to do, and we submit that strength in a different direction.

Does that make sense? That's submission. Because what's the whole word submission? Hupotasso in the Greek. Hupotasso, it's to arrange under in an orderly fashion, and the person submits on their own without God.

Now, for you theological students out there, this whole word in the context of submission a lot of times is a middle voice, which means that it's an active verb, which means it's happening now. We submit.

Hupotasso, I submit myself. I arrange myself in an orderly fashion. God doesn't have to force me. I do it on my own, and that's what submission is, and really, submission is a heart issue, and then obedience is the action.

See, many people submit, and the heart's not right. Well, you're fooling yourself. That's not submission. That's I'm going through the motions, and I think I'm fooling everybody except God, so all submission is is saying, I'm gonna do what God wants me to do.

I don't like, I'm fighting the flesh, and I have to submit to the needs of others or even my own family. I have the strength and the sin nature to resist, but the Spirit of God within me wants me to submit, and if we're honest here tonight, this is where most quarrels, this is how most quarrels end up starting, workplace, marriage, right here.

The husband says, you won't submit to me, and the wife says, you're not a man I want to submit to. Here we go, and guess what happens? We'll call it the merry-go-round. See that pink horse going around the merry-go-round?

Guess what it does again? Oh, it just keeps going and around and around and around, and we just keep arguing. Somebody's gotta say, hey, I was wrong, and usually that's why I put the charge on the man, lead by example.

As Christ loved the church, I don't know too many women who won't want to submit to leadership that submits to Christ. I mean, maybe it's just the people I talk to. Ask my mom, ask the elders' wives, ask my wife.

Women were created to want to help me and nurture and help somebody who's following Christ, and then as I'm following Christ and submitting to him, I'm also submitting to the needs of my family and to her.

Whoever came up with the concept that men don't ever have to submit to anybody, we submit to God, and then as we submit to God, we submit to the needs of our family, and then our family follows that lead.

And so I encourage the man, listen, lead by example. You don't know what she did. She needs, I'm not talking to her right now. I'm talking to you, to you. This is never gonna end. It's an endless cycle.

Yeah, but I tried, and she did it. No, no, it starts with us. It starts with them. If the man's called to lead, then the man better lead in the area of submission and forgiveness. I've told you many times before, and I'll tell you again, but you can stop a lot of marriage problems if the man would say, listen, I was wrong, or I don't know how this got out of control.

I don't want to go any further. Let's stop this and just pray and love each other and not fight because you're not giving any kindle. You see a little fire going right there in your backyard? Go grab a can of gasoline, and what happens versus a can of water?

You see the difference there. Are you fueling that fire or are you taking away from it? So that's what that, it's really the Greek word, hupotasso, is like a military term where they would come underneath an officer and they would line up and file.

So what does it have to do with us? Well, here's what it has to do with us. There's three institutions that God has ordained. God has ordained the family. That's why we contend for marriage. God has ordained the church to be his voice, his conscience on the earth, and God has ordained the government.

They are ordained by God, those three institutes. Now let me unpack all that before I upset some people. Here's the dilemma. With these three institutions, I have dual citizenship. So do you. I'm a citizen of God's kingdom, but I'm also a citizen of the world, the church, the government, the family.

And when it comes to this area of submission, most Christians apologize for God's word rather than see the wonderful dynamic that he has created. Have you ever noticed that before? Sometimes people apologize for God's word.

I know it says this, but especially in this whole area of truth now and contending for certain things, it's almost like we come in apologizing for God's word, and I don't see that anywhere in scripture.

You proclaim the truth, you don't apologize for it. Submission isn't the problem, sin is. Submission is a wonderful gift of God, but sin is a problem, and those in authority often abuse their position.

So that's why this term has gained a lot of bad press, is because those in positions of authority have abused those underneath them. But the submission itself is very healthy. So let's not apologize for God's word.

How's that sound? Let's just read it. First, the family, Ephesians 5, 21 through 28. Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body.

Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. So submission leads to peace in marriage.

But here's the thing that many, many people are confused about. This is not the type of submission where you walk around with a rod of iron, saying you will submit to me. This is the picture here, think about, this is a picture of a husband submitting to Christ as the head of me.

I'm submitting to Christ, I'm dying for my family, theoretically, spiritually, you know, emotionally, all these things. I'm submitting to the needs of my family. So as I submit to Christ, submit to the needs of my family, then the family says, oh, I wanna follow a man who does that, but as soon as you get outside of that and mess it all up, nobody wants to follow that.

I mean, the moment a man has to say, I'm the man of this house, you will submit to me, you should have done, you're on the wrong, you're not even on the, we're not even reading the same book, that's forced submission.

A person who's in authority really would never, should never have to say that. Think about, if I have to walk up here and go, listen, stop it right now, I'm the pastor of this church. Uh-oh, we're in trouble.

You see how that works, though? So that's, when we talk about submission, because what happens when we talk about the submission, marriage first, the wife's going, oh, Lord, I don't have to submit to this clown.

And the clown's saying, yes, she better submit to me. But I haven't met, I mean, sure you have, don't you have to email me, but I haven't met too many women who wouldn't want to submit to a guy who sold out for Christ and submits his life for Christ and wants to lead his family in the fear and admonition of the Lord, and he has a heart of brokenness and humility.

Why is he saying, I'm longing, I'm longing to follow a man like that. So you see, the Bible's not at fault. Who's at fault? Sinful fallen man. However, I have seen on both sides, a husband whose wife is not a Christian makes it really hard to lead her, really hard to submit to her needs because they're not biblical needs, the house is grumbling and complaining, but by his submission to her needs and by lovingly leading the house, and not this and not arguing, but she'll eventually, at some point, sometimes change.

That's what the Bible says, stick with it. Or what about the flip side? The wife lovingly submits to the leadership of the husband and still honors God, as long as, again, back to not severe abuse, not causing them to do what God says not to do.

Submission is very healthy because you're not fighting against things, you're submitting to the will of God. And it's hard, isn't it? Submission is very hard. Why don't we wanna do it? I'll tell you, I was gonna read this later, but I'll just read it now.

We are blinded by pride. Really, Shane? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Blinded, just blinded by pride. Me too. That's why I need the prayer closet in the morning in worship to just clear my eyes. Lord, humility. So we're blinded by pride.

We despise submission. I don't even like red traffic lights. Just green is all the, oh, red again. Man, submitting, submitting. But guess what happens if I didn't submit? No more pastor. Submitting to those things.

We desire control. Well, most men, right? We gotta desire control. We want things our way. We can't stand constructive criticism. We want what's best for us. We want the quickest and the easiest path, right?

So what submission does is submission governs the flesh, and it controls the flesh. Do you ever remember back, maybe some of you remember older than me, they used to have, maybe they still have something on a vehicle you could put on a vehicle called a governor.

It would govern the speed, and you couldn't go over a certain speed. I remember I had a 1975 Chevy Blazer. My mom might remember this. My dad would say, listen, if you don't control your speed, I will control it for you, and put a governor on that Chevy Blazer.

No matter how far you push down that gas pedal, you're gonna stick at 55. How do you like those apples? Why did I need a governor? Because I wanted to see how fast that thing could go. That's what submission is, folks.

Submission is the governor of the soul, the governor of the flesh. Submission helps me keep my flesh in control as I submit to the needs of my wife and kids. Perfectly? Absolutely not. But ask Morgan.

Sometimes we'll talk, she'll say, listen, Aubrey needs a date. Gracie hasn't seen you in a while. Take her out, Shane. I need some time. We need to get a babysitter. Let's get it. So, okay, I'm submitting to those needs.

See, it's not walking around just, I'm doing this. Like a CEO in a Fortune 500 company, if you're running your house like that, you're in trouble. You will not win your family even to Christ. Remember when I quoted Josh McDowell a long time ago?

How can we, young adults are saying, how can we embrace the Christ that we don't want the Christ that our parents have? We don't want Christ. We don't want the Christ that we see in our parents. A lot of it has to do with submission.

They're not submitting to Christ, and they don't see that loving, nurturing home. So that's why submission is so important. Something has to govern the flesh, because I'll tell you right now, you're sure not gonna govern your own flesh.

Me neither. It's only the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in our lives that allows us to live the Spirit-filled life. But how are you filled by the Holy Spirit if you're always rebelling? You're not.

You might think you are, but the only way, one aspect, the Holy Spirit of God, gentleness, kindness, love, joy, peace, is submission. As I submit to God, I'm filled with the Spirit of God. And submission is just strength under control.

Like sometimes I go somewhere, and a little high schooler will be on my, you know, I told you, on my truck, and he'll be wanting to ram the back of my truck because he's in a hurry. Well, let's pull over.

Let's talk about this. Old school, right? That's not gonna be good. So I have to submit. Go around me. Let me just, see, there's that strength. I could take him out. I could hurt him real bad, but I end up in jail.

So I have to submit that strength to the submit to the right thing because the flesh wants to go get him. The flesh wants to get the last word in. I'd rather have peace in my house and not get the last word in.

Right? I'm gonna work on that still. That's a hard one. That is a hard one. Not getting the last word in is a hard, you gotta almost just bite your lip. Oh, man, I want them to feel my pain and get that last word in.

So that's why submission is so hard. So the four o 'clock service was not a funny service. That was a serious one. So let's get back to seriousness. So the three institutions, family. God has ordained the family.

That's why, why do you think the family's under attack so much? Think about it. They're going for the hearts and the mind of our children. They're going to break up the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.

They're going after God's ordained institution to raise and rear children, to love and nurture and support. It should be a holy sanctuary where we come out edified from the family. That's why he's going after it.

And in this area of submission, West Side Christian Fellowship, in case you're interested in these big words, you're probably not, but we're considered to be complementarian versus egalitarian. The difference is egalitarian sees everything as equal.

Everything. So women pastors, women senior pastors, women, everything, the same as me, everything's equal. Where we see it as complementary, where we're complementing different God-given roles. Neither is superior, but there's different roles.

Morgan does things way better with the kids and other people. You should thank God for her because she balances out my type A personality. Well, you probably should send them a thank you card. You might want to remember it's this person's birthday.

Remember? You know, all those things. She balances that out. So we complement each other. And then there's other things that I complement. You see how that works? God says, here's the roles. Actually, God says, here's how I designed it.

Here's how I created it. Live and be blessed. But we say, no, I'm gonna fight all that. So that's one area. It has to be in the family. And don't get me wrong, I know it's hard. I know it's hard to submit when the home is a volcano.

It's hard to submit when you're getting cuss words thrown at you. Oh, I live in the real world, trust me. That doesn't happen to our house. I'm just saying, cuss words. But I know, I think it's been a while for that, actually.

But I know that submission is not easy. So I'm not going, oh, come on, guys, just submit. I know there's different dynamics. I know it's hard. But I know when you take God at His, if you said, I'm in a hard situation, Lord, but I'm gonna submit, you're honoring God.

See, and submission doesn't mean, all right, I'm wrong, you're right. Oh, geez. That's not submission. Submission says, I'm gonna please God, and I'm gonna honor His word, and I'm gonna show you my heart is good, and right in this, I'm gonna submit myself.

Hupotasso, willingly arranging my life in such a way that I submit to what God has ordained. You see how powerful that is? So that's the family. Now it goes into the church. The second institution that God has given us is the church.

And it's very healthy. Let me make the statement up front. It's very healthy and very freeing to submit to a healthy, Christ-centered church. There's safety there. There's safety there. But it's very unhealthy to submit to a church that's not Christ-honoring and doesn't look to the word of God.

It's not humble and broken. And if you look at many cults, many different cults make this issue of submission huge, don't they? It's number one on their list. You have to come to our church, be baptized in our baptismal, give your money here.

Actually, we're gonna look at your tax records, and you have to submit. You can't date or you can't marry until we say. It's just close, sucks the life out of you. That's not the kind of submission we're talking about.

This is the good God-given submission that he's given the church. And actually, leadership, the leadership in the church, we're led by elders in the church. I'm the lead elder. There's other elders, too.

But we submit to 1 Timothy 3. I have to submit to the 1 Timothy 3 guidelines of what I'm called to do. You can go look at it tonight, 1 Timothy 3. I submit to that. I also have to submit to the needs of the church.

My whole day changed around 11 o 'clock this morning. I'll explain why in a little bit, because of the needs of the church. And we're submitting. And I have to submit, actually, to this building, who we rent this church from.

I have to submit to their needs, and it's not always easy. I just don't say it sometimes. I remember our first year, we were here about a year. But I love this church. Pastor Sean's probably a good friend of mine, and we joke about some of these things sometimes.

But they came and they said, hey, Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday night. Crystal, you'll probably remember this. Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday night. We're actually gonna have a Christmas Eve service.

So you can either join our church or postpone church another week. You gotta be, remember, I went home, I was mad for a day. I was like, you gotta be, you can't just, I mean, you can't just tell a church to take a break for a week or just come be part of that service.

We do things all differently. What, Lord, this is, well, what do you do? Submit or rebel. So am I gonna get on the phone and argue? But of course, no, they said, you can use it every Saturday as long as there's not something special coming up.

So, you know, I kinda knew it. I just never thought it would happen. So we had about three weeks' notice. We had about three weeks' notice. We printed up all these postcards that said, Christmas Eve service, 4 p .m.

That will be done by time, 5 .30 to start at six. It was one of the highest attended services we've ever had. It was a message God just blessed. I mean, I felt just a strong anointing. People were saved.

I mean, it was like, wow, if I just submitted, submitted. But what I didn't know is people wanna go to early church service because they've got the whole night then ahead of them for Christmas Eve. So had I fought that the whole way and just said, okay, we'll do a four o 'clock, geez, who's gonna come at four o 'clock?

Man, and then it's packed at four o 'clock on Christmas Eve. So I'm just telling you that, but it wasn't easy. It was like, oh, that's a great idea. Let's just, you know, we'll just not have a church service that night.

It's like, I can't believe they're doing this. But when I submitted to it, you look back, it was a beautiful thing, it's a wonderful thing. And also the time frames now, four o 'clock service is growing almost as much as the 5 .30, and God's just doing a lot of things.

Once you submit to things, you don't wanna do. So he's given the church the spiritual authority. So see, we don't understand sometimes, like I like what Martin Luther King Jr. said. You know who he is, right?

Hopefully. He said, the church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state. We are the conscience of the state. And if the church loses its prophetic zeal, she will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.

So in a nutshell, we are the conscience of the nation. We are the conscience of the people, not the government. The government needs to shut their mouth when it comes to religion. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, establishment clause, nor preventing the free exercise thereof.

Congress should not make any, get your hands out of the pot when it comes to religion. Leave us alone to do our job. We're the conscience of the nation. But the government is protecting, they're supposed to protect and defend, and I'm gonna get to that in a minute.

So here's the role of the church, Matthew 16. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. Think about this, this is Jesus Christ saying this. You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.

Then he goes on to say, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Think about this. Sometimes we just gloss over scripture. Oh yeah, whatever. Jesus is saying, I'm gonna build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail.

The real blood-bought church of Jesus Christ, I don't care what the media says, I don't care Christianity's leaving America, I don't care what they say. The true blood-bought church of Jesus Christ on the planet will prevail because it's built on the glorious gospel of Christ himself.

So because of that, Jesus is saying, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven.

Think how powerful this is. If there's somebody coming in who's possessed by a demon, and we pray, and we say, in Jesus' name, relieve that person of this. You have no power in this place. You are not welcome here.

By the name of Jesus Christ, we ask, no, we tell you, we command you, leave this place, and we loose that, and Christ honors that, and they honor that in heaven. Whatever is loosed here and bound here, there's power in the name of Christ.

There's power in prayer. That's why we want to encourage prayer. It's not just, oh, let's go back and say a few little things. You're binding, and you're loosing, you're releasing, you're setting free.