A New Alignment — Emanuel Esh

Greetings to all this morning in Jesus' name. I have one comment from our Sunday school lesson I'd like to make here. Someone mentioned there in Acts 9 where Peter went to, and he raised up Dorcas from the dead, that Peter went in and he first prayed, and they thought maybe he prayed to see if it's God's will.

Anyhow, he raised him from the dead. He raised her from the dead. On my last trip to Europe about a month ago, I had the privilege to be in Bulgaria at some kind of missions place. I wasn't sure what it was.

I didn't know even why I was really going, but I was kind of sent to go by the I -58 mission board. So I went. I had the beautiful privilege to sit under the teaching of a man named Curtis Surgent, who's from the U .S.

Discipleship-Making Movements in House Churches

He's an older man, probably around 70. He is a disciple maker. He trains and makes disciples. And I was just, I felt so privileged to sit under his teaching. Discipleship making movements is what he talked about.

And he had some large numbers. He's been doing this for many years. He talks about 28 million disciples, 2 million churches in 146 countries. And I got to sit under his teaching. They lived in China for a while.

He was involved, he has been or is still involved in the Chinese house church movement. He has trained the leaders of the Chinese house churches. He told one story how that they got to this one place after much travel for a seminar or something.

And when he gets there, the one who put the seminar on, the leader there, said, we have to cancel this seminar because I have to leave. He got a phone call right at that time and he said, I have to leave.

And Curtis was like, well, you know, can't you put it off for a day? You know, we really need, we just come together for this seminar. We've put a lot of time and gathered together coming here. No, he said, I have to leave.

We're canceling the seminar. So he said, what is so important that you would have to leave right now? Well, he said, there's two of our disciples in another region, maybe a couple of days travel, that two disciples were killed just this morning.

And he said, I need to go up there and see if God wants to raise them from the dead. And so he traveled to that place to see if God wanted to raise them from the dead. That was a kind of a normal standard for those house church leaders.

Very impressive to be that close to a man who is so closely involved with hundreds of house church, of discipleship making movement in house church movements in the world. Wow. What a privilege. Many stories there.

You could you could check out some of those messages. I went online and checked out some of the messages that are there. And those are the ones that he preached there in Bulgaria. His name is Curtis Surgeon.

If you want to check it out, be well worth your time to listen to those some of those messages. He's from he lives in the States now. They lived in China for a while and he had many good stories to tell there.

Prayer for the Bread of Life

Let's stand together for prayer as we begin a message here. Heavenly Father, we we know that you are a good father. And your thoughts are far above our thoughts and your ways are way above our ways. As high as the heaven is above the earth.

Such is the difference there. And now Lord, we are here on the earth this morning and we are asking for the bread of life to be broken. We're asking you to give us a drink from that fountain of the rivers of living water.

We're asking you to show us Jesus. Asking you to speak into our hearts. That we may live like you want us to live. That we may be who you want us to be. We pray that you would receive all the glory. We pray that you'll be glorified and you will be exalted here this morning.

Let your word come forth in the power of the Holy Spirit. And let your will be done. And I pray, Father, for those who hear today. That they would hear and understand. You would not allow the enemy to take away the word that is sown today in the hearts.

And bring hope and bring life in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. I remember being in Ghana, West Africa one time. Working there with some of the missionaries. Out in the country they have numerous odd scenes.

Things that you kind of see and you kind of remember that. One of them was this big truck loaded with everything. Very, very high loaded and it looked like it was tipping on one side and so forth. Another scene I remember is of this truck going down the road kind of sideways.

You ever see a vehicle kind of go down the road kind of sideways like this, you know? The back end is in the ditch and the other end is out in the middle of the road. Right? You ever see that? Dog legged, yeah.

Crab walking, whatever. So that's kind of the picture I see inside that I had this morning for you to think about. And so I believe that truck needs some help. That truck is out of line. What would it be like to drive a truck like that?

Wouldn't go far. And so I believe that truck needs an alignment, right? So maybe I can title this message, just simply call it a new alignment. Boy now, I don't know how to spell that one. Is that right?

Humanity's Need for Spiritual Alignment

New alignment. A message is not about trucks, but about humans. In the garden, Adam and Eve, they were created in perfection, in holiness. And I believe that they were perfectly aligned with that which God purposed for them to have.

There was no misalignment there. There was nothing wrong. But sometimes today we kind of sense something's wrong and we say, something's wrong. And when I look at that truck, I can say, something's wrong there.

That thing needs some help. And so then we have, I'm going to draw this picture up here on the wall, which I've done this numerous times. And it's a drawing that I continue to use a lot. It's about the body, the soul, and the spirit.

Body, Soul, and Spirit After the Fall

It's a three-part being that when God created Adam, he formed him of the dust of the earth. And then it says he breathed into his nose, or blew into his nose, the breath of God. And Adam became a living soul.

And this is just one of the ways that this is kind of talked about. And so we have the outward part is our body, physical body. And then we have another area, which we call the soul. And then more the center is where the spirit is, where our spirit is.

And so when Adam and Eve were created, they were created in perfection. Their spiritual body was complete and whole and perfect. Their soul was untainted. It was full of light there. And their spirit is where the spirit of God would have been living there.

And then when Adam sinned, Adam and Eve, they took that fruit, they disobeyed God, and they sinned. It said that in that day that they would eat, they would die. And we can understand that scripturally that there was death in this part of their being.

So this part was now full of darkness. The Holy Spirit would have moved out because of sin. And Ephesians says that we were dead in trespasses and sins. And at this point, Adam and Eve, they would have had a, their spirit is dead in trespasses and sins.

And there's no more spiritual life there. But and then so and the soul is where we have our mind. And we have a will and we have our emotions. And so now what begins to happen is that if we are dead in trespasses and sins as human beings, then we end up sinning and we end up living a life of out of that deadness comes death.

And so then we end up with a lot of problems. And our soul is in our mind. This is where we have emotions. This is where our feelings are. And so what ends up happening is that when there's a lot of damage in our lives, this our soul gets to be, becomes dark.

And there's all these kind of things that happen in the soul. You might say they are memories. Another way of putting it is saying that there's like arrows in the heart. And so a lot of people go through life with their soul still heavily damaged and never really repaired.

Never really brought into alignment maybe with what God really wants. And so this is where then we have Jesus coming to redeem mankind and to save that man. And so at the new birth, we understand that that the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in this part of the of our being.

This is now filled with the Holy Spirit, you might say, in our spirit. And we are made new in that place. And that place is now, you might say, has now been aligned with God's purpose for the mankind, for the man.

And so when we get born again of the spirit of God, then our spirit is aligned with God's purpose and plan in our spirit. And we are then holy. We are then pure. We are sanctified. We are justified by the blood of Christ.

We are renewed. The prophet said that I will give you a new heart. I will take out that stony heart out of your flesh. I'll give you a new heart, a soft heart, and I'll put my spirit within you and you shall do my will.

Is that right? Something like that. I think Paul was preaching that last Sunday. I really enjoyed your message, Paul, even though I wasn't here. I did listen to it. I just want to give a word to the congregation.

You have such a wonderful gift of a teacher in your midst to preach the word of God here. Don't take it for granted. So this place, you might say, is now lined up with God's purpose. But what about this place?

And what about this place here? But Jesus was sent to heal the brokenhearted. He was sent to preach the gospel to the poor. He was sent to open up those prison doors to those that lay bound. He was sent to preach deliverance to the captives.

And you can be, if you've never been born again by the spirit of God, then you are still dead in trespasses and sins. And you're still a captive to the enemy who wants to keep you there. But the power of Jesus Christ through his death and his resurrection now is available for whosoever will may believe on him and have eternal life.

And so it is through faith when we hear the word of God preached that the Holy Ghost comes and dwells by faith in our hearts. In Romans 10, it says, if you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead and you confess with your mouth, thou shalt be saved.

And that's when we're talking about salvation in this part. And life changes. But I want to say that there is still work to be done in this area of our lives. And then I want to look at Psalms 64 this morning in light of this.

Psalm 64 and the Enemies of the Soul

See what we can learn there about the heart. There's a lot of people that are struggling with just daily living. There seems to be a lot of hopelessness out there. A lot of bondage, a lot of darkness.

But let's look at Psalm 64 here for some verses here. David is praying for deliverance from his enemies. And I've preached out of this Psalm before, but I want to keep going here. When David talks about his enemies, I believe that maybe he was referring to Saul or Saul's army or at least they would have been human beings, you might say.

But for me today, I read these from a spiritual context. And I believe that the enemies of my soul is Satan and all his workers of iniquity and so forth. So let's look at what they do. And we're looking at this area of our soul, which is where our memory is in our mind, our will and our emotions.

And what ends up happening here is that many of us have a damaged soul and we end up living a life that is not lined up with God's will in this area of our life. We end up, because of what is our memory, what is in our memory, what has happened to us, we end up believing the lies of the enemy who says you are worthless, you're no good.

And so we end up being out of line with what God's purpose is in our soul, in that emotional area. And we end up believing the lies of the enemy. And so something drastic needs to happen in order for us to begin to walk in holiness and purity out of this area of our lives.

Let's look at Psalm 64 to get another picture here. Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer. Preserve my life from fear of the enemy. I don't know if there's anyone here that has a lot of fear. But God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Fear, Power, Love, and a Sound Mind

And when we think about this area of our mind, this area of our memories, some of us have had, maybe you are one that has a lot of hurt, maybe you have a lot of pain in there, and your memory is there that you just, you know, because of those things that happened to you, you're just out of line.

Your life just goes down the road sideways a little bit, you know. Fear. No, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, but of power and love and a sound mind. A sound mind, a mind that is clear, not one that is troubled, not one that is in darkness, not one that is, has fear in it.

Such a big contrast there. We could, if I could just draw this up here, yeah, too. So on one side of our life, we have fear. And the other side, there is power. And that power means dunamis power, which is the miracle working power of the Holy Ghost in our lives.

And then there is love, and that is the word agape, which is God's love. And then we have the sound mind over here also. So on one side, you have fear, but God did not give us that spirit of fear. This is the things he has given us, and he wants us to line up with what he has given us.

He doesn't want us to continue living in the spirit of fear and darkness, but he wants us to get aligned with his word. And that's where we're going with this message. Fear of the enemy, verse two, hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked.

From the insurrection of the workers of iniquity. What do they do? They sharpen their tongue like a sword, and they bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words. That they may shoot in secret at the perfect.

Suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not. They encourage themselves in an evil matter. They commune, or they sit down and plan together. They commune with each other of laying snares, laying traps, privately saying who shall see them.

So the picture there is of evil spirits. This is the picture I get, that we do believe that there are principalities and powers and rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness in high places. We do believe that there are evil spirits out there, and we do believe that they come and they trouble us as much as they can.

But we, through Christ Jesus, we should be completely free from any of their attacks. So they're working against us. What else did they do? Look at verse six. They search out iniquities. They accomplish a diligent search.

Both the inward thought and every one of them is deep. And so here it says that they search out iniquities. And if you could just maybe have a sheet of paper, the records. And so if this is the record of Emmanuel, what is on my record?

And they go searching for these things. Evidently they go searching for the iniquities. And they search the records to see, is there anything there that I could use against him? They make a diligent search of those things.

And if they find something there, then they evidently discuss it and talk about it and plan how to use that to trip me up again. However, I have the advantage. Because I can have, by faith, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin.

And it blocks all this out with blood so that there's nothing they can see in my life anymore. That's where I want to live. What about you? Amen? I want to live in such a place that everything in my life is covered by the blood.

We sing that wonderful song, they are covered by the blood, they are covered by the blood, right? And so this is what I believe. So it's like they have nothing that they can find against me. But if there's things in my life that are not brought under the blood, that have not been taken to the cross, that have not been dealt with, if there's things in my mind that I'm hiding and I'm living a lie or a hypocrite, they're going to use those things against me.

Bitter Words and the Wounded Heart

Are you with me? So what do we see them doing in this chapter? What are those guys doing? They're shooting arrows. So I should have someone come up here and draw this out for me a little bit more. But they're shooting arrows into the heart.

Can I have someone who can draw real good? Draw some more arrows. How many arrows are in your heart? You can't even see that one. There's all kinds of things here. Some are sticking out the other side.

Who shoots the arrows? Satan? Demons? What do they use to shoot them? Accusations? Lies? So the arrows are bitter words, right? What happens when you get hit with a bitter word? So have you ever heard a demon talking?

Saying things to you? Throwing bitter words at you? Probably not. So whose mouth does he use? People. Has he ever used my mouth? I'm afraid so. So what happens in the heart here when these arrows come in?

If the arrows stay in the heart, what begins to happen? Pain? Festering? Infection? Anything else? Loss of life, eventually? Bitterness? That infection? So when you get hurt, someone says something or does something that hurts, and that arrow gets into my heart, and I leave that arrow there, what will happen?

Say it again? You are offended. And you end up... What are some feelings that go with that? Anger? Rejection? Unforgiveness? Yes? So it hurts, right? What he did to me or what he said to me hurts. And I allow that arrow to stay in there, and that infection begins to grow, and that infection is called bitterness.

Now Jesus, in Matthew 15, he gives, and also I think it's Mark 7, he talks about that which comes out of the heart is what defiles the man. It is not what you eat. It's not eating with unwashed hands that you get defiled.

No, it's what comes out of the heart. And if someone could draw me, you know, an esophagus here and a mouth that speaks, I could show you what comes out of it, right? So what do you think will come out of this heart that has all this pain and bitterness in it?

What do you think comes out of the mouth of that heart? Do you think it's possible that that one, would come bitter words out of that? So bitter words come from other fellow humans who are hurting, who have a lot of pain, and yes, they're probably able to speak some nice words as well, but when they get bumped or, you know, if you kind of bump that sore, it's going to hurt.

And then oftentimes we end up just kind of spouting out of that and bitter words come out. And when those bitter words come out and they get spoken, where do they go? In somebody else's heart. We have a problem.

Bringing Pain and Bitterness to the Cross

How do I deal? So if I'm a born-again believer, I have the Holy Spirit in my heart. How do I deal with these issues here? How do I deal with that deep pain, that hurt? And sometimes just by looking at the person, you can see they have a lot of pain.

You can see that there's a lot of hurt there. I recently was meeting with someone and just the whole body language was one of rejection and hopelessness. And so I just began to draw some of this out and began to share about how that God has made a way for you to be free from all of those, all of that hurt and pain and bitterness, and that you actually could live a new life.

And so what happens when we're in this state of mind here, our mind is not sound, but our mind is on a track of negativity, you might say, and bitterness, but what God wants to happen, He wants us to renew our mind and have a realignment in that area of our being and get aligned with what God says about us repent of our sin, take these things to the cross and experience new life in that area of our lives.

That's what God wants from us. Also, when I think of this, it says He has not given us a spirit of fear there in 2 Timothy. What might He been referring to? Well, I don't know, but some of the commentators thought He might be referring to the Old Testament and the law of God that tells you what you ought to do and what you ought not to do.

And can you imagine, even Moses said he exceedingly quaked and feared. He was afraid. It was so awful when the law was given that Moses was afraid exceedingly much and he trembled. And there was fear there.

Could you imagine standing close to that mountain Sinai there and God, the God that you don't know very well, the God that you've heard distantly about, now shows up in smoke and thunderings and lightnings and thick clouds and a booming voice telling you what you ought to do and what you ought not to do.

I remember as a young boy, probably eight or nine years old, thunderstorms. I still, I shouldn't say I'm afraid of thunderstorms, but I did fear them when I was a boy. I remember one thunderstorm one day was so bad I thought it would never end.

It seemed to go on for an hour or more. And that day I remember there was four barns burned from lightning. It was an awful thunderstorm. And I was afraid. And here we have God giving the law from Mount Sinai and the people were afraid.

And that's the picture we have of God. That's the picture they had of God and they were afraid of God. But the gospel comes very differently. The gospel comes gently, lovingly, with invitation to come, with a means whereby you want to draw near to this God, eternal God.

Some of the thoughts there. How then do we work? How then do we get this place here cleaned up? You see the Holy Spirit wants to flow through each one of us outwardly and demonstrate this God who saved me to the world around me.

But if my soul is full of darkness, then that light that is in me is covered over, or is darkness you might say. If the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness. But what if there were no part dark in your life anymore?

Repentance and Forgiveness at the Cross

I want you to think about that. That's what I said to this dear lady. I said, what if this area of your life would be totally cleaned up? There'd be no more arrows in the heart. There'd be no more pain there.

Everything would be aligned with what God says He wants you to be. What would life be like that? I mean, she came alive. She looked up. That would be wonderful. That would be amazing. And I could tell her, you can have it.

You can have it, all of it. This could be your life. You could be completely free from those bondages, from that darkness, from those painful memories, from all those arrows that are in your heart. You could be completely free.

And she found some hope. I didn't have time to work with them. They were leaving. But I know, and I've experienced it, and I've seen many come to freedom and life and healing. And so what part does the body play?

How does the body respond when it's full, when it's full of darkness and there's lots of disease and things in your soul? That disease oftentimes ends up in your physical body and you end up having, just being sick.

And sometimes there's sickness that the doctors don't know what to do with. Strange things sometimes. So what are we going to do about it? There's another aspect here, and that is the cross. I don't have a very good picture of the cross.

This is an amazing instrument, tool you might say. It's an instrument of death. Everything that gets put on the cross dies. It's an instrument of death. So do you mean to say that if I could take some of these arrows, some of those things that are in here, and if I could get them over to here, that they would die?

Think about some of those painful words that you can't forget. When someone speaks a blessing to us and someone gives you good words, how long do they last? An hour? A day? Maybe longer. Depends how powerful they're spoken.

But let me ask you how long do bitter words last? Forever? I don't think... What do you say, Elmer? As long as they're still there, until you let them go. I want this to be a message of hope. Maybe you're in such a place that you continually give up.

Maybe you're in such a place where you don't know what to do with some of these things. I want to encourage you and say, you don't have to live there. You don't have to live that way. You can be free if you are willing.

And so very simply, I believe, is that we allow a time for the Holy Spirit to search us and try us and see what these wicked ways are in here. What are those arrows? And if you recognize that there's arrows in your heart today, just pull them out.

Look, just pull them out, right? How do you do that? How do I actually pull those arrows out? I think of the story of the Good Samaritan, we know it quite well. You know, there was the priest that came along, and when he caught a glimpse of that man laying there, wounded and dying, he quickly passed by.

Well, the Levite, he came, and he looked at it. It's like he took time to study it. He looked at it. But he also decided it's too much for him. And he went on. The Samaritan came, and he, when he saw the man, he went over there, and he pulled the arrows out, right?

He bound up his wounds, and he poured in the oil and the wine for healing. And he took him on his donkey and took care of him. Sometimes when we look at our own heart, it looks too painful to even want to address it.

And just like that priest, if I take enough time to look at my heart just one time, I just say it's impossible, and I turn away. And I don't do anything about it. Or am I like that Levite who, when he saw, he saw the condition of that man, he looked at it, and maybe he decided it's too costly.

I don't want to get involved. I'll try to go on without it. Or are you like that Samaritan that when you see that heart, if you look at your own heart in life, and you take time to do that, what do you see?

And you decide, I am willing to go through whatever it takes to pull those arrows out. When you might think, no one can see them. No one can see those arrows in my heart. Or you can put, you know, I was sharing this with a man one time, and he said, I just asked him to close his eyes and look at his heart.

And it's like he started weeping. He said, it's so wrapped up with bandages, I can't even see it. Putting more bandages on, putting more wrapping on. Trying to take care of it. But as long as those arrows are still there, those bitter words that were spoken, you still remember what that person said.

You still remember what happened to you. And when you think about it, it still hurts today. It is still painful. And bitterness wells up, and you wish that person would be dead, or you wish that person would die, or you wish that person would experience the pain that you're feeling from those words that he spoke to you.

But here's what I believe needs to be done. We need to take him to the cross. We need to bring the cross, that instrument of death, to bear. Jesus died for our sufferings, our pain. He died for our healing.

And I need to be willing to look at my heart, I need to be willing to talk about that arrow. What happened, that hurt. And bring it out, acknowledge it, confess it, and choose to forgive the person who shot that arrow at my heart.

Choose to forgive, and release that person, and that's the means of pulling that arrow out. And I take that arrow to the cross. I take those words that were spoken. Sometimes there's words that are spoken in our life, sometimes as a child, or as a young person, or even just days or weeks ago, or years and years and years ago.

There's words that were spoken, words that have power, and those words still stand in the back of our mind, and they control us by standing there, just like soldiers, and every once in a while they come, and they just trouble you.

Or something happens, it triggers a memory of those words that were spoken, and you experience those emotions again, and those feelings that came when you got hurt. You can acknowledge those words, take them to the cross, choose to forgive that person, and those words will lose their power.

They will simply die, because you point them to the cross. We have at home, I think most of you probably have little things called post, posting notes. What's a posting note? You write something on that thing, and you post it up on the wall, so that you remember it.

Well, I would like to say, let's just post these things to the cross, that's the picture. I'm going to take that, I'm going to post that thing to the cross, in Jesus' name, amen. I don't actually write something down, no.

I'm talking about a spiritual practice here, and that is to taking that which was done to me, taking that which was said to me, recognizing it, acknowledging it, confessing it, and out loud, sending it to the cross, in the power, in the power and in the name of Jesus Christ.

That's what I believe needs to be done. This area of my life needs to align up with what God's word says. So there's so many, so many, when you're a hurting person, you end up believing the lies of the devil, and he keeps lying to you, you're a bad person, you're this, you're no good, you're not worthy of any of these things, you're just a down, down, down, down.

Repentance and Renewing the Mind

And you end up believing those lies, because your emotions are agreeing with it. In your emotions, you're agreeing with what the enemy is saying. You're feeling it. And so you agree with it. And when you agree with the lies of the enemy, what happens?

You continue on that pathway, and more of those feelings come, and it becomes more clear to you that it is true I'm a no good. I'm not worth anything. I believe there needs to be a repentance. What does repentance mean?

Repentance means a change of direction. A change of direction, especially in your mind. And so if I'm agreeing with the devil about who he says I am, and I'm believing these things because of my experience, I need to repent of those things, and I need to go to the alignment shop, right?

I need to get an alignment here, and line up with what God says about me. God says, you're my child. I've adopted you. Renew your mind. Walk in that renewed mind there. Not in the old way. Not according to what Satan says.

And so now here's what happens. So if I repent, I think of what Luke records there about John the Baptist. When John the Baptist came preaching the baptism of repentance, there was such a move of God among the people.

The people came to be baptized, and they said, what shall we do? It's like they just suddenly woke up to the fact that, well, I can't live that way anymore. I have to now live a new way. What should we do?

And Jesus said, he that hath two coats, let him share one of them. If you have extra food, pass it around. And the tax collectors, they said, you know, we've been going down this way, and now they're repenting, and they're saying, well, what shall we do?

And Jesus said, don't exact any more than what you need to. The soldiers likewise came. What shall we do? You see, it's a picture of repentance. They changed the way they thought in their minds. And if you're here this morning, if you're listening to this message, and you recognize that your way of thinking is that I am no good, and I am a rotten person, and I'm a bad guy, and you're thinking those things about yourself, you're listening to the wrong person.

You're listening to the devil. And he'll make sure that you feel your feelings are according to what you are thinking. Are you with me? Well, let's just go over, let's turn around. Let's go this direction.

Proclaiming God's Truth

And let's proclaim the truth of what God says about me. I am a child of God. I am worth something. He thinks I'm wonderful. He thinks I'm beautiful. He thinks I'm, he says I'm a good person. He says I'm holy, pure, righteous.

And if I repent from that lie that way and go this way, that's a renewing of my mind. And if I proclaim that truth, if I line up with truth in my mind, I've been given a sound mind, not one of fear, no, but of power and love and a sound mind, and I am able by God's grace to repent of my listening to those lies over there and turn and start proclaiming truth, what God says about me.

Do you think my feelings will follow? Hmm? Will my feelings, my emotions, will they agree with what I speak? Hmm? They will. They will. Yes, they will. The whole soul, the sound mind, and of love which enables us to hear, believe, hope and do all things and is the incentive to all obedience.

And that of a sound mind, it implies a clear means of understanding, sound judgment, a purified will, holy passions, heavenly tempers, and in a word, the whole soul is harmonized in all its powers and faculties and completely regulated and influenced by the power of the Holy Ghost.