good morning Mercy culture my name is Landon I'm the senior lead pastor of Mercy Coulter Church the vision of our church is to take people from corporate encounters with God to daily personal encounters with God and here's what that means is is we are not just about a great church service but we want you to encounter the presence of God every single day because when you get in the presence of God you it's so easy to hear him when you begin to hear God and obey God everything in your life begins to change so here at Mercy culture we're passionate about God encounters and we want to help you encounter God on a daily basis so we do this through our membership which is really discipleship we call it connect it's super easy you can text connect to the number that comes on the screen or go to mercyculture.com click connect and you watch a few short videos about our church and then you take this connect with God assessment and this is a game changer for your spiritual growth because here's what it'll do it'll show you how you best connect with God because we've done this disservice in the body of Christ where we've tried to make everyone connect with God the same and the truth is everyone connects with God differently so when you discover how you best connect with God it literally is a game changer for your spiritual growth so we want you to spiritually grow we want you to encounter God so I want to encourage you take that next step go through connect I promise you it will change your life amen what's exciting week going on a mercy culture tonight we have our Dallas interest night in Dallas this Wednesday is uh our our monthly prayer night and we're believing God for healing if you need healing for anything get out on Wednesday night to prayer I think SLS is going to start later this week so many exciting stuff going on here at Mercy culture and how many ready for the word this morning if you want my notes you can text notes to the number that comes on the screen and what is in front of me will be sent to you I actually have over 70 verses that I'm going to be referencing this morning there's a lot on this someone say sound Doctrine if you have your Bibles you could turn with me to First Kings chapter 22 in First Kings chapter 22 will be getting in verse 29. and it says this so the king of Israel or Ahab and Jehoshaphat the king of Judah went up to remoth Gilead and the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat I will disguise myself and go into battle but you wear your robes and the king of Israel disguised himself and went into the battle verse 34 but a certain man drew his bow at random instruct the king of Israel in the joint or scale of the armor therefore the driver of his scary he said turn around and get me out of this battle I am wounded verse 35 and the battle continued that day and the King was propped up in his Chariot facing the syrians until at evening time he died and the blood of the Wounded flowed into the bottom of the Chariot verse 36 and it was about Sunset a cry went out from the Army every man in the city every man in his country so the king had died I came here to tell you this morning when you put on the breastplate of righteousness you are wearing dunamis the title of this message this morning is the breastplate of righteousness let's pray so father we declare right now your word is true we declare let every man be a liar we pray right now let your word be a lamp into our feet and a light into our path Holy Spirit I ask you to breathe right now on your logos word your written word I pray you'd become alive I pray that you would give us ears to hear Hearts to receive Minds to understand what your spirit is saying father I declare no Spirit but the holy spirit is welcome in this room right now so we say every other Spirit you must go fear you must go any dispiritive distractions you must go we say Holy Spirit Come rule rain you are the center of our attention Holy Spirit I declare right now we don't make room for you but we give you the entire room father I thank you no one came to hear me we all came to hear you so we say Speak Lord your servants are listening and all God's people said amen and amen well we are stewarding a prophetic word on dunamis that this would be a year that we would strengthen and fortify our faith this would be a year where the holy spirit's power would be go from resting on us to indwelling or abiding in us we've been talking about issues of Doctrine and sound Doctrine and making sure that your faith is fortified this year and right now we're in a series on the whole armor or the full armor of God so we're going to strengthen our faith through the full armor of God last week we I did an introduction on the full armor of God and I taught on the belt of Truth and that there's a war on truth because Jesus is truth when you are not wearing your belt of Truth you are not living in the truth and when we wear the belt of Truth and when we wear the armor of God we're literally wearing the characteristics or the image of Jesus I would encourage you if you didn't hear part one make sure you go back and listen to it last week because we set up the whole context of the full arm of God this morning we're talking about the breastplate of righteousness which in chronological order it is the second part of the armor that the Bible mentions Ephesians 6 14 says therefore having fastened the belt of Truth and putting on the breastplate of righteousness someone say righteousness this is so important for you strengthening and fortifying your faith is understanding righteousness Romans 14 17 says this that the kingdom of God is made up of righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit the entire kingdom of God is made up of righteousness my mentor and spiritual father was a prophet named John Paul Jackson and he mentored me for years on a weekly basis before he went to go be with Jesus and just about the only thing we talked about for the first year was righteousness that's all we talked about and I remember him telling me this he said Landon righteousness is the matter of Heaven I said what do you mean it's the matter of Heaven he said everything in the kingdom of God is made of righteousness now I remember being in science class in high school and they were talking about matter and I was a little confused and I I was saying you know what do you mean everything is matter this microphones matter your chairs matter the solar systems matter matter is what makes up everything it's the fiber of what everything in the solar system is made of and that's like righteousness everything in the kingdom of God all of Heaven is made of the matter of righteousness another way to describe it is it's the DNA of Heaven when Heather and I first got married we like to lay in bed at night and watch those crime shows where there's like forensics and stuff like that and we lay in bed we watch way too many of them and and we'd play this game with each other and we're like well if I was going to kill you I'm like I would burn your body and so I'd ruin all the evidence and make it so hard for them to figure it out she's like no no they fight the trace evidence of the how you started the fire and you'd get caught no no she was like I'd cut your body up into tiny little pieces and I'd feed you to alligators because you're they would digest you in over two hours and how do I need a two-hour window and then I'd be in the clear and no one would find me out and it was this like romantic conversation we would have on a regular basis and it's wild because when you watch these shows they find one piece of DNA and that one piece of DNA can either prove someone guilty or innocent of years and years ago how important this one piece of DNA is righteousness watch is the DNA of Heaven it's what the entire kingdom of God is made up you know there's a story in John chapter 9 and many of you are familiar with it it's a story of a blind man and you've heard preachers talk about her you've read it in the word and Jesus spit in the ground made some mud put in the Man's eyes and you know people kind of get grossed out or can't figure out why would Jesus put mud in someone's face and they get distracted about the wrong thing and they get so focused on the mud and the situation that they don't realize that there's an exchange of DNA where there is a man who's blind and can't see watch his DNA isn't working properly and jesus takes his spit or he takes watch Heaven's DNA and he puts it in his dysfunctional DNA watch and then all of a sudden he's healed watch because the DNA of Heaven invades his DNA see that's what righteousness does is it allows the DNA of Heaven to renew your mind it allows the DNA of Heaven to heal your heart it allows the DNA of Heaven to come and heal your body it transforms you into the likeness of God that's when you start becoming like the one you've behold it's the DNA of Heaven when you're understanding the word righteousness it's a it's a funny word it's it's a word and what it what it means is it's a Judicial word that actually predicts the Innocence or the guilt of someone it's it's it's a a courtroom scene where a judge is determining the ruling over and in his over somewhat determining if they are innocent or determining if they're guilty it is a Divine approval and here's what's Wild is you cannot from a Biblical perspective separate the word righteousness from the word justice in fact when I preach unrighteousness in a Spanish church and they interpret it in Spanish there's no word in Spanish for righteousness they use the same word they use for justice because righteousness is Heaven's Justice righteousness is what is just watched in Heaven's eyes so let me give you a simplified definition of this here's my definition of righteousness righteousness is intentionally living right in God's eyes notice I didn't say your ice because a lot of people do what they think is right and they say stuff like well well you know me and the Lord have an understanding or we're married in God's eyes you're not married in God's eyes you're fornicating in God's eyes and that's why he wrote in his book you just haven't got your eyes where his eyes were in his book so your eyes are wrong or or you say stuff like well I don't understand if two people love each other then why can't they just be married because in God's eyes he created man marriage between one man and one woman for life watch so your eyes see it wrong that's why you got your Facebook Theologian Christians that love commenting on on your stuff don't judge me really what they're saying when they say don't judge me is I don't want to live righteously that's really what they're saying watch is is I want to be right in my eyes I don't care about being right in God's eyes see our eyes are dysfunctional and we need some of that spit come on we need some of that heaven's DNA to enter our eyes in our heart in our life so we begin to look like heaven righteousness watch is being right in God's eyes this desire to please the Lord a desire to do what's right now it's wild because in 2014 is really when this journey began with me and the lord gave me an assignment to preach on righteousness for the entire year so 2014 I think I preached 39 different sermons around the nation and all these different churches evangelist and the only thing I preached on was righteousness and and most people weren't preaching about righteousness and in that year I really noticed that not only would I not hear a lot of people preaching about righteousness I didn't hear anyone even talking about righteousness I heard a a bad Theology of Grace I I heard a lot about God blessing you and how amazing you are and God Made You just how you are and live how you are I didn't hear a lot about dying to your flesh picking up your cross and following Jesus not only did I not hear a lot of sermons on righteousness even worse I started noticing that people would quote scripture and then they would remove righteousness from scripture now I don't think they did it on purpose but I would hear stuff like this all the time Matthew 6 33 people say seek ye first the kingdom and everything else will be added to you in fact I I stood in a church service and I heard a pastor declare it I said sir you missed something he doesn't say seek ye first just the kingdom but it says and his righteousness and then everything else will be added to you but I noticed we jumped over righteousness and went to seek ye first the kingdom and everything will be added I know that it's stuff like Proverbs chapter 24 where people would say or pray or post they would say though a righteous man May or although a man may fall seven times the Lord will pick you up and I heard them over and over pray and say this but I never heard them say righteous they would say though you may fall seven times the Lord will pick you back up it depends some people fall down and stay down some people don't know what it's like for God to reach down and help them back up who does he help up he helps up the righteous how about this scripture in James 5 16 you've heard this the fervent prayer availeth much well your prayer might not Avail for much your prayer might be an unrighteous prayer in the flesh that doesn't go very far but whose prayer availeth much the righteous prayer availeth much how about this one the wealth of the wicked is stored up for you maybe not I know it's not stored up for everybody who's this stored up for I've watched this over and over with scripture people quoting scripture and omitting or removing the righteousness and here's why people accidentally or on purpose remove righteousness from scripture because righteousness had been removed from their lives and when righteousness isn't in your lives watch this you don't even see in Scripture that's why it's so dangerous that you could be familiar with something but not have the revelation of it please listen to me today to church I don't want to talk about a subject that you've heard so many times in church where you pass over it you said oh I've heard that scripture before all right understand this or I know what this is watch you know what I love about God's word is it's alive you read any other book you read Moby Dick and it's just about a whale but you read one scripture a thousand times and then he breathes upon it and it comes alive and it starts speaking to you again and even though the doctrine doesn't change it says something new and fresh because the Holy Spirit wrote it and the Holy Spirit is living in active and breathing on it today I love God's word watch because it becomes alive again I don't want you to be familiar with righteousness and you don't know the Revelation today so lock in with me as I talk about the scripture talk in with me as I redo you these 70 different scriptures and talk about what the kingdom of God is let me give you some practical advice when you're reading your Bible underline every verse on righteousness or righteous in the same color and start paying attention to how much God is pointing to righteousness you can do the same thing with truth with a different color you can learn how to recognize what God's word is saying by doing this do you know there's over a thousand scriptures on righteousness it would take you hours to sit and just read every verse on righteousness the reason why you can't get through psalms you can't get through Proverbs Old Testament and New Testament Old Testament who did God save Humanity through Noah a righteous man who was the father of Faith Abraham a righteous man he was always looking for someone to partner with righteousness how about job in the Old Testament where it's one thing for the the enemy to say your name it's something else for God to say your name to the enemy Satan never brought job up God said Satan are you tired of messing with the faithless faithlessness Christian have you considered my servant job there's no one like him watch He's righteous ah then then here's what what what Satan said he said does Joe fear you for nothing he said you put a hedge of protection around him you lift that hedge he won't love you now the first thing I notice is if God gives out heads or protection where do I get one and here's the thing you know what the hedge of protection was it was his righteousness that protected him that guarded him that's why even when his friend said curse God and die he said you could take everything from me naked I come naked I go but I'm gonna hold on to my righteousness watch God is looking to partner with righteousness it's a powerful thing all throughout scriptures you know these scriptures let them come alive in you we see the righteousness righteousness is in the full arm of God Ephesians 6 righteousness is in the uh sermon on the mountain the Beatitudes Matthew 5 6 the righteous live by faith according to Galatians 3 the righteous are bold as a lion according to Proverbs 28 God's prayers or ears are listening to the prayers of the righteous First Peter chapter 3 how about the righteous are never forsaken Psalms 37 righteousness Yokes or unifies Believers Second Corinthians chapter six were persecuted because of righteousness bringing on Matthew chapter five or I love this cities are spared for righteousness according to Genesis chapter 18. now I love Genesis after 18 let me take a second with it because in Genesis Chapter 18 it's the story of Abraham who was a righteous man and he's crying out for an unrighteous City and despite what woke theologians will tell you the reason why God destroyed Sodom was not in Hospitality it was over its grotesque perversion it was a city that was known for homosexual practice it was a city that the men tried to rape and have sex with angels it was a wicked vile perverted City and we know it was immoral because there wasn't righteousness in it so watch in Genesis Chapter 18 put it on the screen Abraham begins to ask God he begins to negotiate with God what would it take to spare this city and the first thing he said would you spare it for 50 righteous then he starts negotiating with God he's like God could we do it for 40 40 44. how did I get 44. how about 30. we do it for 30. I hear one Thirty third one thirty three what do you do for 20. 20 God and he gets all the way down to 10. and we don't know why he stops at 10. some theologians have different opinions on it but I think the most logical argument is he couldn't count less than 10. but here's what we know watch this God said to Abraham I will spare this city for 50 righteous and I will spare the city for ten righteous now I'm not a mathematician but that's only the difference of 40 righteous people and if he would save the city for 50 or he would save the city for ten watch it means that righteousness is what saves cities now watch this because some of you haven't been too fond of your own family because you've seen the unrighteousness in your family but I came to tell you from a theological perspective with sound Doctrine if there is one righteous in your family then there is saving through your family there is hope for your family watch if there's just a few righteous in Fort Worth if there's just a few righteous in Palace if there's a few righteous in Texas my God if there's a few righteous in America [Applause] ah see hold on hold on because the enemy will just tell you how dark America is getting I get it they're they're doing sex changes on kids I get it we've kicked God out of schools I get it it's getting darker it's getting corrupt I understand what's going on but here's what I know is that righteousness is what changes families it's what saves cities it's what turns around Nations watch this is our answer [Applause] but I also need to caution you righteousness is what saves cities not self-righteousness oh this is where you have to be careful what a self-righteousness pastor of self-righteousness is when you start thinking your Works made you righteous it's when you've been around church folk too long and your outfit too pretty and you smell too good this is this is when you start pretending like this is who you really are we know how you dress up at church it's just your representative we know that's really not who you are come on I'm talking about the person that was cursinged just a few days ago I'm talking about the person that was struggling with lust just a moment ago I'm talking about the gossiping backbiting things that in your mind that if we knew you wouldn't think you were so righteous and there's some church folk that think that you just because you don't sleep around you're righteous when you commit abomination of gossip on a regular basis your mouth is more perverse than their body is see this is where you got to be careful in any time watch you think you have anything to do with your righteousness in fact scripture says that no one is righteous the prophet said it like this your righteousness is like filthy rags I don't mean to get too gross in here but if you study that in the Hebrews your filthy rags is like the the discard of a cloth that a woman used during her menstrual cycle on your best day that's how righteous you are ah this is this is what we need to understand this is what religion tries to do it tries to make it about your Works no Works comes later faith comes first let me teach you this is important let me give you some sound Doctrine right here there's two kinds of righteousness that we find in scripture the first is called imputed the second is imparted imputed righteousness is simply this it is a free gift that God gives you it is a free gift when Christ Jesus took your place of sin and exchanged it with his righteousness so he trades you his righteousness for your unrighteousness through the sacrifice on the cross could someone say thank you so that word credited to just it means this you didn't deserve it and that's where you got to be careful because some people can get religious and then they start looking down at other people and they think if they deserve forgiveness or righteousness or not and that's where you have to understand none of us did now hold on now you got to be careful because I'm gonna lean back on the next kind of righteousness this is so the first car first kind is called imputed say imputed you guys are all Scholars the second is called imparted imparted righteousness is when you begin to look like the one you're being created from watch this is where the Christ that is for you now becomes the Christ that is in you watch this is when your works or your lifestyle begins to reflect the righteousness that just saves you now let me wind this back because a couple weeks ago I taught you about salvation and we talked about the three process or the three steps to Salvation or the process of Salvation so the first thing you have is justification that's where Jesus says you're not guilty and it's crazy because you're really all guilty you're a dirty sinner they're all of us we are I am you are okay all have fallen short of the glory of God we have all sinned okay but he says you're not guilty then the second thing of Salvation he says now I'm going to make you a new creation or a regeneration this is where the old person dies then you get into the third part of sanctification where you start living christ-like so I want to pull this back because we already talked to you about salvation now I want to show you where righteousness comes in so go to the next screen see your imputed righteousness when he says you're Justified and you're not guilty that's when he makes you righteous that's the weird part because he says you're righteous but we all know you ain't so let me say it a different way you're not righteous he's righteous and he made you righteous and he changed you it's not fair that's what we call Mercy but then he says watch I'm calling you righteous now go live righteous I want to impart righteousness into you into this new creation this regeneration watch as the old person dies the new person comes alive you sign up for baptisms we're baptizing people next week get baptized watch start this process of regeneration that I'm dying in the water the old man is gone the new man has come in Christ You Are Made made new the old is gone the new has come this is the process of righteousness now the purpose of righteousness or in the context of this message the breastplate of righteousness its job is to guard the heart bring it back practically for a moment the breastplate covers the heart or it covers the place where the most vital organs are and here's what scripture says the breastplate of righteousness the purpose of it is to guard your heart now I want to Pastor you I just taught you now I want to Pastor you this is important proverbs 4 might be my life verse maybe the most important verse I've ever had to partner with outside of salvation this is important here's what it says it says above all else guards your heart for it is the Wellspring of Life cool thing to do is go read this in a bunch of different versions how it says but it says it's where the source of Life comes from it's where your future lies here's what it's saying listen there's nothing more important to your future than keeping this heart right with God watch righteousness is what guards your heart now when the Bible's saying heart that's another thing that you got to be careful of because you could be in the church world or maybe you're new to Christian Christianity or new to following Jesus and and you start bringing some of your old ways your worldly ways into your Christianity and you can be confused because in the church world we say a lot of things that aren't biblical we say stuff like I'm just going to go with my heart no no stop you need a good friend to say no I'm gonna judge you right now no every time you go with your heart you make bad decisions that's why you keep getting bad relationships that's why you can't get in Bad Business deals that's why you keep doing dumb things stop going with your heart Jesus never said go with your heart that's why we have daily encounters that's why I have an intimate relationship with Jesus we don't go with our heart we go with God's word and where the Holy Spirit leads us so watch if we make a mistake you know what the mistake was I tried to please the Lord not I went with my heart let me warn you okay because let me tell you what the Bible says about your heart you ready turn your neighbor and say he's about to go in Jeremiah 17 9 the heart is most deceitful of all things desperately wicked who really knows how bad it is that's you going with your heart right there let me say a different way I'm just really going to go with desperately wicked and I don't even know how bad it is how about Romans 21 the fall of humanity it says this for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but they became futile in their thinking their foolish Hearts were darkened Matthew 7 21 from within our heart of a man comes evil thoughts sexually immorality murder and adultery now when I say heart in the Hebrew it's the word lay be which means this it means the center of everything the core of everything and it could be a little confusing in the scriptures because sometimes you'll use the word heart and soul interchangeably but what it's talking about is the inward core of a man I love what Dr Brown says he says this is how he defines heart personally the seed of his emotions the core of a being or the guts of how I feel or what I believe so let me give you the most simplified definition I can it's the core of a person your heart is the core of who you are and that's what you have to understand the heart is important to the Lord now it's wild because in church the outside is most important sometimes or with your friends the outside is the most important how do you look how influenced you are how successful you are how wealthy you are all these outside things where do you live where do you drive all of this outside stuff and here's the danger is if you don't understand how valuable the heart is you'll end up looking on outside things instead of the most valuable thing in first Samuel God made Saul King because the people asked for him but Saul never had his heart after God Saul's heart was after himself and so he removed Saul and here's what he said I'm going to give a better King I'm going to give a better man who's a man watch after my own heart so he has the prophet Samuel go and anoint one of Jesse's Sons that's all God told him you're going to go anoint one of Jesse's Sons so the prophet Samuel shows up and he sees Iliad that's David's oldest brother he was tall he was handsome he was the oldest and according to scripture he thought for himself surely that's the Lord's anointed now this is wild because Samuel's a prophet and even prophets miss it when they think instead of here so he sees eliabad thinks for himself surely he's it and then God in his grace corrected him he said Samuel you're looking at the outside no no no you're looking at his Representative no no you're looking at the things man looks at I need you to look at what I value the most I need you to look at the heart because this is what touches me this is what affects me this is what I want from a king the heart is so important to the Lord Matthew 23 37 this is the greatest commandment this is so huge the greatest commandment this is the one thing every Christian is called and charged to do when the when the Pharisees were trying to challenge Jesus of what the greatest commandment is the top ten referring to the Old Testament Jesus said this the greatest thing that you can do is love God with all of your it's the greatest church I need you to hear what I'm saying this is so important for you being firm in your foundation this is so important that you don't lose the faith you know why people lose the faith because they love other things more than they love God with their heart they don't love the Lord their God with all of their heart they love their vacations with all of their heart they love their finances with all of their heart they love their resources they want fame they want other things watch this is why people lose the faith is because the number one greatest thing Jesus told them to do they don't do church this is what he wants more than anything he wants your heart watch because if he has your heart he has the core of you if he has your heart he has all of you hmm here's what you need to understand God tests the heart I said in my book Jezebel that those that operate the Jezebel spirit or those that think they're submitted only are submitted until their will is tested and many people think they have a pure heart or pure ambition until your heart is tested and God tests the heart of his people Proverbs 17 says a crucible for silver says but the go but the heart is tested or God tests the heart you have to understand that in this journey of life God is going to test people's heart and you have to learn how to guard your heart to pass those tests I was praying for you this week and I felt three tests that I wanted to share with you that you're going to have to go through and pass there's going to be three tests that you're going to have to guard your heart over I want to bring him to your attention today I'm sure there's many more these are the three that God put on my heart the first is the faithful test you're going to have to guard your heart and pass the faithful test I'm going to ask you this today are you faithful to God are you faithful to his word are you Faithful in the house of God Matthew 25 21 says if you have been faithful with little he will make you ruler over much and many people don't get to the ruler over much place because they weren't faithful with little are you Faithful in obeying scripture do you live a morally Pure or sexually Pure Life let me ask you this question do you keep your word are you honest are you Faithful in your giving to God Matthew 6 21 says for where your treasure is there your heart will be also there's so many people that think they're faithful to God but their finances don't reflect what they say in their heart Jesus said it like this many people say they're with me with their mouths but their heart is far from me let me ask you this are you Faithful in the trials of Life see most people lose their faith in this season here because Trials of Life come and they instead of saying uh what is responding how job respond naked I come in the world naked I leave Lord I'm gonna love you no matter what they start saying I can't believe God would allow me to go through this and so because God has allowed me to go through this I'm going to decide right now that I'm not going to be faithful to him anymore despite him sending his son to die on the cross for my sin to save me that's not good enough anymore see people can't pass this test when they allow the disappointment or the trials of life to discourage them I call this the trials of life I call this the weight of Life what's the weight of Life the weight of life is when you are being crushed by disappointment it's when you know what you believe but you don't know if you believe what you know anymore because what you know and what you believed is being tested it's when you can't figure out in your mind why is this happening why is God allowing this to happen this is where there's a resolve in your commitment in you to love God no matter what despite what my circumstances are it's not going to change my faithfulness to God [Applause] and church you will be tested with your faithfulness every single one of us and here's the thing is if you don't pass this test you will be tested again and I don't know about you but I'm not one of those ones that like to retake tests I want to learn it the first time what if you just stopped right now and instead of in complaining in your daily encounters what if you start asking Holy Spirit what are you trying to teach me I told you I'm going to Pastor you now what if instead of letting a fence come in what if you started to ask him okay I'm not seeing the finances that I thought I would see so what are you trying to teach me about stewardship what if you said I'm not seeing the healing that that I was believing for what are you teaching me about faith and it's not that I don't have enough faith well someone needs to get healed of this right now you have enough faith it's not that you need enough faith maybe God just wants to teach you something in this season maybe you need to learn what Paul learned when he was in jail that in this season God wants to do something greater in me than the surroundings around me look at these are the seasons that God will produce something great church hear me but you have to be faithful ah I I feel like I can't leave this for a second you will not get promoted in the Kingdom without faithfulness you will not spiritually Advance without faithfulness so I came to ask you and your pastor where are you not being faithful what area of your faith are you not being faithful Proverbs 24 10 says if you faint in the day adverse adversity your strength is small I like how The Message Bible says it says this if you fall into pieces in crisis there wasn't much to you in the first place after you pass the faithful test the second test you're going to have to pass is the success test see the faithful test you know you're being tested and you know when you pass because you finally make it through you finally have joy you see yourself coming on the other side this successful test is a harder one because it's a pop quiz and you don't know when it's coming see the success test is how do you respond to God's favor how do you respond to success see the children of Israel had to pass this test it was easy when they were being persecuted in Egypt and slaves in Egypt because they made it out but all of a sudden God started blessing them all of a sudden they got in the promised land all of a sudden they got in the goodness of the Lord and what happened they forgot go read the Old Testament over and over and they forgot and they forgot and they forgot and they forgot my God I don't want to forget you know all of a sudden people start telling you how great you are you start believing it started telling you how wise you are I am wise how anointed You Are I Am you're right I'm amazing and then you start believing it like you're God's gift to everything you're God's gift if you left Mercy culture the whole thing would implode the all ground would open up like AIDS is gone this one's harder because it's in your prideful blind spots see this is when you start putting your trust in your retirement is when you start putting retrust in your reserves all of a sudden you don't have to pray like you used to pray when you had nothing because you have plenty all of a sudden you are in spiritual Easy Street watch you became rich in the natural and no longer are you poor in the spirit anymore you have forgotten about how good God has been watch you have lost your need for God you know what God Said to Saul when he was removing the kingdom or the anointing from him he said you were once small in your own eyes la but somewhere along the line you got big in your eyes you got so spiritually important and you're going to fail the test you know my prayer for you is as God blesses you you get more humble that as God promotes you you get even more desperate for him as God continues to richly bless you it's only as your soul prospers watch that God would bless you so much but as He blesses you it would cause you to need him so much more Church you have to pass this test the third test I felt like I was supposed to bring up to you today that you must test you must pass is the Betrayal test can you love your betrayers how quick do you forgive do you forgive at all have you truly forgiven do you love your enemies have you prayed for God to bless your enemies how about this one have you thanked God for your enemies see if you don't pass this test you're not going to be spiritually promoted and there's Christians that get stuck for decades in this test because they can't pass it because they just think about their EX they just think about that business partner they just thought about that church member they just thought about that family member and how they betrayed them and they can't get out of it watch and so they become a victim or they become bound in that betrayal watch have you ever thought for a second that God would use it have you even thought for a second how there may be spiritual promotion in it or that maybe you would even be who you are in God without it have you ever thought that maybe just maybe I know this is hard and and maybe this won't go with what your therapist said to you but maybe that was one of the most pivotal greatest things that ever happened to you it's quiet in here because you haven't passed this test yet but we're going to get there together maybe you need the betrayer you know Jesus had 12 disciples many left 12 stayed but he had 12 that he called apostles and out of those 12 the only one he needed was Judas he didn't need Peter to die on the cross he didn't need John he didn't need any of the other disciples watch this but he had to have a Judas because Judas was the betrayer see without a betrayal there wasn't an arrest without an arrest there wasn't a trial without a trial there wasn't a sentence without a sentence there wasn't a cross without the cross there wasn't the grave without the grave there wasn't Resurrection without Resurrection there wasn't salvation what he needed a betrayer watched to position him to the place of sacrifice to save you and to save me Church you need a betrayer [Applause] and there's so many people that get stuck and why did this happen to me instead of what Joseph said when his brothers betrayed him he meant it for evil but God turned this thing for good listen Romans said this that all things are made for good for those that love God [Applause] you gotta pass this test how do you know when you pass this test you don't hate him anymore how do you know when you pass this test you care about them making it to heaven how do you know that you passed this test when your heart breaks for their the state of their soul church you've got to pass the Betrayal test kin is one of the most beautiful tests because when you can be trusted with betrayal you could be trusted in the Kingdom watch the greatest responsibility in the kingdom is given to those that pass the Betrayal test I felt the Lord speak to my spirit and say this house was in a testing season you are in a testing season I came to ask you today where are you being tested some of you are being tested in your faithfulness some of you being detested and your success some of you are being tested in betrayal but where are you being tested today and I felt so strong in my spirit that there was resolve in my spirit that today we're going to pass this test in this season we're going to pass this test why because we are guarding our hearts Church hear your pastor you do not pass tests when you don't guard your heart this is where a fence gets in this is where pride gets in this where unforgiveness gets in this word jealousy gets in this is where ambition gets in or you can guard your heart so how do you actually guard your heart I know we're talking about righteousness we're talking about a lot of deep theological issues but how do you actually guard your heart I asked the Lord that question one time I said Lord would you teach me how to guard my heart you know that's one of the most beautiful prayers you can pray does Holy Spirit teach me and as soon as I asked him would you teach me how to guard my heart he said look at the angel in the garden I went to Genesis chapter 3 and Genesis chapter 3 put on the screen it's it talks about Adam and Eve being removed from the garden why were they being removed because they brought unrighteousness in in unrighteousness wasn't allowed in the garden just like unrighteousness will not be allowed in heaven so God removes Adam and Eve from the garden puts an angel a cherubim with a sword on fire guarding the way back into the garden the holy spirit said look at the angel he was holding a sword on fire how do you guard your heart with the holy spirit's help in the word of God watch in your daily encounter in God's word with the Holy Spirit is how you guard your heart you know how you guard your heart you tell on yourself Lord I feel it getting hard Lord I feel myself getting mad I feel myself hating I feel myself not liking them Holy Spirit you see it I see it do you see it show me to this thing inside of me you got to get this out of me then you start reading in the word about how he forgave you and what a wretched sinner you were then you start thanking him for his grace his Mercy his salvation that he starts talking about loving your enemies and you don't want to but you're in the word you're with the spirit and you start blessing those that have hurt you you start loving those that wrong to you watch you start walking out righteousness and that process of guarding your heart begins Church if you guard your heart I promise you you will be successful spiritually if you guard your heart I promise you the enemy will not take you out if you guard your heart despite what seasons look like your life will reflect jobs a righteous man no one like him church we must be people that guard our hearts from all unrighteousness let's go back to Acts chapter 22 or excuse me first Kings chapter 22. the scripture that we opened up with if you notice when I preach every time I open up with a story and I end with a story so let me give you some context for this story First Kings 21 and 22 are all of that first king section is about a wicked woman named Jezebel her wimpy fragile unrighteous husband named Ahab and a bunch of prophets and in the story King Ahab is known as an unrighteous King in fact scripture said he did more evil than any other king before him now what did he do that was so evil he married a witch who worshiped Baal and aligned God's people with God's enemies he aligned the people he was supposed to be leading to God and introduced him to Baal he was a wicked King and this wicked King went and partnered with another king named Jehoshaphat and he said would you help me fight the enemy and they go to fight but Jehoshaphat feared the Lord and he said let's inquire of God if we're going to win this battle so King Ahab got his 400 false prophets that were woke prophets that were on his payroll these were the ones that would jump back and forth between church and Jezebel and they were all prophesying what he wanted to hear reminds me of your YouTube Prophet friends you're going to win you're going to win you're going to win you're amazing you're awesome you're wonderful and Jehoshaphat said you have any real prophets around here and Ahab said there's one but I don't like him because he doesn't prophesy anything good about me ever his name was Micah they went and got him they brought him before him they said prophesy he's like oh you're awesome you're going to win the battle you're amazing There's No One Like You Ahab and Ahab starts getting mad throwing a fit he said would you prophesy the truth he goes fine you're evil and you're gonna die so the unrighteous King threw a fit and threw him in jail and said you're not getting out of jail till I come back alive watch he's trying to manipulate a prophetic word to get what he wants he's not done with his manipulation so then he goes to Jehoshaphat and said hey I'll tell you what um you dress up like a king because you're a king when we go into battle but I'm going to disguise myself now why would he try to disguise himself in battle because he thought the king would be taken out because the prophetic word so if I don't look like a king I can't be taken out because someone won't recognize me watch and I can manipulate the Judgment of God through my strategy see this is what unrighteous people do is they try to manipulate and twist and connive to try to get around the righteousness of God worship team come join me so here's what the Bible says in First Kings 22 put it up on the screen it says some certain man that we don't know who they are with a random Arrow someone say random hit him in the joint of the armor now if you study where the joint of the armor is the joint of the armor is a gap that is in the breastplate so watch this the unrighteous King gets hit in the breastplate with a random Arrow where there's a hole because there's unrighteousness church I came to tell you today where there's unrighteousness in your life are the holes in your breastplate and where there's holes in the breastplate is where the enemy will take you out [Music] where you do not guard your heart is where the enemy has access to take you out you're just wild about this story the arrow wasn't even meant for the king it was a random Arrow that was just meant for unrighteousness do you realize it doesn't matter who you are it doesn't matter how wealthy you are it doesn't matter how long you've known the Lord it doesn't matter if you've pastored before it doesn't matter what degrees you have it does not matter how successful you think you are you are just as susceptible to the arrows as anyone else when you don't guard your heart watch and even Kings can't hide when they live unrighteous lives just like God took the Rock from David's sling and placed it in the forehead of Goliath he took a random arrow and it made its way to the heart of an unrighteous King Church when you put on the breastplate of righteousness you are wearing dunamis and when you guard your heart when you live in righteousness watch what is right in God's eyes you are wearing the armor of God