Grow Your Own Miracle Garden: Stop Fighting a Battle Already Won

Sermon outline

The struggle is over because Jesus has already won it, so stop debating God's word and fighting battles that are finished, and start growing the life you want with the word in your mouth.

1. Seek first the rule of God, and be a doer of his word

   Reading Matthew 6, he teaches that the kingdom of God is not a place but God's way of doing things, the rule of God, and that his righteousness is God's own nature imparted to your spirit. Many believers want all these things added to them but do not want them by God's rule. Using the tithe in Malachi 3 only as an example, he says the Word is not given for you to reflect on and debate: tithing, walking in love, forgiving and gathering with the church are things you simply do. The preached Word also washes the mind in a way soap and water cannot.

   Illustration: A businessman told him he did not believe in tithing because "that is your interpretation". He answered that it is not an interpretation but the word of God, and the real question is how far you are willing to obey.

   “Now it is not for you to reflect on the matter and contemplate, it is for you to believe and act.”

   • Matthew 6:31-33
   • Malachi 3:10-11
   • Hebrews 10:25
   • John 15:3
   • Ephesians 5:26
   • James 1:22

2. Your struggle is over: you are snared by the words of your mouth

   He says Christians have pulled the Word down to the level of other people's experiences, quoting "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away" as though it settled the matter. People keep struggling because they have raised man's wisdom above God's word and speak struggle at home, at work and in the cell meeting. There is a difference between walking in the Word and mentally assenting to it: you can quote twenty scriptures from the head while none has opened up in your heart. A person's faith is located by his words.

   Illustration: He acts out a believer with challenges whom he offers to pray for, and who answers that there is too much of the Word inside him to need it. He also asks what testimony it is when a Christian drags his feet while the neighbours' fridge is full.

   “Your life is not a struggle, the struggle is over.”

   • Job 1:21
   • Proverbs 6:2
   • 1 John 4:4
   • Revelation 12:11
   • Hebrews 4:12

3. Change your address

   He is not speaking of a physical address but of where you live in the realm of the spirit. If you have been living in a dead-end street, it is time to change location, and that takes the humility to admit it is not working and to listen. Some have been in church so long that they think they have heard it all, and his question to them is why it is not working in their lives.

   Illustration: The churchgoer who says of the sermon, "We've done that, got the t-shirt."

   “If you have been living in a dead-end street all your life, it's about time you change location.”

4. You have no business fighting the devil

   He asks who is fighting great battles and who is fighting the devil, then says they should be doing neither. If you speak of the devil as a giant, he will be a giant to you. The problem is not the devil but the believer, who is fighting fights he was never meant to fight. The Bible says to resist the devil with the Word, and he will flee, which he explains as running from you in haste.

   “You are fighting a battle that's already been won.”

   • 1 Corinthians 3:9
   • James 4:7

5. Kings and priests, but woe to the land whose king is a child

   He sets Revelation 1:6 beside Ecclesiastes 10:16: God has made us kings and priests, yet a king can still be a child. There are kings in the kingdom who think and behave like children, and he can tell spiritual maturity by a person's words and actions. A child king is under tutors and still in training, but the good news is that you can allow yourself to be trained and grow up. Later he adds that a child is someone ruled by the senses.

   Illustration: "Let's move your leaves and see what fruit is growing there."

   “You can get kings in the kingdom that think and behave like children.”

   • Revelation 1:6
   • Ecclesiastes 10:16

6. Your better day is now: refuse to be blinded

   Paul's words about the god of this world blinding minds refer to unbelievers, but he says Satan also blinds believers from receiving healing, wealth, revelation, power and anointing, so that they sit waiting for better days. Today is the best day you have, because you are in church hearing the Word and cannot leave the same. He has people lay their hands on their eyes and ask God to open the eyes of their spirit and understanding. Bad dreams, he adds, come from meditating on the wrong things.

   Illustration: He recalls "Pastor Chris" saying that if you dream you are riding a bicycle, leave the bicycle and jump into the car: you can create your own future.

   “Your better day is now.”

   • 2 Corinthians 4:3-4
   • Ephesians 1:18

7. God's word is above the word of a doctor

   A man is prayed for, God touches him, and his first thought is to get to the doctor to find out whether he is healed. If the doctor says no and he accepts it, he has made the word of God of none effect. He says twice that he is not against doctors, but when a man of God declares you healed you should leave saying, "I am healed." He shows how much faith people put in the wrong things, a doctor's verdict or the figures on a bank slip, and asks where the people are who will take God at his word.

   Illustration: Pastor Wesley Augustus was diagnosed with cancer, came to a Tuesday night service, was prayed for and said, "I don't care what the doctors say. My man of God said, I'm healed, I'm healed." And he was healed. A woman who was told she would be confined to a wheelchair, with seven metal screws in her back, was healed and later had the screws removed.

   “God's word is above the word of a doctor.”

   • Mark 7:13
   • Hebrews 11:6
   • Luke 18:8

8. Enter his rest and cease from your struggles

   The devil is the opposition, and he puts roadblocks in your walk: you will not walk again, you cannot have a baby, you did not get the job. The answer is to speak in the name of Jesus: a better job is coming my way. He has Hebrews 4:10 read from the Amplified Bible and gives its meaning as ceasing from your own struggles, because God is labouring with you.

   Illustration: Sitting in the waiting room before a job interview, asked if you are nervous, you answer: "Me? Do you know who I am?" You are resting in God.

   “He that has entered into his rest has also ceased from his own struggles.”

   • Ephesians 6:12
   • Hebrews 4:10

9. Grow your own miracle garden

   In that month's partnership letter he told partners to find a seed faith project and sow towards it, and then to grow their own miracle garden. You grow it by the word in your mouth: you speak it and you sow, you sow it and you speak it. He demonstrates how he gets up in the morning and plants seeds of faith over himself, his church, its pastors and its business people. When nothing seems to happen you keep speaking, and you go by the Word and not by feelings, because the realm of the senses is where the devil works.

   Illustration: He acts out a phone call from a sister with no food in the house, then prophesies over the empty cupboards, orders lamb curry and rice in the name of Jesus and calls the children to the table to give thanks. He also pictures an aeroplane, which uses the most thrust on the ground and then lifts and flies.

   “You have what you have because you have not been speaking.”

   • Luke 6:38
   • Mark 16:18
   • Proverbs 18:21