Gregory Dickow - Know Who Your Are
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Welcome, global family around the world, welcome to the "Power To Change Today". And did you know that God is really pleased with you? I'm not saying that everything you or I do is right, but you and I have God's seal of approval already. "How is that"? you ask. Well, today, I'm gonna teach you about your identity and your approval with God. I'm also gonna show you five things the devil does when we don't know who we are, and how to turn it all around for your victory and for your good. I'm also gonna prophesy over you, so stay tuned the whole time. Let's buckle up and check this out.
You know, in the world that we live in today, we need to know who we are, this world is very confused about who they are. Identity is everything to me, and I believe it's everything to God. When we understand our identity, that's when we can walk in our destiny. And as sons and daughters of God, we need to know who we are, we need to know what we have so that we can exercise our authority in this life to fulfill our God-given destiny. It's our God-given identity that gives us God-given security, delivering us from insecurity, which leads us into our God-given destiny through the authority that we have. And I want you to know you're a son or daughter of God, you're not on the outside looking in, you are not a second-class citizen in the kingdom of heaven, you are a joint heir with Jesus Christ. He is the first born of many brethren, many brothers and sisters, and we are his brothers and sisters.
In John chapter 1, verse 12, it says, "And as many as received Him," you and me, "As many as received Him, to them He gives them the right to become sons and daughters of God". If you've received Jesus, you are a son or daughter of God; and as a son or daughter of God, we need to know who we are and what we're living for. In Luke chapter 17, I want to jump right into this passage, so that you can know who you are, truly, and that you can walk in your God-given destiny. It says that, "Jesus took with him Peter, and James, and John, and led them to a high mountain," in verse 1, "By themselves. And he was transfigured before them". And it says, "His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with," Jesus.
And Peter responded, I think he responded out of shock, he said, "Lord, it is good that we are here; if You want, I will make three tabernacles here: one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah". Jesus didn't say anything at that moment, but the heavenly Father did. "And while he was still speaking," it says in verse 5, "A bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice from the cloud said, 'This is my beloved Son, with Him I am well pleased, listen to Him.'" Now, I want you to see that this sounds similar to when God spoke over Jesus in Mark 1:11, "You are My dearly loved Son, and you bring Me great joy," or, "You are My dearly loved Son, and in You I am well pleased".
But God adds something here, and he's talking to the disciples about Jesus. Because they were trying to categorize Jesus with Moses and Elijah because Peter saw the three of them together, but God wanted to make it very clear that Moses and Elijah are not at the level that Jesus is at. But you wanna know something? You want to know? You want to be let in on the secret? You are right there with Jesus. The Bible says, in 1 John chapter 4, verse 17, "As He is, so are we in this world". "As He is, so are we in this world". Wow, we're joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
Now, I want you to see this, in verse 5, of Luke chapter 17, I want you to see three things, really four in a sense, but there's three primary things in this passage. When the Father speaks over Jesus, he's telling the disciples, he said, "This is My beloved Son," that is identity, we are sons and daughters of God, identity, "This is My beloved Son". You are his son or daughter, that's your identity. We really need to get this, we're not his nephews, we're not his nieces, we're not his cousins, we're not some distant relatives, we're not strangers to God, we're his sons and his daughters. When you understand your identity, it is the first step, it is the great foundation to walking in your authority and in your destiny, but you gotta understand your identity.
Who are you? You are a son or daughter of God. You know, we get our confidence from our Father, we get our confidence from God, because we're made in his image and we're his sons and daughters. God sure knew who he was. I want to go through a few verses and show you some people who knew who they were, and what they had in common. Notice how God introduces himself in Exodus chapter 3, verse 14, when Moses's like, "Who should I tell them sent me"? And God said, in the burning bush, "I Am That I Am". Well, there's some confidence there, he says, "I Am That I Am". Like, when you say, "I Am That I Am," he didn't even say, "I am the healer, I am the deliverer," he just said, "I Am That I Am," like that has authority over everything else.
"I Am That I Am," that's pretty powerful confidence, that's someone who knows who they are. "I Am That I Am". And there's something very powerful about that level of confidence. Notice that the Father passes that on to Jesus, and Jesus gets that from the Father. When he introduces himself, in John chapter 8, verse 58, he says something very similar. He says, "Before Abraham was born, I AM". "Before Abraham was born, I AM". Now, today, we need to be able to say, "I am who God says I am, I am a son or daughter of God, I am his beloved, I am approved by him, I am one who he put in authority in this life, I am one who is going to fulfill my destiny, I am healed, I am delivered, I am the head and not the tail, I am above and not beneath". We need to know, "I am," we need to know who we are.
Notice the Father says, "I Am That I Am". Notice the Son says, "Before Abraham was born, I AM". Notice how Paul introduces himself in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 10, "I am what I am by the grace of God". So we have the father saying, "I Am That I Am," he knows who he is; we have the Son of God saying, "Before Abraham was born, I AM," he knows who he is; we have Paul the Apostle saying, "I am what I am by the grace of God," he knows who he is. Now contrast that to what happens in life when you don't know who you are. Let's look over to a very familiar passage, maybe, for you, in Acts chapter 19, verse 13. It says there were some, "Itinerant Jewish exorcists," who, "Took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits". They took it upon themselves and, "They said, 'We exercise you,'" we cast you out in the name of Jesus, "By Jesus whom Paul preaches".
Notice they didn't even say, "We cast you out in the name of Jesus," they said, "We cast you out by the Jesus whom Paul preaches". And it says, in verse 14, these, "Were seven sons of Sceva". Notice who they're identified as, they are seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, they're the sons of Sceva. Notice who you are, you are a son or daughter of God; these guys were sons of Sceva, who was a Jewish priest, so their identity was in their natural descendant or ancestry, who they were naturally a descendant of. And notice how the devil responds, or how the evil spirit answers these guys who didn't know who they were. And the evil spirit answers, in verse 14, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know". It's not gonna end well here, gang. "Jesus I know," the demon says, "'Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?' Then," it says, in verse 16, "The man in whom the evil spirit was," in, it says, "Leaped on them, overpowered them, prevailed against them," and, "They fled out of that house naked and wounded".
What a description of the butt kicking that these guys took because they identified themselves as sons of Sceva, because they didn't know who they were in Christ, because they were preaching about Jesus that somebody else preached about rather than somebody who they actually knew, rather than somebody who they were actually connected to. We're connected to Jesus; if we belong to Christ, we're Abraham's seed; and if we've received him, we're sons and daughters of God. Notice, when we don't know who we are, what the devil is able to do. In verse 16, it says the devil overcame them, so they were defeated; the devil prevailed against them, so they were defeated even worse; they ran in fear, so they lived in fear, the devil had them on the run. And then, four, it says that they were naked, so the devil stripped them of everything they had, and they were wounded. In other words, the devil leaves us in worse condition than he finds us when we don't know who we are.
These guys did not know God, they didn't know Jesus; they heard about him through Paul, and we heard about him through Paul, we heard about him through Peter, but we've been introduced to him, and we know that in Christ we're born again and we're the joint heirs with Jesus. But these guys didn't have that understanding, they had not received Jesus Christ in that way, and they certainly didn't see themselves as sons and daughters of God, they still identified with their natural heritage, sons of Sceva. We have to shift right now. I want to ask you to shift right now, from finding your identity in the family, the upbringing that you grew up in. I'm not criticizing that, it's not about whether that was a good upbringing or a bad upbringing, it's just not your complete upbringing, it wasn't good or bad.
It's not whether it was good or bad, it's that it's incomplete, and only when we are in Christ are we completed in who we are, as our identity as sons and daughters of God. And we don't have to do anything to become sons and daughters of God, simply, "To as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become sons and daughters of God". Do you realize that if you would just shift your thinking from, "Well," you know, "My last name is Johnson," or, "My last name is Smith," or my last name is this or that, "I'm from this city, I'm from these parents, I'm from this upbringing, I had this childhood, I was molested, I was abused, I actually grew up in a rich home," or, "I grew up in a poor home". We have to realize that our bloodline has been changed, from our natural heritage to our kingdom heritage as sons and daughters of God, as sons and daughters of freedom. Boy, when you know who you are, you can reverse these five things.
Now notice, back in Acts 19, verse 16, these five conditions that the enemy can do in their lives because they didn't know who they were. The devil overcame them, so you'll be overwhelmed by the enemy; the devil prevailed against them, you'll constantly lose in life to the enemy; the devil made them run away in fear, you'll constantly live in fear when you don't know who you are. The devil stripped them, they were naked, they ran out of the house naked, he took their clothes. On their way out, as they're running in fear, he said, "Hey, leave those, I want those Gucci shoes," or, "I want those pants you're wearing," or, "I want those, I want your clothes too".
Oh, they just stripped all their clothes or the devil just ripped it off of them, or that man that was demon-possessed, he ripped it all off of them. They went out naked; I'm sure they didn't start that way, they weren't casting that devil out naked, they must have had clothes on, but by the time they're running for their life they don't have any clothes on. Why? because the devil robs, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy. And when you don't know who you are, you're gonna be in lack, you're gonna be in deficiency, you're gonna be robbed from and stolen from continually. And it says here, they were wounded too, he gave them a good beating on their way out the door. My God, we've been letting the devil push us around, we've been letting the devil push our churches around, we've been letting the devil rule this world, and we've been letting the devil tell us when to fear and when not to fear.
And we've got to realize that we are the head and not the tail, you have been given authority, Jesus paid for you not only to be forgiven but to have authority in this life. Through the, "Abundance of grace," Romans 5:17 says, "And through the gift of righteousness," we reign as kings in this life. We are waiting for somebody to approve of us, we've got to stop it, we gotta get our approval from God. We've been waiting for somebody to tell us who we are, and God already told us who we are. We're waiting for the world to give us something and we're waiting for the universe to give us something, rather than we gotta go and take dominion, and exercise our authority over our thought life, our authority over our bodies, our authority over our children, our authority over our finances, our authority over our lives and our emotions and our relationships and our futures.
Yes, we have that kind of authority. And when you know who you are, look at how you can reverse all these five things where the enemy defeats us. When you know who you are you can be healed, so where the devil wounded you, you can be healed. Mark 7:27, says, "He was saying to her, 'Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dog.'" So healing is the children's bread, it's your portion, it's what God has given to you. If you are a Christian, if you are a child of God, if you've been born again, healing belongs to you. I'm going backwards, I'm going in the reverse order, so the fifth thing that the devil does when you don't know who you are is he wounds you. So the first thing we can take back, now, is take back our healing, because healing is the children's bread, it's our portion. Amen?
The second thing we can do is, the devil strips us, he steals what we have, so the second thing is we can get back what was stolen from us. Proverbs 6:31, says the thief, "When he is caught, he must repay sevenfold". I just declare over your life, I prophesy over you right now that what's been stolen from you by the devil, by you lacking your sense of identity and your sense of security and your sense of authority; whatever the devil has stolen from you, the time that has been stolen, he's gotta pay back seven-fold. We call back seven-fold return on the time that you've had robbed from you, the money that has been stolen from you, the opportunities that have been stolen from you, the joy that has been stolen from you, the peace that has been stolen from you, the breakthroughs that have been stolen from you away, a sense of confidence that has been stolen from you.
You've been stripped of your confidence, stripped of your authority, stripped of your knowledge of your authority, that is, and I declare it's coming back seven-fold to you, in Jesus name. I prophesy restoration, I prophesy repayment of all that's been lost, all that's been stolen, all that you've been cheated out of, in Jesus name. You start talking like that over yourself and you're gonna see things change, and at the very least it's gonna change your attitude, it's going to put a smile on your face and you're gonna walk into your next day with confidence, and good things are gonna happen for you because doors are gonna open that no man can close.
We're reversing these things that the enemy has taken from us because we didn't know who we were, but we do know who we are, and therefore the third thing is we can put the devil on the run. Where he had these seven sons of Sceva running for their lives, we can make the devil run for his life. In Matthew chapter 4, verse 10 and 11, Jesus said, "Begone, Satan! For it is written... 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" The Bible says, in verse 11, of Matthew chapter 4, that, "The devil left Him," and, "Angels came and ministered to Him". I want you to see, the devil left him. You say, "Well that was Jesus," but the Bible says that, "As He is, so are we". It also says that we submit to God, in 1 Peter chapter 4, we can, "Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee," "He will flee".
Number four, where the devil has prevailed against us we can prevail against him. James chapter 5, verse 16, says, "The prayers of the righteous avail much". Isaiah chapter 54, verse 17, says, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper," but you shall condemn those tongues that are accusing you and those tongues that are prevailing against you, and those things that the devil has programmed your mind to believe about yourself. You're prevailing over those things, you're prevailing over the enemy, you're prevailing in life, you're prevailing because you are more than a conqueror. Romans chapter 8, verse 37 through 39, says that you, "Are more than a conqueror through Him that loved us". And you can overcome, instead of the devil overcoming you.
Just like I was saying, you also can overcome him rather than the devil overcoming you, the demons overcoming you, you can overcome whatever has come against you. It says, in Romans 8:31, "What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us"? He's asking a question and he's answering it. "What shall we say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us"? The question is, "What shall we say to these things"? The answer is, "If God be for us, who can be against us"? We need to start saying things to these things that are coming against us, we have to start talking to these things. I'm telling you, when you get ahold of this, you're gonna walk in so much peace.
Christians have been afraid to take their rightful place as sons of God, thinking that they're somehow arrogant to think that they're equal with Jesus. And we're not equal in the sense of divinity, we're not divine, without human, without sinful nature like Jesus was divine without sinful nature, he was with human nature and divine nature but he wasn't with sinful nature. So we're not equal in that way, but we are equal in the sense that he has seated us with him in heavenly places; he has seated us with him in heavenly places, we are joint heirs with him, according to Romans chapter 8. We can just go on and on in all the passages that Jesus elevates us to a position seated with him. John 1:12 already said that, it says that to, "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become sons of God".
Romans 8, verse 19, says all of creation is waiting eagerly for the children of God to be revealed. God tells us that, "All of creation," all creatures, all circumstances, all of life, "Is earnestly longing," and waiting, "For the revealing of the sons of God". The mountains in your life are waiting for you to rise up and tell them what to do; the problems in this world are waiting for you to rise up and tell these problems what to do. The thing that is in front of you is waiting for you to push it, waiting for you to resist it, waiting for you to tell it what to do. Father said, "This is My Son," identity, "My beloved Son, in Him I am well pleased," security. "Listen to him," authority.
And you're in Christ, you have the same identity, you have the same security, and now you know you have the same authority. It's time to exercise that authority, we gotta walk out of here today and we got to close the service today knowing who we are. If I can tell you a few things about yourself so that you can start knowing these things about you, it's time to prevail, it's time to invade, it's time to overtake, it's time to take back what's rightfully ours.
We've got to know who we are. Who are you? You're more than a conqueror, Romans 8:37 says. Who are you? You're a king and a priest before God, Revelation 1, verse 5 and 6 says. Who are you? You are a son of God, John 1:12 says. Who are you? You are a joint heir with Jesus Christ, Romans 8:16-17 says. Who are you? You are the seed of Abraham, Galatians 3:29 says. Who are you? You are the righteousness of God, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says. Who are you? You are what God says you are, you are the church. Matthew 16:18, and it says, "The gates of Hell will not prevail against," you. Who are you? You are the church, you and me, we are the church. We're the church, we are what the gates of Hell cannot prevail against us, we're the devil's worst nightmare, we're what he wished would have never happened. He couldn't stop the resurrection, but he's sure trying to stop people from knowing who they are in Christ, and we're his worst nightmare when we know who we are and when we take our rightful place, when we truly declare and believe that we are who God says we are. By the grace of God, that's who you are.