John Gray - Stop The Presses
That tonight is an unexpected, supernatural move of the Holy Ghost, that tonight your marriage shifts, your children's behavior and attitude shifts, finances shift, strategies shift, ideas shift from stagnant to supernatural production. This moment is the moment that we've been waiting for. I am not leaving here a few minutes from now the same way that I drove in. I'm leaving here with the blessing of the Lord, and the word of the Lord, and the power of the Holy Ghost to execute the thing I was created to produce.
Is anybody else with me on tonight? I'ma just let you know right now, tonight is significant for me. This is my last sermon at Lakewood in my thirties. Exactly two weeks from this very moment, I turn 40 years old and I will be... Let me tell you how saved I am. I'ma be here on my birthday preaching so you need to bring five of your friends 'cause it's gonna be turn up in here, I'ma just tell you like that. I am receiving birthday cake, cherry pies, and miscellaneous gift cards to longhorn. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. But he said, "No, I'm not". Don't judge me, but...
I feel the joy of the Lord in the atmosphere. I feel it. I feel it. I feel it and I'm excited and we've been in a dominion series for a number of weeks now. Tonight, I'm going to take a slight turn off of the dominion highway. It's still on the highway, it's an exit off the highway. But it's still on dominion. It's still off 45 but it's right off 45. It's like a toll way. This is the hearty toll road. This is the Sam Houston. This is still dominion but there is a... This is an addition. And if you're taking notes, I want you to write down this title, "Stop the presses".
Now, a lot of you young people don't even know what that means because you get all your news through your digital devices and your smart phones and different, you know, computers and such. But back in the olden days, we's used to read the newspaper. And tonight, I want to share what the Lord has placed on my heart from that perspective, stop the presses. And from all of us who understand what that means, I want you to keep that definition in mind while I share some background on why I believe that's the title. It's still dominion. You could even say dominion part five, stop the presses.
God has to become the God of he did it. Not just the God of he's going to do it. At some point, it has to be he showed up as opposed to I'm believing for him to show up. At some point, the thing I've been praying for has to become the thing that has arrived. I'm ready for the arrival. Maybe I'm the only one, maybe there's seven of us. The rest of you are content to pray for the rest of your life. You 90 years old, "Lord, I'm believing for a husband". Honey, that's a whole lotta faith. I'm believing the Lord to do some things that he has promised. But more than that, I need him to do it in front of certain people.
See, because there are a lot of people who have underestimated us. Underestimated your value. Underestimated your gifts. Made light of your visions. Laughed at your dreams. Maybe they encouraged your hopes publicly but secretly, when they're driving home, that's crazy. I can't even believe they even said that. Ain't no way that's gonna happen, believing for... You ain't even got no credit, talking about you gonna get a house. I'm praying for you! Keep your prayers. I need someone who will agree with me in faith. I need people around me that will stretch my faith. I don't wanna live a regular life, I don't wanna live an average life. Jesus did not die so I can be regular. I'm super unleaded. I'm top of the line. I'm ready for the overcoming, supernatural, victorious life and I need people around me who understand that. I just cannot be surrounded by people who celebrate average. More than that, I can't, I can't allow the people who just knew, they knew the sum total of my manhood to get through this life without knowing everything you thought about me was wrong. I need God to do what he's gonna do in me in front of the people who said it could never happen.
Now some of you who are very pious will be like, "That's the wrong attitude. You have the wrong spirit". No, the Bible says, "He prepares a table before me, in the presence". I need you to know, God's about to put you in position and invite your enemies to the table to watch. Will anybody give God a 10 second praise break right now? I know you're comfortable. You're in your green chair. You're in your premium purple chairs but can we just give God a praise? Because you do have some people that don't like you and that's okay. They really not gonna like you after what God's about to do.
Hey! Hey! Hey! You don't like me, you really not about to stand me. And I'm not doing any invitations. The invitations have been sent out by God himself. I'm ready to live the supernatural life. I wanna see what he promised and I wanna see it right now. Is anybody ready to have your hopes fulfilled? I want you to know that tonight, I came to make an announcement. Tonight, my announcement is this. God's about to announce you. For those who kinda know my, my heart, and, you know, you know I love to have fun when I share the word, I just have to repeat this one again for those who, it maybe takes you more than one time to understand the power of what has just been declared. I came to make an announcement tonight. My wife made me put on my good shoes to tell you. I came to announce that God is about to announce you.
Now it's one thing when people acknowledge you and announce you. It's another when God is doing the announcing. Now let me give you the scripture to back up what I'm saying so this is not just an emotional exercise for those who nitpicky and don't like all of this joy and all of this shouting and all of this hallelujah. I'm just, well give me the word. Well you ain't even ready for the word with that attitude. Give me the word. I need the word, that's what I live on. No, you don't. You live on judgment. You ready, you just don't wanna be happy. I bind that devil and you ain't in my life and in my circle. You have no authority over my joy and you have no control over my emotions. I'ma shout, I'm gonna dance, I'm gonna clap, and I'll be like David. I'll be even more undignified than this!
Matthew 3:16. Better get there fast. It's gonna turn into a black church in here. Somebody just gonna start running. This church too big to run though, pastor. You gotta be in shape to run through here. You'll be halfway through. Ah, thank you, Jesus. All right, that's enough, Jesus. Matthew 3:16. Reading from the new King James version, it says this, "When he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly, a voice came from heaving saying, this is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased".
In all of history, this may be one of the most underrated moments where eternity invaded time. Where heaven broke through the sound barrier and announced on a frequency that man could hear in an audible voice, the voice of the Almighty God. This was not Moses at the top of the mountain receiving the law. This was not Elijah at the cave. This was God announcing to the masses the arrival of his Son. He didn't do it in secret. He did it where everybody who was around could hear it. And God was not concerned with people's response. God made an announcement.
And when heaven announces you... You know I'm about to repeat it because you need to get that in your spirit. When heaven announces you, hell can't unannounce you. People can't unannounce you. Your past cannot unannounce you. Your failures cannot unannounce you. Once you are announced, you cannot be unannounced. Because it was God that made the determination on when he would declare it. It wasn't something that was requested by Jesus, it was something Jesus went around and say, "Hey, God's about to elevate me, ha ha! All y'all stop by the Jordan".
The actual power in the scripture is found in the verse right before Matthew 3:16. "Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him. And John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you and you are coming to me? But Jesus answered and said to him, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting to fulfill all righteousness. Then he allowed him". What that scripture is saying is Jesus said, "I gotta be baptized, it has to be public because this is what's right, to fulfill all righteousness".
Jesus knew what his role was, what his mission was, what his calling was and this was not something that was arbitrary. It had to happen like this, publicly he had to be baptized. He had to lay down his will, his previous identity, and the moment that he came out of that water, something shifted in his destiny. The waters of trial, the waters of despair, the waters of questions, the waters of cloudy faith, the waters of God, when? The waters of what if? The waters of I hope it's my season. The waters of when is it my turn? All of that was left in the stream and as he came out of the water, suddenly, heaven broke through into earth and eternity spoke into time and the immortal spoke to the mortal. And timeless interrupted time and said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I'm well pleased".
Now, to some, because you've heard this scripture many times, it may not have the impact that it will have about five minutes from now. But I need you to understand that this was a stop the press moment. See, in the old days, everything was done on printing presses. All of the articles had to be type set, everything had to be formatted, everything had to be corrected. They had to read, and re-read, and proofread. They had editors for each section of a newspaper, they had copy editors, they had a senior editor, they had section editors, everybody had to make sure that each word was correct because once it went to print, you couldn't get it back.
From the moment in the garden when we lost dominion, the presses kept printing the same thing, "Broken. Unfulfilled. Lost. Struggling, hopeless, searching". The children of Israel had to have priests constantly making atonement for sin. Poor lambs, poor rams, goats, doves. I know they was like, "I'm so mad I was born in Israel. I don't know what to do. This is crazy. They done took my cousin, put him up on the mountain. My cousin, ram, Abraham got him. He was just in the bushes, and"... I know the them deer was talking, "Don't you go down there. Don't go to the Israelite camp, I'm telling you. They always sinning, they gonna cut one of us up"!
The printing press kept repeating the same thing. The printing press is the broken DNA that sin had ingrained on us. No matter how much we tried, we could never get it right. No matter how much we attempted to achieve to make ourselves right with the Father, we just couldn't do it. And then, in the book of Malachi, there was some things written and then there's this long silence between the written word. 400 years by many estimations of silence. No prophetic word, no declaration, just silence. And then, suddenly, there was what the shepherds and the field's angels and they declared hey, peace on earth. Because unto you, born this day in the city of David, a Savior. 'Tis Christ the Lord.
See, Lisa, pastor Lisa said something, we need to get Jesus back on our lips, on our songs, on our minds. We haven't, we have not honored the name of Jesus properly because that name has authority over hell, authority over sickness, authority over everything that we can ever have and in this moment, it was announced to shepherds, "Hey, there's a baby born! He's the Christ, the anointed one, the Mashiach has arrived. Go see him, he's in a manger wrapped in swaddling clothes". The announcement that time was the angels. They announced the baby.
See, a lot of people don't know what you carry. People kind of know some of your gifts. They know you're different. Some of you, you were always labeled different in your family. Any different people in the family? You're the weird one. Your head's always in the clouds, you're just... We don't know who your daddy is. You're weird. They really don't know. But what I'm saying is... He said, "Hallelujah"! Amen. If you glad, I love it.
Some people do have a clue about what you carry. It was announced, people know. They know some things. They didn't know all of it. That's kinda those other voices. Great for them to announce your birth. They announced you in your infant stages, in your developmental stages, but God's bringing to pass the thing that he declared for you in full maturity. I need you to understand you've been in process long enough. I don't know who I'm talking to in here. Get on up, stay on the scene like a worship machine. God is about to take you from the place of process to the place of producing.