Leon Fontaine - Your Superhuman Ability
Our modern culture, like to the youth that are here, and the guys that are here. When we think about the hidden man, you know, a good analogy would be like Spider-man, here's Peter Parker. He goes to high school. He's like any other kid going to high school, he's got his books and everything else, and but he's got a secret. He's been bit by a radioactive spider, and there's a hidden man in there that can do a lot of stuff most guys can't do. This, hidden man, he can, his Spidey senses can sense evil and he can hear stuff blocks away. He's got ten times the strength of a normal human. And on and on, the list goes. And Marvel comics, and the Marvel movie has made billions of dollars because, within every one of us, something resonates.
Everybody wants to be Superman, Superwoman, Wonder Woman, the Hulk, you know, Captain America. You name it. Why? What's the big deal? Because deep inside of all of us is a hidden man, with more abilities than you could imagine. And everyone senses it, and everyone knows it. The hidden man, the Epistles talk about, is the real you. And that's what I want to introduce you to today. And I want to show you what you need to be doing if you want to live a life that is amazing. Stupendous. Now, the hidden man is the real you. You are gifted. You are so special. You are so valuable. You are so amazing, but religion has destroyed that. I don't use the word "church", and I never tell people I'm a pastor.
Why is that? Because church is a curse word. Most people's relationships are very negative. But because religion has done this, all of us have developed our lives without touching the hidden man. We have mental skills, emotional skills, physical skills. We have been born. Some of you have incredible ability with numbers. Others have an incredible ability with poetry and music. Song. Others have incredible physical skills. Some people have such good memory, muscle memory they make millions of dollars because they can hit the ball in the exact spot every time, no problem. They can shoot baskets and, et cetera, et cetera. So, there's all these giftedness that are really cool. I'm not talking about any of that. I'm talking about the hidden man. And this hidden man, is the real you. It is your spirit.
Now, the, there's, we're going to get to the old self, new self, but let's go to Adam and Eve in the garden for a minute. They walked and talked and hung out with God. God's presence ignited his hidden man, his spirit man. And so, because of that, the hidden man or your spirit, always, deals with the spirit world. Your physical body deals with the physical world. Your mental part of you deals with the mental part of communication and imagination and emotions and feelings, et cetera. So Adam was filled with the presence of God, and he connected to God. Which means he connected to joy, peace, and incredible confidence. Incredible power. Adam was to have dominion over the garden, name all the animals, and every animal that swam, crawled, walked, flew, all were submitted to him. But then, when he disobeyed God, and, and he, God said don't ever eat of that tree.
It wasn't because of the tree, the tree wasn't the power, everyone's looking at the tree. No. The tree was his decision to follow God or to follow himself. Self-centeredness is at the root of all witchcraft, the root of all evil is self-centredness. In fact, the Bible says stubbornness is as the sin of witchcraft. Because a stubborn person is a self-centred, self, you know, and so well there's good things. Yeah, I know. We can play with the word and say stubborn faith, stubborn love, yeah, yeah. But I'm not talking about, I'm talking bout stubborn, period. Is a self-centredness and it opens the door to demonic interference, et cetera, et cetera. So Adam, when he disobeys God, the presence of God left, left his hidden man. His spirit just, whew! And now, his human spirit connected to the kingdom of darkness.
So what does that mean? It connects to doubt. It connected to fear. It connected to anger. It connected to a loneliness, to the orphan's heart. It connected to where, what used to be confidence now is timidity. And so, when God walked in the garden, He goes Adam. Adam! He hid himself. And trembling and fearful and worried that he's going to be punished, and man had lost his ability to approach God. Man has no approach to God all through the Old Testament. You couldn't approach God, there was no approach to God. You could do some kind of a prayer, and they'd fire prayers off and pray three times a day, and you know, and try to do good. But, he was now connected to the dark side, if you want to call it. He's connected to the dark kingdom. He's connected to the enemy of our souls, Satan. And so what dominated his life, was all of this. And so I want you to understand that when the Bible talks about the old man, that was you, before you accepted Christ. And that's why it says put off the old man.
Now, if you are born again, your spirit man, this hidden man, is filled with the ability and the potential of God Himself. But your mind has been trained and your body has been trained, your self-worth, your emotions, how you handle people, has all been trained by the old self. That means, that your emotional makeup, your relational makeup, how you view yourself, how you use your imagination, your creativity, the abilities that you have to play an instrument, to work with numbers, to run companies, are all, you've got gifts in the physical and you've got gifts in the mental. But there's supposed to be empowered by the hidden man of the heart, full of God's ability. Now. You give your life to Jesus Christ, you invite Him to come in because Jesus died on the cross, became sin period, took your sin, then He died, went to hell in your place, was punished like you should have been punished, then the curse of the law was a part of that that He took. He took sickness, disease, Isaiah 53 will fill it all out for you.
And, now, when Jesus was suffering in death for us, He rose again and now because the human had been died for, the price was paid, and the power of God was there, you can accept Christ and it's a finished work. And so, when you give your life to Christ, you have a new man. And this new man is Jesus and the presence of God in you, and Ephesians 4:19 and on, teaches us. Now, put Him on. Well I thought He was in me? That's the hidden man. That's, deep in your spirit. Now, put Him on, means simply get educated on who you are. Renew your mind with what you can do and who you are. And if you do, then your mind is going to make way and submit itself to your spirit, because the voice of the mind is reasoning. The voice of the body is feelings. The voice of the spirit is conscience. And so, when you learn to renew your mind, you're making your mind submit to spirit truth. Because, you're not a body. You're actually not a mind. You're a spirit.
The mind is your on-board computer, and of course both are you. Your body is just your earth-suit, and when it's gone, you are very, in fact you're more alive when you leave that body than you were in the body. So, I'll give you an example of some of this stuff. In Acts 23:1, the apostle Paul is talking to the Sanhedrin. Brilliant minds in the Bible. And he says here, he says that in Acts 23:1, then Paul looked earnestly at the council and said, men and brethren. I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.
So Leon why is that verse so important? Because he was a complete jerk. Why does he got a good conscience? What do you mean? He rounded up women and children, tied them into slave processionals, and put them in jail. He was the man standing as they piled their coats on, when rocks hit Steven's face and knocked his teeth, and brains out while they killed him and ran at them and gnashed their teeth, and killed him. And he looked into heaven and he said, I see Jesus. And it made them even madder in their hatred for this man. Paul, or Saul, was the leader of it. And here he is telling the Sanhedrin, oh. I've been in good conscience my whole life. He actually was. Because the voice of his spirit, the old man, connected to the dark kingdom even though he was a religious person and knew the Word, didn't allow conscience to do that for him.
Well Leon I know lots of people who don't believe in Jesus, and they have a good conscience. Okay, listen to me. You can train your kids and renew their minds and their emotions to have good manners. To respect pain and health and life. But you can also, and I'll show you back through history, you can train kids to disrespect life, and they'll kill at the drop of a hat. Look at the soldiers in the, in the jungles. You go back in history, men had the right to kill their own kids, and their wives in many cultures. Because, and they had no qualms about doing it. Go through wife after wife, kids not the colour I want, not this what I want, you know, it's not exactly as blessed as I want, not the sex that I want, kill, kill, kill. No big deal, and they're fine doing it because their spirit man's not alive with the very presence of God. So when the old man, and you begin to realize there's got to be more to live than this depression, unhappiness, this big ol' hole, this black hole that's in my chest that when I'm quiet, then all of a sudden I just feel like it's not worth anything. And then you get born again.
As a Christian, when you give your life to Christ, you can still be haunted. You can still be lonely. You can still feel like an orphan. You can still feel like I'm useless and nobody. Because, the old self is what trained your mind. And it trained how you handle your emotions. So everybody here including me, has habitual thinking. You continually think along certain tracks. I'll talk to women, and there's a group of them they'll just tell me men are just pigs. And I, I can't disagree with them because of the incredible betrayal and heartache and brokenness and hurt. Then it goes into their kids and their generations and their future and if they do have another marriage. I'll talk to men, and women are only good for one thing and I'm telling you it's get out of there and go. Woah, woah. But this is their habitual thinking. Come out of experience, come out of, now. This habitual thinking is how they think, it's how their emotions are connected. It's how it's firing on all these cylinders. And it now controls your life.
So when you give your life to Jesus Christ, Ephesians 4, Romans 12, all teaches us to renew your mind. Because it's trained wrong. When I was like in my teens, I think I was 16. I was a kid that threw rocks all the time. I just loved throwing. I don't know why, dad liked to throw them. We'd go to the sand hills outside of Welden, down by the forks and. And we'd get up on these sand hills and we'd get a pail of rocks. And him and I would just throw rocks. And it wasn't like probably about twelve I started out throwing them and that felt so good. And, you know, I'd just throw all the time. By the time I got into high school, when it came to discus, javelin, shotput, baseballs, I could, I could throw a baseball over a home place, and the back stop from outfield. And so I had this one gift. And so I got into javelin, and I just really excelled. I was beating, and heading up the you know, the provincials and different things. And one day, a coach was watching me. At the provincials. And I'd won gold and I was, you know, I was excited about this.
And, this guy walks over, little elderly man. And very different, very just different kind of guy and he goes, Leon Fontaine is it? And I said yes. He said, good job. I said thank you. He said, do you think I could just show you how to throw? So I got the gold medal, won first place, beat everybody else, and he's going to tell me how to throw. My daddy taught me shut up and listen, and I'm glad, so I said yeah sure. He said come with me. And it was all over and he went out onto the thing, and he said, you run down the runway of javelin, you jump into the air, and you arm the javelin out there. You won gold off your arm. And I says oh. He says, there are seventeen other muscle groups that will help you throw that beside your arm. There are seventeen positions that you need to move into as you plant yourself at the end of the runway. Where you put your feet, where your ankles are, how the hip comes through, the knee comes through, how the other foot comes through. Where you put this other arm, out, and you tighten the muscles across your chest, as you bring that javelin through.
If your chin's here you're going to throw your back out, if your chin's there, you're going to, and he went through it and he showed me. He became my coach. And we begin to train for the Olympics. And he took a guy who I thought I had ability. And he added seventeen power positions until I hit the end of that runway and just whip, and right from my very bottoms of my feet, that thing would just phew! And just launch it out there. You're like that. You might be successful in, in business. You might be successful as a mommy, a daddy. You're not even one, 1/17th. The hidden man of the heart, the hidden man where the presence of God is, is so filled with love, it's so filled with peace, it's so filled with joy. That even as you do your business, it just radiate. It's the hidden man of the heart that's the priority for business, for, parenting. For grandparenting, for pastoring, for just being.
And that when you learn who you are and the identity that you have in Christ and that the hidden man, if you're born again. Is filled with more potential than you could imagine. But what's beautiful, is love comes out of you and joy comes out of you. And it's a stunning thing to begin to recognize that my knowing God and spending time with God and washing my mind with the water of the Word every day, so I can wipe off the anger that came off from that guy that I had to deal with. And I'm wiping off the lust that came from that person that I had to deal with. And I'm wiping off the negativity that came from that person. And if I don't wash my mind with the water of God's Word each day, it seems to stick to me like scum that sticks to you. You know, ever, so, when you begin to understand the hidden man of the heart. That God always deals with your spirit. When Adam came out of the garden.
Let me explain something to you that will blow your mind. Adam in the garden, was filled with the presence of God. Confidence, peace, power, ability, awareness, Spidey sense times a billion. Speak a word, because he was made like God, he could make a tree man just bluh, why? Because he was made in the likeness and the image of God, filled with the power of God. Jesus could calm a storm with a word. A demon-possessed man fell on his face just getting around Jesus. At a word, a limb would straighten out. You know, just manipulating with his hands, loaves and fishes would become, and feed thousands of people. So Adam had this in the garden, he's now born again in reverse. He loses the spirit of God, he takes on the nature of, of the enemy, doubt, unbelief, et cetera. Now he's kicked out of the garden so he can't access the tree of life because if he ate it, he'd be forever, he'd be forever locked in his sins.
So he's cast out of the garden, into a world he no longer can dominate. So he has to develop his five senses. He's got to see clearly, or lose his life. He's got to listen keenly, or an animal's going to take advantage of him. His taste is going to tell him what's good to eat and what's gone bad and could poison you. I mean, his touch is going to tell him that's sharp or that's hot or that's cold. His smell's going to warn him of a fire, or a brush fire, upwind or whatever. The five senses he had to develop them to live in the existing world. And as he developed them, it put his spirit in prison. In Psalms 142:7, it says bring my spirit out of prison, the psalmist says. Because everybody has this sense of a hidden man, even if you're not born again.
There's something, there's got to be more to life than this. And the more successful you are, the more aware you become of the hidden man dictating your unhappiness. You better treasure your born-again experience. You better love God's Word and get it on the inside. John 8:36 says if the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. What's free? Your spirit, from these five senses, and from your spirit connected to the dark kingdom. Connected to the kingdom of darkness, and all of its fear, and all of its orphan feeling, negativity, anger, heartache, and sin, and cruelty. And everything that, that's all you can connected to. You can't connect to God. There's no approach to God. That's why Jesus is so beautiful. That's why I'm so in love with Jesus. Because I'm going to spend eternity with Him, with my kids, my grandkids, my great-grandkids, my great-great-grandkids, and whatever we can do around this world. It's because of Jesus. We finally have an approach to God.
When you understand that I shall know, you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. It sets you free. You accept Christ, your spirit man is now connected to love. Filled with love. Joy, peace. Potential, et cetera. And now all you've got to do, is just find out who you is. Tell your mind shut up because we're going this direction. Tell your emotions settle down because we're walking in this direction. This new heart, that has been given to you. This new covenant that you have with God. This new spirit that's in you, flows out of you and renews your mind. Controls your bod... there is no addiction that can stand before a renewed spirit. Okay? There's no temptation that can stand before a born-again spirit. It's filled with such power. But then why do Christians fall into addictions? Because they haven't done, you see, everything from Jesus is a gift. But not your maturing it. But it's worth the work.
It's worth it to have the peace, the joy, the confidence that makes you stand in front of anybody and go I know God, but I'm not worried about you. You could meet the Queen of England, your best hero, and of course be mannerly and respectful and loving. Because a born-again believer, in their proper domain, would look, talk, and act like Jesus. Which means, you would be completely confident around demon-possessed people. You'd be completely confident in the tabernacle. You'd be confident walking through a storm. There would be no lack of confidence, okay? And you would love yourself. To love yourself is to value yourself. And as you value yourself, people would be attracted to you, because you love them. You value them. And as you value them, they see something that is so real, it's senses, it's coming off of you. You're confident, you're filled with joy and laughter and love, and you're not going to bow down or, this lack, this fake humility. You're not even going to do that. But in this love, this, this valuing of yourself. You value them even more to the point you'll lay down your life with Jesus to be a blessing to people.
And as you seek that out, the joy of live is to not seek your own pleasure. When you seek your own pleasure, it is, over forty years of ministry, most unhappy people I know always have a good reason why they have to leave this and go do that and don't have time for church. I need time for myself and, and they'll talk this way all the time. And then I look at that and kind of go, when people get involved in that thinking, it's like a dog chasing its tail. You'll never catch that, whatever 'that' is. But if you will seek first the kingdom of God, your relationship with Him, the love, the joy, the happiness, the confidence, the fulfillment that you're trying to find somewhere in what you do, say, go, or whatever and play. You get just naturally artesian welling out of you. And so now you can go play. You can have all the desires of your heart anyway, you just don't seek them first because you make them God and that's idolatry so you seek Jesus first, and He causes all these things to come to you anyway. Have I helped anybody? Has this helped, what an amazing understanding of you.
Father, I just pray today. That today will go down in their life diary as an ah-ha moment. On one side, to appreciate what Jesus has done. And who I am because of Him. And Father for others, to run to the cross of Jesus. Thank Him, He's paid the price.
With every head bowed for just a moment. For those who are listening to this, if you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, or you're not sure that you are born again. His presence ignited your spirit. Then, I'll help you with that. It's just a decision, because God will never force you. He made you like Him. His likeness and image. So you have free will, and you will never be force by God. To do anything, you have to choose Him. And so I'm going to lead this entire place, we're all going to pray this prayer out loud together. For all of us who are watching right now, wherever you are, pray along with us. As I just lead you in this making of this decision. It goes like this, just say:
Dear God, thank You for sending Jesus. Who died in my place. Took all of my punishment. And gives me new life. I accept it. Jesus, come into my heart. Come into my life. I'm now forgiven, and I'm following you for the rest of my days. In Jesus' name. Amen.