From Fear to Faith
by David K. Bernard
2019 · UPCI General Conference 2019, Indianapolis, Indiana
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Exodus 14:13-14, Exodus 14, Exodus 14:15, 2 Samuel 21, Jeremiah 32:27, Luke 1:37, Mark 10:27, 2 Timothy 1:7, 1 John 4:4, 1 John 4:18, Mark 11:22

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--from-fear-to-faith
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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if you'll stand just one more minute i'm reading from exodus chapter 14 verse 13 and 14. exodus chapter 14 verse 13 moses is speaking to the israelites as they face the red sea with the egyptians behind them and the red sea in front of them and here we find and moses said unto the people fear ye not stand still and see the salvation of the lord which he will show to you today for the egyptians whom you've seen today ye shall see them again no more forever the lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace i'm preaching for a few minutes tonight from fear to faith this is what i believe the lord has said that we need in order to possess the land from fear to faith you may be seated we are people of faith we're saved by faith we walk by faith we live by faith as human beings we would much prefer to walk by sight but the bible tells us we can't walk by sight we must walk by faith the just shall live by faith that's so important it stated no less than four different books

of scripture from the prophet habakkuk to the book of romans to galatians to hebrews the just the righteous the saints shall live by faith we're saved by faith we're blessed by faith we are sustained by faith we live by faith fear is the opposite of faith if we live in fear it's very difficult to live in faith if fear predominates we can't walk by faith as i know we all have fears we all have doubts but you can't let your doubts win you can't let your fears win as i remember bishop golder years ago right here in indianapolis said we all have our doubts but here's the problem or here's the solution don't believe your doubts and don't doubt your beliefs when it's all said and done face the fear in the face face the doubt in the face and say i refuse to live in doubt i refuse to live in fear i choose to move forward by faith and so i'm preaching tonight all the wonderful promises that we've talked about in this conference and hasn't the lord spoken in amazing ways each night and each day from brother huntley to brother hundley

to brother collins we've gotten clear direction there's no doubt about where we stand in our doctrine there is no doubt if you've attended this conference there is no doubt what we teach about holiness if there is no doubt that we believe in the miraculous there's no doubt we believe in church planting and church growth but in order to see all those promises and commitments come to pass we must move from fear to faith in the text israel had received a miraculous deliverance they were slaves but god through many miracles including ten plagues delivered them from slavery in egypt now they were headed to the promised land they were free but there was one last obstacle in their way the uncrossable red sea and in order to receive their permanent victory in order to receive permanent freedom they had to cross the red sea there was a great opportunity it was literally the opportunity of a lifetime but with opportunity is a challenge and with the challenge there's always a risk and with risk there's always fear i'm not saying we never have fear if you're a normal human being if you're a man or woman

of god at times you will have fear but here is the key you've got to move from fear to faith if you read exodus 14 from the beginning verses 1 through 2 12 preceding my text you'll find that god told moses exactly what was going to happen all of the problems that we face are are known in advance to god god already has a plan to bring us through just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there god already knows what he's going to do god already knows the miracle that's going to take place and so god gave moses the instructions ahead of time they came to the red sea and they faced the crisis of their life because in front of them was the uncrossable sea but behind them was the egyptian army that it was coming quickly and they were either be killed or captured and brought back into slavery they couldn't go any direction they couldn't go forward they couldn't go backward and they couldn't stay where they were it seemed like an impossible situation and if you read the scripture they responded with great fear such fear they began

to complain it said it would be better for us to have remained in slavery in egypt to be in this situation we face right now and sometimes that's the way we feel god you called us it had been better for us and never moved it would have been better for us never to start the church it would have been better for us to never witness it'd be better that we'd never done what you we thought we want you wanted us to do we'd be better off and that was their fear speaking but god gave the plan of action and moses began to speak if you look at the text for just a few minutes verse 13 14 and the next verse 15 you'll see seven elements of god's plan of action i'll just take a few moments to share them first of all don't be afraid there is fear but what we must do is confront and overcome our fear do not live in fear don't be afraid number two stand still don't depend on your own ability don't depend on your own wisdom don't try to take matters into your own hands i believe

brother mooney in training and education so do you but we cannot depend upon degrees and education to do the will of god i thank god for incredible ability such as we've seen with our musicians and singers it's simply amazing but we cannot have apostolic revival by depending on eloquence of speech or wonderful talent in a human level somehow we're tempted to face those fears with our own education our own talent our own resources our own many money but god says wait a minute stand still slow down listen to what god has in mind because what we do is only in the natural but what god will do is in the supernatural stand still there is a time to act but first you better hear from god first you better pray first you better get god's timing and god's direction number three see the salvation of the lord look to the lord for the answer look to the lord for the victory god wants us to find impossible situations so that we could never get glory we look to the lord and see the salvation of the lord and when the lord comes through nobody can

get the glory nobody could say well it was general superintendent bernard that did it nobody could say it was general secretary graham who did it everybody will look at amazement and say these people had their role but it was god who gave us the victory it was god who gave us the revival stand still and see the salvation of the lord number four god will use the situation to give you a permanent victory i love the archaic king james in this particular instance the egyptians whom you see today you will see again no more forever i don't normally talk that way but that is the perfect way to describe this enemy that's getting ready to take you back in bondage this enemy that's getting ready to kill you this enemy that you're quaking in fear they are a mighty professional army with the latest weaponry and you're just some peasants and shepherds but i want to tell you god says that enemy that you see today you will see again no more forever i will give you a permanent victory you will never go back to slavery again you will never go back to egypt

again now they faced trials in the wilderness and even when they got to the promised land they had to fight to possess it but one thing about it they never went back to egypt they never went back to slavery they never had to fight pharaoh they never had to fight the egyptian army we can have a permanent victory now we're going to have trials till the lord comes we're going to have a fight the rest of our lives but you can achieve a significant victory and through great trial and through great tribulation or great opportunity and risk you can win a permanent victory that's what happened when you were born again it changed your life forever that's what happened when you accepted your call to preach it changed your life forever that's what happened home missionary maybe it was year two or year three or year five but you broke through that barrier and you've never looked back since you've got new challenges and new problems but you're never going back you're never facing those old battles because you've broken to the next level i'm promising and prophesying tonight somebody is going to receive a

permanent victory you will break through to the next level and you will never be the same you will never go back again a permanent victory a decisive victory i use this i preached on that message i'll just throw this in i use it earlier this year some of you heard it but remember the amazing story in the people of israel of the young man that faced the giant and killed him you know that story well i'm sure you can tell me that story even your sunday school kids can tell the story of course you know that story of the story of abisha killing ishmael you're aware of that story aren't you right or maybe it's jonathan the son of shimaya that you're thinking about or maybe it's el hechnan that you're thinking about am i am i am i hitting the right you recognize it for some reason even though it's in the bible that's in second samuel 21 there's four stories of israelites killing giants but we don't know those stories because the first story was a young man named david killed goliath that had never been done before in the history of israel

it was impossible the whole nation from the king on down was quaking in fear but once a teenage boy anointed by god killed the giant that changed the destiny of israel that changed the thinking of israel that changed the paradigm of israel after then it seems like every young warrior said i think i could kill me a giant i think i could kill that giant over there abhishek said i think i could kill him jonathan son of simeone said i think i could kill me a giant it was a decisive victory this week god wants to give some decisive victories to the united pentecostal church international it's already happened that was north american youth congress we've proved it could be done that was jesus for christ we proved it could be done that was i am global it proved it could be done and we'll never be the same again we're never going back we're moving forward it's a new territory we're moving from fear to faith some evangelists some missionary some pastor is going to win a decisive victory and when everybody hears that they're going to say not that he was a superhero

they're going to say if he could do that i could do that if that could happen in ohio that can happen in missouri a decisive victory a permanent victory we're moving from fear to faith continue the sixth point hold your peace so when it comes time to act or number five i'm sorry is going into verse 14 god will fight for you there is the definite promise if you'll follow this plan of waiting for the salvation of the lord and believing god for a decisive permanent victory then you do have the promise god will show up god will fight for you you will start seeing some things in your situation beginning to change you will see some initial signs of your future victory because god shows up and god begins to work god will fight for you and then number six hold your peace so as you approach the battle you've got to be calm it doesn't mean be inactive it means be calm be ready don't get all worked up in your own human emotion we face real enemies but our real enemies are not other people although it seems that way they're not

our brothers and sisters in the church although that seems that way it's not our neighboring pastor although it seems that way don't get caught up in fighting your neighboring pastor or your saints or your backsliders or your visitors they are not really your enemy the devil is your enemy don't fight people fight the enemy of their soul people can be used as a tool of the enemy but be calm just just slow down and see what's really going on in the realm of spirit don't respond with human emotion respond by the word of god and the spirit of god hold your peace think clearly trust in the lord and then verse 15 and verse 15 switches to god's direct command verses 13 and 14 moses spoke to the people based on what god had already said but after the people listened and they're ready to receive they went through steps one through six so to speak then verse 15 god said okay now moses stretch out that rod now moses go forward there is a time to act and i believe right here in this conference we're going through steps one through six right here

this conference don't be afraid stand still see the salvation of the lord trust a permanent victory god's gonna fight for you if you'll hold your peace but that's not all we've got to march out of this arena into the streets of our city and back into our home and we've got to go forward in jesus name we must move from fear to faith at the end we must act in faith now i want to take a few minutes i want to slow down a few minutes here what about the things that are unknown what about the things that are impossible i'm just going to give you a few scripture to because it's found in the word of god jeremiah 32 27 behold i am the lord the god of all flesh is there anything too hard for me when you face that impossible situation go back to what god says he's i'm the god of all flesh of seven billion people on planet earth i'm the god of all of them if you're the only one of seven billion people that's ever faced that problem if you're only the only one of ten thousand ministers

in north america that face that problem so what i'm the lord god of everybody is anything too hard for me obviously the angel gabriel appealed appeared to a young woman a virgin named mary and said you're going to have a child she said well how can that be i'm a virgin it's impossible and the angel said luke 1 37 with god nothing is impossible jesus was speaking to his disciples and talked about how difficult it is for rich people to go to heaven the disciples are called in shock because according to their thinking if you really were going to be blessed by god you would be rich and if you're rich it's obvious you're blessed by god everybody wants to be rich disciples are saying wait a minute god we all want to be rich what do you mean rich people can't go to heaven that's what we want to be and that's highly relevant to us because we don't think we're rich but by the standards of human history and the rest of the world we're rich if you have a car multiple cars you're rich if you have electronic appliances and gadgetry you're

rich if you can eat whatever you want when you want and your main concern is gaining weight you're rich if you can go to a buffet or a salad bar or a restaurant and choose from a hundred different idol items you're rich and so the disciples were lord what do you mean and he said in mark 10 27 well with god all things are possible even people like us actually can be saved because with god all things are possible notice these statements of faith we can have revival in north america i 100 agree with brother huntley i was raised on the mission field i can tell you every story you could imagine from personal observation but i also can tell you story for story i can tell you of watching demons being cast out in korea i can also tell you of demons being cast out in austin texas i can tell you of the dead being raised but i can also tell you of the dead being raised in austin texas whatever story you have i can tell you it's not only happening overseas it's happening right here in the u.s and canada it

may seem difficult it may seem impossible but remember god with god nothing is impossible with god all things are possible in our culture we can face the challenges of secular north american culture and we can still see the miracle working power of god we've got to move from fear to faith second timothy 1 7 god has not given us a spirit of fear but a power we have the power of god and of love maybe that's part of our problem because it's not just about power it's about loving people if you don't have a soul-winning church you why would god give a lot of power there's got to be power but there's got to be love and god has given us that and a sound mind that's why it's okay to plan god gives you a mind to plan in other words god's giving you whatever it takes to do what he's called you to do god's commands are god's enablings whatever god tells you to do he gives you the power the love and the sound mind to do what he commands first john 4 4 greater is he who is in you than

he that's in the world that's true in north american culture that's true no matter what demonic forces are in our culture verse 18 goes on to say because perfect love casts out fear i'm persuaded that fear is real but i'm also persuaded if we can love god with all of our heart and if we can love souls with all of our heart then that love is going to cast out fear we'll move from fear to faith and nothing shall be impossible to us now just for a few minutes i want to talk about overcoming fear i want to mention seven concerns briefly and i want you to listen because i feel i'd love to just preach an evangelistic message and be done with it but i like i'm supposed to speak to the church and i have to give insight and direction into the way god i feel is put it on my heart so i want to talk about some concerns and i could be misunderstood let me just say very clearly the concerns i'm going to mention are legitimate it is legitimate to be concerned about these things but we cannot live in

fear of these things we cannot act in fear because of these things we have to recognize the concerns and the problems but consciously decide i will not act because of fear i will move from fear to faith number one is the fear of compromise we are a conservative even strict holiness organization so the way to ral rise get get us roused up in our human thinking is to suggest compromise if you don't like something if you can convince people it's compromise then you can kill it that's how we operate in our movement now i you may not like what i'm going to say but just hear me out i've written our book the books on our doctrine i think i've shown i believe in our doctrine as much as anybody i've actually faced it when when i was in the minority and standing up for what we believe i can tell you story after story but i don't want to belabor the point but i'm saying you cannot have a revival church if you're just consumed by fear of compromise notice the concern is legitimate i don't want us to compromise the oneness of god

the new birth tongue's his initial sign the life of holiness modesty of dress gender distinction ladies having long hair you just go down the list i do not want us to compromise one iota but i can't do operate my ministry based primarily of fear that we're gonna fall into compromise you can't have revival when you're living in fear now you say what are you talking about well when i was pastoring so this is a number of years ago so you know any personal references are so old it doesn't matter but i had a guy that moved from another part of our country from a very strict holiness church and he came to our church he loved it but but after a few months he said pastor i just don't understand how can you have all these people coming and some of them they've got received the holy ghost well they won't get baptized in jesus name how can you allow that and there's some of them they they receive the holy ghost but they're still wearing jewelry they're still wearing makeup how can how can you put up with that why don't you deal with

that i said you know we're trying to win them some people understand everything immediately but some it takes time and i said when if they're coming on sunday morning that's not the core church but i'm not going to run them off as long as they're coming because i have an unfair advantage i've got the word of god i've got the power of the holy spirit if they'll keep coming i'm going to win them that's how i look at it now i said if you look at our leaders and and so on you'll know what we believe and you know what i teach you've heard me teach he said well i'm so struggling with that because in our church back home we wouldn't let people come like that i said okay how many were in your church at home he said well about 25 i said let's assume all 25 were ready for the rapture at that time we had about 500 in our church i said okay we've got about 500 coming i'm not saying they're all ready to meet god i'm not saying they're all saved let's say only half of them are saved

only 250 which approach is winning more souls for the kingdom of god you see you can't live in fear now i'll give you another example so this is a long time ago there was some kind of social media forum and apostolic form of some kind i wasn't part of it but but one of my friends said hey brother-in-law they're talking about you would you care to give an answer i said so they said what it was so i said well look i'll give you the answer you can do what you want and so somebody wrote oh i thought brother munnar was such a great holiness preacher but i went to his church i was so disappointed to see so many unholy people so my friends well how would you like to respond i said well i assume he came on sunday morning if he came sunday morning he probably saw 50 visitors that would not understand our way of dress and he probably saw 50 converts of the last six months baptized or received in the holy ghost that would be in process so i agree he probably saw a hundred people in that service

that would not follow our teachings of holiness but if he looked at our choir our musicians our praise singers our sunday school teachers our children's ministry workers our youth workers our hostesses our ushers our church board our ministerial staff he would find not only do they have the new birth they followed written guidelines that they agreed to of dress of no drinking no smoking a modest lifestyle ladies having long hair men cutting their hair short ladies not wearing pants men's not wearing dresses i'm not just picking on one i'm going to go down the line the whole way and if you've ever been to austin texas you know you can't take anything for granted you got to spell it out because yes we had men coming to church in dresses that happened so i was perfectly clear so i said i don't apologize for that because that's how you grow a church you set a clear standard but you've got to be inclusive of souls when you're talking about visitors when you're talking about converts when you're talking about working with real people in a lost world you cannot live in fear that they're going

to destroy you you've got to have faith that you are going to overwhelm them with the word of god with the power of the holy spirit and the example of the saints that's what i'm talking about so i'm concerned that the upc i not compromise i'm concerned about that what do i do i study i preach i teach i write if you're concerned i suggest you study and get it deeply so it's not just something you're saying because you have a label but it's something you understand you know backwards and forwards you preach it you teach it you affirm it and you trust the next generation let me hasten on second fear is fear secular culture i agree it's a legitimate concern we're faced with an ungodly society with all kinds of teachings of sexual immorality same-sex marriage transgender paganism new age movement you could go on and on and on that's a legitimate concern but we cannot withdraw in isolation because of fear we have to actually believe greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world so what am i going to do again i'm going to study

to know what i believe in relation to these false teachings i'm gonna preach i'm gonna teach i'm gonna commit my way to god i'm not gonna tremble in fear yes i'm concerned about the influence on my kids and now my grandkids but i've got to commit them to god i can't live in fear i've got to pray over them i've got to preach and teach to them i've got to live it those lost people i can't isolate myself from them i cannot ban them from coming to church but i need to reach out to them i need to love them i need to win lost souls because nothing is impossible with god yes we've seen people from a lesbian lifestyle a homosexual lifestyle a transgender lifestyle addicted to cocaine you go you name it people that tried to commit suicide people who are in mental hospitals people with medical diagnosis of illness physical and mental i could go all night and tell you of testimonies of seeing people come out of those lifestyles and those addictions being baptized in jesus name filled with the holy ghost being saints in the church singing in the choir

teaching sunday school you can't isolate yourself in fear you gotta move from fear to faith number three fear of change because we are concerned over compromise with no nobody likes change all right so when somebody starts changing we get afraid especially because people that want to change our identity they start with little changes that are okay and they get you lulled to sleep with change and then they start crossing the line and we've all seen that happen so much that anytime somebody changes one thing we're jumping to the conclusions i remember one time our associate pastor now this is when we're more strict who are now austin is such a laid-back culture its official city motto is keep austin weird and so other people dress accordingly meaning people don't even know that we have holding the standards that everybody dresses weird they don't even know that we're dressing weird they don't even know that all the ladies are wearing dresses it doesn't daunt on them because you never know what who will wear what and so it takes them a while oh all the ladies here wear dresses they can't figure it out because everybody

just did their own way and so one time our assistant pastor was working doing some manual labor at church and he ran out of time he was going to go home and change and come back but he couldn't so he actually stayed in church without a tie and one of our faithful saints came up who had gone through a church split in another church the church went quote unquote in our lingo charismatic so she had been there and she'd seen it she saw the signs so she comes up and say are we going charismatic assistant pastor is not wearing a tie are we going charismatic is that the first step so i understand that's a legitimate concern but all change is not compromise how do you know the difference we've got to focus on the bible rather than tradition even our own pentecostal tradition now look i'm 62 years old i resonate to i surrender all i resonate to it's all in him i resonate to those kinds of songs but guess what you like the kind of songs and the kind of preaching when you came into the church or when you grew up

in the church when you were a teenager the prevailing styles are your favorite so you're not completely comfortable with anything else but you cannot say all change is compromised just because it's not your personal preference i hope your church will reach out to the older people like me so that we feel comfortable but i also hope your church reaches out to people who didn't grow up in pentecost to people who are teenagers and 20-somethings that really had no clue what bringing in the sheaves being they don't even know what sheaves are they don't understand jesus on the main line they're really worried about what mainline means they're not aware of the royal telephone but somehow we've got to change without compromising our identity i'm being candid so some 20 something show up with casual dress little facial hair which i'm 100 against that on women but uh but they're think you know they hear a great sermon on gender distinction they think they're doing what the pastor said they don't know that that's not what we were probably talking about now i know that's a sensitive point i'm not trying to change your conviction or

your church or what your pastor teaches i'm just saying you can't live in fear of something that is not a scriptural thing but a cultural thing or a tradition thing we've got to emphasize the bible as the absolute weak methods are secondary they can change principles don't change here's what i found helped me i was raised as a missionary did you know in korea they had different styles of dress they had different styles of food they had different styles of music they had different styles of dancing when they the spirit moved and they danced they didn't dance like americans they danced like koreans they they had different customs and and my parents said we're not trying to make you americans we're trying to make you christians we're not trying to get you to worship like americans we're trying to get you to worship like the bible like the book of psalms now if you're my age you are a missionary in this culture so it's not just what song makes me feel good or what style of dress communicates to me authority or respect or whatever i have to be wise enough to say what

is the language that these unsaved teenagers and 20-something speakers because most of our converts are gonna be kids and teenagers and young adults right so if we're missionaries to them we have to understand what makes what they think about and how can we relate in a term without compromising our identity please understand if you're not comfortable with some things i'm saying my main point is this we can't live in fear we have to move forward in faith you can be as strict as you feel like god has called you to be but it has to be in faith you have to appeal and i would say trust our young ministers i'm not saying carte blanche but i'm saying like ronald reagan said about the russians trust but verify if i get brother josh carson to preach i trust him absolutely but i'm not going to turn off my brain if he starts teaching false doctrine i'll go talk to him don't worry but i start from a position i trust him his text may not be my text his illustration may not be my illustration but i'm going to listen with the attitude he's probably

right and if it sounds a little strange i'm not i'm probably the one that didn't get it i'm probably the one who misunderstood the current terminology but i will go home and double check and make sure trust the next generation fear of church growth that sounds strange everybody wants to grow but there's a fear i understand the fear we when we built our first building in two years we went from 125 to 250. that's exciting but when half your people are new that can be scary how do you disciple them and then it's great to plant a new church but what if that new church takes all the people from our church i remember one district far away and long ago we're trying to teach on church growth and the superintendent said i believe what you're saying but you need to meet my district board i said really said yeah you need my disrebord and ask them why we can't have new churches so i said okay i said why can't we plant new churches one band spoke up and said our churches are all so small if we let another church come in they

could wipe us out so we don't need another church to me if all the churches are small that means you need more churches another guy spoke up and said you don't understand pentecost is so foreign in our area it'll take us generations before people will accept pentecost wait a minute you cannot live in fear of bad ethics and try to block churches and have turf protection what you got to do is teach ministerial ethics you got to enforce minister ethics but you've got to release and let go i know what it's like to be afraid to release someone in ministry because i need them for myself was a wake up i used to think if we only got to a hundred we could handle everything and then when we got to hope and i thought well if we could only get to 200 we gonna have everything and you know i worked really hard build the youth program build the children's program build a music program my wife and i were in charge of every program but gradually we trained leaders and we had leaders in place so i thought if i could get all

these leaders in place then i'll have a good team we'll have a good church but you know what i found about the time i got 10 leaders in place one backslid another got a bad attitude another did exactly the opposite what i said i had to replace him so i i realized i would never have a perfect team it was always going to be a work in progress which i realized was a good thing because that's job security for the senior pastor so then i realized if god calls one of my best leaders to plan a daughter work that doesn't mess up my perfect team if it's the right time and if it's the will of god i'm better off letting that person go you know why because god has another person that's going to rise up and take their place it's the same reason i give to global missions you could say we can't give to global missions we have to save money for our new building you know what i learned give the global missions and god will help you grow a new building when we moved from our last building to the

new one we sold the old property for three million dollars that was every dollar we had invested in that property god gave it back to us as a down payment on our new building but at the same time i calculated brother how in that same period of time we gave 3 million dollars to world missions you can have your cake and eat it too in the kingdom of god you can give it away and grow it back you can give to missions you can give leaders to neighboring churches you can plant churches and you can grow it back don't live in fear of church growth god has a plan to grow your church and grow other churches too fear of loss i covered that it's the same thing fear of church growth fear of loss fear of fellowship some people are afraid of fellowship they call it they're afraid of the organization organization is not perfect but you know start with trust instead of suspicion not every decision i make is right but i hope people at least when they hear i can't believe brother bernard did that i can't believe headquarters did that well

maybe you shouldn't believe it then maybe you should call me i do have a cell phone i do have an email and i have a secretary uh executive assistant you can actually get a hold of me if you have a question you can call brother graham if you're if you're you know if you don't you you don't want to bring it to the level of the general superintendent then talk to brother graham or talk to my assistant ronda morley talk to somebody but if you have a legitimate question you deserve a legitimate answer but don't go speculating or believing the worst start don't don't live in fear of your own organization just because your organization might make some mistakes doesn't mean you can live in fear figure out what those mistakes are talk to the right people fix them vote on them do whatever you have to do but at the end of the day there needs to be servant leadership mutual accountability communication participation invest in your organization help it develop a healthy culture if you're worried about your district having a dysfunctional culture will you create a healthy culture i remember when i

was a whole missionary and i and another pastor were in that same section we were both from outside the section we both had missions field experience and there were several churches pushing the liberal edge in fact they fell off the liberal edge later and then their leadership was very reactionary a very harsh and and just trying to control it so you had these two polarizations and so my friend said you know what i'm not coming back to another event i'm not bringing my youth to the youth event because this is a dysfunctional section i said hey if you and i both come we bring all of our young people we bring all of our church we will outnumber the others we'll change the culture of the section we'll have revival in the youth service couple years i was elected presbyter we were able to change the culture the same two of us there were no daughter works we're going to start daughter works so in seven years we grew from 30 churches and no daughter works to 53 churches and daughter works i'm saying if you don't like your section or your district or whatever

is going on why don't you start investing why don't you start changing the culture why don't you be the peer that exerts the pressure don't live in fear and then finally fear of failure we're all afraid to step out by faith and do something we've never done before i know that feeling very regularly i started a church started 16 daughter works started a new district started a new seminary started a new college every step of the way there are people that said it can't be done and there are people said we don't want you to do it it's scary and it costs money and and the stakes are higher you got to move from fear to faith i'm wrapping it up i want to give you some examples los angeles california orozco our spanish evangelist ministries director started church in 1986. he now has a church of approximately 500 people that's an amazing story but he's also started 28 works out of his church those works have a total of 7 300 people they can only get together once a year in one auditorium who says you cannot have revival in los angeles who says

you can't plant daughter works without destroying your mother work no you can do it in jesus name i hope you're showing these pictures dallas fort worth brent jones north richland hills texas started a work in 2001 i'm sorry i don't have his picture but he did a great work but several years ago he felt a burden many of his people were coming he was on the north side of dallas fort worth people were coming to the south side and there'd also been another work years ago that left us and totally abandoned our identity and there were still people that needed something and so two years ago this is shocking i've never done this except with spanish i'd never done with english people because i was too scared he sent 55 people and a hundred thousand dollars from his church in 2017 to start a new church and chris copeland in joshua texas now has 200 people two years later when i became general superintendent the largest church in the largest city in the us and canada that had no church at all of the upci was quebec city several years ago melissa frost yes a

woman in ministry started the first united pentecostal church in quebec city quebec canada a lot of people i'm sure said it couldn't be done the largest city in the u.s that had no upci church when i became general superintendent was newark new jersey the north central jersey district has started to move they're a small district but in the last five years they planted eight works this year i preached the fifth anniversary and church dedication for pastor warren white in newark new jersey that weekend i preached in the suburb of irving irvington dimitri williams another pastor i don't have the picture but he also has a new building neville clark the brother of our superintendent of cayman islands was a trinitarian pentecostal preacher he was baptized in jesus name baptized his whole congregation i preached for him he just bought property to expand his building three churches right there in newark new jersey i'm saying it can be done it is being done thibodeaux louisiana it's close to my heart because my grandfather was from there i never knew him at thibodeau you think of louisiana think bible belt south louisiana is not the bible belt

it's french catholic cajun shorthand version it's the mardi gras culture it's pagan my grandfather his first language was french and when he married a process woman they kicked him out of the family and so he traveled to baton rouge and that's where my family heard of pentecost he became a preacher with the assembly of the lord the church the pentecostal assemblies of jesus christ predecessor upc and he was a french evangelist in south louisiana so several years ago i preached for josh malonson yes it's malonson in thibodeau louisiana and the bernards are famous in thibodeau they're all my relatives there i don't know any of them because they're all catholic and they kicked us out but if you go to thibodeau and you if you know if you meet a bernard it's one of my cousins he took over a solid strong apostolic church from his father six years ago in six years they've had 500 converts now that sounds exciting until you think these are non-christians never been discipled you now have a good church of several hundred but you add 500 new converts and so i've been preaching for him every year and

i've been advising him and he's he wants my advice he wants upc identity but he says you know brother bernard got all these people and i'm sure our neighboring pastors are thinking you know he's just going worldly you know all these people with all these things and i said what you got to do is focus on the bible not tradition you just teach bible whatever's in the bible you hold him to it if it's not the bible you you just don't kind of kind of leave that aside and i said you need to start with your leadership team make sure they start lining up with the bible but you got to use people you can't just not use them but find ways and maybe non-traditional ways that are not leadership that don't dilute your message but you got to start getting them involved and i said he and he talked to and and maybe he's listening tonight so i hope he doesn't mind me being candid because we're we both very candid with each other i said you know i understand why people might be worried or afraid but i said why don't you start

taking your people to camp and to ladies conference all that because expose them to what's going on last time i preached for me i took your advice he said it's been a wonderful thing it's been an exciting thing i talked to his district superintendent brother cox he affirms that they took 80 women to this year's ladies conference and 10 received the holy ghost they took 50 men to men's conference three received the holy ghost they had to teach them what to expect as far as dress and appropriateness but you see what i'm saying is you could live in fear of church growth and revival and hold down the revival that god has given but i want to reach out to situations like that and say if i can help you find a way to add 500 to your church and disciple the majority of them and have a solid apostolic church i'm willing to work with you i'm willing to test it out i'm willing to try it because i want to act in faith i preach in grammar see what's that saint james parish there has never been an apostolic church much less upci

church of any kind in the total history of saint james paris we have the first and only one that's a foreign mission field that's difficult to disciple people but you can't say forget about those people they won't make good apostolics with modesty of dress in the first six months so we just can't have a church no we've got to find a way to be true to our identity but move from fear to faith georgetown this is personal hope you don't mind georgetown texas northern suburb of austin it's metro austin some years ago we sent donny and cassie hussage to take a little small church in a rented building they've done so they've done a great work they brought building and property on the north outskirts of town but they and they're building a new building even as we speak but then they realize that leaves the center of georgetown really unreached so he recruited a friend to come and start a daughter work in his own city he started a whole missions work andy gossett he talked to pastor shaw the pastor of the mother church he said i need a good assistant who can

help me could you release someone and so rodney shaw sends one of his own leaders named jonathan bernard that's why it's personal he's assistant to the pastor his wife is the music director and lo and behold i can't believe this my son daniel is an expert drummer my son jonathan expert bass player but jonathan is the keyboard is for this church what i'm saying is we can work together we don't have to work in opposition we don't have to fight each other move from fear to faith i'm coming to a close here's what i'm saying christian life and ministry give us the greatest opportunity of our lives with opportunity comes challenge with challenge comes risk with risk comes fear we must face the challenge and take the risk in other words we need to walk by faith not a blind faith but a reasonable faith but at the end of the day it's faith acknowledge your fear and face it then choose to act in faith step out of your comfort zone to do the will of god jesus said in mark 11 22 have faith in god it sounds simplistic it's not it's simple

but profound at the end of the day have faith in god god has already spoken to some people this week god is speaking tonight god will speak tomorrow night when you hear the still small voice of god you've got to move from fear to faith you've got to have faith in god have faith in god move from fear to faith and you will see the incredible three weeks ago i preached for pastor shaw he shared with me a testimony a man had been a buddhist for 23 years six months ago he was meditating and started getting into demonic forces that disturbed him but as he was sleeping god gave him a vision because evidently god saw a hungry heart or a dream and in that dream a woman in white apparel apparently an angel said your answer is in jesus you need to find jesus he went to a charismatic church to find jesus it's a church i know well they believe in the spirit but they don't have much opportunity so what they do it actually they told me they tell people if you want to receive the holy ghost go down to new

life they know how to pray people through to the holy ghost then you can come back to our church he went there for six months and he said but i'm still not finding what i need somebody told him about pentecostals so he went to the evil internet and he went on evil youtube and he saw a pentecostal preacher and so he's googled pentecostal church austin he found new life he said when he walked in the doors he felt this is what i've been looking for