Finding Your Voice

Finding Your Voice

Bishop Garlington

Bishop Garlington begins his message with a story he heard from Paul Manwaring about a situation where he (Paul) was having physical pain and needed healing in his body. He kept believing for healing and wasn’t seeing the breakthrough he wanted. Paul has seen and participated in many miracles over the years and what he had seen for others wasn’t happening for him. Paul asked Bill Johnson, “What do you do when you can’t find the answers that you want and you are believing God for something?” Bill answered, “I read the Psalms until I find my voice.”

When asked, Paul shared that Psalm 16 was the Psalm for that season in his life

The Psalms are great for speaking to you in any season. 

• Psalm 16: I can’t trust my soul to counsel me.
• You read it until you hear it crying out in your voice in that moment of pain
• “I love the Psalms because somebody somewhere has felt the same way I feel at times. It’s a living thing.” 
• The Psalms are great for speaking to you in any season. 
• There is a Psalm for everybody. When you are in trouble you are looking for something God has already said to somebody.
• In Romans, Paul says, (paraphrased) “The scriptures that were written before were written for us, for our encouragement so that through the patience and encouragement of scripture we can have hope.”
• “God is saying something to me in this passage”

The Psalms are songs to sing

• Paul and Silas sang in prison in their bondage
• “At midnight Paul and Silas sang Psalms and hymns until heaven was open. They sang until they got the attention of God and heaven came down and glory filled the prison. They sang until the place was shaken. God told the angels to be quiet because he heard something coming from that place.”
• When his kingdom comes, everything changes. It’s amazing how often things change when we find our voice.
• It’s amazing what happens when we say something to God, not birthed out of fear, but birthed from his word

“Sound is invasive, intrusive, and irresistible.” 

• When the baby bear takes his stance and raises his voice the puma backs away. 
• The bear realizes the mother bear behind him. 
• Until you find your voice, you can’t stand in the places God has for you.

“There are songs God has put in the Earth today that have the potential to move us away from the place of fear to the place of ‘God I am so excited to belong to you.’”

• The word “oh” in a song is so powerful. It can encompass any part of speech and it can carry so much emotion. (In reference to the bridge of, “No Longer Slaves”)
• You are a child of God. When you are in trouble (like the baby bear) you can call on him and he will show up. 
• If you can hear a lion roar in the jungle, you are in its territory. God says, “If I can hear you roar, I can get to you. If you can cry out, I can get to you. He’s not too far away! He knows your ups and downs.” 
• God’s previous. He’s not waiting for you to call so he can hear you, he’s waiting for you to call because he wants to hear you!
• Psalm 56: “Be gracious to me oh God, for man has trampled upon me. Fighting all day long he oppresses me. My foes have trampled upon me all day long for they are many who fight proudly against me.”
• The devil oppresses but finds your voice of appeal to your God. He loves you. Find your voice of trust in times of fear.
• Psalm 56:3:  When (not if) I am afraid, I will put my trust in you.
• Don’t be afraid of being afraid. When the lion is loose don’t say, “I’m not afraid of lions.” Know when to be afraid AND know when knowing when not to be afraid.

God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and of a sound mind. Proclaim: the Lord is the strength in my life, whom shall I fear?

• Elijah says to his servant (when the whole countryside is surrounded by armies that have come to kill them) “Don’t be afraid, those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
• In the Bible, God always seems to say “Do not be afraid” when you are already afraid. God is actually saying, “STOP fearing because I’m in control.”

If your God is for you, what can stand against?

• God is not intimidated by how big the enemy is (David and Goliath is referenced) 
• You need an enemy
• Billy Crystal said, “If it wasn’t for Goliath, David would have just been another kid throwing rocks.”
• You need something to call you to your signature self
• Find your voice of praise and boldness

Sound is invasive, intrusive, and irresistible.

Find “grace gate” songs. Songs that open gates to God’s grace and power in your life.

• Sometimes you are more competent when you are unconscious of your competency that when you know what you are doing
• Sometimes you aren’t aware of how much a song is doing in your life. You may feel progression but when you stop and assess you are much farther than you thought
• “If you think you know, then you don’t. If you don’t know you know when you are unconsciously competent”

Bishop Garlington gives an example of when he would listen to the song Holy Spirit. He talks about how he would listen to that song over and over and he realized the part where it says “I’ve tasted and seen of the sweetest of love when my heart becomes free and my shame is undone” ministered to him mightily every time. He began to realize there were things in his past that held him in shame. He discusses a divorce he experienced early in his life and how he felt shame because he knew there were people in the church who wanted nothing to do with divorced people. He would adjust his explanations about family based upon the person he was talking to (i.e. if he knew the person he was talking to was against divorce, he would only mention his new wife’s family and not his children from his previous marriage). If he felt like they were free he would mention his entire family. He would tell half-truths to based upon how he felt people would react.

His freedom was stuck because he was ashamed of something in his past.

• It’s hard to worship through shame. It’s hard to worship Jesus when you have something in your life that tells you that you aren’t worthy of standing in his presence. Jesus took all of that shame and hung it on the cross.
• God met Bishop Garlington in a prophetic moment and told him he felt rejected. “You don’t have to leave here like you came.” when he took God’s view of his situation and let the Lord minister to him, shame was broken in his life
• All of a sudden there was a shift. Bishop Garlington was able to receive new levels of grace. He found the voice of surrender. “Do anything in me.” 
• NOW when he sings the song “Holy Spirit” there is a new strength and victory in “AND MY SHAME IS UNDONE.”

Whatever is going on in your life, whatever the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on. Tonight you can say “goodbye to it.” I’m going to use my voice. Sometimes when you are in trouble you whisper “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” When you are drowning and the nearest boat is a hundred yards from you, you don’t whisper. You lift your voice like Bartimaeus when Jesus passed by. 

“I’m trying to get HIS attention.” Whatever the issue is, find the voice that pushes you out of your denominations and gets God’s attention. Before anyone puts their hands on you to pray, you can be released! Just like the baby bear, yell and let “daddy grizzly” defend you!