From Paupers To Princes

Opening prayer  “Time: 0:56-1:08”

“Lord, thank You for what You’re doing all over the world and especially this morning. We just pray for Your great grace and anointing to be on our lives. Amen.” 

The first profound thing that happened in Kris’s life “Time: 3:04-11:04”

• Kris had a very violent past. Kris’s Dad drowned when Kris was three and his Mom remarried twice. During a time between when Kris’s Mom had divorced his first step-dad and married his second his two younger siblings, his Mom, and himself lived in a house by themselves. At this time a prowler would come four to five times a week and they would have the police out about five times a week. His Mom would sleep with a shotgun and Kris slept with a rifle. One night the prowler got in his room. Kris yelled the prowler jumped out the window, and Kris shot at him. This event was very scary. Growing up Kris’s family never spoke about God they weren’t necessarily atheists but they just never really talked about God. Kris’s Mom had psoriasis all over. The night after the prowler had gotten in his room Kris could hear his Mom crying. Then Kris said out loud, “If there’s a God if You hear my mother I’ll find out who You are and serve You the rest of my life.” An audible voice responded, “My name is Jesus Christ and you have what you requested.” The next morning Kris’s Mother’s psoriasis was gone. “Probably about a week later the voice came back and said, “My name is Jesus Christ. You said that if I healed your Mother that you would serve me, and I’m waiting.”” So then Kris and his girlfriend started a three-year-long journey of seeking for the Lord. Kris would go to a church and stand in the back for maybe ten minutes and say, “The God who spoke to me isn’t here.” Kris didn’t know what he was looking for; all he knew was that He said, “My name is Jesus Christ.” When Kris was eighteen a hippy Jesus guy said that Kris should come to his homegroup. Kris didn’t know that he was a Jesus guy. Kris said yes because he wanted to appease the other guy but the Jesus guy kept asking when he was coming so finely Kris said that he would come that Wednesday. When Kris and his girlfriend Kathy arrived at the house it was packed. They were sitting on the floor and people started to sing a worship song. While they were singing people would stand up and say one-liner testimonies. About this time Kris knew that the God that had spoken to him was here. A little later the leader of the group asked if anyone there wanted to accept Jesus. Kris and Kathy both raised their hands. After a short message the group leader came and sat down with Kris and Kathy and read a few passages from the Bible to them and explained that they were born again. He then brought two men over and asked which one they wanted to be their spiritual father. Kris picked the better looking one and he was a spiritual father for Kris and Kathy for a long time. Since that day, Kris has never had a day when he didn’t serve the Lord. This was the most profound thing that happened in his life.

The second most profound thing that happened in Kris’s life “Time: 11:05-11:41”

• The second most profound thing that happened in Kris’s life was he got married.

The third most profound thing that happened in Kris’s life “Time:11:41-59:21”

• Kris had been at Bethel for about a year and a half and he had a personal assistant who was a prophetess named Nancy. Nancy cried all the time. She told Kris to not pay attention to when she cries because she cries all the time. One day they were looking at the schedule for the week and she was crying. Kris asked her if she was ok and she said yes. Kris asked if she was sure and she said no. Then Kris asked if he had done something to hurt her feelings or something wrong and she at first said no then said yes. Kris asked what it was and she said, “sometimes you don’t realize how much people value you and you don’t carry yourself like you understand that  people value you and you walk out of your office and your destroying the very people you’re supposed to be leading with your words by thinking you’re being funny.” Kris asked if he had said something that hurt her feelings and they resolved it and everything was fine. That night after Kris went to bed he had a dream, one of those dreams that you can’t remember but you feel the emotion of the dream, and when he woke up from the dream he had an overwhelming feeling of losing his best friend and a verse is going through his mind. The part of the verse that was going through his mind was from Proverbs, and it said, “The world can hold up under a pauper when he becomes a king.” Kris knew that it was a Proverbs but he had not read Proverbs for a few years so he knew that it wasn’t something he had just read. As he started to wake up some he asked the Lord if he was trying to speak to him and the Lord said, “Yes. You are a pauper, a slave whose become a king and your killing the very people you’re supposed to be leading and its time for you to change.” Immediately Kris was taken back to that morning in a vision when Nancy had told him, “You don’t realize how much people value you and you don’t carry yourself like you understand that your valuable and you’re destroying the very people you’re supposed to be leading with your words.” God then asked Kris, “Do you know why Moses had to be raised in Pharaoh's house?” Kris was thinking about this then said, “No. I bet You’re going to tell me.” God said, “Because a man who is enslaved internally cannot free people externally. So it was necessary for Moses to be raised as a prince so he could free My people. Unlike Moses who was raised to be a prince you were raised to be a slave.” God took Kris back into his childhood during the first week of his Mom’s marriage to his first step-father and the first memory Kris had of him. This memory was of his step-father beating him for lying. And how he would say to Kris, “You are the trash that came with the treasure. I didn’t marry you. I married your mother.” And like the Lord had told Kris, “Unlike Moses who was raised to be a prince you were proactively, on purpose raised to be a slave and it's time for you to change because I’ve called you to be a king.” God started to talk to Kris about being a son. Kris had been reading Genesis in his devotional time when he had this encounter and he really related to Jacob because “... Jacob just had such a tough upbringing and his father really had no favor with him.” While Kris was reading the story of Jacob he had a realization; “This is not a lesson in agriculture. God is prophetically declaring how His sheep reproduce. You do not become what you want to become you become what you see at the watering hole of your imagination.”

• “There are two ways to live life. The first way is I react to what I don't want to be. The other way is I respond to the vision God has given me for my life. ...Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”” “If my goal is to not want to be my step-father how many of you know I have to keep in mind what it is I don’t want to be, but what’s the problem? I reproduce what I see. Not what I want to be, what I see.” “There’s a saying that says, “You are not what you think you are and you are not what others think you are, but you become what you think others  think you are.” John Maxwell said, “That’s not perfectly accurate.” He said, “You are not what you think you are and you’re not what others think you are, but you become what you think the most important person in you life thinks you are.” ...if the most important person in your life is God then you’re not what you think you are and you’re not what others think you are, but you become what you think God thinks of you. Here’s the problem, if what you think what God thinks of you isn’t what He thinks of you then you’re not becoming what God thinks of you you’re becoming what you think He thinks which isn’t what He thinks. ...So how important is it to know what God thinks if you become what you think God thinks? How important is it that you know what He thinks so that you’re actually becoming what He thinks and not what you think He thinks. Which is why you get transformed by renewing your mind.” 

• The story of Jacob goes on and he is living a rich and miserable life. So he decides to move away. At one point he tells his family and shepherds to go on ahead of him and he will catch up. Jacob went to Jabbok, in and prayed and God sent him an angel. Jacob wrestled the angel all night. When the angel said to let him go Jacob said that he wasn’t going to let him go until he had blessed him. Then the angel breaks Jacob’s leg and Jacob hangs on. Then the angel finally asks Jacob, “What is your name?” and Jacob replies, “My name is Jacob.” Jacob means liar so when Jacob said his name was Jacob he was saying, “My name is liar.” The angel said, “no longer shall your name be Jacob, but your name shall be Israel.” “Israel means a prince with God.” Jacob asked the angel what his name was and the angel said that it was none of his business. Kris always wondered why the angel didn’t  give his name until he read what Paul said in Corinthians “do you not know you will be judging angels?” “Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will take away your future.” “...woman never had a child till her name was changed to Eve, the mother of the living. Abram, who was called the father of a nation never had a child till his name was changed to Abraham, the father of a nation. ...when God had Adam name the animals, and by the way, you’ll notice they weren't called animals they were called living creatures when Adam was naming the living creatures he was literally calling out their DNA. I understand that he didn’t speak English but metaphorically speaking he sees a living creature and calls it “lion” and when he calls it lion he’s literally co-creating with God, he’s releasing into that creature its DNA, its divine purpose, and its divine identity. It matters what people call you. I want to tell you the greatest lie in Christian hood that you are a sinner saved by grace. It’s not true. ...It is true that you were a sinner and you got saved by grace. Me, you, all of us it's true. But once you got saved you were no longer a sinner. ...It’s not semantics, it's a name. If you believe you’re a sinner you’ll sin by faith. Because you got saved by faith you got righteousness by faith. Remember Romans 5 says, “That while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” What’s Paul point? … his [Pual’s] point is you deserve it now but you didn’t then. ...When Jesus died on the cross He didn’t just save you from your sin He transformed you from a sinner to a saint. Names matter.” Kris shared a story of when he and his wife were taking a trip with two of their grandchildren and one night in a hotel room they decided to wrestle. Kris’s granddaughter said that she was a crocodile and Kris’s grandson was a lizard. They started and the grandson immediately tackled the granddaughter. She then said that he couldn’t do that because he was the lizard. So they started again and this time the granddaughter tackled the grandson who then was a helpless “lizard” under a mighty “crocodile”. He went with it for a while then called to Kris, “Papa, I do want to play, but I don’t want to be the lizard.” So often we view ourselves as the lizard and the devil as the crocodile. We think we are “...the powerless sinner and he’s the great crocodile. And we spend our lives trying to not get eaten by the crocodile, and God says, “you are not a lizard. You are the crocodile. You are more than a conquer.” It is impossible to steal God’s glory; He’s that big. Plus Jesus said in John 17, “Father, the glory You gave Me I want to give to them that we might be one.” God gave you glory. You can’t steal it. “You were made in His image and in His likeness. Ephesians 5:1 says, “Be imitators of God as beloved children.” Do you know that when you're acting like God you’re being yourself? ...when you got saved by grace you became a saint.” 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If any one man be in Christ he is a new creation.” The word new here means prototype as in something that has never been created. You a new creature. In 1 John it states that “...if anyone sins we have an advocate...” This does not say “when we sin” its “if we sin”. “When you received Jesus He changed your nature. It’s no longer your nature to sin.” When you have received Jesus you have died with Christ and in Romans 6 it says, “you rose with Him” “you already rose from the dead.” In 1 John the word advocate is an attorney. Before you received Jesus when you sinned you needed a savior, now after you received Jesus you need an attorney. “Sin no longer has power over you.” Sin only has power over you if you believe it does. “You are more than a conqueror which means you were born for a fight.” “You don’t have to sin because you were born for glory.” 1 John 3 talks about how people who have been born of God don’t practice sin because they are born of God. Kris shared a story of when he was sharing this message and this guy asked him if he could go without sinning for a day, week, month and each of these times Kris said yes. The guy said, “I don’t believe it.” And Kris said, “That’s why you can’t do it. Because you don’t believe it.” “You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.” See 2 Corinthians 5:21. “Part of the challenge is is that we think that temptation is sin. In Hebrews  4:15 says that Jesus was tempted in every way, in every way except without sin. ...so we think that temptation is sin. ...I can’t stop a bird from landing on my head but I can keep it from building a nest.” “The other thing we think is that we’re in a war with our old man.” “Baptism is not a symbolic act. Baptism is a prophetic act.” In the story of Nahum, the dipping in the river was a prophetic act. Romans 6 talks about how we have died to sin and so we can not live in it and how we have been buried with Christ in His death and have risen with Him and now live with Him. That is the prophetic act of baptism. The old man is dead. The first part of the prophetic act of baptism is when you go under the water meaning you died with Christ the second half is when you come out of the water meaning you have been raised with Christ. “You are not in a war with your old man.” See Ephesians 6 and 2 Corinthians 10. “You know the difference between condemnation and conviction? Condemnation says, “you lied, you’re a liar.” ...Conviction says, “You’re way too awesome to be acting like that.” Conviction says, “You lied, stop it, you’re a son of God.”” “You are not what you feel.” Kris shared a story of when his mother had to rehab to learn how to walk again after having an operation done for cancer. Kris asked the doctor why cancer affected his mom’s walking. The doctor said that cancer didn’t affect his mom’s ability to walk but being in bed for three months caused her legs to not be able to walk. “Gravity is what makes us strong. It’s resistance that builds muscles. I’d propose that temptation is to my soul what gravity is to my body.” Resisting temptation builds noble character.

Prayer   “Time: 1:00:32-1:00:48”

“Lord I just pray right now. I thank You for what You’re doing in this room. And I bless every single person in this room. And I pray that You would give us the truth and the truth would set us free. Amen.”