Victory Through The Ancient Paths (Lighthouses Youth Conference) - Nicole Lee

The ancient ways of God are ways of life. There is only one way to have a vibrant and healthy inner life, one way to have freedom in your heart, in your spirit, in your mind, and that is through Jesus Christ by walking with God. The way to a victorious life is following the ancient paths of God.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):





​
​I want to say it was sometime last summer. And right after I heard about it, I was in my car, just worshiping the Lord. And I saw you. I saw you as so beloved of God. And I saw you as warriors, awakening to your calling. And you need to know this morning. And I pray that the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of your heart to see that you were handpicked to be here today that you were hand picked by God to be here this morning. Today you are exactly where you need to be. And you may not realize it yet, but you are a mighty warrior in the kingdom of God, you have a divine purpose designed by the Lord, You are not forgotten. And you are not second picked, or third picked or fourth pick you are first picked by God. And I really believe that some of you are going to look back on this weekend. And you're going to say this was the turning point of my life. And some of you are at a juncture where you can decide, am I going to fully give my life to Jesus? Or am I going to hold back and give just a little bit and live for myself or Live for the world. And you know, so often sometimes we feel like, life just kind of happens to us, right? Like events happen. And we can even feel victimized because we feel out of control. But God has given us the blessing of the choice of how we respond day by day of if we turn our heart towards him and receive everything that he's giving us. Or if we push him away. And I just want to take a moment if I can to exalt the Lord and invite the Holy Spirit into this place. Father, we love you. And we thank You, Lord for this morning. And I thank you for the men and the women here. I thank you for the children here. I thank you for the youth here. And we exalt you lord over every heart, over every mind and we say in the name of Jesus, that there is no kind of bondage that you can't break. We thank you, Jesus, that you are here today to deliver and you are here today to heal. And you are here today to embrace as a father. So we thank you Holy Spirit, we say You are welcome, Holy Spirit. Come and do whatever you desire to do, Lord, our hearts are open. Our hands are open to you, Lord, in Jesus name, your kingdom come, Your will be done here in this place as it is in heaven. We thank you for the blood of Jesus that covers our bodies that covers our minds that covers our spirits. In Jesus name. Amen. So as my dad introduced, my name is Nicole Lee. I am a mom of five kids and I'm 30 years old. So I know to some of you, you're like, wow, that's old. At least that's how I felt as a teenager when I thought about being in my 30s I was like, Man, I'm gonna have my life together. But I'm gonna be getting up there, you know? And now here I am. I definitely don't feel old. But I was so blessed to have my mom and my dad and many other spiritual mentors in my life. That taught me principles of walking with God, that now now being 30 I'm looking back and I'm like, wow, they were right. It worked. It really is so good to walk with God, there really is such great blessing to walk with God. And so today, I want to share with you a few of the principles that my, my parents and my spiritual mothers and fathers taught me that gave me a prosperous inner life today. Do you guys know what I mean? When I say that inner life. You know what I'm talking about? The heart and the Spirit, and to some extent your mind. But that when we're talking about having a prosperous, thriving inner life, I'm talking about having peace and freedom in the Lord. So that no matter what comes, you're not, you're not knocked down, but you continue to trust in the Lord. So, in our culture, we're very focused on outward appearance, right? Even I mean, I think about every kind of social media. And again, I'm getting old, right? 30. So I know about Facebook. I know about Instagram I know about Tik Tok. But I, what I definitely know is all of that is for people to propel a certain appearance, right? Have you ever looked at your friends like Instagram reels and think to yourself, that's not what they look like? Or it's not really their car. Is that? Okay? I don't recognize them. They're. So anyway, there's such a push to put off a really good outward appearance, right? So what I'm talking about, is having a strong and prosperous inner life, because a lot of people look really good on the outside, maybe people even in the church, they look strong, they look like they're going after the Lord, but secretly, on the inside. They're in bondage, or they're under oppression. Or they're struggling with sin or loneliness. And they remind me, my husband and I, before we lived in Colorado, we lived in Boston. And our neighborhood in Boston was pretty old. So there were these big, beautiful trees that were decades old. And you know, they just had these luscious green leaves, they provided great shade. But one night, a storm came. And I don't remember what the winds were, they were probably they weren't Colorado winds. You guys know Colorado winds. They weren't, they were probably 4550 miles an hour. But when we went out the next morning, we see this huge maple tree completely knocked over. And I thought how in the world, this tree looks so strong, the leaves are still green. But whenever we went over to it, you know what we saw, the inside was completely rotted out. Some kind of, you know, I don't know, treating bug or something had gotten into it. And it was almost completely hollow. So it was already almost dead on the inside. So by the time those winds came, it could not stand. And it looked so alive on the outside, but it was dead on the inside. There is only one way to have a vibrant and healthy inner life. There is only one way to have freedom in your heart, in your spirit in your mind, and that is through Jesus Christ by walking with God. I don't have all of the answers. But I can promise you that if you walk with God, there is no kind of bondage that he cannot break. And there is no kind of oppression that he can't free you from. And he can lead you into a life of freedom and joy and prosperity on the inside that you may have never even known was possible. So again, I want to share with you just a few principles that were taught to me. There's many, many more, but these were just the ones that the Holy Spirit put on my heart. And the first principle is this. And if there's anything that I say today, if I had to pick just one thing, this is it. This is the one that I want to be ingrained inside of you that God's ways are ways of life. Can you say that? God's ways are ways of life and We see that just even from the beginning, so I'm going to start reading from Genesis one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was chaos and waste and darkness was on the face of the D. Do you ever feel that way. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water. Now, when the Spirit of God starts hovering, he's about to come and bring life. And then God said, Let there be light, and there was light. So he started with absolutely nothing. And he started to create the canvas for life. And I'm going to skip ahead a little bit for the sake of time, but on the second day, he separates the sky from the seas. On the third day, he starts by separating the land from the sea, and I'll pick up in verse 11. Then God said, Let the land sprout Grass and Green plants, yielding seed, fruit trees, making fruit, each according to its species with seed in it, and it happened. And then the land brought forth grass and green plants, yielding seed, each according to its species, and trees, making fruit with seed in it, each according to its species, are you noticing a pattern? So here we see that when God creates life, and everything that he's doing is bringing life, right? Life, life, life, but there's an order to that life, right? Did he make tomatoes that have seeds in it, and you're not sure what it's going to plant. If you plant the tomato seed, it makes tomatoes, right. And if you plant an apple seed, it makes apples. So not only are God's ways ways of life, but those ways are the ways of order. So when we follow the order of God, that is going to lead us into his life. The passage goes on to describe how the Lord made the sun, the moon, the stars, the animals, the animals of the land, and the animals of the sea. And over and over, we see God's delight, as he says, It is good, it is good, it is good. And he constantly creates the life within boundaries that he has established within that order. And I'm going to jump to verse 26, the good part. Then, on the sixth day, God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, let them rule over the sea, over the flying creatures of the sky, over the love livestock over the whole earth over every crawling creature that crawls in the land. God created humankind in his image, in the image of God, He created them, male and female, He created them, God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply and fill the land and conquer it. rule over the fish of the sea, rule over the flying creatures of the sky, and over every animal that crawls on the land. So we see as God created humanity was their order. there continued to be the order, right? He made us after his image, men, you bear the image of God. Women, you bear the image of God, men in your masculinity, you bear the image of God, and women in your femininity, you bear the image of God, and he says, It is good. And we are queer brought were created onto this earth, by a God whose ways are life and by a God who constantly has Order, order, order and that order is bringing life so why is it so important for us to have this truth written on our hearts? Because what does Satan come and do? Does he like that order? No. He wants to deceive you, and He wants to bring you into bondage. So you know what he said to Eve when he tempted her to eat the fruit from the tree of good and evil. And I'm picking up in Genesis three. But the serpent was shrewder than any animal in the field that the Lord had made. So it said to the woman, Did God really say, You must not eat from all the trees in the garden. And the woman said, to the serpent, of the trees, we may II, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God said, You must not eat of it, and you must not touch it or you will die. And the serpent said to the woman, you most assuredly won't die. For God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be open, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. In other words, he's saying, God's command Isn't life giving God's holding out on you. His ways are not ways of life, His ways are oppressive. He isn't loving. That's what the enemy says. And some of this will start to sound familiar. The enemy says, God's judgemental. God's ways are old fashioned. We need cultural relevancy. We need to read the Bible through the eyes of our culture. That's what the enemy says, that's the lie. The enemy says, The God of the Bible isn't accepting enough. And as people lose sight of the truth, that God's ways are ways of life, they start to make up their own rules of how life ought to work, of what they think will bring them prosperity in their heart, and in their spirit, and what they consider to be loving and accepting. So the deception of the enemy is rampant in the world right now, and spreading like a contagion in the church. And Satan is whispering to many people, causing them to question the old ways of God, and turning their hearts to bondage. And Satan is saying to many people, God is oppressive. And Satan is saying to many people, and whispering God's ways are not ways of life. God is saying, too many, or I'm sorry, Satan is saying too many people. Maybe you're not really a boy. Maybe you're a girl. Satan is saying too many people. Why should marriage be between just one man and one woman? Satan is saying to many people, that's not a baby. That's a clump of cells. And I know I'm speaking to you directly, but it's because I love you. And it's because you need to know that the lies of the enemy are not there. He's not trying to bring you into freedom. That's a deception. He's trying to bring you into bondage. And the Lord loves you. He loves you deeply. So if there's any of these issues that you're struggling with, you're not to be cast away. You're not to be pushed away. You, you need to be embraced by the father, heart of God, where you can be told the truth, and be led to healing and freedom, because God's ways are ways of life, and He loves you, and He wants to bring you into the fullness of life in the Holy Spirit. And this brings me to my second point. Which is that we need to bring our lives under the authority of Scripture. So I keep saying that God's ways are ways of life. But how do we know God's ways, right? How do we know what God's ways are? We got to study the Scripture, right? We study and we meditate on the Word of God. A lot of people base their beliefs about God, and about how the world ought to work and theology. They base those beliefs on their own experiences, and they read the Bible through their experiences. But what we need to do is base our beliefs on what the Word of God says, and base arcs and bring our experiences into alignment with the truth. We establish our beliefs about God and His ways on Scripture. Second, Timothy 316 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching for reproof, for restoration and for training in righteousness. So this means that scripture should be used to show us where we're acting or thinking or feeling in a way that's incorrect, that's out of alignment and the Holy Spirit will come and he'll just bring you back into alignment. When you have thoughts that aren't in alignment with him, he'll bring it back into alignment, actions, attitude as you read the Word of God. Now Satan, and all of his Army of Darkness, are putting out these constant messages of deception. Because again, remember, he wants you to live in bondage, he does not want you ingesting the Word of God because he knows that the truth will set you free. He knows what Jesus said, and eight. So I'm sorry, John, chapter eight, verses 31 through 32, that if you abide in my word, you are my disciples, and you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free, abiding in the Word of God. Bringing your mind and your spirit and your heart under the authority of the Word will set you free. And do you remember what Paul identified the word as? What is Paul say that the Bible is? Does anybody know? Yes, I heard a little whisper somewhere. Yes, the sword of the Spirit. Why do you need a sword? Because you're in a battle, you're in a battle against the enemy who hates you. But remember that this is how Jesus dealt with the enemy. Every time Satan came to tempt him in the desert, how does he respond with the Word of God with the Word of God with the Word of God. So that's why we need to be abiding in the Word of God. Because when Satan comes to accuse you, when Satan comes to try to condemn you, to deceive you, to tempt you, you speak the word of God again, and again and again. And when you speak the word of God in the face of the devil, he runs because you are swinging the sword of the Spirit. Now I want to read just a little bit about what happens when we walk under the authority of Scripture. And this is from Psalm one. Happy is the one who has not walked in the advice of the wicked, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scoffers. So Happy is the one who has not bought into the lies of the world. Happy is the one who has not bought into the ways of the world. But his delight, this is verse to his delight is in the law of the Lord. The law of the Lord is the instruction, the teaching the Word of God. And on his law, he meditates day and night, and he will be like a planted tree over streams of water producing its fruit during its season. Its leaf never droops. But in all he does he succeeds. That sounds like a really great way to live to me, that in all you do you succeed, that no matter what the circumstances are around you, that your leaf never drops. And all you do, you succeed. And finally, the third principle that I wanted to share is similar to what my dad was sharing, seek to walk under the Godly counsel of spiritual authorities. And when I say spiritual authorities, I'm talking about our mothers, our fathers, our aunts, our uncle's church leaders who show fruit of walking with God. Listen to this verse from Hebrews 1317. Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls, as one two must give an account. Let them do this with joy, and not with groaning for that would be of no benefit to you. So the obedience that the writers of Hebrew is talking about is he's not talking about obedience to any selfish desires of the leaders, right? He's talking about listening to and adhering to the wisdom and guidance offered by the leaders for the purpose of helping you because it's his job to keep watch over his face. Only, it's not popular in our society to respect the authority of our leaders, but there is rest and blessing in seeking the wisdom and counsel of godly authorities. So think of it this way, let's say that there's someone who decides they'd like to become an electrician, should they just start going into people's houses and cutting wires and just, you know, trying things out? Is that a good idea? That sounds like a fire about to happen. They need mentorship, right? They study under electricians. And, and a lot of times, we can feel like, well, if I'm going to be really genuine in my walk with the Lord, I got to do it alone. I got to seek after by myself. But that's not the way the Lord's designed us. He's called us to go to our spiritual moms and dads, and to learn under them and to seek their wisdom. And a lot of times to surrender what we think would be best and trust their wisdom. And I can't tell you the number of times that I've come to my mom or my dad. And I just feel completely overwhelmed. And I don't know what to do. And I'm thinking they're going to be just as freaked out as I am. They're going to be just as worried about this. And they're calm. And they give me some advice. And I take it, and it works, sometimes immediately. And let me tell you, especially the teenagers, when you're dating, this is massively helpful. And this is massively important. If I can give you two pieces of advice for dating. One is to learn to hear the voice of God and obey Him. And two, is to be completely transparent with your spiritual mom, and your spiritual dad. And if your mom and dad, your natural mom and dad, walk with the Lord, that's perfect. And this is talking about dating is actually a perfect example of this one because it's possibly relevant to you. But to because this is where it was just so evident in my life, how much even as an adult, I needed the input of my mom or my dad. So I did this with my mom and dad. And I, I was probably about 18 years old, when I went to my dad they said to my dad and my mom, I said, I want your wisdom. And I want your advice. And I don't want anything to be hidden from you. I don't care that I'm an adult now. I was 18. You know, I get to do on my walk now that's our culture. But I said I, I want your wisdom. And I want you to know everything about my relationships. And so I submitted that to my parents. And they walked with me through my dating. And sometimes I thought I found the perfect one. There's no way they're gonna find anything wrong with this. And my dad said, you know, I just don't think he's the one. And I just said, okay, and I moved on. And I met my husband. And my husband spent 1010 days in Hawaii with my my parents. I didn't live there. But he spent 10 days. And I, I just was completely transparent about everything. And my dad said yes. And my husband has been the greatest blessing aside from my walk with the Lord. He has been the greatest blessing to me. And I truly believe that this is the fruit of walking under the leadership of a spiritual mom and dad and for me, a physical mom and dad, of people who love the Lord who walk with the Lord. You can trust them. You can trust your mom's and your dad's. They were teenagers once you're not going to shock them. No matter how old we become, you know, I, I still go, like I said to my parents for advice. And I have other mentors that I also go to, I always want to be going to. And walking under spiritual authority and spiritual covering, it's a blessing. And it's a place of freedom. So if, if I may, I would just like to pray for you guys today. And I would just like to ask the Lord to to bless you with these gifts with these truths today. Lord, we love you. And we thank You, Father, that You are a God of life, and that your ways our ways of life, and we thank You, Lord, that your Word brings freedom. We thank you for your order, Father that is so good. And that brings peace and prosperity on the inside. And I just ask Lord, that if there is anyone who is struggling with any kind of bondage, with any kind of deception or confusion, that they would find a mom or a dad to go to, to pray with, to be loved by that that bondage would be broken in Jesus name. And I thank You, Lord, for these wonderful young people. God, I thank you for the calling on their lives. I thank you, Jesus, that they are not called to live in a place of bondage in a place of oppression, or depression, whether that's from generational curses or sins, or just the weight of the world around them that they are not called to live under that, but that you are going to bring them above the clouds. We thank you Jesus for freedom. We thank you Jesus for freedom. Father, would you bring healing between the mothers and the daughters? And would you bring healing between the fathers and the sons? Would you draw the hearts of the children to their fathers and the fathers to their children. There is no brokenness that you cannot heal Lord. There is no sin that you have not already covered in the blood of Jesus. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network and numerous international seminary scholarships. Together, we are lighting the fires of revival, fueling prayer movements and raising up friends of Jesus in the nations. We invite you to partner with us in this extraordinary movement. You can sign up as a prayer and financial partner today by going to era nova.org and clicking give. Please include your email address so that we can send you updates. That's era nova.org. Click give and become a monthly partner today. Invest in some of the most fertile spiritual soils on the planet and give the gift of faith and love today to those with a deep need and hunger to know God. Their lives will be better because of your generosity, and Heaven will be greater because of your love. We pray that you will be drawn ever closer in your walk with God and that you will see his dreams unfold in your life in extraordinary ways. Thank you for your faithful prayers and gifts that enable us to take the Friends of Jesus movement to the nations as we watched the rise of the presence of God in His people throughout the earth.