Sunday sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, 3 March 2024 

Luke 16:16- The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it/ the violent take it by force. 

Hebrews 11: 3- By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of visible things. 

The Lord is saying- Have violent faith. 

• You need violent faith to change your world. Violent, strong, powerful faith is needed. Spirit of faith is going to be released into your life.
• The Holy Spirit is releasing a powerful faith into you to change your world, your financial situation, the situation in your family, your health situation, and the weakness in your body. • Violent is not by weapons by guns, or swords, but strong, aggressive and forceful. Faith. Not a laid-back kind of faith, but strong and aggressive. I will come into God's presence and get back what I need. A faith that won't make you look back. A faith that is daring and a faith that cannot hold you back.
• Contrary to that is wavering or doubting or weak faith. Or absolutely no faith. God doesn't want that in his church. The next realm of faith. 
• Our God is a faith God. God is only moved by faith. He is not moved by tears but by your faith. God loves it when you apply faith. You can stir up God by faith. 

Mark 2: 5- 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 

• When Jesus saw their faith. Even today God is looking at your faith. His friend brings four paralyzed men into the house. He saw faith. 
• Your next level and next dimension is by faith. Your health, promotion, peace and deliverance is by faith. Be certain of your faith in Jesus.

God won't sit silent if He sees your faith. 

• These four men came into the house that was full of crowds. There was no space to get in even through the windows. There was no way that they could enter into the house. One of the friends must have said let's go back, how long to stand here? How long to wait in the queue? Another friend must have said don't leave. There is Jesus in that room. We can't leave our friend like this. Don't go. Don't leave. Let's place him before Jesus, let's find a way to do that. We will let him down by the roof. I will bring that ladder and we will climb up onto the roof and come. It was a daring faith and they let him down from the roof. 

I will not leave the church without getting what I want. 

• We need to break open the roof. We have to break it! Imagine the owner of the house. Those friends would have been worried about what the owner of the house would say if they had broken down the roof. Don't think about what the person sitting next to you is saying or thinking. Just bring the person to Jesus. All the four of them let him down to the feet of Jesus.
• Jesus saw their faith- strong and violent. People in the kingdom have violent faith. 
• When Jesus saw their faith, He said your sins are forgiven you. May you be assured that your sins are forgiven. Even that was not the real deal. Jesus saw their faith and said, ‘get up’. I won't let you go the way you came in. I am not a Brethren preacher just telling you your sins are forgiven but I will change you. If you came in tired, you will go back strong, if you came in broken you will go back healed, if you came in hopeless, you will back joyful and full of praise. The Holy Spirit says so to you.
• The word I liked is ‘Immediately’. ‘Suddenly’.

If your faith is strong and violent then immediately and instantaneously God will do something for you. 

• Instantaneous miracles are for those with strong faith. A drastic change. A sudden shift. • If your faith is strong, God has no other choice but to honour your faith. Your faith excites God. A daring and strong faith.
• Faith that not only forgives sin but brings health. There is something you need. Faith doesn’t just win you the forgiveness of sins but also gets you something that you need. Increased faith doesn’t bring you any harm! 
• The problem is that we have many ‘ifs’. What if? What if it doesn't work out? That is weak faith. Should we start this business? Should I take that office? What if it doesn’t work? • There is a spirit of faith moving here. You need faith even for a good marriage. • This paralysed person's world changed. He came paralyzed but went back walking. He was static, but went back to play football. He went back to travel, he went back to run the next marathon. His world changed! He did what he could never do. Your world can change by your faith. May your faith help you change your world.
• Cornerstone church can be defined by two things- 1) Holy Spirit and 2) Faith. The chair and the hall that you are sitting on came by faith and bot by money.

The Holy Spirit is telling me that the Lord will expand the church by the faith of His people. He will expand it so much that the people will listen to sermons sitting in their cars and receive their miracles and breakthrough. Clap your hands and glorify God.

May your world change 

Luke 8:43-44- As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. 43 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, [a] but no one could heal her. 44 She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. 

• The woman with the issue of Blood. Perhaps, she was weak, she was smelly. • But she heard that Jesus was going that way. A person with little faith would have said “Here goes another prophet” or “I am tired of listening to these prophecies”. But she stood up and she said to herself ‘if only I touch the hem of His garment. The faith inside of her was stirred up. The Word says- Immediately. If you have faith in God’s Word and His power, then immediately you will see God’s glory. Certain things will begin to happen.
• Please do not come to church to show off your fashion or to pat your religious conscience to rest.
• She understood that this was the place of GOD’s presence. You are in a church where there is the presence of the Living God. You are in a place where God’s people worship Him in spirit and truth, a place where Jesus is lifted up. 
• She knew this was her moment- this was my time! Her faith made her well. 
• What if she had sat at home? Some things can’t happen sitting at home. Some people like to only watch on YouTube. That’s not bad but certain things happen only when you come to the house of the Lord. You need to become proximate to Jesus. Some of you say, my spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak! Just take the Uber and come into the House of the Lord. Some of you may feel tired. Even I get tired and pastors get tired. But I don’t want ever to get too familiar with God's house. I don’t want to for a moment think that my breakthrough is automatic! I need to apply and exercise my faith! 
• When I was going to my spiritual father’s prayer meeting, if the prayer starts at 9 AM, I used to reach by 7 AM. When some other man of God preaches, I jump up to my feet and receive it. Do you know why? When the Holy Spirit moves, you need to stay in faith.
• Your sickness is broken, deliverances happen, and you move into the next dimension when God sees your faith. Faith turned her world around.

God moves when you move. 

• Some of you have been saying- I am waiting on God. But your wait is only going to increase if you keep sitting and waiting! You need to move in faith. The next 9 months are months where your faith should be revealed. I will believe what God is telling you. 

Faith has a vision and faith can see 

• You need to see the truth within the Word. You need to see what is working in your life. That is a visualization of faith.
• I saw in the word that HE delights sin the prosperity of children. You need to see that by faith. I am not talking about just dreaming but you need to see by faith. You may have come in poor but you don’t need to go out like that.
• You need to see yourself prospering. May you prosper in your finances, in your soul and in your body. I see billionaires here! I see some people in my spirit, billionaires rising up in the church. In your faith say, “Yes Lord, I know you can prosper me! I walk in holiness, I pay my tithes, I serve in the church, I love you.” 
• You have to see yourself. Some of the youngsters here on the stage did not look like they were marriageable or manageable years ago. Now they are married and with children. But it was truly the Lord who changed them and his grace that moulded them.

When your faith is not strong, your mind cannot comprehend what your heart is believing. For example: healing; you should be able to see your healing by faith. 

Mathew 8: 16-17- When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.” Jesus cast out demons. 

• Jesu cast out demons. He took our infirmities and removed diseases from us. Why did Jesus do this? To fulfil what was spoken by Prophet Isaiah. He TOOKour infirmities. Imagine him just stretching his hand towards you and taking away from your disease. If you can see this, you won't leave this place carrying that sickness. 

Jesus tooked it!

• It was my cancer. It was my depression. It was my arthritis. It was my fatty liver. It was my kidney stone. Jesus TOOK it on the Cross of Calvary. If He took it, why are you carrying it?! 

If you take faith out of the church, it becomes empty. 

What you don’t resist has the right to remain in your life. 

By faith resist that lack, resist that bondage or else it will remain in your life. I am divorcing that sickness. I am divorcing that fear and depression. I won't carry it! 

Faith is accessing the thoughts and acts of God through the Word of God.

• His thoughts are much higher than yours. If those thoughts come into your life, that heaviness will leave you. 
• God will enable you to understand the ways by which you can access His thoughts and perspectives in your life. And then His thoughts will in become an experience in your life. You will feel lie a big burden has left your life.

The Bible is a container of the thoughts of God. 

Piles, spondylitis is being healed by the Lord.

Faith is the combination of positive expectation and action. • Faith is not negative expectations. Will that cancer attack me? 

Kenneth Hagen was a man of God who had an affliction and he was healed. When he used to get up in the mornings, an intense fear would grip him. He would wonder if he would fall sick again, would he be able to continue to walk? He started to read every scripture in the Bible about healing. He spent 8 to 9 hours reading the Word every day. Suddenly he received a revelation of his healing and his faith increased and became strong. One night he slept and woke up at 12 using an alarm, and he realised that fear had left him. HE danced around his bed thanking the Lord. He woke up again at 2 and still, he felt no fear, he once again danced around the bed thanking the Lord. He woke up again at 5 and 6 and the fear had left him fully. He woke up again at 6 and there was no fear.

• If God delivers you, you are free forever. 

Kenneth Copeland, a man of God would feel his feet and hands go arthritic. He sat and fasted and prayed for 3 days. God told him it was because of his coffee drinking. He would have 30- 37 cups of coffees every day. He was a pilot and therefore had black coffee on long flights. He tried to stop it

but he suddenly realized he is addicted to it. He needed faith to express and act on his faith. He took the Lord's table. Partook it by faith. He placed a cup of coffee next to the cup of wine and he suck it down by faith. That addiction was broken and for the next 37 years, he never had coffee.

• It is not God's will that you stay in that bondage and addiction. May they be broken from your life as you send time in GOD’s presence.

Faith will reveal possibilities

• Moses knew that there was water in that rock to quench the thirst of a 6 million Israelites. 16-mile road was opened up amid the Red Sea. There are possibilities.
• I see possibilities. My future will be blessed. My marriage will be the most enjoyable. There is a possibility for a big job without a big degree, your business can grow without capital. A beautiful home, a wonderful marriage partner for your children- there are possibilities. • Have strong faith. Faith 

God wants you to trust Him. 

• It hurts God when you don't trust Him. Don’t you get hurt and upset if someone does not trust you? How much more would God get hurt. God is passionately in love with you. 

Faith to turn your world around.

• God doesn't heal you to make you a member of this church. God doesn't heal you to make you get baptized. He heals you because God loves you. He wants you set you free from demons and evil powers that re behind your struggle. 
• Jesus said referring to Herod, ‘Go tell that fox, I heal the sick, I will preach the kingdom.’ • Jesus went to a person with the legion (6000 demons). He wasn’t a believer, neither do we know if his family prayed for him, nor did he pray and fast for himself. But Jesus went to him because Jesus’s heart is to bless you and deliver you.
• The man in the tomb came and

Mathew 8:28-31- 28 When He had come to the other side, to the country of the [a]Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. 29 And suddenly they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” 30 Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. 31 So the demons begged Him, saying, “If You cast us out, [b]permit us to go away into the herd of swine.” 

• Hope we have at least as much sense as the demons have. The demons recognised the following things: 

1. The demons recognised that Jesus was the Son of God. Some of us are still in doubt! 2. The devil knows that he has not relationship with God. He says, what have we to do with you? We do not have any relationship with you.
2. The devil knows time. He knows he has less time. He knows that he will be thrown into the lake of fire. ‘Why have you come to torment me before it's time?’ 
3. The demons know that Jesus can cast them out. We still have doubts. We feel this problem or the devil won’t leave us but the demon knows that it can be cast out in Jesus' nam.. 

• The devil goes about like a roaring lion knowing that his time is short but resist him in faith.

1 Peter 5:8- 8 Be [a]sober, be [b]vigilant; [c]because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. 

• The devil will try to find an entry point in your life. Resist him.
• Jesus is not allowing you to be destroyed because he loves you. He cared for that man more than the pigs.
• The demons begged to enter into the pigs. About four of them into each pig. The pigs felt so tormented that they ran and drowned in the sea. Rs 5 crore worth of pigs (about 2000 pigs) jumped into the water and the businessman was upset. Imagine if the pigs were not able to tolerate 4 demons in it, how could the man have stayed alive with 6000 demons in him he 

could have run to the sea and drowned. But God did not allow that. God cared for that man more than the pigs. GOD HAD A PLAN for that man. 

A person who has a plan for God in their life will not die so easily. 

• God has a purpose for his life to preach the Word in his villages. 
• Declare that ‘I will come out of every bondage and do great exploits for the glory of God’. • You will not be destroyed easily if God has a calling upon your life.

Faith will change your world. 

• That habitual sin is willing to leave you and go. You don't hold on to it. I am divorcing the devil. That addiction is ready to go. Don’t sit next to it and don’t hold onto it. • Faith will reveal to you possibilities.