Welcome to today's program. The beauty of grace and I'm pastor Pete Norris of harvest fellowship, church, Goldsboro, North Carolina. And today we want to talk about kingdom, how the kingdom operates. You know, so many people struggle with, how does this work? How does this happen? What am I fighting? What's going on? And a lot of things. And I want to clear some things up. A lot of things are blamed on the devil and I don't want to deny there's a devil. He existed, but according to first, John chapter three, verse eight, the son of God comes to destroy the works of the devil. So we see that the devil has been defeated. Now, when I think about Lord, what is the good fight? You know? Cause the Bible says in first Timothy six and 12, that Timothy said and said, I fought the good fight of faith. I lay holder. When you turn a life to which you were also called and have confessed, the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. So we see here that there's fighting the good fight of faith. Now we are fighting to believe, right? Resisting the thinking in circumstances that try to tell you different. We are not fighting the devil. You know, so many people give the devil so much credit, give him so much power in their lives, give them so much authority. But I want you to realize that the devil has been defeated. And the more we can realize that Jesus has done everything. And all we have to do is just receive by faith. What Jesus is done. See it's that simple. But if you get around some people everybody's fighting. The devil, everybody, the devil is fighting them. They're always going through some battles. They're always going through some circumstances. And I think a lot of that is because of a lack of understanding, a lack of understanding how the kingdom of God works because the Bible tells us very plainly. If you study the text in first, John chapter five, verse four, who for whatever is born of God, is that not you over comes the world. And this is the victory that overcome the world, our faith. So faith sees the future and seizes it. That's what you and I have to do, right? Faith is in every believer is the same kind of faith. You and I, I have the amount of faith. We need to do what we need to do in the earth. And we work by faith. We moved by faith. We operate by faith so that everything the devil has brought against us has been defeated with Jesus on the cross. So I want you to understand that there's a complete victory. That's taken place here in the work and the finished work of Jesus Christ in Romans chapter one, 16 and 17 for I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek, for in it. The Righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as is written. The just shall live by faith. Now we know according to Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by what the word of God, but the word of God, the word God, there is not, is not the word. Theos is the word does, Christos which means Christ. So the things that you and I see Jesus brought faith into us and w e're full o f, of hate. The more revelation you have, the more restoration you're going to have. Your inheritance will remain a daydream until you get a revelation of what it is. We've got to understand that we're living in a time and a season that the kingdom of God operates only by faith. Now we know faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen. So we know that faith is a substance. That's not seen. That'd be able to see, but faith can be acted upon. And we, as believers are full of faith. So the kingdom of God can only operate by faith. Number one, I want you to get, you are not fighting. The devil, the devil has been defeated. You're not, God's not putting things on you so he can get your attention and humble you. Those things are un-biblical. They don't line up with the word of God and they're not scriptural. So we need to get away from that mindset of thinking. You know, I hear people say, well, God's trying to get our attention through COVID-19 and he's, you know, he's brought this on us. And so that we can get us attention and get us on our knees and, and get us to repenting. And there's a part of that. I understand a little bit of the concept of that. But the reality of that is how many of you being a father would put bad things on your children to get their attention. You would put COVID-19 kill millions of people to get their attention. Well, that doesn't line up with a loving, compassionate, merciful. God, we're in a dark world, crosses come situation, come because of the world that we're in and the mindset and the accusations and the carry ons of people. If I hear people say this all the time, God's in control of everything. Then if God's in control of everything, then everything that's done, God had something to do with it. That is not biblical either. Because number one, you and I, if God's in control over everything, how can we charge? How can we charge or try a child molester. If God's in control of everything, then how can we do that? See that doesn't line up because God's a loving, compassionate, merciful, God. And then we jumped back. We said, well, pastor, you just don't understand. We're living in a season of time. God's good to get it out, to get our attention. And we taste them, all the anger, all the bitterness and all the raft that God had. He placed on Jesus on the cross and Jesus delivered him of all the anger. He supplied all the anger, all the bitterness, he's supplemented it and done away with all the bitterness, all the anger and all the resentment. And because of that, we're alive in Jesus today. That is the beauty of grace. And that's how the kingdom operates by faith.