Transcription
The Holy Spirit in us is actually conforming us into the image of this one who is raised from the dead, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and is glorified. That glorified Christ is the image that the artist is painting in your life, that you would be a right now living representative of that reality. Yeah, bless him. Jud, bless you. I'm good. All right.
A clean house is the sign of a broken [Laughter] computer. Spell check has got to be my worst enema. I tried to follow my dreams; now I have multiple restraining orders. There are three kinds of people in this world: those who are good at math, and those who [Laughter] aren't. Arguing with a woman is like getting arrested; everything you say can and will be used against [Applause] you. I I didn't write these; I'm just sharing the news with you. I have so many, and they're all so edifying. When I get old, I'm going to move in with my kids, hog the computer, pay no bills, eat all the food, trash the house, and when asked to clean, pretend it's killing me. I love this one: When I die, I want my last words to be, "I left a million dollars under [Laughter] [Applause] the…" That's fun.
Anyone with arthritis, stand up. There's quite a few here with, uh, knee joint pain. Some specifically have damage and/or, or missing cartilage in the knees, stand up. But if you just have, uh, knee issues, ongoing issues of pain, stand up, uh, in your knees. How many of you are actually in pain tonight? Put your hand up. All right, um, let's see. Is there anyone, anyone here that has a parasite, or you fear you have a parasite? You do? Okay. You got, uh… Parasite causes food intolerance. I believe Jesus will heal that tonight, so all right. Anybody here with, with a parasite? I heard that earlier this evening. Parasite? Yeah? Okay. All right. Anybody want a parasite? Bad joke. Bad joke. Bad joke. All right, we're going to, we're going to pray for these.
Also, let's, uh, let's do the food allergy thing, uh, again. Uh, if you have, if you have issues with food allergy, stand up. Um, my favorite one of these, uh, happened a while ago where on a Sunday morning I just asked people with food allergies to stand up, and a young mom stood up right over here, and, uh, and I found out later she had, uh, she was standing in for her son who was allergic to dairy and to wheat, and he was autistic. And she stood in place for him, received prayer, and then, uh, when the meeting was over, she took her son to go get pizza—wheat and dairy—and he was not only healed of, uh, of the food allergy, he was no longer autistic. Who was here? That's amazing. Such a great story. Such a great story. So we're going to pray for these, uh, that are standing. Hold on. Just Rebecca here was healed of food allergies; wave your hands. Several, several years ago. Over two years ago. Almost three, almost three years ago. Right back over there. I remember about the third row in. Yep. Boom. So, uh, the Bible says that all foods were made for us to enjoy, and, uh, and so that's, uh, that's His will. So anything outside of that isn't His will. So we're, we're able to pray with authority because we are embracing His mission. His mission is, is to, to correct things here that aren't consistent with His design, His plan, and so that's what we're going to do. So all of you that are standing, put a hand up. All of you that are sitting, your born-again believer, join with us, please. Find out, uh, what's wrong, and, uh, and lay hands on—if it's a proper place to put your hand—lay your hands on the problem. Okay, you can put your hand down once somebody has come to you. If no one has come to you yet, wave your hand at me and we'll get somebody. I need somebody right here, in the, right here. Yep, thank you. There's still another one back here. I've got two to my right. I need, I need two folks to go over here, about halfway back. Thank you. Find out what's wrong. You don't need a big story; just give them a target. Those of you that are praying, you're praying the will of God, so rebuke the affliction, speak to the disorder, command it to come into order in Jesus' name. Now, those of you that are receiving prayer, you don't need to pray; I just want you to be aware of the Holy Spirit touching your body. There is damage to the left ankle that the Lord is healing right now. It's, it's… I can feel it all along the, the side, all around that left ankle. So I don't know if it was a sprain, if it was a break didn't heal correctly, whatever it is, if that's you, uh, just lay your hand on your own ankle; it should, uh, should come into order even right now. We declare Jesus', the healing grace of Jesus over people's bod—bodies right now. The healing grace of Jesus. Affliction, trauma, we rebuke you in the name of the Lord Jesus. There's somebody here whose knees were injured in a very traumatic way. Who is that? Your knees were actually injured in a very traumatic way? Is that right? Here? All right, just rebuke the spirit of trauma. Yeah, those of you praying for the, the ones with the, the dramatic injury to the knees, literally rebuke the spirit of trauma. We declare in Jesus' name, be free from that spirit of trauma that would torment you. Amen. You got about 15 seconds. 15 seconds just so to pray. Thank you, Lord. Yeah. Okay. You did good. Stay with the person, stay with them. But everyone that received prayer, look up, up at me. Sh… everyone that received prayer, just look my way. All right. The next moment is as important as was the prayer, and that's where you put faith into action. I don't want anyone to do something stupid to try to prove you have faith. All I want you to do is test your own body through movement, through, you know, if there was a tumor, see if it's still there, that sort of thing, um, to see what the Lord has done. And if you're at least 80% better, then I want you to wave both hands for like 20 seconds or so. But just check yourself out real good. Check yourself out. Move around. Try to move in a way you couldn't move. Yeah, wave the hands if you've been healed. Yeah, beautiful. All right, turn… I want you to turn and pray again. Would you turn and pray again? We'll pray one more [Applause] time. Thank you, Lord. Increase the breakthrough for anointing here, God. The breakthrough for healing, the anointing for healing, increase, increase that more, increase that, Lord. You got about another minute. Thank you, Lord. Okay. All right. Go ahead. All of you that received prayer, if your knees… start checking them out. If you need stairs to walk on, we got stairs here. Just do something to, uh, examine yourself. And if you've been healed, wave your hands over your head as a testimony of what the Lord has done. Let people around you know that. We, we give you thanks, Lord. Beautiful. All right. All right. Hug a neck or two and be seated. Open Ephesians 1. We're going to read several verses here as we get started. Anyone have a birthday today? Have a birthday today? Come to… today? Anyone have a birthday today, today? Right here? Days today? Yeah, come here. Here's, uh, the Passion Translation, the whole New Testament. Merry Christmas. Bless you. You're welcome. The, uh, whole New Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, and, uh, and if you are waiting for the real leather edition that comes in December, but it's like four times as much… Is it your birthday today? No, it's not your birthday today. Is anybody's birthday? Anybody else's birthday? Is it, is it anybody's anniversary today? Anniversary? Anniversary today? Come here. Come here. Another anniversary over here. All right. Anniversary. Anniversary. Anniversary. Sheesh. Wonderful. Tom, would you go get two more and give them to the… yeah. Happy anniversary. Give them… um, Tom, go over by the TV camera; the people are right over there, and, uh, yeah, two more. Two more Bibles. Beautiful. How many of you have an anniversary sometime this year? How many of you have a birthday sometime this year? Right. Well, that qualifies you to buy [Laughter] one. Yeah, we're, we're pretty enthused with this, this edition. All right. Here's what, here's what I want to do. We, we'll just see how long it, it takes me. I, I, I'm wanting to get to two passages: one in John, one in 1 John, but I kind of want to set the stage a little bit. Let me ask you this question: What if you hadn't had a real meal in several days? Your phone was turned off. You just got an eviction notice, uh, because you just haven't been able to pay your rent, um, you've got all this kind of stuff going on, and then there's a knock on your door, and a lawyer is standing there, and he says, "We've been looking for you for a number of months, um, you are, uh, you've just inherited a great estate, and you have $10 million in your bank account, plus the land and other things that you've just inherited." Even though you've not eaten a real meal yet, you're, you're still sitting there in your present condition. How, how many of you think your attitude would change just ever so slightly about… yeah. Even though you're still in the, the clothes you'd rather not have to wear yet, you walk out of that apartment to the lawyer's office to fulfill whatever you need to do. You walk out with a different mindset. You walk out with a different awareness of not only who you are, but what you have access to, and what the enemy works hard to do is to make us conscious of problems, challenges, failures, difficulties, those kinds of things, because then he… it's almost like, um, a dislocated joint. I don't know how many of you have ever had that horrible experience, but I've had it with my, my left knee quite a few times, and it's, it's there, it's connected, it's alive; you have a measure of movement, but you do not have full use. And what the enemy works to do is to dislodge us from our awareness of who God made us to be. Not in eternity—I mean that counts obviously—but actually it's a right now deal. It's a right now accomplishment that, that he, he did when Jesus confessed, "It is finished." He actually meant it. He actually meant His work is done. His work is done. He, he accomplished everything in a moment on Calvary that sets us up to thrive in Him for all of eternity. Amen. 100 billion years from now, you'll still be drawing upon what Jesus accomplished on that cross. Everything that will ever be needed, from a word of encouragement to, um, you know, the provision that we need for homes and whatever, fill in the blanks—everything that we ever need in this life, and anything and everything we'll ever need throughout eternity was actually purchased when Jesus shed His blood. Not only as the Redeemer—the Redeemer is one who buys something back—but He was also the redemption price. He bought us back, but He bought us back with Himself. So He was both the Redeemer and the redemption price. And when He did that, He actually set us up to step fully into who He is. I don't know… you know, I, I like reading the stories of, of the saints of old, um, I like reading the stories of the saints of new, whatever that is—people who are alive today that have discovered things in God—because I love hearing the stories. I love seeing what God actually accomplished in the lives of, uh, of people, and of all the heroes of the faith that I have, and I have quite a few that I just admire so much, uh, some who are alive today and some have gone on to be with the Lord. Um, I don't know that there's ever been anyone that has fully realized what Jesus has accomplished for us right now. Jesus came as the King of kings, and one of the reasons He came as a King is He had to recalibrate our understanding of what a King is, because in our conversion He made us to be kings and priests. But when we live with a common understanding of what a King is, we think it's a position of prestige and power over people, when in fact it's an unusual, supernatural, divine enablement to serve people effectively and efficiently. It's a divine grace to serve people and empower them to their destinies. That's what kings do. That's what this King does. And He recalibrated, He reset, redefined what it looks like to be a king, because He knew in the redemption He would be calling us to Himself as kings and priests—a royal priesthood. Peter calls it a priesthood that has the privilege of representing people before God, ministering to God and people, that represent God to people—a royal priesthood. And so the Lord is giving us insight; He's giving us, um, He's changing our mindsets; He's enabling us to see what He's already accomplished so that we can live in that reality. Ignorance actually keeps us from breakthroughs, breakthroughs that are at hand, breakthroughs that are within reach. Let me give you one, uh, simple illustration. How many of you have, uh, you've been born again for a good part of your life? You, you've been a believer? All right. I grew up in church. I grew up hearing wonderful stories. Testimonies are… I think our favorite, the ones that moved us the most, is my parents would have, uh, Teen Challenge Ministry come to town, and, and all these folks that had been delivered from drugs and prostitution and all that stuff would come in and share their testimonies. It was always so impacting, so impressive. And of course we would cheer; we would give thanks to the Lord. But I, I don't ever remember a testimony being duplicated in the moment; in, in other words, somebody share a testimony of deliverance from drugs and have somebody listening suddenly, are completely set free from drugs. I don't remember ever, ever remember that happening. A number of years ago, we discovered a concept in the scripture that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. A testimony carries a prophetic anointing—prophetic either foretells the future or changes the present. So if you think this of, of it in these terms, whenever a testimony is given, it changes the present reality; it actually makes something possible that wasn't possible a moment earlier. A testimony… a testimony… the word testimony in the Old Testament comes from a word that means "do again." So in the very nature of sharing testimony, God was committed to duplicate whatever was talked about. It was so important that He instructed Israel: Keep the Commandments—we know what that is; we know that's just do what He says—keep the statutes—that's the values that God has; that's the, the attitude of heart, the values that make it possible for us to walk in pure obedience—but then there's a third thing He said: Keep the testimony. And keeping the testimony seems so awkward. How do you keep a testimony? To me, it means you hold it so close to you that you see all present circumstances through humanity's history with God. This is what He is capable of doing. He's the same yesterday, today, forever, and He's no respecter of persons. So that means if He did it yesterday or 500 years ago, He is the same today and is capable and desiring to do it again. I, I'm not teaching on that, but I guess I just did. So I, I had a group of our students on the, the coast, uh, over a Fortuna area a number of years ago. Prayed for a little boy who had club feet. The students did, and they came running over to me to announce to me that he'd just been healed. I went over to him; I, I talked to them. He's just a little, little guy about this big, and he's, he's bending over, touching the scabs on the top of his feet. They were on the bottom because he would drag them, but now they're on top, and he's, he's touching his own scabs. He's got a little friend that comes up to him and says, "Run, Chris, run!" He takes off running in this circle; he comes running back; he's got the, you know, like the largest smile ever recorded on the face of a child, you know, as he comes running back. And he comes running back and he says, "I can run! I can run!" Oh, goodness. Just messes you up. So of course, when I got home, I shared with the church family, and there was a woman visiting here from Montana. She had a little girl in the nursery that, uh, was almost two years old. Her feet turned in so severe that when she ran she would trip over her own feet. And when she heard the testimony of this little boy being healed and she heard the concept—because I shared the concept: testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy—as soon as she realized that a testimony announced to her what God wanted to do in her own child, she said in her heart, "I'll take that for my child." When she got to the nursery, her little girl's feet were already straight. I'll give one more story. There are the, the number of stories are, are crazy, but let me just share one more. I was sharing, uh, that story, the little boy and, uh, and the little girl in with Mahesh and Bon Shabda, and I was sharing in their, in a conference I was at with them. And our driver was from Brazil, and he would drive us—Benny and me—to the, uh, hotel from the meeting, and then back to the meeting the next day. And so after the meeting's over, we spend a little time with Mahesh and Bon; they have a little home there where we have something to eat together. And we got back into the car, and they took, he took us to the hotel, and he said, he said, "Bill," he said, "I just got a phone call from my…" I think it was his sister-in-law. She has a little girl, beautiful young lady about 10 or 11 years old as I recall, and, but her feet are deformed. Beautiful young girl, but people just stare at the feet, and, um, she was watching the service tonight online, and she heard the concept of the testimony of Jesus being the spirit of prophecy, and she heard the, the children being healed from club feet and turned-in feet. So here she's watching on her computer, and she calls out to her daughter who's in the back of the house, calls her name. The little girl comes into the hallway so she can see her mother. She says, "Yes, Mommy." And the mother says, "Take off your shoes." So she takes off her shoes. She said, "Come here." As she walked towards her mother, her feet were completely healed. Now, those stories go on and on and on, but it's enough to illustrate my point. The point is, we've heard testimonies for our entire life, never seeing somebody healed or delivered as a result of the testimony. But when you discover, "Oh, that's how God works," that shifting in value, that shifting in awareness of God's heart and His plan, you suddenly realize that when a testimony is given, that's His currency being released into our economy. That's His currency. He's, he's releasing resource that anyone in the room can take at any time. And so I, we've experimented with this for a number of years, and whenever we share the concept and people become aware of what's available, then they, uh, they move out of ignorance into faith in God's plan, and then miracles are released. I'm hoping for the same tonight in a different subject, and it has to do with identity. It has to do, uh… I, I'm, I'm not talking tonight so much about, um, you know, "Let's deal with the guilt and the shame and all that stuff," that, that's, that's a no-brainer; that's stuff we have to deal with. The way the Lord describes us, the way the scripture describes us, is so far beyond anything we've ever seen or heard that we'll never be able to comprehend what He's saying. Let me rephrase it: You can't wrap your head around it, but you can wrap your heart around it. You can receive here what He says when it, when it's beyond your grasp here. And it's important that we do that. It's important that when we hear what He has said that from our heart of hearts we say, "Amen." We sang tonight a number of times, "Amen, amen." It's coming into agreement with God. So we're going to read, um, oh, I don't know, maybe just this one, then we'll get to the Gospel of John. Let's see how this works here. All right, uh, Paul, verse one of chapter one of Ephesians… Are you still there? Did you get tired and close your Bibles? Yeah? All right. Excuse me. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ. I have, in my Bible, I wrote down: Those are two, two addresses: in Ephesus and in Christ. Where is Jesus? It's not a trick question. Where He's sitting down… where the right hand of the Father. And you are in Christ at the right hand of the Father. Paul describes us as being seated in heavenly places in Christ. Verse three is the one I want: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." Okay, I want you to look at it: Ephesians 1:3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ." You know, I'd like to be able to give you an assignment: Find the things that hurt your brain; find the concepts, the truths, the promises that are so large that we honestly read over them with very little consideration. I don't know if you realize what we just read, but it says every spiritual blessing that would ever be needed throughout all of eternity has already been purchased, put in your account, and it's in Christ. It's already been given to you. What the life of faith is, is it's the life of learning—learning how to make withdrawals on what's in our account. It's true; it's all in our account, but it's not all in our possession. Why? Don't you look at 1 Corinthians 2, actually 1 Corinthians 3. How many of you have heard the phrase, "Kingdom now, but not yet"? I love that. I love that phrase. It helped me, uh, you know, 30 years ago when I was starting to learn about this, this that we teach, teach and practice. But the frustration of that phrase for me right now—"Kingdom now, but not yet"—not yet is now emphasized to tell me what I can't have. And I want to encourage you: Don't let the "not yet" be the hiding place of unbelief. Amen, Bill. That was a good point. Amen. Don't, don't hide, don't hide there and become satisfied. There's a very fine line between eternity and time. You might be amazed at what you can taste of now. 1 Corinthians 3:21: "Therefore let no one boast in men, for all things are yours." Say this with me: "All things are mine." Say it again: "All things are mine." What I'm not trying to do is heighten an awareness of personal significance that ends up in arrogance and independence. What I'm trying to do is… when the elder child in a home in Jewish, uh, culture, the eldest was given a double portion of the inheritance over the rest of the children. But it wasn't because they were preferred; it was because they were responsible, and with the double portion they were now positioned to take care of the rest of the family. When the Lord reveals to you what's in your account, it's only to increase awareness of responsibility, because to whom much is given, much is required. The Lord wants to increase our, our awareness of what is in our account, but He doesn't want to take us beyond what we're willing to obey. Are you alive? Like, are you breathing? Is there actually oxygen passing into those lungs, and everything's good? All right. All right. Sorry for the offensive question; I was just wondering. Therefore let no one boast in men, for all things are yours—whether Paul or Apollo, or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present or things to come—they're all yours. How can you own now what is not yet? I don't have an answer; it's just in the book. I'm just saying, in the same way that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy opened people up to link into God's resource economy that miracles took place at the mention of a story, in the same way we've just been given insight as to what God has put into our account. He didn't mention it to entertain us; He didn't mention it just to somehow make us more wowed by, you know, kingdom theology. Why would God give everything to His children? Because He's not a foolish Father. We see in present day where very wealthy people will leave large amounts of money to their children, and watches it… it just gets… it just messes up their lives; they lose it all; they spend it carelessly, and in no time at all… lottery winners are famous for this—getting a large amount of money and within three years it's gone. So God's not a foolish Father that gives us more than we can handle. So what does He do? He announces to us the entire thing is yours. Here's what I'm going to allow you to work with. What you work with will give you access to the more. Why would He give us everything? It's because of the size of our assignment. Because He's not wasteful. We have to come to the conclusion that everything will be needed to complete our assignment. Whether Paul or Apollo, Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. And you are Christ's… in Christ is God's. Now, let's go to my passage that I wanted. These were just warm-ups. John, chapter 7, verse 7: "On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" Okay, stop right there. This is a really strange picture, because here the Lord says, "Come to me, anyone who's thirsty, come to me and drink," and out of his innermost being will come rivers. A drink becomes a river. A drink, receiving of Him, creates a river. See, when light touches you, you become light—not the origin of light. Jesus is the origin of light; He is the light of the world. But before He left, He said, "You're the light of the world." When light touches you, it changes your capacity to function; it changes not only the resource that you have access to, it changes your very nature from a child of darkness to now you're a child of light. Why? Because light touched you. You took a drink of living water, and you now have a river flowing from you. It changes our capacity. Everything, all experiences in God rewrite our DNA; they change our capacity to function. That's why no experience is to be taken lightly, whether it's the quiet moments at the end of worship, or it's just that, that moment, maybe somebody's sharing a concept about an offering, and you get this thought, that inspired thought from the Lord. Treasure those moments because He's talking, and He's, He's, He's depositing things in us. Every time He talks, He deposits; He takes from His account and puts into ours. So it's… here's this picture of God putting deposit in us, into our, our repertoire, into our resource. And so here we have this passage: He says, "Come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." But this He spoke concerning the Spirit. "Out of your heart will flow rivers." But this He spoke concerning the Spirit. "Out of your heart will flow rivers." But this He spoke of concerning the Spirit who now dwells in you. So the river is the Spirit. This He spoke of concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive. So He's talking about in the future from this present moment. John 14: Jesus spoke to His own disciples, and He said, "The Spirit who is with you will be in you." So you understand the, the Holy Spirit was present, but He was not resident in them; He was not a river in them yet, He was present because He was upon Jesus. Right. This He spoke, verse 39, concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive, "For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified." Wow. This is a very important verse, very important concept here. I don't know about you; I, I know in reading the Gospels, especially in younger years, I would look at the disciples and how often they messed it up—often they got it wrong—and I, I would, I would think often, "Boy, they sure, sure could have used the Holy Spirit living in them, because they wouldn't have blown it near as often." You… it doesn't prevent them from missing it, but, you know, when you have the Spirit of God living in you, there's just that internal witness of right of wrong, of direction, and they just didn't have that. They didn't have access to the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And I, I thought a number of times, "Man, they just really could have used that. It's too bad they didn't get it till after Jesus left." So picture this now. Jesus says, says the, uh… He spoke concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would, would receive, "For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified." Right now we've got to, we've got to, uh, emphasize something here. Let's say that I'm an artist. Let's say that I am, um, I'm an artist, and I am making a sculpture of this water bottle. And so I'll… let's do painting, since painting would be a little more challenging for me. So I'm, I'm… I've got this bottle here, and I'm picking the right… make sure I have the right color of green, and I'm, I'm constantly checking what I have here with that and making sure I've got the label right, the right colors there. Is blue, there's some kind of a pinkish red there. So I've got all my colors laid out, and I begin to paint this water bottle because I want to get it exact. The Holy Spirit's primary job is to make us like Jesus. He directs us; He leads us; He empowers us; He does all of that, but really the bottom line—all of it—is to make us like Jesus. And this scripture says the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Here's the deal: The Holy Spirit wasn't given before Jesus was glorified, because then the Holy Spirit would have had to made us like the Jesus headed to the cross, and not the Jesus resurrected, ascended, and glorified. When Jesus said, "It is to your advantage that I go," He actually meant that. This is to your advantage, God, because if I send Him to you now, His work will be to conform you like me on my way to the cross, and that's not who you are. In 1 John 4:17—in fact, Tom quoted this tonight earlier—1 John 4:17 says, "Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment." That's a statement right there. And here's the last part of the verse: "Because as He is, so are we in this world." As He is now… think about this. This was written by John. John is the, the guy sitting next to Jesus at the Last Supper; he's got his head on Jesus's chest. He was there for the crucifixion. He saw Him in, in this time of mourning where He is about to be betrayed, where He led the guys in this meal. He sees Him in the garden, sweating drops of blood. He walks through this whole thing. He sees Him on the cross. He has seen Him in His moments of great triumph and victory—the miracles, the walking on water. He has seen Him when the food has been multiplied. He's experienced all of these things. And then we go to Revelation, chapter 1, where he sees Jesus again, but this time he sees Jesus completely different than he remembered Him last. See, he remembered Him last at the last Last Supper; he remembered Him last hanging on that cross; he remembered Him last in those very brutal, brutal, uh, situations. And yet when he writes of Jesus the next time he sees Him, or in the revelation of His glorified body, he says this of Him: "I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. I heard a voice behind me, a loud voice as of a trumpet." Interesting that trumpets are often associated with voices in the scripture. I heard, heard a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet, but it was talking, saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last." What you see right in a book, send it to the seven churches, or in Asia: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voice… don't skip over this stuff. I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. In the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, girded about the chest with a golden band. His head, His hair were white like wool, white as snow. His eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace. And His voice is the sound of many waters. He had in His right hand seven stars. Out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. And His countenance was like the sun shining in strength. John, who saw that, wrote, "As He is, so are we in this world." You might… I'm just trying to believe God for rent for next month. I've got this ingrown toenail that… boy, I wish God would heal… you know, we've, we've got this stuff going on. And here… what, what is He doing? He's talking… otherworldly, in a way that's not about eternity; it's about now. Do you know the scripture says that His people will be appraised in the earth? Jesus Himself said, "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Imagine the daily lifestyle of every person in this room causing others to turn their attention towards God and giving Him thanks. They're not even born again yet, but they engage in worship because they've seen how you do life. That people would come, come to discover… Eric mentioned one of my favorite verses this morning: How people held them in high esteem, but none would dare join them carelessly. I'm not talking about
Out! Don't sit there ignorant when he's given us a resource manual that instructs us on how to do life. I can tell you number one: righteous acts of the Saints is the righteous clothing, and it is the radiance of God himself that shines into the lives of humanity. So it's shifting from a self-serving lifestyle into a servanthood lifestyle where we live aware we have all the resources needed to be effective in our serving of humanity, of people around us. God's the one who takes the simple act of the cash that you give to the guy on the outside of Safeway who hasn't eaten; he takes that act, he takes the visit that you do to your neighbor who's been sick; he takes those simple acts, the phone call to a friend that you haven't seen for years, and they keep coming to mind, and you just step out of what's convenient and you make that call, a friendship.
We often times think in terms of having unlimited Financial Resources in our possession so that we can do great things for God, when he's the one who breathes on the simple things that we're capable of doing and makes them supernaturally effective. Fear, anxiety, and busyness deadens our awareness to who he says we are. I'm not opposed at all to a busy lifestyle; I live one. But what I don't like is when I—I feel um—things robbing me of my peace. In fact, let me—let me put it in two different ways. I'm going to call this two sides of the same coin: the peace, but also it's my adoration for him, the Adoration, my my adoration, my my times of really not saying a whole lot in prayer but being in those moments engaged in deep Adoration of him; that's—that's the strength of my prayer life; that is the anchor. It is—I—I believe in prayer; I believe in contending; I believe in all—all the stuff, and I do it, and I love to spend the time. But you know, the Adoration—it's the affection for him that does more to change my awareness of—of—of his presence, of his purpose, of who he's made me to be. Everything shifts in that—in that tender place of adoration; it's that deep place of affection for him. And I—whenever I—I seem to lose my peace, it's because I've lost my adoration; I—I'm—I'm no longer AED.
What happens in fear? We see a problem, and we become OD. You can't awe two Gods at the same time; only one can be in the position to affect how I think, what I value, how I reason, how I anticipate, my awareness of purpose; all those things are defined by where my affection is anchored. In those moments where I lose my peace, I have to find out where I left it. For me, I—I'll—I'll stop and think, "Man, I feel so anxious. What—what happened to my peace? Where did I leave it?" Because I—I left it somewhere; it is mine; it's my possession. So it's like my phone; I can lay it down if I want to. I said, "Where did I leave it? Where is that—where is that piece of mine?" I—oh, I remember; it was when I got that phone call. Instead of moving into trust, I moved into fear, and when I did, I received fear, and I exchanged it for my peace. So you don't go and just pick it up; you actually repent your way back to finding it. "God, I—I actually feared something above you; I wasn't aware of it; I just—I just got stupid. Forgive me for becoming anxious, actually exalting a problem over my awareness of your promise." And in those moments, you become re-engaged—Eng—with peace, the atmosphere of Heaven itself. In those moments, the affection of your heart becomes ignited for the one who—you will never be able to exhaust the resource of adoration in your soul, because every time—every time you turn your heart towards him, he just—he just moves ever so slightly, and you see something brand new about him, and you're locked into that place of adoration again.
I've heard people say—I heard uh—one Bible teacher I have great respect for; he said in—in the Book of Revelation, it talks about the—the Beast, or the—the angels that are around the throne that say, "Holy, holy, holy," 24/7; they never leave that place. This Bible teacher said, "Nobody makes them stay; it's just the Eternal one. All he has to do is just turn ever so slightly, and they see—see a whole new wave of holy, holy, holy, holy," and it's an eternal increasing the glimpse into who he is, and a whole new round of holy, holy, holy. There's more possible in our lifetime than we've ever imagined, and you'll—we'll never be able to equal God's purpose and plan with our imagination. He doesn't expect us to, but he does expect us to lean in the right direction; he does expect us to anticipate and lean into what he says about us. What does he say about you? He says, "As he is, so are you in this world." That's what he says. He says, "It's all yours—the world today, tomorrow, life, death; it's all in your account." That story I told you about the lawyer knocking on your door telling you about your inheritance, the estate, the money in the bank—that's what just happened tonight. I'm the lawyer. Why don't you stand up? "Out of his heart will flow rivers of Living Water." This he spoke concerning the spirit whom those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. But now he's glorified, and the Holy Spirit lives inside you, inside me, for this purpose: that the glorified resurrected Christ would be discovered, realized, and witnessed all through the Earth. That's who you are. All right, you ready? Very confident response filled with faith. We're going to pray for each other in just a moment.
The best thing that could happen right now is that anybody in the room who has no personal relationship with Jesus—you don't know what it is to be born again; you've never asked him to forgive you, believed in him to forgive you of all sin, make you different from the inside, adopt you, bring you into his family; it's never happened to you—but yet you found yourself here with us tonight, and the greatest thing in the world would be for you to realize why God brought you here and to say, "I really, really, really want to give my life entirely to Jesus." And if that's you, I just want you to put a hand up right where you are, just put a hand up real high, and I'll just make agreement with you that Jesus was—Jesus would so fill your life with his peace, his forgiveness, his order. Church, let me tell you, in these moments—and we're going to be—we're going to be hitting this week after week after week—as soon as you see that any one of us are going to talk to bring people into the kingdom, start praying, start praying, because it is the heart of God—God—that everybody in this room know what it is to know Jesus. We had one of our teams down in San Francisco some time ago, and one of our little 14-year-old girls was witnessing on the streets, and there was an elderly man literally sitting on the curb of a street corner. She sat down next to him, shared the love of God with him, and he received Jesus right there, right on the corner in San Francisco. He was so overjoyed and so thrilled with this—this that God had done for him. She went on—was in other parts of that City, and she heard an ambulance; there she ran to see what had happened, and that man that she had just led to Christ just passed away. Sounds like something you'd put into a book, but it actually happened, and he—in eternity—because a 14-year-old girl took a moment to share.
There's anyone here that needs to get right with God? You just say, "Bill, I don't want to leave till I know I'm right with God." Put a hand up. Okay, I'm going to assume you're all in. Put a hand on the shoulder of somebody next to you. I want you to pray for them. Several things I want you to pray: that they would discover new ways to walk in peace; that they—the affection of their heart would burn for him; that there would be a connection to the presence of God that is new. Pray that for them. Then I'll give you another direction in a moment. Just pray those two things. Fill them with peace, God—the Shalom of Heaven—fill them with peace. Now I'm going to have you pray for a big one. I want you to pray that God would give them re-Revelation, Insight, perspective on the glorified Christ. Wonderful, wonderful Jesus, open our eyes. Just—just pray earnestly that the Lord would allow them to see the glorified Christ, because as we see him, we become like him. Put your hand on your own heart; pray the same prayer. "God, open my eyes to see; open my eyes to see. I want to see God; I want to see more than I've ever seen." Come to him right now with a heart of absolute surrender. You actually have to say yes before he gives the direction. "Open my eyes to see, Lord; open my eyes to see." Now I just pray one more thing. I want you to pray that the church—not institutions, not buildings—the people—the church would be a praise in the earth; that something about our lives would cause people to become just connected to the Father; they would see our good works but glorify the Father who's in heaven. Just lift your voices; pray for that right now; just contend for that; it's got to happen; it has to happen. Thank you, God; thank you, God. Father, I ask that you would stir up deep, deep, deep affection in us for you. It's only normal; it's normal that we see you, we desire, we long for you, we adore you, we stand in awe of you; we are in awe; we're just absolute wonder about you. So I—I pray that you'd restore us in every way to normal; that throughout the day we'd be captivated by your Wonder; we'd be captivated over and over again; restored to all; and let our countenance reflect you as we live in awe. Let there be a city come under the influence of your glorious presence, the glorified Christ, as we live in all of you. I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.