Missing Christ And Being Full of Knowledge

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I just pray that you would quicken your word to us. Thank you for the word that you shared with us at the beginning. I pray that your Holy Spirit would enlighten us to your will and your ways, that our hearts would be soft. We would not be easily offended by your word like the Pharisees, Lord, but that we would be able to receive with meekness your word that it would produce in us the desired result. In Jesus' name, Amen. I want to start by reading something from Romans chapter 9. Paul's speaking to his brothers. Romans 9.1, I tell you the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and continual grief in my heart for my brothers. For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ. Can you imagine saying something like that? For my countrymen, who are according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, to whom pertain the glory and the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God and the promises, of whom are the fathers and from whom according to the flesh Christ came, who is over all, eternally blessed God. Amen. What is Paul starting this off here in Romans 9.1? He sees that his past life was a pursuit for God. His entire devotion was to the law. His zeal was to please men and to become a Pharisee of Pharisees. He had a pursuit for holiness and a desire to do the will of God and he found himself an enemy of God. In fact, an enemy of Christ. Then he gets dramatically born again on the Damascus road while he's going to fight against Christians. He's going to jail them, to throw them in prison. Some of them will die. The apostle Paul, who was then called Saul of Tarsus, gets dramatically converted, has a born-again experience and everything that he knew about God, he had to forget it all and he had to relearn it. He goes into Damascus and he's there for three years relearning all those scriptures that he had memorized because he had understood God wrongly. He had the word of God in his heart. He had the word of God in his head. He knew God the best that he thought out of his own wisdom. But through his own wisdom he misses Christ. He's consenting to the death of this Stephen, this one man full of the Holy Ghost who stands up and he says to those Pharisees who were there, Paul being one of them, then Saul, and he says, you stiff-necked and hard-hearted, you always resist the Holy Spirit. There's a lot of people today who are like the Pharisees, they're religious. They have a knowledge of God but they've not been born again. They don't know Christ. And then when someone speaks under the unction of the Holy Spirit and they don't like what is being spoken, they hate the word of God. It doesn't produce in them a change of heart. It produces some kind of pride or bitterness or anger or they want to debate or they want to fight for what they believe to be true. Then you have all these discussions going back and forth about who's right and who's wrong. It's all rooted in pride. That's not the will of God, brothers, sisters. The will of God is what we shared on last week, your sanctification and learning the fear of the Lord. It's the key to unlock wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. But once we get the fear of the Lord, we want to move on from these things to come to know Christ. How are we going to come to know Christ if we're offended by the word of God? The Pharisees, it was clear they didn't believe Jesus was the Christ. That was a no-brainer. They just rejected Christ. There's a lot of people today who sit in church who say they believe in Christ but they reject his word. They hate the word of God. And so we take a scissor to big chunks of scripture and we say that it's not for today, it was for back then because we don't understand them. Just because I don't understand something it doesn't mean it's not true. If I don't understand it, I have to read it, accept it, and say, Lord, give me a revelation of it if it's something that you want me to know. Just like I shared last week, I didn't understand the fear of God under the New Testament. That's an Old Testament thing. Until I got a revelation of it, how would I know that it was for today? How would I know that it's a New Testament principle that is necessary to keep me from looking back? The love of Christ compels me and it's the fear of the Lord that keeps me from sinning. All scripture is given by God as under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. All scripture, including those scriptures that says, I wish all of you spoke in tongues. It says, do not forbid prophecy and do not forbid speaking in tongues. And then a scripture that says, I speak in tongues more than you all. All these scriptures are scriptures. Just because I don't understand it or I don't have an experience that is genuine, and I can point out out of 199 that are false, if I hear a word from the Holy Spirit, I have to accept it. I can't be the one to pick up a stone to kill the messenger, to shut up their mouth. Like this Saul of Tarsus sought to consent to the death of this one Stephen who was filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to the religious bunch who were, according to the law, most of them blameless, like Saul. And they wanted, they always resist the Holy Spirit. That's what Stephen said under the unction. He wasn't speaking by his own head or his own reason. And they picked up stones to shuck his yak. Shut your mouth! We don't want to hear any more of this from you. And they charged at him. We can do that, brothers. These are the brothers that Paul is speaking of when he says, I wish I myself were accursed from Christ for my brother and my countrymen who had all the promises, who had all the call, all the election, and all these things. To them came the gospel, the Israel of God. The gospel was for the Jew, was not for us as Gentiles. It was primarily for the Jew. And he had a burden for his brothers, because they were missing Christ. They had a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. And in all of it, he got a burden. Just like Stephen under the unction of the Spirit had a burden for those Pharisees, and he spoke under the unction. He also had a burden for these brothers of his. And he said, if I could be separated from Christ for all of eternity so that my brothers could know Christ, I would allow that to happen. That is amazing love. That's the kind of love Jesus had when he gave his life. He was separated from God so that we could have life. If that were possible, it was possible through Jesus Christ, but not with Paul. But he had the burden. Why is he saying all these things? And he goes on to speak about it in verse 6. It is not that the Word of God has not taken effect or has no effect. The Word of God is effective, brothers. It's not that it's ineffective. The Word of God is powerful. The Word of God is sharp as a two-edged sword. It can divide between joint and marrow, between spirit and soul. It is very effective to get to the root of a matter of what's going on in your heart. It's not that it's ineffective, but it is ineffective for someone who does not have ears to hear. It is ineffective for people who have shut their heart up and have cut out chunks of scripture and they can't receive those pieces of scripture because they don't understand it, so it doesn't apply to today. Is all scripture given by inspiration, or do we need some man to say that it ceased after the canon was written? We need some wise guy who learned from some other wise guy from some other wise guy who says that God don't speak no more that way. Is Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever? If you put your amen on that, then you have to say, He still speaks. He said in the last days. Are we in the last days, or is that fulfilled in Acts where it says, Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams, and I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh. Has that been fulfilled? Yes, it was the beginning of it when the Holy Spirit could come and indwell us by the power of His grace. That only happens when? When there's first to death. You say, oh well that happened at the cross. Yes, it did. That was when Jesus was the firstborn among many brethren. Has it happened for you? Have you been buried with Christ? Oh, I got baptized 1974. Good. I believe in God. So do the demons. So what is that among the word of God? Is the word of God effective in your life? It's not that the word of God is ineffective, but what is He going to say? They are not all Israel who are of Israel. What does that mean? I'm a natural Jew. Does that make me a natural Jew? Does that make me a spiritual Jew? Neither are they all Israel because they are of Israel, nor are they all children because they are of the seed of Abraham. But this is the key. In Isaac, in Isaac, in Isaac, your seed shall be called. Verse 8, that is those who are the children of the flesh. These are not the children of God, but the children of faith. The children of promise are counted as the seed. The word of God is effective. The word of God is powerful, but if you don't receive the seed with faith, if it's not mingled with faith, the word of God isn't mixed with faith. It's a dead seed. It lies in your heart like snow. Some falls like rain and some like snow to give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. He said, so shall my word be that comes forth from my mouth. It shall not return unto me void. It will accomplish what it was sent to accomplish. Now in some of these brothers, it falls like snow and years down the road they get a revelation of Jesus Christ and they go, oh, they have an oh my moment. How could I have missed Christ in my pursuit for God? My ways are not your ways, declares the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts and your thoughts. Our thoughts are carnal. Our thoughts are natural. His thoughts are heavenly. His ways are spiritual. We don't understand his ways, so we have to relearn his ways. Thus Paul going into the wilderness, into Damascus for three years, and then he's going forth proclaiming the gospel, relearning everything he knew, all the right scriptures, understanding them correctly, based on Christ as the Messiah, based on Jesus as the Christ. Brothers, sisters, could it be that we've missed big chunks of the revelation of Jesus Christ and the Word of God is ineffective? We've just become religious. They've just become mechanical prayers. Oh Jesus, forgive me my sins, come in my heart. Or thank you Lord Jesus and give me a good day, a good sleep, and give me money and everything else. Amen. We have to have a deeper relationship with Jesus than that. And if it's not, then we have to repent. We have to confess it. We need to renounce it, and we need to return to the Lord. He's torn us, but he will bandage us. He's wounded us, but he's going to heal us. He wants to come to us like rain, spring rain. He wants to bring times of refreshing from the Lord. We cannot live for ourselves, but we need to live for God who gives life unto the dead. We've been bought with a price. We need to glorify God in our bodies. How can we say that the Word of God is living, powerful, and effective if we have to pick and choose what's for today? Boy, well then you'd better go to school and get a degree so you can figure it all out. You pack your head full of men's knowledge. The scripture says, but if I yet please men, I would not be a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where are the Pharisees today? You can have all your doctrines right. The Pharisees had all their doctrines right. They believed in the resurrection. They believed in all these things. They just missed Christ. They didn't believe in healing. They didn't believe in deliverance. They didn't believe in being raised from the dead in the sense that they said that you could believe in being raised from the dead, but they themselves were not interested in. They gave mental assent to it. They weren't interested in seeing people change. They were just interested in putting rules and regulations on people and keeping people under their authority. That's not God's will for you. God's will for us is that we would be under the authority of Christ and that we could flourish. I wanted to share something from Hebrews in chapter 12. Last week we shared on the fear of the Lord. I shared about a dream that I'd had and the revelation that I got about the fear of the Lord. Reading from Exodus 20 about the children of Israel being gathered to this mountain which could not be touched and seeing the lightnings and the flashings and hearing the sound of the trumpet on the mountain and the people being exceedingly terrified. This is an Old Testament thing and it says here in Hebrews in chapter 12 in verse 18. For you have not come under the new covenant brothers. We have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burnt with fire and to the blackness and darkness and tempest. Verse 19 which confirms what I shared last week. And the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words. The sound of the trumpet is equivalent to the voice of the words that come from God. The living word of God came from that mountain in the sound of a trumpet blast. Extreme power and authority came from the sound of that that blast on the mountain and the words that they heard made them so exceedingly terrified they ran away from the mountain. Why? The voice of words so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore for they could not endure what was commanded. And so much as if a beast touches the mountain it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow. So terrifying was the sight that Moses who drew near to God even in the midst of this exceeding terrifying situation. He said I am exceedingly afraid and trembling but he drew near to God. Praise the Lord under the new covenant we haven't come to this mountain. We haven't come to this old covenant mountain where God speaks directly to his people without a mediator. Not through Moses anymore. And now he speaks under the new covenant through Christ through the Holy Spirit. And because of the shed blood of Christ we have access to come to the mountain of God because there has been a death to those who are born again. We died and our life is now hidden with Christ and God. But before there's a death there's an exceeding fear of facing God because we cannot endure the things that are spoken. And so there's this don't taste don't touch don't handle and all these commandments contained in ordinances that are absolutely impossible with man to keep them. Because if you break even one of those commandments and you get close to that mountain in that kind of a situation you should be shot with an arrow. The wages of sin is death brothers. But then there's this gift that comes. Brother Dan shared about it. The gift of God through the Holy Spirit. Eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So if we're obedient he says he gives the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 5 verse 17 or 22 to those who obey him. Now what is that which needs to be obeyed? The voice. We need to obey the voice of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God which lives and abides forever. So true worship is in what? In the Spirit and in the truth. And the Spirit always confirms the truth and the truth says what the Spirit is saying and the two agree. So do we worship in this mountain? Do we worship in this denomination? Should we go to that church? Do we need to get to that place where there's an outpouring of the Spirit? Or where should we worship God? It says heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool. Where is the house you'll build for me? Where's the house of God? Where is the place of his rest? If heaven is in this throne and he dwells in the high and the lofty place, where is he on the earth? Do not go here or there into the wilderness. Christ is here. Christ is there. For what's the revelation? The mystery of the gospel. Christ is in you. That's the mystery. Christ in you. The hope of what? Glory. You're not going to stay the same. You're going to be changing because of the power of God that dwells in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. That is why we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It's God working in us. There's a prompting of the Holy Spirit. It's confirmed when I read the word. I need to be doers of this word, not a hearer only. Deceiving myself. That's when the Word of God becomes ineffective. When you hear the Word of God and you don't put into practice with the power of the Spirit that which you have heard, you have an ineffective gospel. You have a Jesus with a small J that can do nothing for you. You may as well be a Jehovah Witness or a Mormon. You have no life in you. It says he who has the Son, Sun capital S, Jesus with a big J, has the life. The one who hath not the Son hath no life but the wrath of God abides on him. You have this condemnation. That's what the wrath of God is. You have condemnation. You feel guilty still for your sins. But in him is no sin because he takes away our sin when you get born again. That's why you feel 50 pounds lighter. That's why you feel the weight of your sin removed. When the blood is applied, you're whiter than snow. And so you come to the pastor and you say, I feel this condemnation. I feel like my sins aren't forgiven. I feel this guilt. Oh, and they just tell you, you know, like, well, Jesus paid it all and it's a finished work, my friends. And don't receive the condemnation. Don't receive the condemnation. You spend all your time trying to tell yourself how much God loves you and that you got no condemnation rather than repenting and dealing with sin. Rather than saying I'm guilty before God and just confessing I can't do anything unless you deliver me. Have a big cry and feel the weight come off and just say, Jesus, thank you for loving me. Stop trying to do what God already did in the flesh by sending his own son. Stop trying to accomplish the work on your own strength and your own power. Call on the name of the Lord. He says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Every day is enough trouble of its own. Brother Dan shared, we need to call the name of Jesus for help in time of trouble. And he said, we will find help. Brother Artie shared it, come to the throne of grace boldly in time of need and find help. I'm going to go to the smoke pit. I'm going to smoke a half a pack and find my help there. Then I'm going to go and get tough. The tough get going. I remember having so much hell on me. I would be taking pills and amping myself up on caffeine and ephedrine and everything else just to get through the day. To amp myself up so that I could get through it. That's no different than any other kind of form of drug. When I came to Christ, I didn't need that stuff anymore. I had Jesus. Jesus is enough. He's enough for the day. He can help us. Brothers, sisters, we haven't come to this mountain, praise God, the one that cannot be touched. The one that produces in us the fear of God to keep us from sinning because that's when the law comes back on you and that is when you become a religious man again and the law accuses you of being a what? A sinner. The law, the purpose of the law is good. What is the purpose of the law? To show you that you're a lawbreaker. That you can't, you can't do this. I can't live this way. What should I do? Repent. Get out from being under the law, brothers, sisters. Get into grace. If you're walking in grace and you're and you're you're living an abundant life and then you get into pride and you all of a sudden fall into sin and you don't repent, you cover it up and you start practicing sin again. I know a lot of people who are believers who start practicing sin again. Secret sins, sexual sins, masturbation, pornography, lust. They live in that and they hide it and they're slaves to sin and while they're naming the name of Christ, some of them pastors. Brothers, you're under the law. You need to get out from under the law. You're trying to be acceptable to God by doing all these other good works but you are practicing sin. In him is no sin. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? May it never be. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? So we need to come to the light. We need to confess, renounce, and return. It's very simple. We need to get victory in Jesus rather than making excuses. Well, my wife this and that. Well, you don't understand, brother. Well, you don't know the stress I'm under. No, brother, sister. We're not going to make excuse for sin. We're going to renounce sin. We're going to repent sin. We're going to confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive us of sin and to cleanse us from all, all, all unrighteousness. This is what the Word of God teaches us. To deny all ungodly passions and how to live holy, righteous, and godly in this present age. This is the grace that leads to salvation from Titus 2.11. Sounds like the Holy Spirit to me. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is God's grace to a sinful people that we can now come to a mountain in the Spirit. Let's read about it. We might not understand it, but let's read about it. Verse 22, Hebrews 12 verse 22. But you have come to Mount Zion. That's in the Spirit. You have come to Mount Zion. To the city of the living God, the heavenly New Jerusalem. Wow. The heavenly New Jerusalem. We're waiting for that one, aren't we, so we can reign with Christ for a thousand years. But the scripture says here two thousand years ago that those brothers who are in Christ, who are new creations, they've already come to it. When did they come to it? Paul said he was in it. While he was alive on earth, he was in this heavenly Jerusalem. Because when you come to God in prayer, you can approach the throne of grace boldly, you can enter that heavenly Jerusalem, and you can say, here I am Lord, and bring your petitions to God. Not that mountain that had that exceedingly terrifying stuff going on. We haven't come to that mountain where we have to be holy according to the law. But now because of what Christ did, we can be born again. We have access. We have full access to this heavenly city, to this throne of God, where the sons of God in the days of Job presented themselves before God. Even now we as sons of God can present ourselves before God. In what way, brothers, sisters? Not presenting our members as instruments of unrighteousness, not presenting ourselves that way, but presenting ourselves to God as being alive from the dead. As presenting ourselves to God, our members as instruments of righteousness for holiness. And when we come that way, and we bring our petitions, it says, whatever we ask in prayer, believing, we shall, shall, shall receive if we don't doubt. And we can have the petition that we've asked of him. Daniel knew that after he prayed for a certain number of 21 days, whatever, he had the petition. Elijah, when he prayed that it would not rain, and then he prayed it would rain, he prayed seven times. Then when he got a confirmation in his spirit, he had the petition that he asked of him. When my son was being born, and I was calling on the name of the Lord, he was dying in the womb, and I called on the name of Jesus, and I heard him say, now I shall bring him forth. I had the petition that I had asked of him, and I went straight back into that room, and his head was coming. And when we found out he came out, he had a true knot in his umbilical cord, as someone would take a piece of yarn and tie it as tight as you can with your hands. That is how the umbilical cord was. And they were calling for an emergency C-section, but no one came. But Jesus came. I believe in the resurrection, as one raised from the dead. That doctor sat there, and I was screaming in the hallway, calling on the name of the Lord. Oh, I called the name of the Lord in 1981 when I got born again. That's finished work, brothers. No, my baby was dying in the womb. The heart rate was going down to zero, and I called on the name of the Lord, because I had no one else to call on. The Lord spoke to me about four or five months earlier, and he said, you're going to call his name Seth. And I said, Seth? Okay, I'll call him Seth. I didn't even know it was a boy. Then I went and looked. What does it say about Seth in the scriptures? Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. I said, okay, well, I don't understand that. But I did understand it when he was coming out dead, when he wasn't coming out at all, and the heart rate was going to zero. I did understand the resurrection from the dead, because I called on the name of the Lord. And he came forth, men calling on the name of the Lord. That's how he came, and we believe in a living God that raises the dead. We have come to a mountain that is in the spirit, to Mount Zion, the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem. That's the mountain we've come to. We've come to experience the power of God and the grace of God. The one who's delivered us from pornography and alcohol and drugs and you name it, everything. He can also continue to deliver us from bitterness and resentment and the love of money and anger. He can finish the work that he's begun on us. It's not a finished work, it's ongoing. We need to continue to call on the name of the Lord. We need to continue to believe. The scripture says, he who endures to the end shall be saved. It's not this garbage once saved, always saved doctrine that some men got from some other men. We can't believe lies. We have to believe what the Word of God says. The Word of God says, he who endures to the end shall be saved. Then we need to call upon the name of the Lord in time of trouble, and he will answer us. It's not about who's right, it's about truth. The scripture says, I desire truth in the hidden parts. Make me to know joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Have your bones been broken because of your sin? Has he wounded you? He will bandage you. He will raise you up. Even on the third day as Christ was raised, he will raise you up with Christ. He will seat you in heavenly places. In Ephesians, in chapter 2, you'll be joint heirs with Christ. All the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ, and you can be partakers of the divine nature through Christ, who paid it all. All to him I owe. All to him, my blessed Savior, he washed me away. We have come to the General Assembly and to the Church of the Firstborn. Have you been gloriously born again? Are you registered in heaven? Is your name written in the Lamb's book? To God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, made complete. To Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel. See that we do not refuse him who speaks, for if they did not escape who refused him who spoke on earth, on that mountain, much more shall we not escape if we turn away who speaks from heaven. Much more. I shared this verse in the Lord gave me a revelation this morning. I was reading in Romans in chapter 6, it says, do not allow your members to be used as instruments of unrighteousness. And I was thinking about a scripture in Isaiah, I think in 56 or 55, it says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, they're higher. So are my ways higher than your ways. And God's thoughts are always spiritual. His ways are always spiritual. My thoughts and my ways are always carnal, they're natural. I'm always thinking naturally, his words are the spirit and they're spiritually understood. And so I have to embrace his thoughts, his word, his way. And so when I began to see that my members have been used as instruments of unrighteousness, let's say for example I start speaking words and lies with my tongue, things like that the word of God says and then I speak opposite to that because that's my experience. That's his ways being higher and written in the word than my ways being my experience. His ways are higher than my ways. And so when I start using my tongue in a wrong way, I'm using my members, my tongue, as instruments of unrighteousness. And the Holy Spirit gave me a revelation, these are weapons of unrighteousness. That's the word there is weapons. I checked it up in the Greek, three nine six nine. The same word that is used for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for tearing down strongholds. He said don't use your members as weapons of unrighteousness but use your members as weapons of righteousness. Because we're slaves to whom we obey whether to sin unto death or to obedience unto life. And so if I get all carnal minded and I start reacting and responding in the flesh and carnally with my tongue, with my hands, with my feet, with my eyes, with my ears, I start going in a carnal way. And I'm actually fighting against God. But I now need to embrace faith. I now need to trust in the Lord with all my heart, not leaning on my own understanding. And I need to start to present my members as instruments or weapons of righteousness. So then when I go to prayer to present myself before God under the New Testament, the weapons of the warfare are not carnal but they're mighty in God. And so now I begin to speak life. I now begin to renounce things. I now begin to confess things. I now begin to take authority over things. I now begin to call those things that are not as though they are. And I because I've come to the throne room of grace, I've now come to the Mount Zion. I'm now standing before God at the heavenly Jerusalem at the mercy seat and I'm pleading with him for help. And we find help. We find grace to help in time of trouble. Whether it be with loud cries and tears as Jesus did, to find help, to meet the need, rather than going with our thoughts which are carnal. We have to embrace his thoughts. We need to get into the spirit. We need to renounce our carnal mind. We need to repent of it. For it says, Dan was reading in Romans 8 13, but it also says in verse 5, for to be carnally minded, Romans 8, is death. But to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Let's embrace life and peace. Let's say, hey, Lord, I want the word of God to be effective in my life. I don't want to be unbelieving like the children of Israel were. These were not the children of God, the natural children, the carnal children, the carnal minded children, but the spiritually minded children. I want to be born of the spirit. That's where the life is. I want to pray in the spirit and in the understanding. I want to embrace that. We sing that song, pray in the spirit and in the understanding. Let's connect with the Holy Spirit and through the word of God, let us believe what God says so that we can see the power of God manifested. So we can see the miracles of God in our everyday life that we would say we serve a living God. We don't serve a dead Jesus. We don't serve one that can do very little. We serve one that can do exceedingly abundantly more than we ask, think, hope, or imagine. We need to renounce our unbelief. We need to repent of it, and we need to add to our faith virtue, and it has to translate into hope, to knowledge and hope. Hope does not disappoint. It becomes an anchor, a surety for your soul, so that when all the waves are tossing you around, you're not easily moved because of the hope that you have in Jesus. Let your faith grow legs and translate into hope, brothers. May the God of all grace keep you from falling and present you faultless before him. May he do for you exceedingly abundantly more than you can ask, think, hope, or imagine, and may his grace be sufficient for you in every trial and every situation. In Jesus' name, amen.