Again this week I want a reference from Ezekiel chapter
47, the vision that Ezekiel had here.
I'll read these verses first. It says, and it shall be that
every living thing that moves or wherever the river goes will
live. There will be a very great
multitude of fish, because these waters go there, for they will
be healed and everything will live wherever the river goes.
This would be that. Fishermen will stand back from
Engadi to Anglium. They will be places for
spreading their Nets. Their fish will be of the same
kinds as the fish of the great sea, exceedingly many, but it
swamps and marshes will be healed.
They will be will not be healed. They will be given to salt.
As I was sharing with you last week, this is a vision that was
given to the prophet Ezekiel. Now, I believe in being a person
of vision. I've shared the vision
throughout the years here at Mount Zion.
And having a vision is very, very important.
The Bible says without a vision, the people will go unrestrained.
So when you have a vision or you know where you're going, you're
going to stay on course if you would.
And that's what we have done as a local church.
We've stayed on the course that God spoke to us way back in the
beginning in 1978. Now this is a part of that
vision as it unfolded to us because it talks to us about
some very important principles that I've been talking about
since then. However, with God, the Bible
says that with God there is seasons and there are times.
There is a time for every purpose under the heavens.
And so some things are only possible at the appointed time.
So although I've been talking about this for a long time, it's
only in recent years that God said it's time to take another
step and again, to walk in the fullness of all things that
you've been sharing since the very beginning of the ministry.
So as you notice this same vision picture we shared last
week with a few changes here last week, you may have heard me
notice that on the trees that look like grapes, I'm like, you
should be something like apples. So I had them change it into
apples. We have a guy by the name of
Recess in El Salvador who is using AI to generate these
images. And also last week there was
supposed to be a man in the middle of the river, but when
you blew it up to be big enough for this particular screen, his
face looked very scary. So I didn't remember to call him
till Friday. So rather than try to work on
the face, we just turned him around, put him back in the
picture. Anyway, if you notice the vision
here, speaking about 3 different dimensions of experience God
wants each and everyone of us to have, He sees.
First of all, the vision starts with the temple, and out of the
threshold of the temple, front of the temple, if you would, is
flowing a river. Now from Ezekiel's perspective,
the temple was the place where God abided with His people.
In the temple, they had an innermost court where there was
what was called the Ark of the Covenant.
And on the Ark of the Covenant there was a mercy seat.
There were two cherubim as emblems on it.
But God was one who abided on the throne.
And So what he's talking about is, well, everything starts with
the throne of God. Now, in the Old Testament, they
saw it in the sense of it being in a temple.
But even when Solomon built this temple, he said God's too big
for a temple. But we're just kind of doing
this so we can show God's presence in our midst, because
how many know God sits on the throne of all the nations, Amen.
And he dwells over all the earth, and there's no place you
can go without the presence of God being there.
But it's a very important picture for us to see because
our walk with God should begin with us recognizing that God
sits on the throne and we've made a choice that we're going
to accept his call upon our lives.
And that's why in the early days of the Christian Church, their
confession was Jesus Christ is Lord.
And when they would make this confession would be at the
waters of baptism, because on the day of Pentecost, when they
said, men and brother, what must we do?
He said, first of all, repent and then be baptized, everyone
of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your
sins, and then you will receive the Holy Spirit.
And as we were talking about last week, there's a natural
component. Jesus said unless you're born in
the water and the Spirit, you cannot see nor enter into the
Kingdom of God. And so there is a natural water
experience we have in the waters of baptism.
And there's also a spiritual baptism we go through, we call
the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But the important thing to
understand is as the river comes out, on either side of the
river, there were trees. And those trees represent where
God wants the church to recognize he wants us to be even
in this day. Now for the last several years
now looking at church history, we've experienced what was first
called the charismatic movement. Before that it was called the
Pentecostal movement. Before that it was the holiness
movement. So it's been almost 200 years
that God's been moving by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It's especially relevant to take note of the fact that when the
charismatic movement began, which is in the early to late
50s to early 60s, there was a spreading forth of the presence
of God. The favorite scripture often
quoted was in Joel where God says I'm going to pour out my
spirit upon all flesh. Now when I was a kid growing up
in church, we had this idea that well, you had to know exactly
how to get to heaven. So most churches had their
prescription for going to heaven or how to add more to it, which
is the baptism of Holy Spirit. And typically most people
thought if you didn't believe the way they did, you were going
to hell. So we stayed friends even though
we were always sending each other to hell.
But anyway, when the charismatic movement came, all of a sudden
the Spirit of God is falling on churches that there's no way
we've been thought these people were saved fell upon Catholics
and priests and nuns would be shown lifting their hands and
speaking in other tongues and that would be the group
especially that Protestants were thinking we're not going to be
the children of God. As a matter of fact, most of the
Eschataldi or teach in the last time in those days was the
Catholic Church would be the horror of Babylon and all of a
sudden the horror Babylon speaking in other tongues.
It's like God you're doing something and what he did is he
indeed poured his spirit upon all the church and there's been
a tremendous, tremendous a pouring of God and also people
receiving the power of the Holy Spirit that now today almost a
half a billion people are charismatic or spirit filled
Christian. How many know that's an awesome
move of God. Amen.
And most of that percentage happened in the last 70 years or
so. So it's just been an incredible
thing that God has done. Now, in the Scriptures that we
read here today, it says wherever the river goes or the
water goes, there's going to be life.
And it's interesting to me because that book of Ezekiel was
written about 2500 years ago. And in those days, scientists,
they actually didn't have them back then, but people who
studied the solar system, the world and life, they would have
had no idea that the source of life was water.
But nowadays, if you ever watch anything that's going on in TV
as it pertains to scientists studying the galaxies and what's
happening in other planets, they want to find life on other
planets. And what they always say is,
well, if there's water, there's going to be life.
And recently they said, hell, there's a planet.
We think there might be ice. And if there's ice, there might
be water. And if there's water, there's
life. Because way back then God was
able to say water is the source of life.
It's interesting even in the book of Genesis, chapter one,
that when the creation story starts, the Bible says that the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And so Waters has always been, from the biblical perspective,
the source of life. But we also have to understand
the spiritual analogy of the power of the Holy Spirit,
because it is the Holy Spirit that is the source of life for
us. Can I hear an event on that so
important for us to know? I also think it's funny because
being a person who's always read history and studied history and
church history in the time of what was called the
Enlightenment, the Renaissance, people are siding that.
Well, Christians don't know what they're talking about.
And everybody said, yeah, Christians believe the Earth is
the center of everything. And when we discovered the solar
system and realized that we all go around the sun, guess what?
They had admitted they were wrong.
Well, as science has moved forward over the years, how we
know? They, we know now there's many
solar systems and they tell us that they can see millions of
light years away. Which light?
I think it's 182,000 miles a second, something like that.
I'm, you know, that's a lot of distance.
They look out there and guess what?
There's no life. So guess when God said it's the
center, it's the center, All right.
Why? Because it's where there's light
is a planet that God has had an eternal purpose for.
And to me, it's very, very exciting to think about the fact
that we get to live in the unfolding of the eternal
purposes of God. And what's even more exciting is
we get to be a part of it. Is anybody glad you get to be a
part of God's eternal purpose? And so it's very important that
we allow the river to go everywhere it wants to go.
And it's important in our lives as individual Christians that we
let the Holy Spirit have way in our life.
Because it's not just about receiving the Holy Spirit and
saying, oh, I'm baptizing the Spirit.
I speak in other tongues. That's it for me.
The Spirit comes and continues to move inside of us because
God's doing something. There's more life He wants for
all of us to have. And I really believe that it's
important for us to understand even in this day.
God says, I have more life for you and I've tasted the life of
God and guess what? I want more of that.
It's good, just like the Scripture said.
I've tasted of the Lord and it is good.
Amen, Church. Now as you go forward, it says
again along the banks of the river, and on the side of that
we'll grow all kinds of trees used for food.
Their leaves will not wither. Their fruit will not fail.
They will bear fruit every month because their water flows from
the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and
their leaves are for medicine. When we think about water as the
source of life, even if you think about a river like that
there, there's something about our human experience that we
love water. That's why people love to buy
lakefront homes, go on vacation next to the ocean.
There's something about the water that's exciting.
And if you notice in the chapter about that, it says the river
was flowing. And first of all, he headed in
to his ankles and his knees and his waves and said, man, you
could swim in this river. So he was enjoying it how you
know we can enjoy the presence of God church I do that's why
the psalmist said in his presence is fullness of joy and
I found it is true when I sense the presence of God, I'm like
God This is wonderful. It really is an Ave. whereby we
can have fullness of joy, but the trees represent not just
swimming around and enjoying the river, it's allowing yourself to
soak up the river and to allow God to do something in you that
produces life for other people. It says these trees are going to
be food and medicine Church. We're living in a world today
where the church needs to be the food and it's medicine.
Amen. The world is sick and God has a
prescription. The church.
There's something about the church, His eternal purpose that
He's working in the church and in each and every one of us.
That would be food or medicine. And that's why I explained to
you last week how a part of our church vision involves our
community centers. Because as a local church, we've
never been church that spends all of our money on ourselves,
not just our buildings or ministries.
We've always reached out to the community.
In this case we do through our coffee house and community house
that we have a Malden Rd. Also, our Community Center
that's on Crescent Lake Rd., so that we can reach out to the
community as well. Again, these are available for
us, but it's an endeavour to reach out to the world in order
to give them life. And we do that also through the
churches we've established in San Salvador and Maravatia,
Mexico, and also in Havana, Cuba.
And we support the work in Havana.
And I always like to see what's happening in the world church
because, you know, our church there in Havana, they say it
doesn't even matter if you have money because there's nothing to
buy. Communism is such a failed
system that even with money, you don't have anything you can buy.
And so that's how desperate it is.
And we've literally provided them with food.
But also, we believe the message is food and medicine for the
island. Amen.
Church, we are extending ourselves in all these different
ways. But today I want to share the
same thing, but talk about how it applies to us individually
because this is so important that we'd understand that God
has something he's doing in each and every one of us.
That is that God is doing something for you, but also for
others as well. I share this a couple years ago
and reference that every once in a while, but we have our first
fruits offering to reach out to the community and to these other
nations because God wants us to be a people that reach out.
But Abraham was a man of faith and one day the word of the Lord
came to him and he said, Abraham, he said, I want you to
leave your country, your kindred and all you know, and go to a
land that afterward I will show you.
I will bless you. Matter of fact, I'll, I will
even bless people that bless you and I will curse people who
curse you. But in the third level of the
promise, he says, and through your seed, all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed. And that's why in this picture,
when it comes to the trees, it isn't what you're taking in for
yourself. It's what you are making
available for other people. And this is so important in the
story I read to in the Gospel of John, it's an incredible chapter
to read from start to finish. And I could just pick out
certain verses because it's one of the longest chapters in the
New Testament. And it starts out with Jesus
ministering to 5000 people and after he's done, they're all
hungry, but there's no food service available.
So he says to his disciples, well, what can we do about this?
And they said, well, all we have is just these few loaves and
fishes. Jesus said, start giving it
away. And the Bible tells us that a
miracle occurred so that everybody got enough food and
there was even food leftover. How many God will you serve a
miracle? Word in God, Amen.
Amen. What's interesting is the story
I picked up in verse 26. Jesus has found out that the
crowds had followed him. He actually tried to get away
from the crowds, even got in a boat and went across the river
or the lake to do that because he's like, we, we need to get
away from this crowd. It, it was just so pressing and
yet they still followed him. And so they start talking to him
and asking questions and Jesus had a word of knowledge and a
discernment in the situation. He said, now you guys aren't
following me because you want to see miracles.
You're, you're following me because you ate the bread and
was satisfied. And he was pointing out
something very important. And that is well, you are just
really looking for something for yourself.
You're not even looking for miracles because of what it can
do for the message and what's happening.
You're just so focused on yourself.
Now, this is an important observation that he had with
them because how you know, God doesn't want us to be
self-centered, He wants us to be God centered.
And so we have to get out of ourselves.
Now, when we first come to the Lord, it's a whole lot about us
because when you first come to the Lord, the offer is if you
receive Christ, you can have eternal life.
How we know eternal life is awesome, Amen.
When we die and we know that we have another life that we're
going to live in a whole nother dimension, that's great.
When I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and like I was
talking about experience the presence of God and the joy
abroad begin to manifest spiritual gifts.
I'm like, wow, this is wonderful.
And so there's so much about the Holy Spirit that is again
awesome. So God has plenty for us.
Just like he had a land for Abraham and he also had
blessings for Abraham. But he said you got to
understand something, Abraham. In the end, it's about you
becoming a blessing. It isn't about what's in this
for you, but what's in it for me, says the Lord, basically.
And then what will be in it for the other people, The crowd that
Jesus was ministering to in the end of the story, they walk away
because they never understood. They had to go outside the ME
department and get into I'm a servant of the Most High God
department. And when you get to that level,
you find the fullness of the treasure that God has available
for you. I feel within myself that as
long as I've been serving the Lord, I can say he's a good God.
He's a faithful God, He's a God, a blessing.
He's done so many wonderful things, but I I honestly believe
that he's going to do something today that's exceedingly and
abundantly above all that we could ask or think.
Give him a praise on that, but there's a level whereby we have
to reach out and expose ourselves to him in a whole new
level. And when we do that, we'll truly
become like Jesus in the world, Sons of God manifested again.
I also shared this scripture last week and want to reference
again because it talks about the fact this is the ministry of
Jesus Christ. It starts out with Jesus saying
the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because of the Lord hath
anointed me. To preach the gospel to the
poor, the opening of prison to them that are bound to proclaim
the acceptable year of our God. The day of vengeance of our God.
To comfort those who mourn in Zion, To give them beauty for
ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise
for what? The spirit of heaviness that
they might be called the trees of righteousness.
The plan of the Lord that he may be glorified.
And the truth of the matter is, is God's greatest glory comes
when we let him do something inside of us that manifests for
the world and there's blessing in that.
How many know that's a good exchange.
Get beauty for ashes. Get oil of joy for mourning.
Get a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
God, you want to do something awesome for us, and the more you
let God do in your life, the more God is glorified and the
more you become that tree of righteousness, the planning of
the Lord. And I mentioned this last week,
and I want us to understand something.
There's more in God than just comfort.
He wants to truly complete a work in us so that we're not
just comforted in our distress. Where we delivered from our
distress that we're experiencing this exchange that God says He's
going to do. And this is time for us to walk
in this in a whole new level so we can see the tangible
expression of the glory of God in the earth and also in our
lives. And that's what the trees of
righteousness, the planet of the Lord that he might be glorified,
is going to do in the earth. There's going to be a tangible
expression of God's glory in the earth, and it's going to be
through his people. And I really believe, like I
said, this is a time and this is a season that things are
possible today, that we're not possible before.
When I look out at the world and I see its condition, I say, wow,
perfect conditions for what God wants to do through the church.
I'm not looking for God to Take Me Out of this situation.
I'm expecting God to use me in this situation.
Church, we can have any influence on our world.
Give him a praise to become That tangible expression is what God
is looking for us to do. Now I want to point out
something very important here and this isn't John.
Again, Jesus said it is the Spirit who gives life.
The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to are
Spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do
not believe or Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who
did not believe and also who would betray Him.
Now I want to point out something that Jesus said.
My words are spirit. He didn't say I have the Word
and I have the Spirit, but He speaks about something that's
united here, the word in the Spirit coming together.
I use the scripture last week from Psalm chapter one that says
if we want to be the trees of righteousness, good place to
look at Psalms chapter 1. Blessed is the man who says, not
in the seat of the scornful, nor walks in the paths of sinners,
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he
meditates both day and night. He will be like a tree planted
by rivers of living water. So we need the Spirit and we
need the Word. Can I hear it about all that?
But I want you to understand something, how these things have
to come together because sometimes people have a word
side and they have a spirit side and they don't come together.
If you would, I want to explain how you bring them together so
that we can take this dimensional walk in God and
walk, begin to walk in a higher level into Him than we've ever
walked before. Now, I've mentioned this from
time to time because in our human experience, we usually
live in the world of two camps. If you're studying about the
markets in Wall Street, you'll hear about the bulls and the
bears, the positives and the negative type people.
Some how many know, some people see the glass half empty, some
see it half full. It's about perspective, Amian,
when you get into the political realm, it's the left or the
right, liberal, conservative, and there's always this, this
pull from the two sides. And obviously it's the pull of
the different sides that brings truth together ultimately.
And so we have to understand how this is going to work as it
pertains to God. We have some people who love
subjective experiences that has to do with their emotions and
their feelings, and others who like objective intellectual
thought processes. That's their happy place if you
would. But God says when it comes to
the Word in the Spirit, they have to be joined together.
They can't be separated. And this is where God brings all
of us together in order to experience that.
And how is he going to do that? Well, what he says here is my
words are spirit and they are life.
But I look out there and I'm looking at you guys and guess
what? You don't believe?
As a matter of fact, I know someone in this myths is going
to betray me. And of course, he also knew some
who had joined the crowd with those who would say crucify Him,
crucify him. So how do you bring these things
together? Well, it's in the faith
dimension. I've often shared the story that
when we were facing our first crisis as a church because we
were looking for a building to buy that, well, we couldn't find
one that was affordable and met all of our needs.
And then we found the building we eventually purchased on
Clintonville Rd., but it was more expensive than we could
afford. God spoke to me.
He said if you will go the way of Spirit, you'll possess things
that others have not possessed before.
Which to me that was a word that inspired faith.
And all of a sudden I realized we may not have the money in
hand, but we have God with us. Amen.
So all things are possible. And so we have been going this
way of spirit ever since then. Because the way of Spirit is a
way of faith. The faith dimensions lifts you
above the natural experience. And that's how the Word and the
Spirit come together. And that's why we can have a
much broader and increased perspective, if you would,
because it is through faith that we will experience this
dimension whereby God can fulfill His purposes in our
life. In Hebrews Chapter 11, it says
now faith is the substance of things hoped for.
It is the evidence of things not seen for by if the elders
obtained a good testimony by faith, we understand the world's
are refrained by the word of God, so that the things which
are seen were not made of things which are visible.
You see, in the faith dimension, we have to know that when God
speaks, we have to make a choice to follow Him.
I'm sharing this because I believe God's saying to every
single one of us as He's saying to Mount Zion as a church.
It's time for a new dimension of faith.
There's a step I want you to take.
Perhaps in your life you can be aware of it.
Something's going on. You're facing a circumstance and
situation. And just like that song we sang
today, sometimes we're going through the fire, but God can
use the fire. Amen.
Sometimes we're looking at a situation that seems impossible,
but with God all things are possible.
So what we have to do is say, I'm going to ask God to speak a
Word of Faith to me so that I can walk according to the word,
but have faith to believe that with God something good is going
to come out of the situation. See, faith substitutes the
missing part, and that's important because all of us have
certain sets of skills, certain sets of abilities, but God gives
us through faith the missing part.
Now if you're out there and say, well, I don't have any missing
parts. I can do anything I want to do.
You may not want to hear even the rest of this.
Some people are happy living a life that glorifies their self
because they're like look what I can do and world look what I can
do. Well I found out that when I go
God's way I can do things that I couldn't have done without his
help. And I have had a very
supernatural life from that day till this day.
I could say, wow God, you have led me the way of the
supernatural, which is the way above myself.
And to me it's the most exciting life you could possibly live.
I can't think of a better life than the life of faith because
you can always, every day say God is real and God is at work
in my life. He supplies the missing power.
That's why from time to time I've shared with you how that
now that I'm a little bit older than I used to be, when we
started the church, I was 23 going on 24.
When we actually started having services, I felt in some ways I
was too young to be a pastor and in some ways I was.
But guess what? By offering myself to God in
obedience to His Word, He did for me.
He filled in the missing part. And so I was able to do
everything that He asked me to do.
And I always was amazed how the people twice my age would come
to me for encouragement or counsel, whatever.
Because when you're following God, that's what happens.
And I say it's been good training for me because now I'm
not quite done with my work. And now I'm not young anymore.
I'm older, not old, older. That's what my wife Bonnie
always says anyway. I find out, well, there's some
great assets in being young, but there's also things that are
missing. But you know, there's also a
great blessing in being older. I've had some very good
experiences with God and I've learned some things along the
way. So I have something to offer.
And I know that God's been leading me this way for such a
long time that now I say, Lord, yes, God, whatever you ask me,
I'm going to do it. I'm going to take a nap and go
to bed at 10, but I'm going to do it.
I have scriptures for that. Because the Bible says that when
He pours out His Spirit upon all flesh, your young men will have
visions, your old men will have dreams.
I need a lot of sleep to dream those dreams.
Anyway, whatever it is that God has for us in life, we have to
look at it from the right perspective and understand that
He can supply the missing part. Now this is very important too,
because it says, What shall we say then?
Shall we continue in sin that grace may about?
Well, certainly not. How shall we who died to sin
live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many
as us as were baptized into Christ were baptized into His
death, therefore we were buried with Him through baptism unto
death. That just as Christ was raised
from the dead by the by the glory of the Father, Even so we
also should walk in newness of life.
Somebody's thinking, Pastor Lauren, that must be an old
serving. Why is that Scripture up there?
It doesn't quite fit in. Well, it actually does.
And this is a Scripture we often have a least partly on the board
when we do a baptism and talk about it, because I want to use
this as an example. Now in water baptism, this
Scripture says, why do we get baptized?
Well, some people just say, I'll continue in sin, that grace may
abound. And the apostle said, no, wait,
look at what happened when you went into the waters of baptism.
Didn't you also experience his death?
Didn't something happen inside of you that if you have
experienced his death, you can also walk in the power of his
resurrection? How many know?
That's the Scripture I just read to you.
Amen. Amen.
Amen, Amen.
The point of that is whenever God asks us to do something, if
we obey by faith and have an expectation, something good is
going to come out of it. Now, when I talk about two
perspectives and just about every Christian doctrine,
there's two perspectives that people walk in.
And I always say to people, well, at Mount Zion, we don't
have either one of those perspectives.
We like to walk in the full counsel of God.
And sometimes that means you have two things that don't seem
to fit together. So in the body of Christ there's
a whole multitude of people to say, oh, you know, water baptism
is just the outward sign of an inward work.
And that gives them an excuse not to go to the waters by
faith. They don't realize that's what's
happening. But you know, the Bible says the
just shall live by faith says that both in the Old Testament
book of Habakkuk, New Testament book of Romans and in Romans it
says, and we go from faith to faith.
So most people are happy to have what they call the Christian
faith. Oh, I'm a Christian.
God says, I didn't come to give you the Christian faith.
I've come to give you an opportunity to walk by faith.
There's a difference because the walk by faith says, ah, there's
another faith, there's another faith, there's another
circumstance, another faith, There's another level God wants
to take me, another level of faith.
Can you say Amen to that church? Now other people will say, well,
water baptism is very powerful, something happens there, but
they say baptism itself is what makes it happened.
It's called baptismal regeneration and the theological
text. But basically it's two classes
of people, 2 camps if you would, who do not have to exercise
faith. And I say, let's hear what God
says and say let's get the faith to receive it, faith for the
water, faith to become a tree. Because this is a choice you're
going to have to make to let God do because you're not going to
do it just because it seems like something pastor was talking
about. There's a new life he wants to
take us to. So it's all about faith, isn't
it? That's why he said by faith
Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death and was not
found. Why?
Because God had taken him for because he was taken, he had
this testimony that he what he pleased God.
But without faith, it is impossible to please him.
For he who comes to God must believe that he is he is also a
rewarder of those who diligently seek him.
Enoch was an amazing Old Testament story recorded in the
book of Genesis chapter 5. It says, and it was talking
about his his relatives, who his father was and whose family was
and they actually go through and trace it to Noah.
But whatever it is, when talking about Enoch, it says, and all of
a sudden he's gone. He's gone.
Well, the Bible says here that he was taken up into heaven that
one day God said, you know what, you're pleasing to me, come up
here. I want to share some time with
you. Amen.
Hallelujah. That's where it was with Enoch
because he grew in his relationship with God.
Are you growing in your relationship with God?
You will not do that unless you take a step of faith and it's
another step and another step. And then it says, and I have God
is dot, dot, dot. Because what is God?
Well, God is God and because he's God, he sits on the throne.
It all comes from him. And because he sits on the
throne, we also need to know that he's a rewarder of those
who diligently seek him. See, when you live by faith
again, when you're going through a difficult circumstance, you
know that's not the end of the world.
You know, there's there's something that's good can come
out of this. There's another dimension of
life that's possible. Even if it seems like you've
lost something. God says I'll have something so
much better if you believe that I am God and also I'm a rewarder
of those who diligently seek me. Going back to the story here,
Jesus said to them, most the sure life say to you, Moses did
not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you
the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who
comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
Then they said to him, Lord give us this bread always And Jesus
said to them, I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me shall never hunger and he who believes in me
will never thirst. Well after he had worked the
miracles feeding 5000 with just a few loaves of bread and fish.
It was important as he's ministering to these people to
continue to lead them into the things of the Spirit.
And, and so he says to them, well, what are you looking for?
And they said, well, Moses in the Old Testament when we were
hungry, because remember they were wanting the food to be
satisfied. And Jesus said, you're not
falling for the miracles, but for the satisfaction.
Moses, when we were hungry, he called down bread from heaven
and we were able to eat. Jesus said, well, I have bread
for you, that when you eat it you'll never hunger again.
And when you have thirst, there's a water that you can
drink that you'll never thirst again.
And they're like, oh Lord, we want that, we want that, we want
that. But then he says, I'm the bread,
I'm the water. And all of a sudden they look at
him and say what? We were looking for bread, like
Moses gave. Matter of fact, if you're the
Messiah, you're going to give us bread.
That's even more so. And you're telling us you're
bread. You're not bread.
We know your father Joseph, and we know your mother Mary.
We know your family. Don't tell us you're bread.
You're a person, you're a human being.
You aren't able to do these things.
Why were they saying this? Well, because when you're not in
the faith dimension, there's only one dimension you can be in
that's a natural one. And guess what?
It's going to be your lack of understanding and you're going
to have natural understanding rather than what spiritual
understanding. And then Jesus said something
that really got to him. He said, unless you eat my flesh
and drink my blood, you can have no life in you.
How many know that would sound gross to a natural person?
If you're looking at this from a natural perspective and you're
listening for natural errors. Jesus said if you want life you
got to eat me. It's like we're not cannibals,
what are you talking about? But Jesus was trying to get them
to give up on the self-centered life, to take a step into the
faith life. And that's why in closing, it
says, therefore many of the disciples when they heard this,
and these are the disciples, not just the crowd, they said this
is a hard saying. Who can understand it?
When Jesus doing himself that his disciples complained about
this, he said to them, does this offend you?
What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where he was
before? It is the Spirit who gives life,
the flesh prophets nothing. The words that I speak to you
are spirit and they are life. You see, Jesus is warning them
about the fact that he's going to be crucified and he's going
to go back to heaven. He says I'm, I'm basically, I'm
giving you this lesson so that you're prepared for what's going
to come because it's going to be a earth shattering situation.
So he's ministering to his disciples.
You don't understand. We live in a day when the
Christian Church by and large tells pastors and churches.
Now, remember, a lot of people, they're basically superficial.
They don't like to spend too much time studying.
So make sure you keep your messages very simple and easy to
understand. After all, you don't want to
chase people off. And if you want to have a big
church, keep it simple. Then others say, well, make sure
whatever you do, you don't offend people because if you
offend them, not only will they leave, they're going to talk
about you. How many know we live in a world
when people get offended, they talk about you, social media and
everything. Jesus wasn't worried about that.
Your problem isn't that I'm going to explain this to you
more. And the problem isn't that I'm
offensive to you. The problem is you have to make
a choice. Will you decide to live by faith
or will you just live in your natural understanding?
Can we all please bow our heads and close our eyes before the
Lord because church, God is challenging us?
This is a time when never before has the world faced the issues
and situations it faces today. And actually, that's just common
sense. The world changes, but there's
going to be some trying things. A lot of people are being shaken
by the events of now, and a lot of people are experiencing the
sense of distress. But God said I've called you, I
want to take you. To the faith dimension, some
have been struggling with your understanding, struggling with
your understanding. This isn't supposed to be
understood. It's to be believed by faith.
And that isn't just say, OK, I'll accept that.
It's God. Give me faith.
I know I may not understand it all, but I need faith.
By grace you have been saved through faith that not of
yourself. It is the gift of God.
Sometimes people even get offended by God and sometimes
they'll just leave church, but other times they'll just stuff
it down that you're carrying it with you.
Jesus said now's the time I'm calling you not to carry
anything. I'm telling you I want to get
rid of your ashes. I want to get rid of your
heaviness. This isn't a time to mourn.
This is a time to have expectations, says the mighty
God. And this is Scripture.
If you're willing, he is able. Father, in the name of Jesus, I
pray even that as we take communion today that the eyes of
our understanding would be open, that we will begin to receive
faith to believe. Jesus said unless you become
like little children, you can no wise enter into the Kingdom of
heaven. Let him do something.
Simply open up your heart to him.
Hallelujah Jesus. Thank you.
Thank you, Father. This is Pastor Lorne Corbubius
from Mount Zion Church. We thank you for joining us
today and invite you to connect with our church family by
visiting mountzion.org and following us on social media.
God bless you.