1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,560 Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of 2 00:00:02,560 --> 00:00:04,600 Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA. 3 00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:08,039 I hope the following message challenges, encourages and 4 00:00:08,039 --> 00:00:11,160 ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us. 5 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:13,520 All right, let's get into the word this morning. 6 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:18,360 If you want to turn with me, go ahead and turn to Hebrews 7 00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:21,800 chapter 12, verse 18, Hebrews chapter 12. 8 00:00:21,880 --> 00:00:26,120 And so we're going to be looking at, I'm going to continue in the 9 00:00:26,120 --> 00:00:30,360 theme that we've been looking at thus far that the last number of 10 00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:32,080 weeks. I'm going to try to find my 11 00:00:32,080 --> 00:00:36,760 notes if I can here. So we've been talking about the 12 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:41,280 last few weeks on how the Book of Revelation, the, the 13 00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:46,560 Revelation chapter 3 and 4, how John hears from the Lord. 14 00:00:46,760 --> 00:00:51,240 He's giving a message to the Church of Laodicea and he and 15 00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:55,840 the Lord calls attention. He said, behold, I stand at the 16 00:00:55,840 --> 00:01:00,440 door and knock. If any man would open the door, 17 00:01:00,440 --> 00:01:03,720 I will come in and I will eat with him and him with me. 18 00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:07,560 I'm going to feast with you. And so if you hear his voice, 19 00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:10,280 there's a knock, there's an invitation to a feast. 20 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,080 There's more than what you're just hearing in the moment. 21 00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:17,160 If we'll, if we'll give, give our attention to that. 22 00:01:17,160 --> 00:01:19,520 There's more. We used to have a saying that we 23 00:01:19,520 --> 00:01:23,080 used to say a lot that if you, if you sense his presence and 24 00:01:23,080 --> 00:01:25,400 you give way to it, he'll come more. 25 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:29,560 There's a sensitivity that our walk with God requires of us 26 00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:33,120 that we lean in and we're we're sensitive to what he's doing. 27 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:36,960 And so he tells us there's this, he's knocking on the door. 28 00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:41,400 Then a few verses later, John says, Behold, I heard a voice 29 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:44,240 and I looked up and there was an open door and the Lord said, 30 00:01:44,520 --> 00:01:47,800 come up here and suddenly, behold, he was in the throne 31 00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:49,360 room. And all through that, that 32 00:01:49,360 --> 00:01:54,120 passage again, the Book of Revelation is apocalyptic 33 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:57,040 literature. Apocalyptic literature isn't 34 00:01:57,040 --> 00:01:59,360 what a lot of people often think of. 35 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:02,720 It's not, it's not about cataclysm and and necessarily 36 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:06,640 even end time events. It's the record of prophetic 37 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:10,880 encounters, whether dreams or visions and, and so the, the 38 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:14,440 prophets of old, there's a long tradition in Hebrew writing of 39 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:16,680 these prophets, Ezekiel, Jeremiah. 40 00:02:16,680 --> 00:02:20,760 And so Isaiah they would record and they'd leave that behind for 41 00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:23,080 you and I so that you can you and I can learn from it. 42 00:02:23,440 --> 00:02:26,880 And so John writes down this encounter. 43 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:30,560 And so we see the 2 doors. There was the door that we open 44 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:34,480 that God comes to us and then there's the door that he opens 45 00:02:34,680 --> 00:02:37,240 and he ushers us up. He said come up here. 46 00:02:37,560 --> 00:02:43,240 And so this idea of ascending is all through Scripture. 47 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:46,680 And so we need to we need to pay attention to that. 48 00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:49,840 We we shouldn't just ignore that and kind of brush over that. 49 00:02:50,880 --> 00:02:53,200 I was reading something fascinating this week. 50 00:02:53,200 --> 00:02:56,480 I should have brought it up with me by a theologian. 51 00:02:56,480 --> 00:02:59,080 I've really come to appreciate. He just recently went to be with 52 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:03,240 the Lord, but he was talking about how we have a tendency to 53 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:07,840 read the Word through our creeds and our confessions and our 54 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:10,640 denominational stance and all of that. 55 00:03:10,640 --> 00:03:15,000 And while all of that is good, it's not the lens through which 56 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:19,280 we read the Scriptures because creeds and confessions were 57 00:03:19,760 --> 00:03:23,840 formulated in response to a contemporary problem. 58 00:03:24,360 --> 00:03:26,600 There was a problem. And so they, they developed a 59 00:03:26,600 --> 00:03:30,600 creed to deal with that. This is our doctrinal stance. 60 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:34,320 It's similar to if you, I was just alluding to this a few 61 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:38,960 minutes ago with the whole thing of, of gender distinction and, 62 00:03:38,960 --> 00:03:43,600 and God, God made man and woman and, you know, marriage between 63 00:03:43,600 --> 00:03:46,360 a man and a woman. And if you look on our website, 64 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,360 we have a doctrinal statement again about that. 65 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,560 It's not because we feel that is, you know, that you need to 66 00:03:53,880 --> 00:03:57,080 know the nature of God. And then the and and one of the 67 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:00,200 primary foundational things in discipleship is so much that 68 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:03,920 we're responding to a current cultural crisis. 69 00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:10,440 So now, 100 years from now of Jesus, Terry's our great, great, 70 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:12,920 great grandkids are studying the word and they're looking for 71 00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:16,279 they're looking through the lens of gender distinction and 72 00:04:16,279 --> 00:04:19,200 reading the word through that. Now, you can come to some valid 73 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:23,400 conclusions, but that's not the purpose of that statement. 74 00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:25,520 It's addressing A contemporary problem. 75 00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:29,080 I hope I'm making sense. And So what we need to do is we 76 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:32,520 need to read the word through the lens of the people living in 77 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:36,520 that moment of history. And that's the only, that's the 78 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:39,200 only way we're going to understand the word. 79 00:04:39,840 --> 00:04:41,880 And so we need to get inside their heads. 80 00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:45,040 We need to know what it meant in order to know what it means, 81 00:04:45,120 --> 00:04:48,200 what it meant to them, in order to know what it means to us. 82 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:53,200 And all through Scripture we see this, this idea, this thing of 83 00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:57,480 ascending the hill of the Lord. We see way back in the book of 84 00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:01,320 Genesis. We see the latter, the ascending 85 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:03,920 and descending, the connection between heaven and earth. 86 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:08,440 In fact, we see the very first verse of all of Scripture. 87 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:11,800 You open your Bible, Genesis 11. What does it say? 88 00:05:12,080 --> 00:05:19,800 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, so he 89 00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:23,040 introduces this cosmological idea. 90 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:27,080 He wants to give us a framework for the context of everything 91 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:29,440 else. He's going to do that there is a 92 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:34,000 spiritual realm, if you will, called the heavens, and there is 93 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:38,680 a physical realm called the earth, and God sets it up like 94 00:05:38,680 --> 00:05:42,920 that right away. The tragedy is that much of the 95 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:47,960 church only lives in their awareness of the earth and 96 00:05:47,960 --> 00:05:52,520 ignores their ignores this reality of the heavens and so 97 00:05:52,520 --> 00:05:59,000 the heavens that it's a description of the spiritual or 98 00:05:59,000 --> 00:06:03,240 the unseen realm all around us. It's plural in the Hebrew 99 00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:05,560 heavens. Same thing in the New Testament, 100 00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:09,360 and Paul says he talks about heavenly realms, plural. 101 00:06:09,680 --> 00:06:13,720 And so there are spiritual realities around us that God 102 00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:16,680 intends for you and I to be aware of. 103 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:20,800 We're not to be just ignorant of that and kind of relegate that 104 00:06:20,800 --> 00:06:24,640 to poetry and just think that, OK, I said a sinner's prayer and 105 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:27,560 now I live in the earth and I try to be a moral person and 106 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:30,960 then I go to heaven. No, we're God never intended 107 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:35,560 heaven, the heavens and earth to operate independently. 108 00:06:35,560 --> 00:06:38,240 That's why he introduces them simultaneously. 109 00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:42,400 That is precisely why he created them simultaneously. 110 00:06:43,720 --> 00:06:46,160 I I've had to repent of a lot of things I've taught over the 111 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:49,400 years and here's one of them. This is my disclaimer. 112 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:54,840 If you heard me say this years ago, that the spiritual realm is 113 00:06:54,840 --> 00:06:57,600 more real than the physical realm because the spiritual 114 00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:00,800 realm is eternal and the physical realm is is temporary. 115 00:07:01,040 --> 00:07:06,240 That is not true. The heavens were created the 116 00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:09,720 same time the earth was and that that is really, really 117 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:12,520 intriguing to me. Why is that? 118 00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:16,800 Because God meant for them to function together. 119 00:07:17,440 --> 00:07:20,880 And it was through the fall the connector between those two 120 00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:25,480 realms were mankind. You and I were uniquely created 121 00:07:25,480 --> 00:07:29,600 by God with the equipment to function in both realms, and we 122 00:07:29,600 --> 00:07:31,560 were the connection between the two. 123 00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:35,960 And in the fall, when man's spirit died, you know, the Lord 124 00:07:35,960 --> 00:07:38,760 told Adam and Eve in the day that you eat of that fruit, you 125 00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:42,120 will surely die. Their body began to die, but 126 00:07:42,120 --> 00:07:45,840 their spirit immediately died and they lost the equipment, the 127 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:50,560 satellite dish, if you will, that can interact with the 128 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:56,400 spiritual realm. And in salvation, God restored 129 00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:01,520 that equipment in what is known as regeneration or the born 130 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:06,080 again experience. Our spirit man was born again. 131 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:08,840 All of a sudden, that equipment came back online. 132 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:11,320 The red light came on. You can hear the engine running. 133 00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:13,760 And we're supposed to function in that. 134 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:18,560 And we're to lean into that and understand how to be spiritual 135 00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:23,080 men and women, not just people that are born again and going to 136 00:08:23,080 --> 00:08:26,920 heaven someday, but we're to be men and women who are born 137 00:08:26,920 --> 00:08:30,320 again. And our spirit man is now the 138 00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:34,039 component, the third component of our nature that not only 139 00:08:34,039 --> 00:08:38,840 comes online, but is the dominant component in our 140 00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:42,120 nature. We're to be spiritual. 141 00:08:42,120 --> 00:08:44,840 Second Corinthians chapter 2 talks about this. 142 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:49,680 It it talks about the carnal Christian who's a mere infant. 143 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:53,200 And Paul rebukes them. So baby Christians are those 144 00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:56,120 who, even though they're saved, they're still living for their 145 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:59,000 flesh. That is not a category of 146 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:01,800 Christianity. It's not a class of Christian. 147 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:04,240 It's a stage of Christian maturity. 148 00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:07,120 And if you're still a baby Christian after five years, then 149 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:12,720 you probably need to get saved. And so when we first get saved, 150 00:09:12,920 --> 00:09:18,320 we're our spirit man comes alive, but our flesh is still 151 00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:21,760 dominant. And So what what do we do is we 152 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:29,240 learn to deny our flesh, discipline our soul and develop 153 00:09:29,320 --> 00:09:34,160 our spirit because what God wants are spiritual men and 154 00:09:34,160 --> 00:09:35,720 women. So what does that mean? 155 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:37,360 I mean, we, we throw those terms around. 156 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:40,760 It's kind of mystical, spiritual. 157 00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:44,760 What does that mean? It means that our spirit man is 158 00:09:44,760 --> 00:09:50,760 strong and can exercise dominion over our flesh and even our 159 00:09:50,760 --> 00:09:55,640 soul, that we're no longer drug around by our fleshly desires. 160 00:09:55,840 --> 00:09:59,600 It's our spirit man, we we're communing with God and we're 161 00:09:59,600 --> 00:10:03,800 discerning things spiritually rather than from the flesh, Paul 162 00:10:03,800 --> 00:10:05,800 said. I know no man after the flesh. 163 00:10:07,120 --> 00:10:10,600 Paul evaluated all his relationships through the Spirit 164 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:16,120 and that is not only a possibility, it is what God has 165 00:10:16,120 --> 00:10:18,040 called each and every one of us into. 166 00:10:19,360 --> 00:10:22,120 And so this this idea of us growing up. 167 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:25,720 So in in first Corinthians chapter 2, he talks about the 168 00:10:25,720 --> 00:10:29,720 carnal man who is a mere infant. He talks about the natural man 169 00:10:29,960 --> 00:10:34,880 and the Greek is the the The Greek is the Grecian word for 170 00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:37,480 soul. It's something to the effect of 171 00:10:37,480 --> 00:10:39,880 psychicos. It's the soul. 172 00:10:39,880 --> 00:10:43,520 The soulish man would be the best English translation. 173 00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:47,320 The man of the soul receives not the things of God. 174 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:52,720 They are foolishness to him. Unfortunately, some of our 175 00:10:52,720 --> 00:10:56,360 translations translates it. The natural man receives not the 176 00:10:56,360 --> 00:11:00,480 things of God or in the NIV, it says the man without the spirit. 177 00:11:00,480 --> 00:11:03,000 That's real unfortunate because that's not what Paul is saying. 178 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:06,600 He's not saying that the guy who looks at spirit, spirit, 179 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:10,320 spiritual things as foolish. It's he's not saying that that 180 00:11:10,320 --> 00:11:14,040 man does not have the spirit. What he's saying is that the 181 00:11:14,040 --> 00:11:17,640 dominant element of his nature is his soul. 182 00:11:17,840 --> 00:11:21,360 So he evaluates everything through his own understanding, 183 00:11:23,800 --> 00:11:25,760 his own mind, will, and emotions. 184 00:11:26,880 --> 00:11:30,600 And in fact, God's got to sign off on his understanding before 185 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:32,360 he'll allow God to do anything in his life. 186 00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:37,480 And all I can say is good luck with that one because the Lord 187 00:11:37,480 --> 00:11:41,320 calls us to go beyond our understanding, to walk by faith 188 00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:44,200 and not by sight. I loved what what Pastor Drew 189 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:47,840 said this morning. We taste and then we see, we 190 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:49,840 experience and then God explains. 191 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:55,200 But if we, if we demand God you, I demand you sign off with my 192 00:11:55,200 --> 00:11:57,200 understanding. You explain all this before I 193 00:11:57,200 --> 00:11:59,880 follow you. What did, what did he say to 194 00:11:59,880 --> 00:12:01,480 Abraham, the father of our faith? 195 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,800 He said, hey, leave this place and go to a place you don't know 196 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:07,040 about yet. And then I will bless you and 197 00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:09,840 you will be a blessing. That is the Christian life. 198 00:12:10,720 --> 00:12:15,120 And so we have to trust him and we learn over time to trust his 199 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:20,240 great trustworthiness, but that that grows us up spiritually. 200 00:12:20,800 --> 00:12:23,360 And so we use these terms and a lot of times we're not really 201 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:27,320 thinking about what they mean. So the, the carnal man is still 202 00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:29,160 following the, the lust of his flesh. 203 00:12:29,160 --> 00:12:32,400 I remember when I got saved, the lady who led me to the Lord gave 204 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,200 me money for a Bible and I went out and bought a keg with the 205 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:38,680 money and felt very, very guilty over it. 206 00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,400 The difference between before I got saved and after I got saved 207 00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:46,360 was not what I did with my money, but how I felt about it. 208 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:51,000 Because before I'd have been thinking, boy, I got her, I need 209 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,080 to find another lady. Look at me, some Bible money. 210 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:56,160 After I got saved, I was so broken. 211 00:12:56,160 --> 00:12:58,120 I sat there and just cried in my beer. 212 00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,000 There was a bunch of bikers drinking with me, and they're 213 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:02,520 probably that weird little kid, man. 214 00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:04,800 I was a skinny little dude crying in my beer. 215 00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:07,400 It wasn't that I was acting different. 216 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:09,760 It was my conscience now bothered me. 217 00:13:10,760 --> 00:13:13,920 I was still a man of the flesh. I was a baby Christian. 218 00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:18,360 My spirit man could barely make itself known within me. 219 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:21,520 The only thing it was saying you shouldn't do this. 220 00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:25,320 Oh, no. And I was feeling guilty in my 221 00:13:25,320 --> 00:13:28,080 flesh. Oh yeah, dragging my spirit man 222 00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:33,680 around and I oh, no, no, no. And so then as we begin to walk 223 00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:38,200 with the Lord, we begin to learn we got to deny our flesh. 224 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:43,000 But then the real issue in the Christian life begins to happen. 225 00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:47,480 We've got to begin to discipline our soul. 226 00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:51,600 No longer follow our own understanding. 227 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:54,000 Lean not on your own understanding. 228 00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:58,840 Don't be led by your emotions. Your emotions are to be like 229 00:13:58,840 --> 00:14:01,480 salt. They enhance the experience, but 230 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:04,400 they're not the meal. Don't ever sit down with a 231 00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:08,000 bucket of salt and eat, OK? It's not healthy. 232 00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:12,840 It's to enhance the, the, the, the experience, but it's not to 233 00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:15,560 be the experience. But we're taught in this world 234 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:18,920 that emotion is the goal that I want to be happy. 235 00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:20,440 It's not the pursuit of happiness. 236 00:14:20,680 --> 00:14:23,680 Happiness is a result and not a it's not the goal. 237 00:14:24,280 --> 00:14:30,920 And so we, we need to discipline ourself and then we need to feed 238 00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:34,600 our spirit man. And as we understand spiritual 239 00:14:34,600 --> 00:14:39,880 realities, we begin to grow and we become spiritual men and 240 00:14:39,880 --> 00:14:41,440 women that are led by the Spirit. 241 00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:44,800 That's why Paul says in Romans 8, he said they who are led by 242 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:47,600 the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 243 00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:51,240 And understand when when Paul talks about sonship in the New 244 00:14:51,240 --> 00:14:54,960 Testament, there's a difference between being a child of God and 245 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:58,680 being a son of God. In the Greek it's very clear the 246 00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:03,360 the the child of God. It's Tecnon born 1. 247 00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:06,840 The Greek for sonship is like hois. 248 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:11,960 I don't remember how to spell it like HOUISS or something like 249 00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:14,960 that, but it has to do with sonship and sonship. 250 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:18,800 And the Roman Grecian mindset that Paul was writing to is 251 00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:21,880 somebody that's mature and therefore can be given 252 00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:25,760 responsibility in the household. And within the Roman household, 253 00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:30,320 a child was a child within the house, but he was, he was 254 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:33,840 actually ruled over by a pedagogue, a male nanny that 255 00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:35,880 would that would one day work for him. 256 00:15:35,880 --> 00:15:39,160 So if that nanny was smart, he would treat him well, but he was 257 00:15:39,160 --> 00:15:42,680 going to make him do with external pressure what he would 258 00:15:42,680 --> 00:15:48,360 one do with internal discipline. That's Christian maturity, and 259 00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:52,200 so there's And then what? Once he had reached at the point 260 00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:56,040 of maturity, they would go through a ceremony of adoption 261 00:15:56,440 --> 00:16:00,040 where there was a formal ceremony that they were brought 262 00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:03,680 into adulthood and now they were given the right to use the 263 00:16:03,680 --> 00:16:08,760 family name in the marketplace. And so that's why in the New 264 00:16:08,760 --> 00:16:11,680 Testament, some translations will translate the Holy Spirit 265 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:15,440 as the spirit of sonship, others will translate it the spirit of 266 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:17,680 adoption. It's talking about the same 267 00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:22,760 thing because Roman adoption was not the taking of a child, you 268 00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:25,320 know, that didn't share the genetic code of the father and 269 00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:31,720 making giving him a name. A child had the nature of the of 270 00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:37,320 the father, but the the adopted son had the character of the 271 00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:39,320 father and that was the difference. 272 00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:42,160 And so God is wanting to grow us up. 273 00:16:42,160 --> 00:16:45,080 Now, all of this is very, very important because you and I are 274 00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:46,880 called to be spiritual men and women. 275 00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:54,040 And we want to, we want to confront this lie that will keep 276 00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:59,040 us living so far beneath what our inheritance is as sons and 277 00:16:59,040 --> 00:17:02,280 daughters of God. Because we only have a mindset 278 00:17:02,280 --> 00:17:05,599 for the, the, the, the seen world, that which is seen. 279 00:17:05,839 --> 00:17:09,560 And God wants us to be men and women of the Spirit that are 280 00:17:09,560 --> 00:17:12,359 accessing the things of the Spirit like John. 281 00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:16,599 John had dreams and visions. He saw spiritual reality. 282 00:17:16,760 --> 00:17:18,520 He was functioning according to that. 283 00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:21,839 There are resources verses Paul says in Ephesians chapter one 284 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:27,000 verse 3, he says God, this is the King James Version. 285 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:33,600 God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly 286 00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:36,720 realms in Christ. In other words, there are 287 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:41,880 deposits of blessings that are for you and I God has reserved 288 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:44,600 them for us. There are inheritance, but 289 00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:48,080 they're in heavenly realms. They're in the spirit. 290 00:17:48,080 --> 00:17:50,040 It's not, it's not a physical thing. 291 00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:52,520 It's not a personality thing. It's not a skill set. 292 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:57,160 There are spiritual blessings reserved for you and I and that 293 00:17:57,160 --> 00:17:59,800 is not a someday thing. That's a right now thing. 294 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:03,520 And so we need to learn to access these spiritual 295 00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:05,880 blessings. Now, I know we had a meeting 296 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:09,360 with the the elders the other night and we were talking about 297 00:18:10,560 --> 00:18:12,400 kind of around this kind of stuff. 298 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:15,520 And I told him, I said I have this liability anytime I'm 299 00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:17,080 talking about this kind of stuff. 300 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:21,440 I'm also listening through this lens, this ear. 301 00:18:21,440 --> 00:18:25,400 They're thinking, what would a brand new newcomer who has never 302 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:27,760 been to Heartland, what are they hearing when I'm talking like 303 00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:30,160 this? And it's this voice in my ear 304 00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:32,880 that I've got a silence because it sounds so mystical. 305 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:35,920 But I'm telling you, it is thoroughly scriptural. 306 00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:40,840 We are not limited to that which we see. 307 00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:44,880 We are not limited to our natural skill set. 308 00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:49,360 Ministry is not to be reduced to what we can do and the skills 309 00:18:49,360 --> 00:18:53,160 that we can develop. There is a supernatural realm. 310 00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:57,600 There is an unseen realm that God created simultaneously with 311 00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:02,560 the scene realm and He wants to reunite them through you and I. 312 00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:07,080 So. We see in the book of Genesis 313 00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:11,320 that Jacob, he's, he's running from his brother and he stumbles 314 00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:15,280 it and says he went to a place, but it was a specific place 315 00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:18,280 unbeknownst to him. It was a place called Luz. 316 00:19:18,440 --> 00:19:22,240 Luz loves and Jacob lays down there. 317 00:19:22,240 --> 00:19:26,480 He puts a rock for his pillow and he takes a nap and in while 318 00:19:26,480 --> 00:19:29,440 he's asleep, he has a supernatural dream. 319 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:33,200 Dreams are a way that God speaks to his people. 320 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:36,800 Do you know that? Not every dream. 321 00:19:36,800 --> 00:19:39,440 Is a pizza dream. Not every dream is from God 322 00:19:39,480 --> 00:19:42,120 either. But you know. 323 00:19:42,120 --> 00:19:44,800 We, we were talking in the school this couple weeks ago and 324 00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:47,520 it really struck me. I'd never, never really thought 325 00:19:47,520 --> 00:19:52,720 about this, but Nebuchadnezzar, A Pagan king, has a dream and 326 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:57,080 he's ready to kill his his counselors because they can't 327 00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:00,880 tell him what the dream was. He was so convinced that this 328 00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:03,280 was a message from another world. 329 00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:11,000 And it was, and it it struck me that this Pagan king had a 330 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,920 greater value for dreams than most Christians today. 331 00:20:16,360 --> 00:20:18,920 Most. Believers, when the New 332 00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:23,480 Testament says your young man shall see visions in your old 333 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:28,320 man shall dream dreams, it's a promise, it's a declaration from 334 00:20:28,320 --> 00:20:32,600 the word of God itself. And we kind of just marginalized 335 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,440 that stuff. And we're, we want to take a 336 00:20:35,440 --> 00:20:37,800 stand and say no, we want to resurrect those things. 337 00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:40,240 We want to we want to enter into those. 338 00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:43,200 And one of the primary ways in which God speaks is through the 339 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:46,160 dream stream. And Jacob experienced that. 340 00:20:46,200 --> 00:20:49,400 So Jacob's laying there and all of a sudden he saw a ladder. 341 00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:52,960 I love the NIV how it says it resting on the earth and 342 00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,920 reaching into heaven. That's beautiful. 343 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:58,920 That will preach, not this morning, but resting and 344 00:20:58,920 --> 00:21:03,360 reaching those two postures of the human heart. 345 00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:06,400 We rest in Him and we're reaching. 346 00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:09,640 It's not all rest. There's a contending and there's 347 00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:12,560 a desire for more. But it's not all contending and 348 00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:14,920 desiring for more. Because what will happen is you 349 00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:17,440 will lose the gratitude for what you already have. 350 00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:21,200 There's this thing of gratitude for what we already have, 351 00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:24,880 resting in the finished work of Christ, but also reaching to 352 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,520 access more of what He has for us. 353 00:21:27,920 --> 00:21:29,560 And we need to live in this tension. 354 00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:32,640 And so there's this ladder. And that says that he saw the 355 00:21:32,640 --> 00:21:36,240 angels ascending and descending on this ladder. 356 00:21:37,560 --> 00:21:40,920 And then at the. Top God was standing and 357 00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,920 speaking over Jacob, his future destiny. 358 00:21:45,440 --> 00:21:51,440 And Jacob wakes up and he says wow, God was here, God is here 359 00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:53,680 and I knew it not. And he calls it two things. 360 00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,600 He gives 2 names to this place called Luz. 361 00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:00,800 And it was actually it it, it became a new name for this 362 00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:04,840 place. It was re renamed based on 363 00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:09,160 Jacob's encounter with God. There are places in the earth 364 00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:13,440 that are now identified with the encounter people had with God. 365 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:21,360 The Hebrides, Wales back in the 90s, Pensacola, Toronto. 366 00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:25,400 There are places that become synonymous with an encounter 367 00:22:25,400 --> 00:22:29,520 with God and this place, Jacob calls it two things, he said. 368 00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:35,120 This is none other than the gate of heaven and the House of God. 369 00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:38,600 He said. From an earthly perspective, 370 00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,680 this is a dwelling place for the presence of God. 371 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:47,360 Do you know that God longs to have physical locations where 372 00:22:47,360 --> 00:22:52,000 His presence dwells and people can go there and encounter God? 373 00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:58,840 That is, that is a thoroughly scriptural idea all through the 374 00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:02,480 Bible that God longs to have those places. 375 00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,240 So it begs the question for you and I, how do we create that? 376 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:10,840 How do we make sure that this place, 1212 NW 36th St. in 377 00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:15,120 Ankeny, IA, is that place? There are things that we can do 378 00:23:15,120 --> 00:23:18,720 to cooperate to make sure that God, this becomes the House of 379 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:22,320 God. That's not just a term we use 380 00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:25,320 for church buildings. There are church buildings that 381 00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:29,240 are not houses of God, and there are other places that are houses 382 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,240 of God, but there's not so much of A church building. 383 00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:35,280 It's because of the human activity in those places to 384 00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,680 consecrate them that God begins to visit. 385 00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:42,480 And he also said it's the gate of heaven. 386 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:47,200 It's an entry point for Heaven's activity into the realm of the 387 00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:50,400 earth. When God can establish a place 388 00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:54,240 on the earth, a physical location that is a place of His 389 00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:59,040 presence, it becomes a gate or an entry point for the spiritual 390 00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,000 realm to begin to interact with the physical realm. 391 00:24:04,080 --> 00:24:07,960 We see this. Way back in Genesis and so this 392 00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:13,400 place is renamed Beth El, Beth being house Elohim Beth, the 393 00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,480 House of God. And it was Beth El from that, 394 00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:20,640 from that time on. What Jacob didn't understand is 395 00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:24,400 that he had stumbled into a place his grandfather Abraham 396 00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:29,840 had sacrificed on it at and two different occasions and he had 397 00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:34,360 created an environment through sacrifice that God was attracted 398 00:24:34,360 --> 00:24:38,120 to this place and Jacob entered into it and encountered God 399 00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:40,280 because of the price paid by a forefather. 400 00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,520 I'm telling you there is a spiritual principle there that 401 00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:49,080 others can enter places that have been established by the 402 00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:52,280 sacrifice of others. Now that that some of you that 403 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:55,200 makes you a little nervous when I talk about sacrifice, like 404 00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,200 wait, wait a minute, I thought Jesus paid it all. 405 00:24:57,200 --> 00:24:59,960 He did. He paid everything for your 406 00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:02,880 salvation. But there is a. 407 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:06,000 Price to pay for ministry that you and I must pay. 408 00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,120 There is. There is the price for my 409 00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:15,720 entrance to heaven. My reward in heaven will be 410 00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:20,320 based on what I do with that on earth, and part of that is the 411 00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:23,760 price I'm willing to pay, the sacrifice that I'm willing to 412 00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:27,600 enact. There is a warfare to establish 413 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:32,560 those places, and a lot of people won because they don't 414 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,600 understand there's an ignorance about these things, about 415 00:25:35,600 --> 00:25:40,520 spiritual warfare and the battle for those places that God wants 416 00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:43,960 to establish his presence. There are people that are easily 417 00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:48,080 pushed off their post, they're easily distracted or offended 418 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,440 and they'll back off and get caught up in their own struggle 419 00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,480 because of it. It it hurts. 420 00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,880 I get caught up and I leave the pursuit. 421 00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:06,720 Andy and I were talking during the transition about Pastor Drew 422 00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,040 when he got up here and I felt wait. 423 00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,720 I don't know about you, but I felt wait on what he said. 424 00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:14,840 And you know what? They've just recently gone 425 00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:20,400 through, but there's this stand in the spirit and I felt I felt 426 00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:26,520 an extra weight on his words. The enemy tries to get people 427 00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:31,200 offended in the back off and we get caught up in and and I I say 428 00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,760 that with all compassion. A lot of people have been, you 429 00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:39,760 know, pushed off their post, but there is there is in the pursuit 430 00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:41,520 of God. There are things that happened 431 00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,720 that we don't understand and all of that, but we take that stand 432 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:49,000 and we keep pressing and things begin to move and places are 433 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,440 established as places of His presence. 434 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:55,400 There is such a thing as spiritual geography. 435 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,720 There are. Places that are more significant 436 00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:05,520 in the spiritual realm, hovering over distinct geographic 437 00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:12,520 locations. Not every household. 438 00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:16,280 I'm talking family houses. Not every household carries the 439 00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:20,320 same measure of God's presence. Not every. 440 00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:25,240 Church carries the same measure of God's presence and it's not 441 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,000 it's not a competition. What I'm saying is that we we 442 00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,000 yield and that our hunger and staying the course attracts the 443 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,080 presence of God. And it's so essential because 444 00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:40,880 they are the regions of the earth need places where people 445 00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,320 know if you need deliverance, if you need healing, if you need to 446 00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:47,680 encounter the Lord, there is a place you can go to. 447 00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:51,680 I don't know how. Many of you have been to 448 00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,640 different locations that are in in an hour of tremendous 449 00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:58,040 outpouring, but I'm telling you, there is an open heaven in those 450 00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,080 places. It is you go in there and man, 451 00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,480 that the voice of God is clear. It's just easy. 452 00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:05,440 It's wonderful to be in those atmospheres. 453 00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,560 So what is that? Are you just getting caught up 454 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:12,160 in the emotion? No, there is a spiritual reality 455 00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:16,440 called an open heaven that we need to understand. 456 00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,760 And there's a. Contention at the gates of those 457 00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:28,800 places that when God finds a people who will stand there and 458 00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:31,560 keep pressing in through thick and thin hardship and 459 00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:36,200 heartbreak, they they can have a breakthrough that others like 460 00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:41,720 Jacob can enter into. He didn't even understand that 461 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,640 his grandfather had paid the price for something he entered 462 00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,800 into. I don't know about you, but that 463 00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:49,200 stirs my heart. I want my kids. 464 00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:53,280 I want my grandkids. I want my great, great grandkids 465 00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,120 to be able to enter into something. 466 00:28:56,880 --> 00:28:58,960 I want to pay the price so they don't have to. 467 00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,920 I want them to go farther. I want them to pay the price to 468 00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,760 go deeper. But there's more in God that's 469 00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:09,920 available to us. And let me just kind of push on 470 00:29:09,920 --> 00:29:12,680 this a little bit. OK, We have some other things, 471 00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,320 but I'm telling you there is a, there is this thing called 472 00:29:16,320 --> 00:29:19,880 paying the price. Don't. 473 00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,440 Confuse your Christology and your pneumatology. 474 00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,680 Your what? All that the studies of you know 475 00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:30,120 what Jesus has accomplished and what the Spirit accomplishes. 476 00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:35,200 Jesus accomplishes it for you. The Spirit accomplishes it 477 00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,360 through you. Jesus accomplishes it for you 478 00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,080 and you are you receive it as a gift. 479 00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,360 But when the Spirit accomplishes it through you, you have a role 480 00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:49,440 to play and that's where your reward comes in. 481 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,400 You're not rewarded for what Jesus did. 482 00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:58,120 You are Jesus reward. But there is there are levels of 483 00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:04,720 rewards given to believers in heaven and it's based on how you 484 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,400 respond to the purposes of God for your life. 485 00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:11,320 And there's a very real enemy that will thwart that and stand 486 00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,040 against you and you know, try to fight tooth and nail to get you 487 00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:17,680 off your post. But if you will stay the course, 488 00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:21,080 God will use you to make a different in the realm of the 489 00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:22,840 earth. And one of those is to open up 490 00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,840 open heavens. So we need to understand this. 491 00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,840 This is very, very important because if we don't rightly 492 00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,440 divide the word, then talking about paying a price sounds like 493 00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:34,440 legalism. We just shut that down. 494 00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:39,200 And what happens is we, we're securing our salvation, but 495 00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:44,240 we're ineffective in ministry. It's the, it's that reaching 496 00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,160 element. Now we need to be thoroughly 497 00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:50,600 you, you don't want to you don't want to reach, you don't want to 498 00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,960 get on a ladder that's reaching if it's not resting. 499 00:30:53,760 --> 00:30:58,120 OK, so we need to have rest the finished work of Christ, we 500 00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,080 solely on him. He he paid the price for me to 501 00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,760 be right with God. But now when I'm thoroughly 502 00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:10,240 resting, then I want to I want I want to experience more. 503 00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:12,400 I want to do all that he's called me to do. 504 00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,880 I want to experience all that he's given me to experience. 505 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,360 That makes sense. Thanks for listening to our 506 00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,080 podcast. If you'd like to help more 507 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,680 people hear this message, you can get the word out by 508 00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,000 subscribing and sharing it on social media. 509 00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:26,840 If you'd like to support the ministries of Heartland Church, 510 00:31:27,040 --> 00:31:30,600 you can do so at Heartland Church online.com/give.