From Glory To Glory: Part 3

Good morning, good to see everybody today. All right kids, you'd like to go downstairs. We have a kid's service for you. You're of course welcome to stay up, but I think your parents would prefer that you go down.

At least I might. No, I'm just kidding, I love kids, really. How's everybody doing today? Good.

Wow, that's a resounding, yeah, good. I got one good over here. All right, good. Well, let's do better than good.

There was a book one time I said, good is the enemy a great. It's gonna be a great day. Like every day you get out of bed is a great day. Jesus died, so you could be alive today.

Like it's another day to love people, it's another day to serve God, it's another day to grow deeper in your walk with Him. I mean, what could be a go wrong? Like nothing, it's perspective. It's how you look at things.

So today I wanna finish the series I've been preaching last several of the last several weeks called From Glory to Glory. And today's gonna be part three. I know part two was a part two, part two was part two and part two point one, this is part three. I don't think there'll be a 3.1, I think we'll probably wrap it up today.

But our launching pad, our launching pad verse is second Corinthians chapter 3, 18. It says, for we all with unveiled face. And of course it says earlier, it says, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away and the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. But we all, I'd really say that we all.

We all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image, image, from one level of glory, or from glory to glory, even just as by the spirit of the Lord. Some translations say from one level of glory to another. So that as we continue to behold Jesus who is the glory of the Lord, as we begin to behold Jesus in His Word and His spend time in His presence, the Holy Spirit begins to do a work that we can't do. He begins to change us and transform us into the very same image of Jesus.

And see, it's been God's, you know, it's actually been God's design all along. Do you know any eternity past? This was God's desire that you'd be like Jesus. Maybe you don't know.

How many are familiar with the verse that says, and we know that all things work together for good for those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose? For those whom he foreknow, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the first born among many brethren. And those whom he predestined, he called, and those he called, he justified, and those he justified, he glorified. See, all those are past tense verbs, which means you got for new, he knew ahead of time that you would choose him, so he chose you first.

And in eternity past, he predestined you, he set your destiny on a course, that your destiny would be that you would be conformed to the image of Jesus. That it's not just enough to just to get, I mean, I guess getting saved is enough. Being born again is enough, but it's not. Because God has more for you than just being born again.

He wants you to go on this congenial journey of from glory to glory to glory. And then it's ever increasing, and it's going forward and going up and not going backwards and down. And so God says from eternity past, I want you to be conformed, or made like unto the very image of my son, Jesus. And so as we talked through this last couple of weeks, the, you know, this one we looked at, you know, it says by beholding as an amir, so that some change this transformation takes by beholding, by what we behold, either with our eyes or even our minds' eyes, or the eyes of our heart.

And then we looked at the story from the matter, transfiguration, the word transfigure, where it says that Jesus was transfigured before them in his face, shown like the sun and his clothes became wider than fuller soap, or wider than, than white, that word transfigure is the same word transform. And during that, you remember Peter said, let's make three paparinaquas, one to Moses, one to, Elijah, one to Jesus, and the father spoke from heaven, said, this is my beloved son, here, him. And we talked about that hearing Jesus in the new covenant is another way that God uses the Holy Spirit to transform us. And then today, so we have beholding, we have hearing, and what happens a lot of times, you think, oh, what, what's the point of being transformed?

Like we're all in this journey for transformation, but what's the point? I mean, it's obviously we want to be more like Jesus, but not only did God have a purpose, an eternity past for you to be conformed, but you were to be transformed for a reason. There was a purpose in your transformation. And this what we're gonna look at today, in the passage we're gonna look at today.

So very, very familiar text, Romans chapter 12, verses one and two is where we'll be looking at today. And the title on that's so today, is not so much transforming by the renewing of your mind, but proving the will of God, proving the will of God, because your transformation is unto something. There's a purpose. And let's go to the next slide, because we're gonna look through verses one and two.

And then I wanna look at the story of a couple examples of Levin, Levin is a metaphor that Jesus uses of influences on your mind. So there's certain ways of thinking that actually affect the way that you think and you act. But I want you to see something here before we pull these verses apart and dig a little deeper into them. It says verse one, or yeah, chapter 12 verse one, says present your body as a living sacrifice.

We're gonna talk about that. And then verse two starts out with this word, what is it? And. So a lot of times we start with verse two, it says, and do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So you may prove that which is good, and except one perfect will of God. Well, verse two starts with and, which means it connects to what? Verse one. And so really this connection of the two, it says present your body as a living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

So that. Do you see the so that in there? Here's the purpose of God wanting you to have a life transformed in one that represents Jesus. So that you can do what?

Prove God's will. So what does that mean? That's a good question. Well, let's talk for a minute.

I want you to talk before we go into what the word proved me. And so I want to tell you a little bit, let's talk about God's will. I'm not gonna do a whole message on the will of God, but I just want to give up just a few things just to bring, so we're all kind of starting from the same foundation. So a lot of times we think of the will of God, how many have ever searched for God's will for your life?

How many have had any success finding it? Okay, not as many hands founded as we're looking for it. You know, and there's this thing about God's will that sometimes as Christians, it almost, it's unknowable. Like, how do I know what God's will is?

And I think what happens a lot of times, we make it out to be more difficult to find and understand than what it really is. I'm a simple guy. The will of God is really more simple and more plain than what you might actually imagine. Jesus said this in John chapter six, I think it's verse 38, he said, I didn't come from heaven to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me.

So Jesus said, I didn't come from heaven to do the things I wanted to do, but I came from heaven to earth to do the will of him who sent me. And then in verse 40, it goes on to say, and this is the will of him who sent me that they may see the son and believe in him and have everlasting life. So there's something about Jesus coming from heaven to do the Father's will. And in him doing the Father's will, it would give people something to see and what they would see would create faith in them that they could actually believe in what he did and said that that would then give them eternal life.

Now you gotta remember that eternal life is not necessarily living forever because everyone will live forever somewhere. You're either gonna live in heaven, or you're gonna spend eternity with Jesus, or you won't. So eternal life is not living forever. Eternal life actually starts the day that you make Jesus the Lord of your life.

It's having the life of Jesus and the nature of Jesus on the inside of you. And it starts the day that you say yes. It says, I didn't come from heaven to do my own will, but I came to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me that they may see the son believe in him and have eternal life.

And so if I wanna say something very simple, the will of God was manifested and lived out by Jesus. That's, I mean, that's simple, right? So if I wanna know God's will on a subject, where would be the best place to look at the life of Jesus? Because it's said that he says, I didn't come to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me.

So did Jesus live a perfect life? Yes, which meant that everything he did was a manifestation of the Father's will. Because he said he did everything. He went through everything.

We went through and he did it without sin. And so that Jesus on the earth, it says in Hebrews, it says that he is the exact nature of the Father, the brightness of his glory. He's actually out-shining the very image, the exact nature of the Father. So everything that Jesus perfectly represented the Father.

So if I wanna be real simple about what's the will of God, the will of God is Jesus. The will of God is everything that Jesus did. Jesus said that I only do what I see my Father doing, and I only say what I hear my Father say. So every word that proceeded from his mouth, every action that came from his hands, his feet, his body was a manifestation of the will of God.

And so although the Bible doesn't always tell you exactly what to do, the general will of God is expressed in everything that Jesus said and did. The other place that I go to is the verse, or the couple verses that we commonly call the Lord's Prayer, or maybe some people call them the disciples prayer. And in verse 10, if you take Matthew 6, 10, if you ever prayed this, it says, your kingdom come, your will be done, where on earth as it is in heaven, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus says the will of the Father is that things be done on earth as in heaven.

That not only is the life of Jesus the model for what the will of God is, heaven is also the model. That if it's free to be or exist in heaven, it should be free to exist here. If it's been bound in heaven, then it should be bound here. When Jesus says to Peter in Matthew 16, he says, I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

And whatsoever you bind on earth, now I want to make it clear the new American standards, the only one that gets us right. What's so ever you bind on earth is that which has been already bound in heaven. And that which will you loose on earth, is that which has already been loosed in heaven. See some translations get it the other way, and they say, whatever you bind on earth is that which is bound in heaven, as if heaven responds to what we do.

If you look at the defense of the Greek verbs in there, it's already settled in heaven. And what has been bound in heaven? We have authorized to bind here. What has been loosed in heaven?

We've authorized to lose here. And so think about this. A lot of times I think, well, I don't argue anymore. I refuse to argue.

If you want to have a discussion, I'd be happy to discuss it with you. But some people will think that God's will always comes to pass. Why would Jesus have said, pray, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Why bother praying it if it always happens?

Why would I pray for something that's just going to happen, whether I do anything or not? See, there's certain things about the will of God that are going to happen whether I vote yes or no. Jesus is coming back whether I believe it or not, whether I vote yes or why vote no. It's going to happen apart from me, right?

I got no say in that. Most of the things that pertain to his will will not happen without my participation or yours. See, he actually chooses to co-labor with us. He doesn't have to.

Jesus is a better preacher than I am, parents, I thank for the plug earlier, but Jesus was a much better teacher than me. Jesus is a much better healer than we are. He's a much better deliverer than he doesn't need any of us, but he chooses to co-labor with us. He chooses to actually write us in to his equation called his will.

He can do it by himself, but he chooses not to. 2 Peter 3 9 says that God's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That's his will, but does that happen? No, because we know that not everybody has a relationship with Jesus.

There will be people that spend eternity in hell because they didn't accept him as their Savior. It's God's will, but it takes our cooperation and partnership to preach the gospel for people to respond to. He could do it without us, but he chooses not to. He's like, well, that's the gospel.

I'm like, OK, I'll give you a specific. How about that? 1 Thessalonians 4. This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality.

Now, don't tell me God's will always comes to pass while you're sleeping with somebody last weekend. See, if God's will always came to pass, and if it's God's will that we abstain from sexual immorality, nobody would be sleeping around. Oh. 1 The 1 Thessalonians 5 said, and everything gives thanks, but this is the will of God concerning you.

Do you give thanks about everything? Hell, God's will doesn't always come to pass. See, he has a will, but you've got a free will. And he actually lets you make a decision in life.

And as we make decisions that line up with his will, all of a sudden what he wants to come to pass comes to pass. But he chooses to work with us. Chris always tells me, just preach your opener and then close. So here's what the word prove means.

It says that by the renewing, presenting your body, living sacrifice, and renewing your mind, be transformed by the renewing your mind that you may prove what is that acceptable, good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. This word prove is this. Doki Matsu in the Greek, it means the test examines scrutinized to see whether a thing is genuine or not, to recognize a genuine after examination to approve. So this comes from a word, dakimasu, which is an adjective that came to describe certain people that were money changers at the time.

So back then, if you think back in the first century, the way they made money, they had molds, and they poured metal into molds, and then when they'd come out of the molds, they weren't all perfectly shaped. And so you had to shave off the edges, right? And so there were certain people that would shave more than they should. Imagine that.

Everybody had a side hustle, even back in Jesus' time. So they would shave a little too much of the coin, put that in your pocket, and then they take the remaining coin, what was left of it, to the money changer. And if you were a bogus money changer, you would allow that thing into circulation. But there was a certain group of money changers called dakimasu.

Actually, you can't put it in that. Anyway, I just English, I Americanized the Greek word. But what they would do, they wouldn't accept that coin unless it was genuine, and it was a full measure. And so what he's telling us, he says, I want you to prove, put on display, the genuine will of God.

I want you to approve, meaning I want you to assess the situation and see, is this a partial will of God? Or did somebody shave the edges off of it to fit into their situation? And are you going to allow that into circulation? A lot of times we want the will of God that's convenient or comfortable.

Not the one that's actually full measure, the one that Jesus modeled when he was on earth. And so approving the will of God can be like this. It could be like somebody calls you up and says, maybe you get a bad report from the doctor. Somebody calls you and said, God told me.

You may ever hear that one? If and when I believe in words of knowledge, 100%, however, if you get a word for somebody, don't paint yourself in a corner, say, I feel like the Lord's telling me. And then let them test it. Because that's what we have to do.

That's what proving the will of God is. That's another aspect of it, not just putting God's will on display, but actually discerning what people tell you, that somebody calls you and says, you know what? God sent you this sickness so that he can teach you something and bring out something better in your life. And then somebody else calls you and says, you know this is of the enemy?

God's going to heal you this thing. And so what I have to do, I have to go back and look at the example of Jesus in scripture, and see which one lines up with what God words that. If I'm going to recognize, remember, I had a living up here a couple months ago with a fake $100 bill. The way that you discern, the way that you get good at spotting real $100 bills and fake $100 bills is you have to study the real one.

There's a million fakes. It's not a million, but there's more fakes than real. Don't spend your time studying the fakes. See, if you're so familiar with the genuine, the fake will stand out.

But what happens is so often, I know people are like, hey, I want you to read this book. I know you don't believe this, but read it just to broaden your knowledge. No, I don't need to. I've got one book that explains to me the will of God on Earth.

I've got one life in the books of Matthew Mark, Luke, and John named Jesus that perfectly display God's will. I don't need to read something else to broaden my knowledge because I can spot a fake because I know the original. And the more time you spend with the genuine, the more easily you'll be able to approve, approve, recognize as genuine, or counterfeit, what you see in here. All right.

I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. So Paul is appealing here. He says, I beseech you by the mercies of God. The previous chapter, Romans 1136 ended with this verse.

It says, so when he says, therefore, he's referring back to what he just said. He says, all things are of God. All things are through him and all things are to him. So that God's the source of everything, God's the sustainer of everything, and everything that's offered back to him.

And because of that, he says, I beseech you on that basis because God supplied everything, God sustains everything, and God's do praise for everything. I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God. So what happens a lot of times is we beseech people by the wrath of God. You ever met somebody like that?

Wait, we just need more condemnation? Because if I can shame you enough, I can get you to do what I want. But Paul didn't do that. He said, I beseech you by the mercies of God.

Mercy is not getting something bad that you do deserve. So he says, because God is not giving you what you deserve, I beseech you on that basis. And if you think you messed up today, it says in Lamentations 3 that his mercies are new every morning. He says, I beseech you by the mercies of God.

We know that Paul says in Romans 2, he says, it is the goodness of God that brings man to repentance. So if you want to get somebody to start to change their mind, start telling them how good God is, how much God loves them, how much God did for them, how much God has healed them and paid for their sin. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. That's kind of a quandary, right?

Every sacrifice up until this time in the Bible, what's the one characteristic of every sacrifice that ever went on an altar? It was dead. It didn't matter if it was a lamb or a bull or a goat. They were dead.

Well, guess what a dead sacrifice can do? It didn't get up. Once the dead sacrifice is on the altar, it's there. I never saw a goat get resurrected with its throats lit.

It doesn't happen. But Paul says this. He says, I want you to present your body's a living sacrifice. You might think, well, why would God want my body?

You know what my body's been through? We know God thinks a lot of your body. God actually thinks so much of your body that he decided to shed the blood of his son to actually purchase it. So when you start to devalue something that God's actually paid for, you actually put it out of service.

So what he says, he says, I want you to present your body a living sacrifice. So here's the challenge. If I'm a living sacrifice, guess what I can do? See, the problem is not presenting your body of living sacrifice.

The problem's staying there. Because I know a lot of people that said, oh, yeah, I should have rendered it. I yield it to the Lord. And a few days later, they're down on the street corner, don't whatever.

It's not the submission that's the issue. It's the consistency. Yeah, a lot of people, they submit for two days, and then they think they're a spiritual giant that they've always wanted to be. And they start shooting, running their mouth.

When they, what all they need to do is just lay there like a sacrifice and stay there and remain there. He says, I want you to present your body's a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. It's reasonable. Other translations say it's your reasonable act of worship.

It's reasonable because of what Jesus did for you. Like how big of a deal is it for me to present my body a living sacrifice when Jesus actually gave his up? Like that shouldn't be a big deal. See, presenting your body as a living sacrifice is really a one-time event.

It may have been a one-time event, but what happens is it continues as you choose to do it every day. This is a choice you make every day. It's just not like a one and done. It's not like I've accepted Jesus.

I'm a new creation. I've been born again. Not like that. I feel like I present my body.

I'm here to be used by you. I want to be used by you. And every day I make the choice to be used by you. Jesus said in Luke chapter 9, it says, he that wants to come after me needs to deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me.

A lot of people get that wrong. They think that you need to die to sin daily. You die to sin one time. It says in Romans 6, it says that Jesus died to sin once, and we're to reckon ourselves likewise dead to sin.

So that I die to sin once, sin no longer has dominion over me. It's no longer my master. But I have to deny self. So the cross I'm carrying is not across the died of sin.

It's across the deny what I want to do. And the more I learn to deny my will, guess whose will will manifest. So he's wants to come after me. He needs to deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me.

Don't let anybody tell you your cross to bear is that you're carrying cross of sickness. You're not carrying cross of sin. You're not carrying cross of sickness. You're not carrying cross of shame, because Jesus already carried those on his cross.

See, what makes you think that you're a better cross carrier than he was? Like, that's arrogance. The cross we bear is what we've not been redeemed from, which is persecution, which will happen. The battle between the Spirit, the born again, spirit, and the flesh.

And the biggest cross you've got to bear is to allow the will of God to take precedent in every situation over what you want to do. That's the cross you need to carry. And you've got to do it every day. I've been teaching you brethren by the mercy of God that you present your body's a living sacrifice, holy except the bond of God, which is your reasonable service.

We don't need this. We can skip that. First two. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So this is not three levels of God's will. Some people say there's the good will of God, there's the acceptable will of God, and then if you really get there, you'll hit the perfect will of God. Now, they're just, these are adjectives describing the will of God. The will of God is good.

Do you know that if you follow God's will for your life, it's good. If you follow God's will for your life, it'll be well pleasing. It's acceptable. And if you follow God's will for your life, guess what else it is?

Perfect. Like you can't prove it. It's complete. It's not lacking anything.

It says I want you, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word conformed is very interesting. It comes from the word schema. Anybody want to take a guess what English word we get from schema?

Not skimpy. Somebody say skimpy. Scimatic. Anybody here have schematics?

A schematic. That's where we get the word schematic. It's a blueprint. It's a pattern.

It's a thing on paper that has a diagram that actually represents what something is supposed to look like. Anybody here able to read blueprints? Okay, a few people. How many blueprints and just color in the shapes?

It says don't let your life have the blueprint of the world. If somebody wanted to build a house and they read your blueprint, what kind of house would they build? The people are looking at your blueprints. They're looking at your schematics all the time.

I venture to say there's some in here who's schematics look very similar to the schematics of the world. What he's saying is he says I don't want you to have a blueprint on your life that looks like that of the world. It should be different. I should be able to look at your life and look at the schematic that the world is on everybody's life and the schematic on your life.

They shouldn't be different. There should be a difference. He says I don't want you to be conformed to the image or do not be conformed to this world but be transformed. That's the same word we've been looking at.

Be transformed to be changed to be morphed, if you will, by the renewing of your mind. Here's why it's important to be a living sacrifice. It says present your what? Your body.

Your brain is part of what? Your brain is not your mind. Your brain is an organ in your body. Now within the last 30 to 40 years, psychiatrists, psychologists, whatever they are, they realize you can actually rewire your brain.

Your brain gets rewired by the thoughts that you think. The thoughts that I think actually set up structures and highways and byways in my brain that allowed me to function in life. As I present my body, which includes my brain as a living, breathing, functioning sacrifice, and then as I begin to allow the Holy Spirit to transform the thoughts that I think, the thoughts that I think build new neural pathways in my brain. It says this in 2 Corinthians, I'm sorry 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

This is a bad news verse. Does there be such a bad news verse? Okay. I just walked you right into saying something you shouldn't have said.

This is an old covenant verse. It says, it says, I has not seen nor ear heard nor has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for him. Now that kind of stinks, right? That God has things prepared for me that ear has never heard, I has never seen, and they've never entered the heart of man.

The next verse starts with the word but, but God has revealed them to us by what? By his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things are God. It goes on to say this, I don't have it up there.

It says, who knows the things of a man except the spirit of a man, and who knows the things of God except the spirit of God. To think of it like this, I want you to think of your brain. Everybody take out your cell phone. Go ahead.

Your texting stop. How many remember the first day they got to their phone? Right? Mine's been two and a half years ago.

Would you say my phone has more things on it today than it did two and a half years ago? Yeah, absolutely. It does. See what happens when you get your phone, your phone's like your brain.

There's certain things that are hardwired here. Right? But when I connect to the Wi-Fi, my phone now has access to unlimited amounts of information. Of which I'm then able to grab and download to here.

And what exists in infinite measure here is able to be brought and stored here. I has not seen nor ear heard nor entered in the heart of man the things that God has prepared for him. But the spirit has revealed them to us. The spirit searches.

The greatest search engine in the world. The spirit searches all thing. Yes, the deep things of God. And he downloads it as I begin to verse 16.

It goes on ends this chapter. It says who has known the mind of the Lord that we may instruct him. But we have what? We get the mind of Christ.

So you have the mind of and you're born against spirit, which is perfect, which is complete, which is just like Jesus. You actually have the mind of Christ and you're born against spirit. Paul says a little differently. In Ephesians 4.23 says being renewed in the spirit of your mind.

And so that in your born against spirit, you have the mind of Christ. The mind of Christ knows the answer to every question. It's got every solution. It's got every fix.

It's got infinite amounts of wisdom. And you have access to that through the Holy Spirit. And as I begin to draw on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and begin to renew my mind to what he's teaching me. And then the thing I'm renewing my mind with begins to rewire the brain that exists in my living sacrifice.

All of a sudden it's going to change the way that I go about life. It's going to be a big change. But if I'm not here, see what happens a lot of times people want to present themselves a living sacrifice and I know a lot of living sacrifices that don't renew their mind. See what happens is I'm a living sacrifice that's a spiritual moron.

Right? Do you know one of those? Oh, I was one. Okay, I was one.

I was one too. And sometimes I still am. I'm willing Lord, but I don't want to go to the next step and change the way I think. I'm willing.

Or there's somebody that's just so spiritually intelligent, but they're not a sacrifice. I just want to spend all the time renewing and they can tell you every scripture, every verse, every chapter. But they're not a living sacrifice. They're just a walking theologian.

And I've been there before too. It's it's present your bodies and do not be conformed, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that so that you may prove that good and acceptable and perfect will God. You see the connection between the two? All right.

I want to close the day with this. As Kristin said, I should just preach the opener. That was pretty much the opener. But I do want to always like to maybe not always, but I try to end with a story of Jesus.

I want to talk to you today just about we're going to read quickly through this and I just want to make a few points of 11 as Jesus talks about 11 and three different types of 11 that he talks about. So a lot of times when we think of 11, we think of sin. Right? So in the Old Testament talks about that was the whole purpose of an unleavened bread and that you purge out the old, you know, get rid of sin.

But when Jesus uses in his teaching, when he's talking about 11, he mentions three, he mentions the 11 of the Pharisees, 11 of Sadducees, 11 of Herod, he's talking about influences on the mind. Talking about that 11 and the way you think and if you think from a perspective of those particular individuals, it'll actually affect the way that you think and ultimately the way that you act and react in a situation. And then I want to disclose with Matthew chapter 13 verse 33, which talks about the 11 of the kingdom because that's a little different level. So if you have your Bibles and you'd like to turn to Mark chapter eight, we're going to read verses 13 through 21.

I'll grab a drink for a second. So let me set the stage here. There's two things. So the disciples who had been with Jesus, they had just watched him, you know, a couple chapters prior, they did not watch, they were actually participated in the feeding of the 5,000.

So Jesus was teaching the people were hungry, feeds 5,000 men plus women and children, and then sometime later, I'll say it was a couple chapters later, Jesus feeds the 4,000. And so this takes place right after the feeding of the 4,000. And so what did they see in Jesus do? They've seen Jesus take a little bit of bread, broke it, blessed it, gave it to them, and actually they participated in the miracle.

Like as they're passing it out, it's literally multiplied. And so they actually Jesus used them in a situation to bring breakthrough and provision to thousands of people. They actually, and they should have learned something from it. And so here's what he says in Mark chapter 8 verse 13, it says, and he left them and getting into the boat, again departed to the other side, and the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf, and they did not have more than one loaf.

And he charges them saying, take key, beware of the 11 of the Pharisees and the 11 of Herod, and they reasoned among themselves saying, it's because we have no bread. Now imagine this, they just watched Jesus take 5 loaves and feed 5,000 people. And then not just watched, but participated. And then they did it again.

And he took 7 loaves and he fed 4,000 people. Now, you don't have to be a mathematician to realize that 5 is a very little number compared to 5,000. So it doesn't take much for Jesus to use to do something big with it. It says they reasoned among themselves saying, it's because we have no bread.

And Jesus being aware of it said, why do you reason because you have no bread? There's a side note right here. How many have ever seen a miracle? How many have experienced a miracle?

How many have experienced maybe the Jesus has healed your body, or that maybe Jesus when you had a financial need, Jesus provided the means for that? What he says here, he says, why do you reason because you have no bread? Why does your reasoning start from that which you don't have? See what happens a lot of times we participate in miracles, we experience miracles, we watch miracles, sometimes he uses us to perform the miracle.

And then when the next crisis hits, we go back to reasoning from what we don't have instead of what he has. And he says once that you've participated in a miracle, you actually give up the right to reason from what you don't have. Your reasoning has to take place and has to start from the resources of heaven and not from the resources of earth. Because frankly, if Jesus could feed 5,000 people with 5 loaves, he could actually probably feed 12 disciples with nothing.

I mean, if they found a piece of lint in their pocket, he probably could have turned it into a loaf of bread. Like he's that kind of Jesus. So he said once it's here, I wrote this down yesterday, I said I probably wasn't going to use it, but I went for a walk with the dogs yesterday, this is what God spoke to me. I'm going to say I feel like this is what God wants to say today.

God has said. So in those miracles were the disciples obedient. He said, hey, I'm giving the bread. I brought in the bread.

You broke it. You gave it to him. He said, I make people sit down in groups, pass it out, right? They obeyed everything.

And did the miracle come? Yes. Obedience is not a guarantee of a renewed mind. Obedience that results in a miracle in someone else's life without resulting in a change in yours produces a religious mind instead of a renewed mind.

Obedience that results in a miracle so that God uses you to bring breakthrough into the life of somebody else. You obeyed. He told you to go witness to that person. He said, go pray for that sick person.

You obeyed. You did it. He used you. He did the miraculous through you.

You obeyed. They got the breakthrough. But if that breakthrough doesn't actually have an effect on your life to where it changes the way that you perceive things from now on, you actually are falling to a religious mind set and not a renewed mind set. Because the religious mind set looks back to see, okay, what do I got to do to get that to happen again?

Since verse 17, Jesus being aware said to them, why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand that your heart is still hard and having ears? Do you not see and ears? Do you not hear and do you not remember when I broke the five blows?

Here's the thing. They had perfect recollection of this. When I broke the five blows for the 5,000, how many baskets of fragments did you take up? And they said 12.

And also when I broke the seven for the 4,000, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up? And they said seven. He said, how is it that you don't understand? Here's another thing about Kingdom math.

Okay, get this. They started, they had five loaves and fed, how many? 5,000. And then they had seven loaves that had more loaves but fed less.

But when they started with less, they fed more and had more leftovers. A lot of times we think that the more people we feed, the less will be left over. But like in the Kingdom, you can actually start with less, feed more people, and I'm more left over at the end. That'll mess your thinking up for a while.

I want to just touch quickly on these three. So if you have, go to the next slide because I want you to see this real quick. So in that passage, he said, beware of the 11 of the Pharisees and of Herod. I just want to tell you what that means real quick.

And then in Matthew's version, it says this, and Jesus said to them, take heed of the 11 of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. So same story, he adds another one in there. And then at the end of that verse 12 says they understood he was not talking about 11 of bread, but of what? So, he said, I want you to be aware of different teachings.

Where does teaching go? Yeah, it goes in your mind. It actually shapes the way that you think and you see things. And it said that they eventually understood he wasn't talking about bread because he could multiply bread.

Like bread was not an issue. But what he was talking about, he said, I want you to be aware of what you hear and what you feed on and what you're renewing your mind to. Because the 11 of the Pharisees of Herod and Sadducees will actually change the way you think. All right, the 11 of the Pharisees, pretty simple.

What were the Pharisees? Legalism. One of my most hated words, legalism. I feel like, you guys remember what Steinfeld said, you never had Jerry used to go, mwah!

I feel like that about Pharisees. It just kind of like made me feel that way. But Pharisees were this. They lived by the law.

And the way the law operated, you know this, is that when you did good, you got good. And when you did bad, you got bad. Under the law, you got exactly what you deserved. Under grace, we get what we don't deserve.

And so here's what happens. When you get into the boat with no bread with a Pharisee, what's he say? The reason you have no bread is because you don't deserve it. You know how you get more bread?

If you're a Pharisee? What did you say happened to you last week? You fell back into works. Oh my gosh, I don't have any bread.

I forgot to bring bread. What do I do? Oh, I got to work harder. Because the harder I work, the more God will bless me.

Bless be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed you with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that everything you ever need in this life is already seated in the heavenly place. We don't start from the position of what we don't have. We start from the position of what we've already been given. And we reason from heaven's resources and not around.

See the legalists will tell you this, that you got to earn it, you got to work for it, that if you don't have bread, it's your own fault and you better do more, you got to give more, you got to teach more, you got to preach more, you got to witness more people and all of the above. The only one that's true is you got to come to church every now and then. But he said, I don't want that mindset to get in your mind because what will happen? He works in effort, actually frustrates grace.

Paul said, the life that I live, I live by faith in the Son of God. He loved me and gave himself for me and I do not frustrate the grace of God for Christ, Christ be not risen. God says, anyway, Galatians 2, 2021, you guys can look it up later. I just had a senior moment.

Romans 11 says this, God says, if by grace it's no longer by works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. Grace and work doesn't mix. Like if you're receiving it by grace, you can't work for it. If you're trying to receive it by work, you can't receive it by grace.

And so that if you have a need in your life, remember I was saying earlier after we sang that song, you just got to position yourself to receive. He said, if they wouldn't have been a bunch of pretenders to submit to me, I would have fed them with the finest wheat and I would have satisfied their mouth with honey from the rock. That he wants to do it. That's the difference is you're not trying to get God to do something.

He's already done it. You just have to receive it by grace through faith. The next one is this, 11 of the sad you seize. I got to know that my dad's here and when I was a little kid, my dad always loved telling me this joke.

He said, you know what they were called the Sadducees? Because they didn't believe in the resurrection and they were sad, you see. You always remember that. The Sadducees, a couple things.

They were also legalists, but here's the thing about Sadducees. They did not believe in the resurrection. They did not believe in angels or the spirit realm. And so when Jesus says this, he says, beware the level of the Sadducees.

He's not talking about legalism as much as I believe he's talking about cessationism. Because here's the thing, there is a lot of thinking in the church today that while people believe in the resurrection of Jesus as a historical fact, they believe in the resurrection of Jesus to put their faith in to be born again, but they don't believe in the resurrection as it will live in them and through them and actually change the situations around them. See, here's the thing. If you have Jesus, if you accept Jesus, his Holy Spirit lives in you.

And it's not just the Spirit of God, it's the same Spirit that brought Jesus back from the dead. Paul says this in Romans chapter 8 verse 11. He says, it's the Spirit who raised him from the dead dwells in you. Do I have anybody here who has the Spirit of God dwelling in them?

If you have accepted Jesus, you know, it's just not the Holy Spirit. It's the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. He says, if the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies by his Spirit who dwells in you. So think about this.

Some people say, well, that's talking about the resurrection when Jesus comes back. No, it's not. Because when Jesus comes back, when Jesus comes back, his Spirit's not dwelling in me. Right?

Because it says that the death is when the separation of Spirit and body. And when you die, your Spirit leaves. And so when you're in the grave, the Spirit's no longer in you. So what he's saying, he says, if the Spirit that brought Jesus back from the dead lives in you, that same Spirit of the resurrected Christ will bring the life of God to your mortal bodies by his very Spirit.

The resurrected power of God is actually in us. That should change the way we think. It should change the way that I go into a situation. Paul says this.

He says, every time he says, I hear, he says this to the Ephesians, he says, I've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints. He says, I make mention of you. I give thanks for you all, then I make mention of you in prayers. And I ask that the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of the Lord, will give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation and knowledge of him.

That your eyes being enlightened, you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. He's in you. And what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him in his right hand, far above every principality, power, mighten dominion in this age and in the age to come. The same power is toward us that God used to bring Jesus from the dead.

That should change the way that you go about looking at no bread. Like, I don't care if I've got no bread or not, because I've got the resurrected Jesus in me. And he says if he is in me, he'll bring life through me. Or I can just walk around like a philosophical, well I believe in the resurrection, I'm going to have it.

Okay, great. But what's that doing to prove the will of God? See, there should be a blueprint on your life that proves that you actually believe that Jesus is alive today. Now unto him, who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that is in us.

It's in you. So I don't want to get phariseical thinking that I've got to work for more bread. See, here's what the pharise says this, the reason you don't have bread because you don't deserve any. Here's what the sages you'll say.

The reason you don't have any bread is because the bakery clothes when all the apostles died. They quit making bread 2000 years ago after the last apostle died. No more bread to bread factory. So whatever you've got is what you've got.

If you've got one loaf of bread, that's all you're going to get because there's no chance of a miracle happening because they don't believe in the miraculous. But we do. We serve a living God. We serve a God that's the same yesterday, today and forever.

That if he did it yesterday, he'll do it today. All right, 11 of Herod's this. Some people when they talk about the 11 of Herod will say that it's political in nature. Well, I don't disagree with that.

I think it's missing the point. Here's what? Jesus didn't say beware of the 11 of the Herodians, which were the political party of Herod. He said beware of the 11 of Herod.

So I got to look at what did Herod do in his life or what was he known for that could could infect the way that I think? Well, the one thing we know about Herod was that he took his brother, Philip's wife, as his own, and we know that John the Baptist confronted him for that because of the three John the Baptist in prison. And so here's what I think. Here's what I think the 11 of Herod is.

I think it's relativism. You have legalism. You've got cessationism. And I think this is relative.

What's that? Relativism. It's that what is morally right is what's morally right to me. Like there's no absolutes.

There's no certainties. What I think and what I feel is what becomes right. So here's Herod. So John the Baptist goes to him and said, it's not lawful for you to do this.

I don't care. I don't care. I want his wife. I don't care that it's my brother's wife.

I'm taking her for my own. I don't have any bread or I don't have enough bread. I'm going to go get your bread. And I don't care who I destroy in the process.

I don't care who's heart that I trample on. I don't care how much chaos or how much of a tornado I start in somebody's life. I'm going to do what satisfies me and me only because what I think is right is right. And if you think that won't change the way that you view a situation it will.

To the fair, so you'll tell you need to work harder for more bread. That's the you'll say that the bread factory closed 2000 years ago. 1900 years ago. And 11 Herod say you don't have any bread.

No problem. I'll just take yours. I don't care who I step on in the process. So you don't have to do any of that.

You don't have to do any of that because once you expose yourself to the miraculous nature of God, to the giving nature of God, to the gracious nature of God, to the loving nature of God, to the providing nature of God, to Jehovah Jairaz who sang about this morning, you don't have to work for it. You just have to receive it. You can believe that it seems impossible in the natural. It's possible with God that we serve the God of the God of the impossible.

And that just because somebody else has something God will provide you your own in your own time. You don't have to take what they have. What's Paul saying first Corinthians chapter 13, he says, love is patient, love is kind, does not envy, does not boast, not proud. It does not dishonor others.

It is not. Self. Seeking. He says in Hebrews, it says, let your conduct be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have.

I will not leave you nor forsake you. We quote the last part of the verse a lot. I will never leave you nor forsake you. See because you have Jesus in the boat with you.

You can literally be content with what you have until the time that he actually provides the thing that you need. And you can live from that place. Alright final verses this. Another parable we spoke to them.

The kingdom of heaven is like 11, which a woman took and hid in how many? How many types of 11 did Jesus just talk to us about? Talked about the 11 of the Pharisees, 11 of the Sadducees, 11 of Herod. The kingdom of God is like what?

11. The kingdom of God is like 11. Some people will say this is talking about sin in the kingdom of God. It's not saying the kingdom of God is like 11.

Not talking about people hiding sin in the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is like 11 that a woman took and hid three measures of meal until it was partially 11th. All 11th. So here's where the natural and the spiritual don't compare.

In the natural realm, once I put 11 in something, guess what? I can't get out. I can't pull it out once it's in. Paul says in Galatians, he says, a little 11th, 11th, the whole love.

But on the spiritual side with the work of the Holy Spirit, as I begin to draw from him who searches the deep things of God, he can take any one of those three areas and begin to deposit kingdom 11 in there. So that becomes the only way that I think. What's the one required thing that needs to happen for 11 to work for those of you that bake? There needs to be heat.

If it's too cold, 11 won't activate. And so heat is required to activate 11. If you're in the fire of a circumstance, hit your life, it will reveal the 11 that's planted in your mind. So when the instance comes of the no bread, that's heat.

That's a situation. It's a circumstance that looks bad, but how are you looking at it? So the heat of the situation, the fire of the situation will reveal the yeast that you've allowed to grow in your mind. Is it the yeast of, I've got to do more?

Is it the yeast that it's an impossible situation? God doesn't do miracles anymore? Or is it the yeast that, well, I'll just take errors. I'm not going to wait for God to supply money.

Or is it Kingdom 11 that looks to the resources of heaven and sees what's been provided in the body and blood of Jesus? The all-sufficient, all-encompassing sacrifice of Jesus. And do you reason from that? Or do you reason from what you don't have on earth?

And the fire will reveal it.