The Reign of God has begun
Thank you for joining us today. This is Clint Byars, lead pastor of Forward Church. I pray this message blesses and encourages you. I hope it inspires transformative grace in your heart and establishes you even deeper in your new covenant identity in Christ. Now, take a deep breath. Become aware of God's spirit within you and enjoy the message
We're in our series about heaven. Say, heaven is my home, heaven is my home. I'm just passing through. I'm just passing through. I'm an image bearer of God. I'm an image bearer of God in this earth, on this earth. Amen. You know, and that, that's a beautiful thing. And so this heaven dimension, are you good? I'm good. This heaven dimension that we, that we live in the middle of, and, and I'm talking about this series and I'm, this testimony is kind of related to that. Don and Chris showed up. I think Don got healed the first time and y'all didn't even believe in healing, did you? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But let's just say we didn't come from a background for that was talked about a lot. Yeah. Slide on over here in the middle if you would, but you know, we, we have it.
I don't even know where we have a sign somewhere around here. That's the Colossians passage about set your mind on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. Amen. That spiritual eternal dimension is real. It's in us. God has placed eternity in our hearts. He's placed his spirit on the inside of us. We are one with him. That dimension is more real than this. This is temporary. It's, it's, but a mere reflection of our true home. And that doesn't mean we should seek and desire to abandon this home. It means that we should seek and desire to reflect our true home into this place. Amen. Amen. And then we get glimpses of our reality of where we are really from and, and and what our home is. And we are a Bible believing, miracle expecting church. Amen. Amen. I wanna see all the gifts in action in, in a real way.
That's, that's helpful based on the finished work of Christ. Not sending us on rabbit trails, not mixture. One foot in the old, one foot in the new, recognizing that if you have said yes to Jesus, if you're born again, you have the spirit of the living God on the inside of you. And then all of those gifts are expressions of that one spirit. Amen. So, in other words, you don't have a part of the spirit that I don't have. Vice versa, you don't need to go to anybody to get more of God. 'cause you are full of God in full, in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and Christ dwells in you and you are complete in him. Amen. Say I'm complete in him. I'm complete in him. And I'm just, I will just always reaffirm that because a lot of times in the gifts charismatic world, there's different teachings.
And I'm not saying that we're the right teaching, we're just framing it in the finished work of Christ, which is what all of our beliefs should be through. But it is interesting and fun to interact with these and, and the revelatory gifts, the, the more kind of visionary type gifts where you're seeing, I get a lot of pictures, you know, Charlie did a great job at the prophecy night on Wednesday night. Yeah. It was really good. Show him some love for stepping up and good that that's in our Facebook group as a private Facebook group. You can jump in there and, and that video is still up. And we have equipped the first Wednesday monthly at six 30 we have worship. It's really great. And we practice the gifts so that you're equipped to be out there. Because when you're out there, you might run across your child's soccer coach or teacher or maybe your elderly parents' nurse or oncologist or wherever you find yourself in the world.
And the spirit provokes you to say something to this person. Are you ready? You have the spirit. So you can, but will you? And and that's what we try to do and equip is just develop that confidence, get you some experience so that in those moments you're like, okay, we did this last Wednesday and I had a scripture come up for that person and that person said it was really right where they are. So I'm just gonna have to trust this in this moment that I can move in this way. Right. And, and then I, and, and I'm, this is a long setup. I hadn't forgot about, I hadn't forgot you're standing here because how many of you dreaming is part of your relationship in your language? We've got, yeah, some people, not so much with me. If I have a dream that's from God, it's like, okay, this is a dream from God.
You know, I don't really remember a whole lot of, of my dreams. So it's not much of my relationship with him is really in the dream world. But, you know, but thinking about that heaven dimension that we're connected with, that is at hand, that is right here all around us that's moving through this place. Just like there. And we talked at this last week, I'm gonna talk about it a little bit more just like there's radio waves moving through this room. Just like there's, you know, all different types of frequencies. There's ultraviolet moving through this room, there's infrared waves moving through this room. So is the spirit of God in this room, the god is the energy, he is the substance that withhold, that upholds everything. Everything is upheld by the word of his power. And our heart is what's connected to that spiritual dimension to receive and transduce it into this dimension.
So I, I love all that stuff. But you had an experience, which is a little bit foreign to you because these things are kind of new to you. You started praying in the spirit, praying in tongues, just randomly in a service here. We don't make a big to-do about that. We probably approach it a little bit differently than maybe you're used to, but I but absolutely believe it's a gift for today to build you up and strengthen you and, and you can get revelation for yourself even using that gift. Right? But sometimes when we look into that unseen dimension and see that unseen dimension, it's almost like it's dreamlike, right? Like you look over, like, like you look into that space, it's a real space. And, and you know, you can't see infrared or uv, but you can feel the effects of it. And if you have the right type of glasses or goggles, you can see it, but it's a little bit not how you normally would see, right?
Well, so it is with our spiritual eyes, you, you can see in that space, you can see and perceive in that dimension because we are spirit. Yeah. And we are connected to it and we can perceive and interact and not to try to quantify it and you know, put it in a box where we can understand and categorize all of it. But, but I think sometimes we get too far out with it and then sometimes we don't let it be enough of our relationship. Are you with me? So you had an experience that was really cool and yeah, just share what happened. Hold that good and close to you. And well,
If y'all were here a few months ago, when Clint asked for the person that started praying in tongues during the service to come up and she didn't, That was me.
I was still second guessing myself. Was that me or was that him? It was him and I do it regularly now. Him. Yeah. It wasn't me, it wasn't from me. So, but a few weeks ago, Clint was asking us to envision Throne room and being there and seeing what was going on. And with my background, my image has always been a very churchy, solemn event. That is not what he showed me. He showed me an environment that was multicultural, people bringing experiences from their backgrounds in, in order to praise God. Yeah. There were whirling dervishes, there were ladies in burkas, which you say, well, they're not Christian. Well, how do you know they're covered up? There was hymns, there was rock music. Adam was floating.
He do not, so
If you say Adam is stuck up, he really was stuck up. But this image, it was just so broad and it looked from my human perspective, discordant, but it wasn't, you've heard of mashups and songs where they intermix all kind of different styles of things going on, and it was just all working together to his glory. And it was just beautiful. So I was a little bit overwhelmed with that, and I had to come up and tell Clint about it. Mm.
And and what did that mean for you personally?
It just broadened my perspective on what the kingdom is going to look like. You know, it's not gonna be all of us standing in lines or groups and our hands are raised and worshiping solemnly. It's going to be crazy and chaotic and fun. It's gonna be a party. It's
Gonna be a party. It's gonna be a party. Yeah. Amen. Thank you. Appreciate that. It's so good.
And so then here's the reality. We're in the middle of it now. Amen. And this earth reflects it. This earth reflects that party, right? I mean, there's gonna come a point in time when he wraps it all up in the resurrection and final judgment. I understand all that. I'm not taking any of that kind of stuff away. I'm not trying to say we're just gonna all of a sudden get powerful enough and you look around as like, oh, the king, it's, you know what I'm, there's weird theologies about that. There's an end and then it shifts and a renewal and all of that stuff. However, all that works out. I don't claim to know the order of how that's gonna work. But what I do know is that right now we are connected to that kingdom. And Jesus prayed, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Amen. We are image bearers of God. We are created in the likeness and the image of God. And we are not abandoned sinners. Once you're born again, you're not an abandoned sinner, stuck in the miy clay. You're a citizen of heaven. You're a representative of the kingdom of God, filled with his spirit, sharing his authority to go into this earth and declare the will of God. And, and with the responsibility to yield to his spirit, to let his grace transform you as you renew your mind. Amen. So that your life displays and reflects his light. You're a changed person. People can look at the fruit in your life and say, oh, that's what, that's what God does in someone's life. It, he helps them break free from fear. He helps them get out of addiction. He helps them look at the world and see this oppression and not be worried about it.
What's wrong with you? You ever had anybody ask you, why aren't you? What's, why you just don't care? Do you not care? You don't care about anything? You know, I've had people in my life that knew me. And, and, and it's like when you have this peace to some people it looks like that you don't care like you're distant. Like you're, you're detached from what's going on in the world or something like that. It's like, no, it's, it's not that. It's just, it's, it's, I'm just seeing it from this eternal perspective. And I'm not saying all the time, and I'm not the perfect model, but, but we can see that heavenly dimension and recognize this is the will of God. This is what God wants. This is what the earth looks like. My role is to speak what the will of heaven is in this earth.
Even in my own life, if I'm trapped in sin and I'm making bad decision, I am to speak to myself. And that's what confession is. Confession means to say the same thing. Confession is not when you grovel to God and then he decides to forgive you. Confessing of your sin means, I'm gonna say the same thing, what God says about this and it, and it's killing me and it's destroying me and it's harming my witness and it's hardening my heart and it's causing me to distance from God even though he's not not distancing from me. And so then you have like the stories, like the prodigal and the Father who sees the son coming and the, the father, before he ever even heard the prodigal mention a word, had already decided, my son, I love him. I'm gonna give him everything that I have. In fact, everything that I have is, is already his. Even while the son is thinking, well I've gotta convince him that I'm sorry, I'm gonna give him my spiel. I've rehearsed this thing, I gotta tell him I'm lowly and I'm not worthy. The father is like, didn't even hear all that.
So this hope of heaven that we have is incredibly powerful and it's not just, it's gonna be really good out there one day when I get out of this place. And that's kind of crept into, that's kind of ag gnostic or a manichean type of mindset where it's like, everything here is dark and evil and let's separate from that and let's just look forward to the hope of heaven. It's almost like we give up on our responsibilities in the earth to speak life and not just some kind of mystical speaking of words, but to interact with the real dimension of heaven in this earth. And so what this whole series is, is really just an encouragement to lift up your thoughts, lift up your mind, lift up your eyes, you know, change the way you repent about how we're looking at the world around us. Have, have some hope, have some expectation that the devil doesn't win. Amen. That's right.
Amen. We're in the middle of the parable of the wheat and the TAs. Matthew 13, when Jesus talks about the end and the wheat is there we are to nurture the wheat, expect the wheat continue to plant the wheat. The weeds are there, but God's gonna take care of the weeds.
That's Right. Amen. Let's focus on the wheat because his kingdom is increasing. Amen. And this is a big idea that I wanna leave you with today. I'm not done. Why is that so funny? What's wrong? You got a lot of scripture. But, but I'll tell you the end from the beginning, his kingdom is increasing. Amen. And we are to participate in the increase of that kingdom until the end, until the resurrection and until however he chooses to wrap this up. And we get glimpses and insights of what that looks like. So, you know, I, I don't know. I'm just thinking about when you think about heaven, what, what do you think about, lemme ask you this. What are you most looking forward to about heaven? About not working. Yeah. How many of you're looking forward to not working? And I might say trading your blood, sweat and tears for dollars. There may be work to do there. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to correct you, I'm just saying. No. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I don't know that we're just gonna sit around and float and play harps all the time. You know what I mean?
Oh man. Charlie's mom's a harpist by the way. She's here. Hello? What, what else? What are you looking forward to? Lost loved ones Who you, who are, who do you want to see? Jesus. All right. One, one at a time. Lost loved ones. Think about that. Who are you looking forward to seeing? My mom. Your mom. How many are you looking forward to seeing? Your grandfather? Yeah. Any patriarchs, any historical figures, you know, we're gonna get to see and meet those people. That's a real place. No pets. What did you say back there? No cooking. That's hilarious. Somebody else said something. No, Inhibited worship. The end of Suffering. The end of suffering. Praise God for that. All tears wiped away. Amen.
Worship. Uninhibited worship.
All the unborn babies.
No sadness. No sadness. Constant joy.
Constant joy. What else? No Fear.
No fear. Exploration. Exploration.
Endless Singing. Endless singing. I mean, you have that now. So, and you know, here's the thing. We think about those things and we just know that's the way things should be.
You know, God didn't make this place to look like it does now. It was perfect. Yeah. That's his will. But to have that free will relationship, he gave us dominion. And it looks like, it looks 'cause what we've done to it, right? And then, and then in the end, what's it gonna look like? It's like that eternal, perfect garden when Eden is restored, right? And then in the middle he sends Jesus and shows us what his will to be human looks like. Going about doing good healing. All feeding people, taking care of people, setting people free from condemnation, guilt, laying your life down, setting us free from darkness and sin. You know, that's God's will of what humanity is or his version of it. What he, how he sees it. But you just can, you just feel it. You just, you're just lifting up your thoughts, right? And, and so the expectation and the hope is not just, you know, it's not like God's waiting for you to die, to be really nice to you, got a house for you. You don't have to worry about cooking, you never gonna be sick again. You know, I mean, if we're willing, how much of that kind of stuff can we experience in this realm?
And that's, that's, that's where you get in trouble with the Pharisees. 'cause then they say, well it's all about you. Well, it's not really, it's not, you know, to experience health is a godly trait. Amen. God gave us an immune system right now. There are trillions of processes happening in your body to eradicate free radicals from your body, your breathing and oxygen. You're designed to take that oxygen in. It goes into your bloodstream, it nourishes your organs so that your organs can move you toward health and life. That's what God wants for you. Are you kidding me? Well, I just don't know why God allowed me to have this cancer. Well he didn't. We broke the world. That's why there's cancer, right? That's right. Remember, Jesus is the perfect expression of who God is. He's the exact image and representation of the invisible God. And what did he do when he came against disease? It it rearranged itself into health. It disease left. And not only could he heal because he created, but he paid for the death of death on that cross, which is the effects of sin in our lives and in our bodies and in our minds and in our souls and in the world around us.
So it's, it's difficult 'cause we have these theologies, we have these life experiences and we base our beliefs on our experiences. And we know people that were so sincere and godly people and they suffered so much. And we, and it's like we try to resolve all of that stuff, but we're, we're trying to resolve it through a broken mindset. We're trying to resolve it in light of carnal logic and understanding when really it should be resolved in light of what's God's original intent. And his original intent is perfection. So that, so that's the tug. How can I frame, how can I get my mind and my heart in a position where I'm experiencing the power of his spirit in this world? Yeah. And not just to do miracles, but when your marriage is struggling, when your children are having a hard time, how do you, how do you apply heaven and the healing ointment of his spirit in a situation like that?
And his word will tell us, his word will teach us as way more practical than we realize. But there's a, there's a life to it. There's a spiritual life element inside of us that we can apply to this world around us. So a few passages here, you know, last week we just kind of started out with this idea of Jesus speaking, talking about the nature of the kingdom. Matthew 1333, another parable, he spoke to them, the kingdom of heaven is like 11. Say heaven is 11, heaven is, and really Jesus is the leaven of heaven planted on the inside of us. And so what does leaven do? Leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of mill until it was all leaven. So he's telling you the nature of the kingdom. And the kingdom is like this. It's something that you put in something and then it works its way through the whole thing. And that's where we are. Eternity is in our hearts. This we are the temple of the living God. That tabernacle and that temple all around the, the, the what's the family that were the priests, Levi, Levi, the Levi priesthood, the and the spirit of God would come and dwell inside that and receive the offering and the sacrifice that spirit lives on the inside of you.
I mean, do we even really know what we are, the creative force of the universe living in you?
Amen. And say again, I want us to just lift up our minds, lift up our thinking, lift up our expectations. What is it that we, what can life be like if we really get in sync with who God is on the inside of us? And what's it, what's it even really all about? And what are my expectations? And how do you get the kingdom working its way through you? And of course we know that the, the word of God is alive and active and sharper than any twoedged sword piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit, bone and marrow. So the way that this leaven of heaven works its way through us is the word of God in our hearts the written word. So that it becomes the living word and the logic of God and the way that he thinks about certain situations. We wrestle with it and we look at it and we think, well I don't believe that.
I don't believe that about life and it, but it's in there. It's the way he thinks you got, that's the wrestling. Lemme get my mind and my heart and alignment. And then as your heart becomes settled and rooted and actually believes the word of God, you make space for the kingdom to affect the rest of the world around you. That's mark. That's the Mark four principle. That's the mystery. That's what Jesus said. If you don't understand this principle, you're not gonna understand any principle that he teaches. And the principle is this heaven is in you trying to work its way through every aspect of you so that you bear fruit and reflect his glory in your life. And then you affect the world around you with his will. And there is a tangible element to that. Jesus spoke the word and it went and it did something and it healed. Paul prayed over a handkerchief and then it went out and did things. There's a physical aspect to this heaven dimension around us. So it's working its way through us. Will you let it work its way into your heart, into your mind, and into your life? And so that brings us today to this passage. I love this. It's so fascinating. Mark one 15 and this is Jesus. The time is fulfilled. Say the time is fulfilled, the time Is fulfilled.
And then the logical question is, well what time? So, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the gospel. You know, this is like Jesus saying, y'all are gonna have to change the way you think because now heaven's here, and I love this translation. This is the Young's literal translation. The Young's literal translation is like the interlinear, if you've ever studied the interlinear version of the Bible, you know, so when you translate from one language to another, you gotta rearrange the, the adjectives and what modifies what, maybe add a two or it or whatever so that it makes sense in the new language, right? And those that try to discredit the Bible use those po interpretive points as their discredit because they're like, well that two is here and in this version it was the two and this version was the it. And there's 2,500 of those. See there you can't trust. It's like that's not really a very good, anyway,
Little Bible lesson for you. But so the Young's literal translation is just the original rolled over into the English without reorganizing everything to make it make sense. And I love this version here. This is Mark one 15. And the Young's literal fulfilled, hath been the time and the reign of God has come nye reform ye and believe in the good news. But this idea, the reign of God has come to, and we have this version or this, this mindset that the reign of God is not here. It can affect this place because this place is owned by the devil and it's all going to hell in the hand basket. And we should just stock up rice and beans and cans and Iraqi dinar. And then I'm glad you got that. That was a little obscure. But
It's course
And give up. I mean, isn't that kind, you know, the rapture mindset is like, it's going, it's dark. And come Lord Jesus and rescue a broken, you know, powerless church, blessed it be the name of the Lord. Ah, I just, I don't, I just don't, I'm not taking away the rapture. I don't know. You wanna know what I think? I don't know. You's coming. I'm going.
But this idea, the reign of God has come nye. And so this idea of at hand, and so, but he frames it in the time is fulfilled. And that's what the phrase at hand means. Like when it's, when it's time to go to lunch, the time to go to lunch is at hand. In other words, it's now, now. And and, and people use that as a spatial thing. And it's like, well it's at hand, it's here. And it's not really that you can take it as that. But what he's saying is it's now, it's fulfilled. The time is at hand. The time is at hand for the chiefs to probably win their third Super Bowl. 'cause it's all rigged. Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, we got some Kansas City folks over here.
You know, it's like now it's, it's now. So what's now the reign of God? Half come nine. And I love this. Lemme just read you a couple of passages pointing to why the time is now. And this is Isaiah nine one. This is a beautiful prophecy. The the second section we're gonna read is gonna be very familiar to you, Isaiah nine one. And man, there's just so you could take, I'll give you some homework. Read, right? Go. Go read the first part of at least Roman, or did I say Romans? Yeah. Isaiah. Isaiah nine. And just meditate on what it's saying here. This beautiful promise. So Isaiah nine, and this is, I'm not gonna get too much said of it. So nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed. And this is poetic language for what God will do for Israel. And then we learn that Israel, the true Israel, the true children of Abraham are those who place their faith in Christ.
That that's who he's talking about. He's talking about the spirit, the spiritual family. And I'm not taking away ethnic Israel. You know, I feel like I always have to qualify that 'cause people accuse you of preaching replacement theology. I'm not really doing that. I'm just talking about there's a place for whatever God is doing with ethnic Israel in this earth. But we're talking about the spiritual family of God. This is what this promise is for the gloom, say gloom, gloom, the gloom. So, so when this happens, what he's talking about, the gloom will not be upon us. Praise God. And it's so fitting. I mean, Karen, where are you in the room? Prayer. Yeah, the sound mind. You know, this is what I see that we have a promise from God that when whatever this prophecy is pointing to comes about, the gloom will not rest upon you.
Praise God. So, and that's your choice. The gloom of life. Are you letting it eat your lunch or can you shift your mindset into this is where we are now. Okay, so here we go. Nevertheless, the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed as when at first he lightly esteemed the land of zein and the land of Naftali. And afterwards more heavily oppressed her, by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan in Galilee of the Gentiles. And it's talking about the journey of Israel, the plight of Israel, the, the nation, the people. And he says, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. What's that? This is Jesus. He says, I have come as a light in this world to set the captives free. So the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death upon them, a light has shined.
And you skip a few verses. Same chapter Isaiah nine, six, for unto us, a child is born unto us, a son is given, and the government say government, government will be upon his shoulder. Now that's not talking about worldly governments, that's talking about the government of the kingdom of God. Does that make sense? The government shall be upon his shoulders and his name. Look at this. This is talking about Jesus. This is pretty amazing here. And and his name will be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father. Wow. You talk about a mind warp to understand the trinity, they're calling Jesus the everlasting Father. You explain that to me when you figure that out. But I am happy to let that be a spiritual beautiful truth. Amen. Amen. So everlasting, father, prince of peace of the increase, say, increase, increase. This is, this is just the, this is what I want you to walk out of here expecting to experience in your life, to lift your mind up.
And when you look at the world around you and the prophets of doom begin to speak, remember the prophecy, the increase one more time. Increase, increase, increase of his government. You may as well say kingdom and peace. There will be no end upon the throne of David and over his kingdom. There's a distinction here. The throne of David is in the earth with people because the promise would be through your lineage would come a nation of kings and priests that would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. That's a reference to the throne of David, ultimately is the pinnacle king to, for that to be manifested through, through Abraham. So it's talking about a earthly kingdom and then over his kingdom, the spiritual kingdom. And, and, and in Ephesians one, we see that this is a great mystery, that God is bringing everything in heaven and in earth together in Christ beautiful restoration. Amen. Now, in the midst of it, there's a re, there's a renewal. There's a resurrection. There's all the end things that that need to happen. But until we get to that point, the kingdom is increasing. Are you with me? Yes. Okay. And we should expect that. We should expect that when you pray and and it's and and the kingdom of God increasing in this earth is not dependent on who's the President.
Amen. That's right.
It is not dependent on really even anything happening in any political power structure, right? Because that's all manmade stuff. That's right. It's in the hearts of the people affecting the hearts of the people. The battle that we are in is for the hearts and the mind of people, not for the right structure to be in power. There's a lot to say about that, but I'm just gonna keep on going. The increase of his government, there will be no end and upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward. So from that time, from the time that the, from the time that the light shines in eon forward and forevermore say from that time, from That Time forward, forward and forevermore and Forevermore, amen.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. It's not up to you to shine brightly enough to reveal the kingdom. He'll do it. Okay? So then you jump to Matthew four 15, and this is obviously the New Testament talking about the arrival of Jesus. But watch this, the land of Zebulon and the land of Naftali. We just read that this is referring to Isaiah nine, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And upon these who sat in the region and the shadow of death has dawned from that time, Jesus say from that time, Jesus, from That time, Jesus.
I mean this is kind of obvious and you probably know this, but I just want it to be crystal clear in our thinking that from the time of Jesus forward to the increase of his kingdom, there shall be no end. Amen. Let's quit giving up. And given that world over to darkness, I don't care if the cabal is right or the cabal that is seeking to play puppet strings behind the world takes over and implants an AI chip directly wirelessly into our brain and seems to kind of take control. You can war against that because you can believe from the heart, I'm telling you, people are expecting the darkest of scenarios. But to the increase of his kingdom, there shall be no end. How do you reconcile that? What are your expectations? Where do you frame all of this? When you look to the future and you hear the doomsayers and all of that stuff, I'm not saying negative things won't happen, right? I'm not saying that there's not evil people that are spiritual vampires that are trying to suck the life out of all of us. I know. Sorry, I'm getting a little bit.
How many of you, I'll just keep going from that time, from the time Jesus is here, began to preach and say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's now remember at hand means now the time is fulfilled. The time for what? The time for his kingdom to reign. The reign of God is in this earth now it's happening. Are you with me? And then this just Jesus, he's saying, have, have come in, I have come into this world as a light so that no one who believes in me should remain in darkness, should remain in darkness. The rain of God has come thye. So how, how do we, how do we put all this together? What is it? How does it relate to us? What are we supposed to do with this stuff? How do we actually live in the reality of this? You know what, that's for you and the Holy Spirit to figure out together. Honestly, I, I think, I think we've looked to the church for too long to tell us how to think. And I'm very comfortable helping put things in front of you of what to think about. But man, I'm just telling you I trust the Holy Spirit in your life way more than me. And, and, and I, I don't know, I think, I think structured church to a degree, has done a bit of a disservice to the body of God or body of Christ and the earth. 'cause it's kind of suppressed creativity and, and leadership. That's
Right.
True. And freedom.
Yeah. Put God in A box and put God in a box and put people in a box. Come here, serve my vision. Do what God's told me to do. Maybe one day you'll get to do what God's told you to do. You know, it's, I I just want to reframe all that stuff. We are so creative. We are so powerful. We are so full of ideas that can succeed. And not just for personal gain, but so that you can be blessed to be a blessing reflecting heaven in this earth. If there's anything that we are to do as a body of Christ, more than anything, it's reflect the will of God into this earth. And what is his will? He loves? He loves, he sets free. He unburdens no condemnation in.
And and then it's the goodness of God that draws people to repentance. That's right. I mean, what if the, what if the body of Christ, all of us were so thriving in this passion that we have for the things of God. What if you were so you woke up every day full of purpose for this is the thing. This is, I cannot believe that I get to do this right? And I don't necessarily mean your job, you know, because we're in the world, but we're not of the world. So you might have a job that you work, you don't particularly love, but who are you in the midst of that? How is the kingdom increasing in you in those moments? Because it's all about your perception and how you think and how you see it. That's true. How you're gonna respond to life's circumstances and situations is, is this. And, and unfortunately we have been taught that God's manipulating and controlling and, you know, making everything happen. And it's like that couldn't be further from the truth. He gave us a blank canvas and said, go paint your heart out with this planet. I mean, he made a planet for two people and he said, be fruitful and multiply subdue. And oh by the way, you have dominion over everything here.
And we've, we've let the lie that God doesn't care about us or that, you know, the world is to be given up on, really define how we make our choices. I don't, I don't know. You know, I mean, if you've been here for a while, you're probably in sync with this kind of thinking. And I'm not really trying to make a theological eschatological end time statement. I I'm really not. I I'm more so trying to help lift up our thinking and our expectations so that we have some hope to have some hope that, that, that, that his kingdom actually is increasing. So I would ask you, you know, where is it that you're suppressing his kingdom from increasing in your life? And unfortunately, I think a lot of Christian preaching is focused on the behavioral legalistic aspects of where you're suppressing the kingdom. In other words, well, you're in this sin and you're doing that lie and you're, you know, the division and all that stuff.
It's like it, but it's about the heart. Yes, sin matters. Your behavior matters. Your obedience matters. I'm not saying that it doesn't, but, but it's really more so about in your heart. Where are you with him? Are you leaning into him? Are you actually, you know, are you trying to figure out his mystical will through the life's circumstances around you? Or are you recognizing inwardly, I don't know if I understand all I know about this, but I know his spirit's in me. I know I have his authority. I know that I can do what he did. I know his kingdom is increasing. I know his same spirit that gave, that raised Jesus from the dead is giving life to my physical body. I know that Jesus promised that when the spirit came, he would lead me and guide me into all truth. He would show me things to come.
He would remind me of what the Father is saying. He said, I, he said I can go lay hands on the sick and they'll recover. Like, is this what you're reminding yourself of and then expecting to see these things? Or are you looking at the world and your failures and thinking, I don't understand God in light of that. But you gotta understand God in light of who he has said he is. And these beautiful prophecies about where we are with him. And we prayed this morning about standing in our authority and this idea of praying, you know, and I've got a, a prayer series that I, that I'm probably in another month or so gonna be bringing in. But I got, but I just felt like the Lord kind of dropped it into my heart and hear me sometimes when we're praying we talk to God too much. And he said, speak to the mountain. It's like we're praying to God to do something, telling him what he should be doing. And he's going, now, hang on a minute. I've given you that authority and you know my will because I went through all that trouble to come down there
And show you what it looks like for a human to walk full of the same spirit. But oh, by the way is in you.
Good.
So quit praying outta confusion. Yeah. Asking for him to show up and do something that he's already done or giving you the power to do.
That's right.
And declare. That's
Right. Praise God.
Amen. Amen. Amen. And so what do we do with that? It's challenging. I get it. It's challenging 'cause life is hard and people that we love suffer and so do we sometimes. And we get stuck and we get disappointed and we go through such hard times. And sometimes you just feel like, I just want to sit here and leave me alone. I just wanna have some peace. I can have peace doing this right here. But don't be bra Nope. Life, stay away. Ah. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
We just, there's just so much more in us than we realize. Chris, you can make your way up here for me
So I don't have a nice little bow to put onto it to tell you something to do. But I just hope that in the midst of this journey that you know, something got sparked and inspired in you to take and realize, no, I'm gonna expect to see the increase of the kingdom in my life. I I'm not gonna let the doom and the gloom rest upon my thinking and my expectations. In fact, it's on me to break out of that stuff because God's already done everything he's gonna do. And I'm not saying he's not in a relationship. We are in a relationship. There's an active aspect of the spirit of God all around us. Right? But there's a collaboration, there's a participation. It's at hand, just like gravity is in this room holding us down. So is the energetic spirit of God in this room.
And it's there and it's spiritual and it's not gonna violate your will, but our heart needs to get in alignment with it. Our mind needs to get in alignment with it. And then when your heart and your mind are in alignment with it, you begin to empower it. Like the beliefs of your heart determines what you will allow to have power in your life. Even the enemy, if you believe the enemy has rights and authority in your life 'cause of this, well guess what you're gonna, you're gonna give place to that lie. And by the way, the enemy has no rights and no authority. That's right. Because Jesus has all authority and has stripped the enemy of all authority and the handwriting of ordinances, it was against you. In other words, the accusation against your sin has been nailed to his cross. And then he was made to be a curse for you. So anything that could ever be held against you by God or the enemy or yourself or other people, has been nailed to his cross. And he became that curse for you. Not so that you can just go sin that's unwise and not how we wanna live. But knowing is paid for.
I mean, some of you come out of those heavy deliverance circles and these deep introspective and it sounds real interesting and they sound like they know what they're talking about. 'cause this is legalistic battle and we gotta go into this dimension. We gotta fight this and plead this and draw this and da da. And it's like it's a bunch of nonsense. I'm just telling you there's one authority that's Christ. That Christ in you is expressing that authority. Amen.