Full Transcript
It’s good to be in the house. I wanna ask my friend. We’ll see how much of a mess I can make of this service. There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot. We had a very fun thing happen this morning, and I guess I’m doing this just to reassure myself and prove to you that we are actually flowing this morning.
[00:00:21] Hi. Oh, here. Hi. I have a big mouth. I should be good. What? You don’t think I have a big mouth? I so have a big. Hi is this one. So right after actually during all of y’all know that we livestream the second service. So Pastor Chris, being Pastor Chris is, how can I watch? And I’m like you can wait till the second service.
[00:00:40] And that didn’t go very well. So I got up and went to Jeremiah and it, from a technicals perspective, if we do that, then there’s some technical difficulties. But I told Jim, let’s just go live. Pastor Chris wants it, let’s go live. So as soon as service. He’s calling me. And where’s Bonnie?
[00:00:55] Oh, Bonnie’s in the sanctuary. She’s visiting. I need to talk to Bonnie. I’m like, Oh, this ought to be fun. And he said I need her to FaceTime me in my office. Okie dokey. And so I was, so I went and got her and she said, No, you stay. I was like, I don’t know if I wanna stay or not. So anyway, so Pastor Chris and Pastor Chris mode very fast and very excited, said, You are not gonna believe what the Lord’s done all day long today in Israel.
[00:01:20] He has been in the valley of, Wow. Wow. So if you were here during First service or heard it, Yeah. I’m gonna let her take it from there. But so he was in the Valley of Salt. All about the salt. All about the salt. And then I went to Kevin and I said, Okay. I just told the team, take the time down because obviously what the Lord did and First Service is just gonna get better.
[00:01:41] Yeah. But in the meantime, Pastor Kevin shared that they were, he was at a conference yesterday with Andrew. All about being the salt. All about being the salt. And if you were here, if you were here this weekend, Friday and Saturday, one of the things this marvelous woman taught us is that the supernatural.
[00:02:00] And the natural and how you literally shri and walk and how you can pull the supernatural that we’re created to be come on in, into the natural. So I’m encouraging you when she starts, just get in the water.
[00:02:20] Yeah. Come on. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
[00:02:27] A bag. Piper was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man, and the guy had no, the homeless man, no family or friends. So the service was to be at a popper’s cemetery in Kentucky back country. And the bag, Piper wasn’t familiar with the backwoods and he got lost and being a typical man, he didn’t ask for directions.
[00:02:55] And he finally arrived an hour late and he saw the funeral guy had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight and they were only diggers, and the crew left and they were eating lunch. The bad bag. Piper felt really bad and he apologized to the men for being late, and he went over to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place and he didn’t know what else to do, so he just started to play.
[00:03:22] The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around, and he played his heart out. He played heart and soul for this man with no family or friends. He played like he’d never played before. And as he played amazing grace, the workers began to weep. They wept bag, Piper wept. Everybody wept together.
[00:03:43] When he finally finished and packed up his bagpipes and started for his car with his head hung low and his heart full, as he was opening the door of his car, he heard one of the workers. Sweet mother Jesus. I never saw anything like that before and I’ve been putting in septic tanks for 20 years,
[00:04:11] So somehow that’s the introduction to this message.
[00:04:18] make of it what you will
[00:04:23] Hallelujah. Before you great classical masterpiece. Actually, this guy was an in the innovator of a new school in the classics during the Renaissance period called mannerisms. I won’t go into that, but the painter young man named Rafael, who Fell very ill and died when he was 37 years old.
[00:04:46] And he, this was his last work. He worked on it for over four years. And as he was laying on his deathbed, He asked that this painting be brought and put in front of him so that he could gaze upon it for his last days and his last hours. It is a picture, a painting of the transfiguration, but Rafael did something that no other Renaissance or frankly any of the great masters and even some of the contemporary guys have done with the story of the Transfiguration.
[00:05:20] He not only depicted what was happening on top of the mountain. He depicted what was happening at the foot of the mountain. and he contrasted them very clearly, as you can see in darkness and light, and it’s fascinating. His insight, nevermind the little man in Brown and the other fellow on top of the mountain over by the trees.
[00:05:40] Those were some of the Catholics that commissioned it, and he had to throw them in somewhere because they were paying him. But they weren’t really there. Peter, James, and John were the three that Jesus had called up into the mountain, and I appreciate the fact that we heard of Jesus coming down from the mountain and healing a leper.
[00:05:57] Guess what? He frequently went into this mountain to pray. The transfiguration would not have been the his first encounter with the persons in the other. He often went into the mountain to pray, but on this particular day, he chose to take with him three of his disciples to reveal to them a reality that was not playing to the natural eye.
[00:06:26] and they needed this revelation. It’s interesting because just before Jesus took them with him into the top of the mountain, and you do see there, by the way, as Rafael has depicted with Jesus, Elijah and Moses there. Moses of course, is carrying the the tablets on which the word was written,
[00:06:46] but that probably is not what it looked like. If you’ve been to Banas, to the head of the Jordan, In Israel, which by the way, hello Pastor Chris. Pray for me. I’m trying to be faithful here. So he is in Israel, by the way, for you visitors and stuff. Point being about Pastor Chris and the things we talked about earlier.
[00:07:07] Listen, in the spiritual realm. We occupy two realms simultaneously, the material realm, but also even as real or greater reality that is the unseen to the natural eye, the unseen realm. And we were so excited about the fact that as Pastor Chris is in Israel and we are here in the church today, we were hearing and saying the same.
[00:07:34] Yeah, you can’t make that up. That’s the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the resident Lord of the church. But it also shows us that in the realm of the spirit, we occupy the same dimension all together. That’s how your prayers work. And we could say a lot about that, but that’s also how your prayers work. But any case probably it took them quite a while to get into the mountain and they may or may not, hopefully, they probably did take some food along with them.
[00:08:05] They probably would’ve had to have a campfire and so on and so forth. And so when it tells you that the disciples were asleep, it was because it had been a labor to get up there, and then they had a habit of falling asleep while Jesus.
[00:08:24] In the first service, I told a joke about an older preacher teaching the younger preacher how to keep the congregation alive and not sleeping through his sermon. Sermon. And he said, When I see him start to doze, I always throwing this line. And he says, Last night I held another man’s wife in my arms and they all wake up and then he says, It was my mother.
[00:08:55] So the young preacher started into his sermon when he noticed the congregation was starting to doze off. He said, Last night I held another man’s wife in my arms. And I can’t recall who she was.
[00:09:15] But Kevin forgot the announcement he was up here supposed to make, so I thought that was appropriate for him. Anyway, I digress. This is probably not what they saw on the mountain. They probably were gathered around a campfire. It may have been in the evening, it may have been early morning, whatever.
[00:09:31] It would’ve been cold up there because in that mountain, Place that’s famous for snow, depending on the time of the year. And it was no wonder from the exertion that the disciples had already put in to get there. It was no wonder that they had dozed off. And Peter was the first. As he was sleeping, he heard voices that aroused him out of his sleep and he looked over across the campfire or whatever and Jesus was sitting there with two men talking with them,
[00:10:12] and there was brightness all around them. So bright. The word says that his garments became white. I guarantee you he didn’t wear white garments. Going up there and there was Jesus having a conversation in audible terms with two other men sitting there in front of them that they could touch. The curtain was pulled back and the disciples saw him Jesus, as he really.
[00:10:49] Now, mind you, this was in the time of the incarnation. He didn’t look like that when they went up the mountain. He didn’t look like that when they came off the mountain, but they saw him and he let them glimpse him for a reason because those same men were gonna watch that same man die on the cross. in not too many days, and they would have then possibly.
[00:11:26] Now you can understand why they didn’t believe it about the resurrection. When the women ran to them and said, He’s alive. He’s not in the tomb. They couldn’t believe it. They didn’t believe women anyway in those days. But however, Peter and John, as they always did, tried to outrun each other to see who got there first, to see what had actually happened.
[00:11:47] And the angel said He’s gone before. You go back and wait, and then you remember the next time they saw him, he walked through the wall. , but he wasn’t a ghost. I think we actually need to reread our Bible. If I’m blowing your mind this morning, it’s all in black and white on the.
[00:12:11] His material Majesty authority as the immortal, eternal son of God. When he came to a material realm like a wall, typically probably in those days, mostly made out of stone, the molecules moved. About and he stepped through. Thank you very much. And they closed behind him. Come on. We need to see him as he really is.
[00:12:48] This is important France. We need him today and in the season, in our lives. And from now on to continually open the curtain and show us. Who he is now. Peter, you remember just before this event when he saw him, they were down and Jesus was testing them and he said, So you all been on social media?
[00:13:11] What are they saying out there in Twitterland and Facebook? Who do they say that I am? Oh, listen, if you go out there on social media, you’ll get a lot of opinions about who Jesus is and especially opinions about the people who follow him. Yep. And they say some are saying you’re Elijah, some, Jeremiah the prophet raised from the dead and John the Baptist and this and that and something else.
[00:13:33] And he looked at him and he said, But who do you say, Turn to your neighbor and say, Who do you say? Who do you say he is? Do it again. Who do you say? Who do you say he is? You say he. That’s important because that will be the compass. The anchor, the guide, the lift. Yes. For the decisions you make. Yes. For the way you view the world.
[00:14:06] For how you understand yourself. You know when Peter said it doesn’t matter what they say, I know. You’re the one we’ve been waiting for. Amen. Yes. When Peter said, the Jewish man said to the Jewish Man, You are the Christ, you are the anointed one. Peter was going all the way back and coming all the way down through Israel’s biblical, scriptural, prophetic expectation that there would come one from the lineage of David that would come into Israel and would take the throne and set up his kingdom, the Messiah, the anointed one, and Peter said, You’re that guy.
[00:14:44] And Jesus said, You’re blessed. This is not a natural conclusion. It’s a gift. The heavenly Father has shown you this because it says Jesus was he. He wasn’t remarkable physically. He would’ve blended into a crowd. And in fact, one time when they tried to kill him, he did blend into the crowd and he.
[00:15:11] He would’ve completely blended in to the crowd in those days. But Jesus said, You’re blessed because the Heavenly Father has shown this to you. And an interesting thing happened. Something happened in Peter’s identity at that moment with that exchange. And then Jesus said, on this rock, On what rock?
[00:15:43] On the gift of Revelation. From God, the father of who Jesus actually is. And he said on that rock, I’m gonna build an Alaia, a legislative assembly in the Earth that is representative of my government. And the gates, the authorities and powers of hell will not be able Oh yeah. To stand against it. Woo.
[00:16:16] That’s our. That is our origin. Yeah. And then they went up the mountain and then they came down The mountain and location is important and it’s significant. This location in this general area is affected by a tree that was planted in this area. And then named Sojourn Church because it was on Sojourn Street and it has continued to put roots in and grow branches up and out and produce fruit and sin, fruit with seed in it, out to Reede to plant, to grow up, to create fruit.
[00:17:06] And I’ll tell you, you walk around, drive around this area and see. Big old churches and great bank buildings and the blessing in this region. I wanna submit to you the foundation of this congregation planted in a dry place over 35 years ago. Yeah. Created a fortress saying, We are not backing off. We’re advancing, and we’re calling for the reign of the Holy Spirit in this dry city.
[00:17:45] Yeah. Yeah. And friends, what you should understand is that was a proclamation of war no less than this event on the top of this mountain. because that mountain was understood in Israel’s history, and it’s there if you read your Bibles as being one of the major gates that Israel had to possess in order to take the promised land.
[00:18:18] And it was understood that on that mountain it was a place where the pagan gods held court and had authority until the true king. Came to the mountain. I believe that’s one of the reasons that he would go there regularly to pray to meet with heaven, because now principalities and powers were beginning to shake to wait and see how this anointed one was going to establish his kingdom.
[00:18:53] And they thought they won when they saw him hung up on a. On a smaller hill, not too far away, but that wasn’t the case. So we are in a confrontation and I want to pay homage to the legacy and history of Sojourn Church in its iterations and its journey. Because I can testify to you the courage, the humility, the faith, and the labor and the prayers that it took in a city of influence and power that rejected, for the most part, the visitation of the person of the Holy Spirit.
[00:19:39] That’s right. That’s your legacy. This is a place of persistent prayer until he comes. This is a place that declares to the whole region, our God will come to us like the rain. So you’re blessed to have friends in this church, to be a part of this church, to have your family in this church. And on behalf of Meha and I, we want to say thank you and honor.
[00:20:16] And I want us to, Oh Lord. Thank you Jesus.
[00:20:30] my I think she may have taken it with her, but it
[00:20:33] Are you nervous? ? Last night I held the wife of another man.
[00:20:50] Sorry about that. Oh Lord Jesus. Help me Lord. Oh, not that one. Somebody walked up. My, my outline had two lines. Under the back. Under the bottom
[00:21:11] I’m wavering between two opinions. I’m sorry, and I’m glad they took the clock away. Can you hand me that for a minute now I’m just telling you, this is the truth, right? I do this all the time. I’ve been doing this for a long time, but I can get that win blank in the middle of the most important thing, just like you can.
[00:21:27] Bonnie, what did you say, Hannah? That the yellow thing. I’m just looking for one little number on here, and you’re gonna laugh at me when I tell you what it is. Thank you. Nine. I thought that’s where I was.
[00:21:41] Dear God. Oh my goodness. Maybe I need to go back. Oh, the pages were stuck together. Back to the septic tank story.
[00:21:56] Oh, I feel the Holy Ghost. While we were worshiping and we were singing and we were singing about the cross, having the final word, I was thinking again about these disciples and what they experienced in their natural life with their natural eyes and how that had the ability to impact them. And I was thinking if I had.
[00:22:15] Standing there on that hill and my last VI in the natural was of Jesus hung up there completely naked, stripped of his skin, blue, bruised and bloodied, and watching him actually die. How that would’ve affected me. And if I had been from his hometown of Nazareth, the place where a lot of the people always believed he was just an illegitimate child, and Mary made up this crazy story and now he’s this, crazy preacher running around doing miracles and stuff.
[00:22:48] Think about it for a moment. , we need a revelation of who he is. Yes, we do. And those same disciples that watched him die when he came out of the grave and he. What, 500 days? How many days? Not 500 days. 50 days. 500 people saw him. That’s the thing. Say eyewitness eye Eyewitness, The Bible says there were 500, not just the disciples, 500 people that saw Jesus resurrected.
[00:23:21] They touched him. Some of them ate with him. He cooked for some. They handled him. They saw his physical form, but some of those same guys walked with him on the road to a maus. They had known him before, but they didn’t recognize him, why? They had a different idea of what he looked like and those disciples on the road to ame.
[00:23:48] they said, Man, there’s something going on here. I’m not sure what it is. This guy knows a lot. This guy knows a lot about Jesus, so why don’t you come and hang out with us and let’s just talk some more. Cuz we knew him too and they went home and as they were eating together, suddenly they went, Oh it’s you.
[00:24:09] We need to see him as he is. See him as he is. Look at your neighbor. Say we really need to see him. We need to see him as he is. Because if you get a glimpse, you’ll be like Peter, James and John. They thought they were gonna die because the only history, and the, again, read your Bibles, It was Gideon or Isaiah or Ezekiel, the ones who saw him, expected to die.
[00:24:37] Gideon said, Oh my Lord. And the Lord said, Peace. Peace. You’re not gonna. I just want you to see me as I am, and he was the warrior that had come and was there in the barn as Gideon was frantically just trying to save enough of what he labored for to feed his family. In the midst of a great invasion of the enemy and the warrior, the captain of armies came and said, Hell get in mighty man of power and get in with his pants sorry, maybe he didn’t, but I would have.
[00:25:13] John left. Us and Daniel in advance saw him. The son of man coming to the ancient of days. John saw him seated on the throne. This is gonna mess with your head. Mine it does. When we see him, he will have the same form as the one who last talked with him and then ascended into heaven. You think about this for a minute, he was probably about 5, 5, 5, 6.
[00:25:58] That was the average height of. Come on, come with me. Darn. Come on. I gotta mess with you. You know when Moses stood in front of the burning bush and he said, They’re not gonna believe me. I stutter. Who will I tell him has sent me? And the Lord did not do what Charleston Heston did. And the 10 Commandments and the burning fires that I that I
[00:26:27] No in the Semitic language that Moses understood the voice speaking out of the bush, which by the way was Jesus in the bush. He said, I will be there. In other words, as you go, I will be there. As I will be there. Aye, Share. Aye. Say a aye. I share. I share a I will be there. Come on. I will be there as. I will be there.
[00:27:01] I will be there. This is the walk of faith. We know we can’t put God in a box, but if we know him as he is and don’t expect him to be as we desire, or we presuppose. Wow. Then it’s like Sun. Sue used to say, No, the enemy and know yourself. You need not fear the result of a hundred battles. We need to see him as he is.
[00:27:43] Much has been made.
[00:27:47] In the church of Jesus being kind
[00:27:57] and merciful and patient,
[00:28:03] and he is to the nth degree,
[00:28:09] and the church has sought to emulate. That Jesus, not much has been made of the fact the next time we see him, yeah,
[00:28:28] he is coming with clouds, with a host, with a sword, with fire in his eyes. Yes, And we, funny enough, are the embassy. Between now and then, and so our mission vital to the survival of the Earth is that we communicate. The gospel and Jesus as he really is because ultimately he’s not coming just to make people feel better and not cry anymore.
[00:29:08] And don’t be sick. He’s coming to save people from eternal judgment and condemnation, and that’s our mission. It’s not frightfully waiting down here within our church buildings until he comes and vacuums us out. I don’t know where that came from. The great Hoover
[00:29:32] That’s nowhere in the Bible. We do not get out of this alive. Oh, come on Chi. Last night I held another man’s
[00:29:48] You have a rich inherit. Yes. Not just in this church. I’m talking about an unspeakable, supernatural, eternal gift that has been given to you personally, deposited in you, fully resident in you completely. That is not only eternal, but it’s vital to the survival of the earth, to the future of the earth, and you are it.
[00:30:15] You contain. Amen. That’s what he has given us. And when he showed himself as he really is to his disciples on the mountain, do you know at the end of their life you remember Peter’s letters? Peter said at the end of his life as he was in prison, awaiting his execution, which was to be crucified upside down because he considered himself unworthy for the glorious image of his savior who was crucified, upright.
[00:30:45] But in that circumstance, Peter referred back to that day on the mountain, and he said, In all that we’ve told you, in everything we’ve done, the way we’ve lived our lives, we weren’t following cunningly, devised fables or made up religious ideas. We conveyed to you what we saw when we were with him on the mountain.
[00:31:08] Amen. Yes. This inheritance. This faith we have has been given to us by eyewitnesses and then confirmed by the outpouring through the finished work, the outpouring of the third person of the Godhead to come and dwell everyone who has received the gift of knowing who he is. This is so vital for the human race.
[00:31:42] Do you know why you have a body? Do you know why you have a head and two arms and two legs? It’s because in the beginning, the son was there in that form. Yes. And God, the father reached down and he scooped up some of that primorial mud that he had created. And looking at, Jesus began to work a model. Yeah.
[00:32:12] Are you there? Yes. Yes. Come on. You were always in his image. Yes. But when he awakened you out of spiritual death and blindness, through the gift of salvation, just like God breathed into the first man by his spirit, he breathed into. And animated you an entirely new identity in that form already created in the model of his son.
[00:32:53] We are the most cherished, privileged, should be most joyful, full of faith, generous, active people on the face of the earth because we are a supernatural race. We’re the answer. To racism, we’re the answer to social injustice. We’re the answer to famine. That’s good. We’re the answer to disease. We’re the answer.
[00:33:26] We are the salt of the earth and what Pastor Chris was so excited. Was the fact that apparently when he comes home, he’s gonna preach to you all about being the salt of the earth . And in the first service I referred to the writings of Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I’m sure you’re familiar, he’s one of the great martyrs of the modern era and.
[00:34:01] I read a little portion out of his book, The Cost of Discipleship. Can you look at your neighbor and say, Neighbor, it was disciples that went with him into the Mountain Disciples.
[00:34:22] Say disciples. Disciples, Jesus calls, and this is Bonoff. I’m reading now from cost of discipleship called the visible community. The people you can see in the earth observe and look at and see something else, understand something else. Jesus calls them. Disciples? No. Who are they? Them disciples. Disciples.
[00:34:47] Say disciples. Disciples. Jesus calls them the salt of the earth. Salt the most indispensable necessity of life. Have you ever thought of yourself in that way? No. It’s what Jesus was saying to them, what he says about you. Because salt in that time was literally the indispensable necessity of life. Besides water, there was no other thing.
[00:35:11] Because you water, bread, and salt, you needed salt for everything. But salt was preeminent because not only, salary, the word salary, money comes from salt. Salt was a principle form of money revenue exchange. It was valuable. Also as medicinal things as a preservative, as a purifier, as giving flavor to stuff as a binder.
[00:35:36] It’s why it was required in all of the temple’s, sacrifices. It was a sign of the covenant, the eternal, that preserving and persevering nature of God, the eternity of his kind of covenant salt. Say salt. Salt, the most indispensable necessity of. Amen. You have to realize Jesus has made you indispensable to the life of the community around you.
[00:36:02] He may do that. The disciples that is to say are the highest good, say highest good, highest, tell your neighbor, you’re the highest good, the highest, you’re indispensable. The supreme value which the earth possesses for, without them, it cannot. They are the salt that sustains the earth for their sake. The world exists, yes, for the sake of these, the poor, the noble, the weak, whom the world rejects in casting out the disciples, the earth is destroying.
[00:36:43] Its very life. This is the view of Jesus towards that church. He said on this rock, the ones who see me as I really am on that immovable foundation, I am gonna raise up an edifice that the gates of hell will not be able to withstand. This is who we’re, Yes. I, I think we oftentimes talk and act more like Barney five.
[00:37:16] Wonder of wonders. It is for the sake of the outcast that the earth is allowed to continue. Homer called it the divine salt. It maintains itself by fulfilling its proper function. It penetrates the whole earth. Amen. Amen. It penetrates the whole earth. It penetrates the whole.
[00:37:40] By it, the earth subsist. The disciples then must not only think of heaven, they have an earthly task as well. And now that they are bound exclusively to Jesus, they are told to look at the earth whose salt they are. It’s noted, Jesus doesn’t call himself the salt. He said, You’re the salt. Say on the salt, on his disciples, the salt of the earth.
[00:38:08] He entrusts his work on earth to them. But only as long as it remains salt and retains its cleansing, savoring properties. Can the salt preserve the earth for its own sake as well as for the sake of the earth? The salt must remain salt. The disciple community must be faithful to the mission, which the call of Christ has given it.
[00:38:32] That will be its proper function on earth and will give it its preservative power. And he goes on to. that if and when the church ceases to be the salt, it doesn’t exist anymore and then it’s only worth what Jesus said to be cast out and men to walk over it. I wanna suggest to you that in the West, and not just bring it home to America, we might like to think.
[00:39:03] That opposition against the church and against Christians is rising because of politics and because we expect to be persecuted for Jesus. I wanna suggest something. I would say it’s quite possible that the church and the testimony of the church in America in general today is being trodden under feet, is because we ceased being salty.
[00:39:27] It’s
[00:39:31] but today, Say today there’s good news because he’s drawing back the curtain so we can see him afresh as he really is. He is the eternal king who has sat down on the highest authority of the cosmos, and the Bible says, God said to him in Psalm one 10 Rule. In the midst of your enemies, the disposition of the church and the earth Friends is at the throne of the lamb on his behalf, ruling in the midst of his enemies.
[00:40:16] And so now let’s just go back to the mountain experience areas, because we see here a contrast between two realm. Between light and darkness, between the top of the mountain where they suddenly saw Jesus different than they knew him. And then when Peter, James and John expected to die, Peter didn’t know what to say.
[00:40:40] So he said, Can we put you in a tent? Can we just build a tabernacle and hang out? He was probably hyperventilating because they. In their tradition, if you saw the glory of God expected ice, Same thing with Paul on the road to Damascus, Saul on the road to Damascus. That’s another story he saw Jesus that day.
[00:40:59] But it says there that when they got all excited and they’re like, Wow, look, Moses lied to Jesus. Hey, then suddenly a cloud, say a cloud, a cloud covered. And the father spoke and said, This is my son. Listen to. Yes. And then they saw Jesus only
[00:41:22] say, Jesus only. Jesus only. I wanna impart by a proclamation to you a fresh today that whatever things, whatever persons, whatever worries, whatever concerns, whatever opposition, whatever contradict. Has come to cloud, your vision to deaden, your heart of faith Today, it’s Jesus only. Amen. Jesus, only be revived in your faith.
[00:42:04] It’s Jesus only. Jesus only. But you need to see him as he really is. Yes, he has conquered, and John said that when they began to open the seals as the prayers on earth, the saints on Earth are praying and their prayers are going up and filling up these great, bold golden bowls in heaven From time to time, a bowl here or there will become full and it’ll be poured out on the earth and all kinds of terrible things happen because of Saint.
[00:42:31] I’ve been praying,
[00:42:36] that’s what the Bible says. You are acting with God who is the judge of all, and you have been saved from the judgment, but it doesn’t mean you won’t suffer difficulty. Amen. Yes. Again, we need to reread our Bible. There’s almost no one who gave us this book that didn’t give their life in order to give us this book.
[00:43:05] It doesn’t mean that he’s defeated. It means that in face of everything, just like Peter at the end of his life facing his own execution, he was remembering the transfiguration. He saw him that day, and of course then he ate with him and talked with him later, and then they saw him ascend into heaven and they knew Psalm one 10 the most quoted Old Testament scripture in the New Testament because the Lord said into my Lord, sit in my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
[00:43:34] That’s good. Lord, we thank you today
[00:43:40] that one of us, I’m looking at men and I know that when we see the lamb, he’s not gonna be taller than you, but he has all authority. Yes. Amen. Yes. Yes. Let that rest for a minute. One of us sits in that throne Yes, just like you,
[00:44:13] and he has awakened you to know something that is necessary for the life of the earth. And that is to see Jesus as he is not what religion or people or things or opinions say, but by a revelation of God, then reaffirmed by eyewitnesses. Many of them, 500 people saw him. I guarantee you, they were in revival for a hundred years.
[00:44:40] Oh, you know that. Come on. It’s time for us to be revived. Yeah. I’m gonna ask you just to stand.
[00:44:58] The testimony of seeing Jesus as he is occurred at the bottom of the hill when they came off the mountain, because here Rafael has depicted what was going on while Jesus was revealed in his glory and on this side of the painting. Those are all the disciples and they’re all, arguing and preaching and trying to figure out, one of them’s got the Bible down here.
[00:45:22] They’re, the Torah and all of that kind of stuff. And a man, a father in green over here has brought his epileptic. The Bible says Demonn possessed son, and that’s probably his mother, the white faced woman in green there. And in this great desperation, they have brought this child to the disciples of the miracle worker.
[00:45:45] and they’re trying to come up with religious things and no telling what was happening, but it created a great melee because the disciples couldn’t heal the boy. Rafael was so prophetic because the women in the middle here wasn’t there. She’s not in the Bible, but she represents. The church
[00:46:18] interceding for the world. See her hands. She’s looking at the disciples saying, Do something about this child.
[00:46:30] Do you see her? Yes,
[00:46:34] we are. The salt, the healer, the preserver, the bond. Keeping the earth and the human race from flinging away into nothingness. And we know that when they came off the mountain and came into the melee of the crowds and the disciples and the boy,
[00:47:05] that Jesus rebuked them for their small faith and he healed the boy.
[00:47:20] And so today, Lord, we present ourselves in Sojourn Church,
[00:47:33] watching online here in this sanctuary member or visitor. We present ourselves. Psalm one 10 also says, Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your visitation. Yes, and God, we know our world, our city. Our family is desperate Now. The curtains have been pulled back, and we see clearly how desperate our generation in America is for Jesus as he really is.
[00:48:22] And so we present ourselves in this broken down place and say, Come Holy Spirit, Come. Holy Spirit. Come Holy Spirit. , breathe in us once again and raise up your church as your ambassador.