All right, all right, as sin jump into the word. This morning,
light have been church. Yeah, Holy Spirit is so good to us.
Simon, Father, we just thank you for your presence, thank you
for your ministry. This morning. We welcome your word to open up our
hearts. We welcome you to shift and change and transform us by the word.
We want to be good receivers today, Holy Spirit, we welcome,
we welcome just the spirit of receiving and the gift of faith in the atmosphere
this morning. We thank you for it in Jesus name. Everybody said,
Amen, you may be seated. Hannuia han, thenuia, Well you got
me back. Um, so I think I would out for four weeks something
like that. So I almost forgot how to do this first service, I
felt I had butterflies, so I made them fly in formation and uh so
here we are. But um, I want to dive in. You know,
I thought we weren't going to have a series, like a preaching series.
But I asked Joe Sims to preach next week. How maybe you enjoy
Joe's preaching. He's Jose preaching, He's drink. So after first service,
he said, hey, we actually will have a series you had the first
to kick off the series. So I want to talk about receiving today,
and the name of his sermon next week is received it all. So the
Lord, the Lord is good. The Lord is good. Amen. So
I want to talk about receiving as an act of faith, receiving as an
act of faith, and how how receiving u fits into the structure of faith,
the structure of prayer, and how important receiving is because I think that
we could use a greater dose of receiving. And you know by that,
I mean, you know, even when you know, some of us are
older in the Lord, and some of us are newer than the Lord.
Right, So some of us have just come to the Lord recently. Some
of us have been serving the Lord for years and years. But essentially,
what you know, what's happening when when you come to the Lord, even
when you come to the Lord, but subsequently to coming to the Lord,
the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in your spirit. And the Holy Spirit is
taking the word of God, of which mine is on this device today.
How many of you have your device? So the Holy Spirit is taking the
word of God and making the Word of God alive. Right, So that's
essentially what's happen because you can study the Bible historically and receive no revelation aside
from the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit that brings the revelation that opens
up our eyes of understanding. So you know, like I don't think we
have it loaded, but Tom, we could go to Romans ten seventeen.
Romans ten seventeen says faith cometh by hearing. That's kind of King James.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing. It's not just hearing alone, but hearing
the actual act of hearing in your gut, hearing in your spirit. It
comes by the rama. The word word there is the word rama. It
means the spoken word of Christ. It means the Holy Spirit speaks to.
So if we can see what that word. There's two words in the Greek
for the word word right, one is logos and one is rama. Logos
is written, historical, Rama is living spoken. So faith cometh by hearing,
but not just hearing like your professor in a history class read a scripture,
or somebody just giving you a history oracle background on the scripture, or
even you reading the scripture devotionally. When you read the scripture devotionally, you're
opening up the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to invade your devotions and to bring
a Raymond. If you don't have devotions, if you don't read the Word,
you're not giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to invade the logos and bring
a Raymond. And the logos is not it's not connected to revelation. The
Holy Spirit connects to the logos to bring revelation, and that's when the logos
becomes rama to you. You know what I'm saying. How many of you've
read a scripture ten times and then on the eleventh time suddenly something clicked.
Or you've heard somebody preach something like fifteen times, but on the sixteenth times
something clicked, right, So this is the logos becoming rama to you.
So, but that whole thing, it's the gift of God, and it's
the Word coming and the Word with it's touched on by the Holy Spirit,
gives you the potential to have faith. You can't have faith on your own.
So it's like godward faith is a gift from God because of the Word
of God coming alive by the Holy Spirit with revelation to your inner men,
and that gives you the potential for faith right, But the potential for faith
doesn't mean that you'll respond to the Word in a right way. Like when
somebody hands you a gift, the right response when somebody hands you a gift
is to receive the gift. And the Word of God is essentially a gift.
That's what the Word of God is. The Word of God is a
gift to your inner man to bring you into abundant life, to bring you
into courage, to bring you into wholeness, to bring you into to royalty,
the royalty that you are in Christ. The Word of God is a
gift to you. But the Word of God comes in seed form Luke eight
eleven, first Peter one twenty one through twenty three. The Word of God
is seed. It is imperishable seed. So the Word of God is sown
in your heart. The Word of God is seed. It comes in seed
form. And so you know, seeds have to have something happen. And
it's a similar expression like when somebody hands you a gift, you have to
receive the gift. Well, the seed is kind of like that, when
the Holy Spirit makes it a posit of the Word in you by revelation,
giving you the potential for faith. You have to receive that word. That's
what germinates the word. If the word isn't germinated, then it won't grow
up and produce the life it was meant to produce. Even though God gave
it to you. God showed you it's his will. God showed you what
he wants to bring the past. Even if it was prophetically spoken over you
by ten Destiny team members, doesn't matter. If you don't receive it,
then you haven't germinated it. By partnering your reaction or action to the gift
of revelation in Jesus a making sense so that you're receiving that activates it.
So and you know, there's various ways we receive gifts, right, gratitude,
that's amazing, Thank you so much. I'm going to use that immediately.
That's so cool. Wow, I'm glad you thought of me. And
usually those are like acceptable levels of gifts. Usually, if the gift is
it's given in an acceptable level as we understand the relationship of the gift giver.
Usually it's easy for us to receive the gift and to be grateful for
the gift. But if the gift is too extravagant, it's hard for us
to receive it. The more the extravagant of the gift, the harder it
is for to receive it. What happens is the more extravagant the gift becomes,
the more we measure as we're receiving the gift. If we deserve the
gift, like I guess, they're out of circulation. But if you found
one, the Treasury Department still has to honor it. But we used to
have a thousand dollar bills. So if somebody walked up to you and gave
you a one thousand dollars bill and it wasn't a bonus, it wasn't something
you've earned. You didn't have a relationship with them wherein you could measure your
worth for the gift, you would probably push it away. No, no,
well, woa WHOA, what's going on? That's right for somebody else?
What's attached to that? And you would begin to push it off.
But what I want to show you in scripture this morning, is it blessing
after blessing after blessing has been poured out upon us with a past tense understanding
of fulfillment, and we tend to do the same thing. We tend to
push it off, and it's almost like we've got kind of this you know,
mental disorder. Right, It's like we petition for it, but push
it away because it just seems like it's too much. Right, it's kind
of thinking about the prodigal son. Holy Spirit brought that one to my mind,
the prodigal son. It's interesting how much legalism now. Mind you,
the law is good, the law is perfect, the law is holy.
But Jesus was the Torah and he still is a few weeks ago, when
I was up last to bat, we talked a little bit about Deuteronomy twenty
eight. All of these blessings coming upon you and overtake you if you hearken
fully to the to the Word. Well, the New Testament equivalent of that
is that it's not the Torah word, and that we hearken diligently to today.
He was the Torah. He's the fulfillment of the Torah. He's the
abiding Torah. He lives in you as the Torah. All of these blessings
come upon you Deuteronomy twenty eight as you hearken diligently to the living Word,
who abides in your spirit. Man right, and I think I told you
then. You know these the blessings named in Deuteronomy twenty eight, from verses
one to fourteen. Blessed in the country, blessed in the field, blessed
in your kitchen, blessed going out, blessed coming in. Those are blessings
that you don't have to pray about. And this is kind of where I
want to go today, is that I think that by religion I mean anything
like as we're involved in today Christianity, instead of in royalty, seeing ourselves
in judgment instead of redemption, seeing ourselves in worthlessness instead of seeing ourselves in
royalty now and spent his inheritance on wild living. But when he came back,
the crazy thing is it's a Luke fifteen. We won't go there by
the way time. But the crazy thing is when he came back, you
know, the father ran to greet him. The father puts the robe on
him, The father puts the royal sandals on him. There goes my LIGHTE.
How'd I do that? Wow? The father? The father puts the
signet ring on him. And remember remember the mindset of the prodical son was
the mindset of works. It was the mindset of works, and it's the
works that Jesus has done and accomplished on our behalf that we enter into.
But the mindset of the prodical son was works. And so he says,
if I just go back to my father's house, you know, at least
I can eat at Louis. But the father received him and restored him,
and the father threw a big party for him. But then the brother is
observing all of this. You remember the story, the brothers observing all of
us, and the brother says, and the brother had a big pity party,
and he was angry and he was upset, and the brother's free,
you can out to all of my life. And I didn't go off,
and I said, you know, I didn't spend my inheritance on you know,
crazy stuff, and you know, and so and then the follower's reply
is everything I have is yours. Everything I have has been yours all along.
And I think I think we have a little bit of work to do
in that same way as that we tend. We tend that subconsciously to only
be able to receive what we believe we deserve. But your receiving has nothing
to do with what you deserve. It has everything to do with what he
deserves. That's the good news. Did you know the gospel means good news.
It's supposed to mess up all the bad news. It's like supposed to
be really good news. But the enemy and accusation and your own failures and
your own stumbling. Does anybody stumble? Anybody in the building stumble? Couple
of you? Good? Does anybody sin? A few more? Okay?
Good? All right? Six sinners in the building, ras the lorn.
I feel better, I feel better. There's seven of us? Then should
have raised my hand. The enemy and our own prohibitory consciousness wants to disqualify
us from receiving the best from God, the goodness of God, the blessing
of God, on the basis of our own failures, our own faults,
our own shortcomings, and point those out to us. And this can be
a part of a religious system as well. And what the Word wants us
to see. The Word wants us to come into more of a posture of
receiving and the Holy Spirit. And this receiving is what germanates the Word.
The Word is a seed and the Holy Spirit wants to help us through this
right so that we're because as long as we're petitioning for things that we already
have been given, we're exercising a little bit of unbelief. As long as
we're petitioning for things that we already have been promised, we're exercising a little
bit of belief. And that little bit of unbelief keeps the seed of the
promise from germinating and fully developing. How much pooh should you allow in your
brownies? There you go? How much unbelief should you allow in your walk
before God or in the promises God has given you? Yevert hasn't come to
pass yet. Well, it's a progressive work, and the progressive work of
it coming to pass has a lot to do with the maturity of you,
and not the maturity of your perfection in perfect works, but the maturity of
your perfect faith. Believing that what He's done in the Christ on your behalf
is true, and that you are a new creation, that you are royal
blood, that you are fully redeemed, that you are justified, You are
one who is just as if you've never sinned. This is the mindset,
by the way, this was also the reaction of the debtor. The debtor
in Matthew eighteen twenty one through thirty five, where the gentleman owed the master
or the judge or the king, he owed ten million dollars. It was
the ten million dollars debt. And the mindset of the debtor was that just
be patient with me and I will work this off. Be patient with me,
and I will pay you back everything. And this is it's not just
a legalistic mindset, but it's it's the mindset that we were born with.
It's actually the carnal mind. The carnal mind understands work, the carnal mind
understands what we deserve. But in God, we have been qualified for what
He deserves, not what we deserve. And you know, in this way,
we try to shove things off. We try to you know, we'll
take on a valid poverty, we'll take on this, we'll take on that.
We'll try to push things back that we don't deserve. And yet at
the same time we recognize that we're needy. So then we rationalize that maybe
some of our needs are just not going to get met because we don't deserve
for them to be met. And so this is part of where you know,
petition gets really like you know, it gets deeper. We need deeper
petition maybe if I you know? And so this is am I making any
sense? Second Corinthians one twenty through twenty two. For no matter how many
promises that God has made, they are yes in Christ. I think the
King James says something like the promises of God or yes and amen to those
who are in Christ. Anybody in Christ in the building in Christ? Is
this in Christ? Is this phrase that Paul uses like a dozen times at
least in the epistles, recognizing that we are hidden in him, that our
lives are hidden in Him, that we are that we are completely dependent and
covered by Him in salvation, and so our lives are in Christ. And
he's he's saying that that the promises of God are yes. And a man,
so what we say is and this is what we declare right. So
now how many promises God has made, they are yes in Christ. And
so through him, the amen is spoken by us to the glory of God.
Now it is God who makes both us and U stand firm in Christ.
He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put
his spirit in our hearts as the deposit guaranteeing what is to come. So
this is this is interesting, and I know some of you have heard me
talk about this before, but but you know, Christ is the fulfillment of
every promise God ever made. Christ is the apex. He is the head
of the new creation and of redemption, and he is he is the last
atom. God invested everything into the first atom. He invested everything into the
last atom. He is the center piece of humanity. He is perfect in
every way. And what's crazy is that He has qualified us before God for
every promise to be fulfilled. And it's not every promise in the future,
it's every promise that's already been He's already qualified as for every promise. So
it's past tense everything in the promises of God because we live on this side
of the cross. We live on the completion side of the of the cross
and of the resurrection. Everything on this side of the cross, and the
His direction is in the past. Am I making any sense? For instance,
I'll give you an example, and I know you've heard it talked about
for s. Peter two twenty four, when Isaiah said what Peter quoted,
and for Peter two twenty four, he himself bore our sins in his body
on the cross, that we might die to sins and live for righteousness.
For by his wounds you have been healed. How many of you heard by
his stripes you were healed. You notice you notice it's past tense. You
were healed. You're actually looking back on healing. All you need to do
is bring healing into the present. I would have accomplished. But when Isaiah
said the same exact thing, when he wrote this. When when when he
said this in Isaiah chapter fifty three, verse four, it was looking forward.
It wasn't accomplished. It was a prophetic view to the future. But
when Peter writes it, it's a view looking backwards. By his stripes,
you were healed. Well, if I were healed, or if I was
healed, or if healing is accomplished, that means I don't have to talk
God into healing me. Jesus already talked to God into healing me on my
behalf. If Jesus already talked to God in the healing all humans with sickness
or disease who are hidden in Him, hidden in Him, of whom every
promise is yes and amen. If Jesus already did the talking on my behalf.
Then I can be a receiver. So I don't need near as much
petition as I need receiving. Am I making any sense? So it's like
my posture, my posture out of First Peter two twenty four is not trying
to get qualified before God for healing, because Jesus did it for me.
My posture is I receive healing. I receive healing in my body right now.
Because why because it's a it's a word, it's a living word.
And if you'll meditate on that word, the Holy Spirit will quicken that word
to you. Then your part, having received the seed of the word,
is to bring german Nation to the word. And you bring Germanation to the
word not with unbelief, but with faith. And the first act of faith
when you receive a word is to receive it. Remember the Holy Spirit ministered
to Merry through the angelic visitation and gave her the word. And then she
said, so be it unto me, according to your word. I receive
it. I receive it. I receive it. I receive healing in my
shoulder. Today, I receive healing in my knee. Today I received healing
of the years. Today I receive healing of the heart today. Well I
just did that, Pastor, I did that last week, and nothing happened.
It's a seed. Last time I planted a seed and got it all
germinated, it looked like nothing happened. But after a while, as I
watered it with Thanksgiving. You can't water a seed with more doubt and unbelief.
You can't water a seed. You can't water the seed of the Word
with I wonder or not for me or probably won't, yeah, probably not.
And you can't water a seed that way. You water a seed by
rejoicing over it. When we go to the garden, we go with a
hose and we're like, phrase the Lord, these beans are going to be
so good this year, Lord to God. I can't wait to have these
green beans. Oh, these raspberries. Last year we had so many raspberries.
We froze them in bags. We have them on our pancakes. That
can't wait to have those raspberries. You don't go out there with steel toe
boots and hop in the garden bed and start kicking it and cussing it,
and you lousy things. You've done nothing. I knew it. Thanksgiving we
water. We water the seed with thanksgiving, and you only you will only
move into thanksgiving when you've moved it first into receiving second Peter one three.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our
knowledge of Him who called us by his own glory and greatness. So that's
interesting. If you study this passage, what you're going to find is what
is lacking is not your efficacy of petition. What is lacking. And by
the way, what the King James says, which is a little more accurate,
It says that he has given us everything we need pertaining the life and
godliness. He already gave us everything we need pertaining the life and godliness.
Why because he gave it to the sun. And you are in the sun.
You dwell in the sun, you're hidden in the sun. You are
an in Christ human. That's why Philippines Force says that we will receive what
we need out of the riches of his glory, the glory that's in Christ.
Wow. Because everything about us, who are hidden in Him, we've
come to know that he's qualified as for everything that belongs to him. Romans
eight seventeen. We are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. You're
a joint heir, right, So this is just this is cool stuff.
And if you read that passage out of Second Peter chapter one, it says,
really, the thing that's lacking is not like a new style of petition
for you, like a new stuff, bigger kneepads. What's lacking is your
knowledge. What's lacking is your knowledge of what He's done for you before the
Father to present you as qualified for everything that belongs to him. He feases
one three through five. Praise be to the God and the Father of our
Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in heavenly realms with every spiritual
blessing in Christ. I know it sounds crazy, but what you know,
what if we shifted, what if we shifted into a little bit more thanksgiving
and receiving prayers? Right, He's blessed us with every he This is you
know, if you were reading the King James, it would say who hath
blessed us? For? He shows us in him before the creation of the
world, to be holly and blameless in his sight and in love. He
predestines for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with the pleasure of his
will or his pleasure and will talking about the power of receiving even two through
twenty five. This is a pretty familiar passage. I want to read it
to you in just a second, but first I want to read to you
out of John five five nineteen. Jesus gave them this answer. Verily,
I tell you the truth. The son can do nothing by himself. He
can only but he sees the father doing. Because whatever the father does,
the son also does. For the father loves the son, and the show
shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him greater works
than these, so that you will be amazed. Now I want to read
that one to you. Just visiting one. We've visited, you know before,
many times, and I don't it's still it's still worth visiting. And
that's Mark eleven, right. Mark eleven is where Jesus curses the fig tree.
And it's cool, you know, he curses the fig tree. Let's
not go there yet, Tom, but we'll go there in a minute.
So he curses the fig tree and then you know they're traveling through the area.
You know the story. He curses the fig tree nothing happens. They're
traveling, but when they come back through they notice, and this is interesting
because the passage notes it. They notice that the tree is drying up from
the roots. So the curse, and it's in scripture that way on purpose,
because the curse didn't affect the leaves instantly, it affected the roots.
And then what they notice is the trees drying up from the roots. So,
in other words, even the curse took time to manifest, because even
a curse operates as a seed. Everything in the Word operates as a seed.
So then Jesus says, and Mark, we can go there now,
markleven twenty two. He says yes, And the disciples point this out and
they're like, whoa, look at this the tree that you cursed. It's
drawing up from the roots. And then he says, yes, have faith
in God, truly, I tell you, If anyone and then he takes
it further, if anyone says so, have faith in God. What he
means is operate like I did out of John five. You can't create your
own faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing, not just anything, but
hearing by the raima, the quickened word of Christ and That's exactly how Jesus
operated. Jesus operated as he's calling us to operate by hearing from the Holy
Spirit. He says, have faith in God. In other words, when
you hear something from God or see God doing something, receive that, partner
with that, act upon that, and that will give you the desired result
or the result that Father wanted. So you can't just run around moving mountains.
You can run around moving the mountains God wants moved. And God wants
a lot more mountains moved than you think he wants. Because He calls you
royalty when you call yourself worm. He calls you qualified when you call yourself
falling, short, unworthy, worthless. So he wants you moving mountains out
of your true entity, out of royalty, not moving mole hills, moving
mountains. Worthlessness has you moving mole hills. Royalty has you moving mountains.
So he says, yes, have faith in God. Truly. I tell
you, if anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea,
and does not doubt in their heart, but believes that what they say
will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore, I tell you,
whatever you ask for in prayer or whatever you declare in prayer or decree
in prayer, believe that you have received it. When should you believe that
you've received it when you're eating the beans in the kitchen. This is interesting
because he is saying, if we follow this, that were to do things
the way Jesus did them and the way that Father has ordained for us to
do them. That is, Jesus was already rejoicing over the cursed figtree when
the curse was proclaimed, not a couple of days later when they saw it
was drying up. And this is the way. This is the way faith
works. Faith works in that when we received the word and we partner with
that word, it's then that we believe that we have received. It's then
that we believe that we've already received. We're already seeing the raspberries. We're
receiving the raspberries. We're already seeing by faith the green beans. So we're
receiving the green beans. We received the word. We've received the green bean
word he talked in first he talked in Ephesians one three through five. He
talks about that we would share in his holiness. In second Peter one,
he says we are partakers of the divine nature. You don't need to go
through those tongs. I'm just talking. You know. We can shift this
over and go into blessings, and we can go into abundance, and we
can go into wealth and royalty. But sometimes it's more impactful to go over
into holiness. Forget about that from and let's just go over into holiness.
What if we began to say, I receive the gift of holiness, because
we'll spend a lot of time petitioning God for holiness. But if we stopped,
because He's said in Ephesians one three through five that He's blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and already ordained for us to be receivers of
holiness, that we would live in our generation in holiness. Holiness is not
a bad deal. By the way, it could be that one of the
acts of faith that would kick us into a greater manifestation of holiness would be
the acknowledgement that we receive holiness. Because wherever petitioning is the full expression of
our Christianity, that petitioning leaves a little crack in the door or in the
window. For unbelief. I usually petition heavily for the things that I don't
believe I have yet. But if I believe I fully have something, that
I begin to thank Him that I do have it. I begin to receive
it fully, acknowledge it with thanksgiving. And little did I realize that was
the step that it took to germinate the faith of the Word given to begin
to bring it to pass. But I tend to look at my stumbling and
I'm like, yeah, but I'm not Holy. Don't continue to look at
circumstances to determine your identity. When He's determined your identity will begin to shift
your circumstances. Let your true identity work by partnering with receiving faith, so
that that true identity will begin to emerge and shift your circumstances and your behavior.
Stand with me this morning. Do this make any sense at all?
Just put up our hands, Holy Spirit, Come on, say it with
me, Holy Spirit. I receive from you the fullness of Jesus, the
Word of Jesus, the Word of life, the good news. I receive
that He's qualified me before the Father to walk in holiness, to walk in
abundance, to walk in wisdom, to walk in the mind of Christ,
to walk in the divine nature, to walk in the fruit of Holy Spirit.
He's qualified me. He's qualified me. I cast aside the accusations,
the shortcomings. I cast aside the propensity to work and the labor, and
only receive from you, Father, what I feel I deserve, according to
my labor. I cast that aside. I received today that all that you
lavishly pour upon me is according to what he deserves, not according to what
I deserve. Thank you, Father, This is the gospel. This is
the gospel. This is grace that you give me what he deserves in Jesus
name, I receive it. Amen. I'd bless your church. Let's worship
as we go.