The Nature of Christ

Okay, guys, so we're going to talk about glory, but we're going to talk about it in terms of the nature of Christ.

And this is one of those teachings that if we get right, it becomes the new baseline for thinking about how God works in terms of His glory.

And I'm sure He'll upgrade it six months from now or a year from now or whatever, but this is our new baseline in terms of how we think of the glory of God.

And it's important because on one hand, this church is heading that way in terms of discovering what it is to walk in, dwell in, abide in, practice the glory of God, but we still need to have a baseline that we operate from.

So that's why this teaching becomes a little critical for what lies ahead for us.

So I've asked this question before.

If you love someone, what would be the best that you would give to them? If you love somebody, what's the best thing you would give to them? Of all the things you have, what would you give them?

Time.

Time.

Affection.

Love.

Sorry?

Everything. So one of the things God does, and your answers are kind of the same, because He loves us the way He does, the best thing He can give us is Himself.

All of Himself.

When He gives Himself, then He gives us His time, He gives us His affection, He gives us His love.

The reason presence is such an easy thing for God to establish in our midst is because in presence, He gives all of Himself.

There's nothing left that He holds back.

So some of the words that we've played around with and churches have been playing around with is presence, shekinah, glory.

But at the end of the day, it all boils down to God making Himself available to people.

And so one of the questions we need to ask then, if these are the words that we have used and people have used in the past to describe who God is in our midst, one has to ask the question, what then is glory?

And the thing is, the moment you ask this question, you have to say, it is the glory of Christ, because what often happens is we separate this word from Him.

And the moment you separate glory from Christ, it becomes an it or a what.

And this is something that we have to establish. Whenever we utter the word glory, you have to think of it.

And sometimes the only way to think of things is to say it.

Try not to in the next many months separate the word glory from the person of Christ.

Every time we talk about glory, we'll have to use the words, the glory of Christ.

Don't separate it. We have to get used to the idea that it is not an it, it is not a what.

It is a who and it is a Him. It is the glory of a person.

The moment you separate it, we'll begin to think of glory as a separate thing. It's not a separate thing.

So for the next few months in this church, every time you use the word glory, you have to phrase it as it is the glory of Christ.

Don't separate it, because to separate it makes it an it or a what.

So during times of worship, if you sense the glory of God in a space, you say it is the glory of Christ.

You don't just say glory, because the moment you connect it to a person, everything changes.

And the moment you disconnect it from a person, it can take on any form, which is just an outward expression of something.

I can't be a something because it's a someone.

Phrasing things is important. We think like we talk.

So it is the glory of Christ. Don't separate it. Don't separate it.

So let's look at Hebrews 1, verse 3, and the first part of verse 3.

Hebrews 1:3

It says that he is the radiance of God's splendor.

So we're talking about Christ here. He, as in Christ, is the radiance of God's splendor.

Or the radiance of the glory of God. The radiance of the glory of God.

He is the radiance of the glory of God. That's the first part.

And then it says, and the exact imprint, the exact imprint, the exact imprint of his nature.

Crazy, eh? So Christ is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

Some of the other versions use words like, he is the dazzling radiance of God's splendor.

Doesn't matter which version you take. It all seems to say,

Sometimes it says the exact expression of God's true nature.

Sometimes it says the exact representation of God's essence.

Or the express image of his person. I don't know why it went gold on that.

So here's the thing guys. When you look at all this, the conclusion is very simple.

The radiance of the glory of God is because of his nature.

The radiance of the glory of God is because of his nature. You separate his nature, there is no glory.

In a church and all across the world, there's this trend now to pursue glory.

And that pursuing of glory can be anything from muscular spasms to brilliant lights to feathers falling to gold dust to people falling to sound and light.

And all those may or may not be expressions. We can figure that out later.

But at its very core, the glory of God is the nature of Christ.

The glory of God is the nature of Christ. Every scripture that you read in the Bible keeps going back to this.

He's the dazzling radiance of God's splendor. He's the exact expression of God's true nature.

He's the representation of God's essence.

At the end of the day, you take away the nature of God and Christ has nothing to offer.

And if you don't get that right, then we'll keep chasing the shadow and we'll forget the substance.

Any questions on that before we go on?

Guys, everything else is created. Everything else has radiance of glory bestowed on it.

From planets to stars to angels to Adam to natural beauty to Solomon's wisdom to kings and kingdoms.

Everything is bestowed. Everything is borrowed.

There's only one who has such, such excellence in his nature that it is radiant.

Doesn't matter the best king that ever lived, the best kingdoms established.

Doesn't matter the beauty of celestial planets like it says in 1 Corinthians 15.

It doesn't matter. They're all bestowed. None of them have any glory of their own.

All glory that exists, exists in just one person.

And it exists because of his nature. And we'll talk about his nature.

You'll be stunned at his nature.

Everything else lives in borrowed glory. You think Adam had glory? Yes, he did.

But it was the glory that was bestowed on him. You think Eve had glory? Yes, she did.

It was bestowed on her. Do the planets and the stars and the sun and the moon have glory?

1 Corinthians 15 talks about it. As the celestial planets and creation has its own glory.

Again, it's given by God. Did Solomon have a glorious reign? Yes, given by God.

Were the flowers in the fields more glorious than Solomon? Yes, given by God.

There's only one in whom the word doxa or kabod or glory exists.

And it is in the person of Christ. And it is because of the essence of his nature.

He's not surrounded by gases that are aflame that makes him radiant and brilliant.

It's because of the essence of his nature. We can't even imagine this because of how corrupted both we are and the Earth is.

We can't even imagine this.

That's where it comes from, eh?

Yes?

Sorry?

Would that have been evident pre-resurrection? Good question.

In John 17, Jesus puts it this way. Jesus says, Oh God, I have glorified you now.

Could you give me the glory that I used to have before I came?

Could I be glorified again the way I used to be?

And then he goes on to say, Father, I've got another request.

That Diana be where I am so that she can see the glory that I used to have.

It's a desire. One of his great desires is that those that believe in him see who he really is.

He tries to convey it by his spirit to us right now.

But his desire is, I so badly want you to see who I really am.

And he's not talking about light and sound. He's talking about the essence of who he is, the visible representation of the Father.

The essence or the express image or the representation of the nature of God. He wants it.

So when he walked the Earth, yes, people would see his glory occasionally.

You would see John chapter two, verse 11, it says, And Jesus turned water into wine, and it was the first of his miracles.

And he revealed his glory to people.

But those were these vignettes of his nature expressing itself in real time in the physical world.

Everything is because of his nature. Hey, I need more volume.

You mentioned the glory of God, the nature of God. When someone says I felt the glory of God, is it the love of God that I feel, the kindness, the compassion, and those adjectives?

Yeah. So that's one of our struggles in Christianity.

And even in this church, when one says I felt the glory of God, we don't know what they mean.

Which is why this must be a baseline that establishes the definition of what we mean when we say we felt the glory of God.

Because she, Yasuri may say I felt the glory of God. You may say I felt the glory of God.

It could be two separate things. You maybe saw something that blew your mind.

She was just touched by the forgiving love of God. Now, which one is which one is which?

Which one is which? Or how do you describe it? So it can't be everything.

So we got to define a baseline and then build on it, which is what we're trying to do.

Because if you go around the world, glory can be strange things, really strange things.

During the Toronto Vineyard Movement, people would come out of the church with muscle spasms and reporters would stand and say, what is this?

And they would say, this is the glory of God. So what do you reduce it to?

Is it my emotional or physical reaction to presence? Is that glory? We've got to have a baseline.

And never separate the word glory from Christ. It is the glory of Christ, which is the essence of his nature.

In all circumstances, this is again important.

We connect glory to worship in all circumstances. In all circumstances.

In prison. In a worship service.

In plenty. In poverty.

In places and situations that are corrupt and in places that are perfect.

His glory is unchanging.

You've got to realize this. In the corruptest of places, deep darkness.

I'm not even talking about deep darkness as in dungeons, in places of corruption and sin. His glory is still unchanging.

Evidence? Isaiah 60. Deep darkness covers the earth. But what? But the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

It doesn't matter how dark it gets. It doesn't matter how poor you are, how rich you are, whether you are plenty or whether you're in poverty,

whether things are corrupt or things are perfect, whether you're in prison or in a worship service.

One unchanging thing about God, because glory is the essence of his nature, is that it is unchanging.

Unchanging. Which means then that you can experience it everywhere.

A people that only experience glory during times of worship are a poor people.

His glory is unchanging.

In fact, he has a tendency to show up in brilliant glory in dark places.

Arise and shine for your light has come. Deep darkness covers the earth. But in the darkness, behold, God has risen with his glory.

If you understand this and if I understand this, we'll stop chasing shadows.

We'll stop chasing external manifestations of glory. And boy, do we hunger.

A hunger is not wrong. We want to see, feel, taste, believe, touch the glory of God.

And it is not a wrong desire. But you can't touch a shadow. You have to touch the substance.

So as much as glory has its manifestation and expression, it is easy for a church and a people to begin to desire the manifestation.

That would be like Jane coming home after two weeks from a long trip and Sheldon waiting at the airport and he sees Jane coming and he rushes and lies down on the ground hugging her shadow.

And she's wondering why. You hug the substance, not the shadow. If you hug the substance, you get the shadow also.

If you hug the shadow, you do not get the substance. And churches are always close to making that mistake.

And once that mistake starts, it's very hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

Any questions?

So can you see the glory of God without emotion?

Can you see the glory of God without emotion? Let me put this question back at you.

Would you be able to love your wife without emotion? It's an act of the will, but emotions are always involved.

If it was just emotions and not an act of the will, then we are in trouble. So it's both.

Yeah. See, so again, we go back to the who, not the what. If I am in love with him, if I'm experiencing him, then it is natural for the emotions to flow towards him.

Everything else that happens is like you're in love with your wife and in the middle of the service she leans over and kisses you on your cheek and you feel the kiss on your cheek.

That doesn't define her. That is in the only expression of her love. You know she loves you.

You love her back. Sometimes it's just a look. But sometimes the external manifestations are present.

They have to match up with president and scripture and we'll talk about that.

But at the end of the day, glory is about a person and it is not the external manifestations first.

Guys, we must desire that God show up. Yeah. However he is felt by different people and people who come in who do not know the Lord, let them know.

But this is the baseline we established. It is the glory of Christ. It is not just glory.

So let's look at what glory is. That's why I asked you to stop because I want us to be able to worship with a greater awareness today than we've ever had.

Than we've ever had of a person. And if it is a person, then how we worship changes because we know that the person desires certain things at certain times.

We have a spy in heaven, the Holy Spirit. He's our inside man in the triune Godhead. He knows what the father wants. He knows what the son wants.

He can tell us. So what is the glory of Christ? You know, on long flights you have a lot of time.

So I went over every scripture that talks about glory. There are 328 verses in the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And based on that, here is what glory looks like. One, it is triumph or victory. What are we talking about?

What is the glory of Christ? Here's what it is. One, it's triumph or victory or conquest.

Where does this come from? You hear God saying in Exodus, God says, listen, I'm going to establish my glory over Egypt and over Pharaoh.

My glory will end Egypt's fame. Triumph and victory. Next one.

Signs, works of wonder, miracles, his acts that give life and ends death or decay.

These are all from scriptures in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Next, Majesty. He is royal. He's a king.

Majesty, splendor, brilliance. These are the words we normally use, but we forget that there is so much more to the essence of his nature.

Magnificence, weight, copiousness, as in he just flows, he's profuse. It's like an unending inexhaustible volcano that just spews his nature.

It's just continuous. It's never ending. It doesn't stop. Sovereignty. Next. I love this next one. Mystery.

Perfection. Excellence. His mystery itself is his glory. It says in Proverbs 25, verse 2 or 3, it is the glory of God to conceal a matter.

Proverbs 25:2

It is the glory of Kings to reveal it. One of the things we are doing through our teaching, through worship, through thinking, is to reveal what God is trying to conceal.

Why is God trying to conceal it? Because there's no end to it, and if you want it, come seek it.

There's no end to any of the essences of the nature of God. There's no end to his kindness. There's no end to his majesty. There's no end to his brilliance.

When you reduce that to an event or a physical feeling, it's absurd.

It's his prerogative to conceal his glory and ours to search it out.

Mystery. Perfection. Excellence. Part of his nature. And guess what? As I'm talking, as we are talking, this very person that we are talking about is here, listening to this.

And so then when we begin to worship, we're worshipping the glory of a person, the nature, the fullness of this person who's in our midst.

Who needs worship leaders then, right? We need musicians. We don't need worship leaders.

That's Tunis' desire. That's James' desire. That's my desire.

He's holy. Part of his glory is his holy. He is holy. He is true. He is forgiving love.

He is mercy. He is wholeness.

From which comes the word shalom. He is kindness.

He is passion. Man, in the purest, most perfect, most unending type, he is holy.

As in, you know, when he made man in his image, the one thing he didn't give man was holy.

Because holy means set apart, transcendent, separate from creation.

Adam was innocent. We have been made holy because Christ has come into us.

But holy is something that God is essentially. What does holy mean? Everything about him is so true, so straight.

When he creates anything, when he does anything, when he says anything, everything is so straight, so true that it is unimaginable.

In a corrupt, fallen world, true and straight are not words we use. So true.

This is why I like that song, Amen. It says, holiness is...

Holiness has a name, and it is Jesus. That's how we should look at this.

Forgiving love has a name, and it is Jesus. Mercy has a name, and it is Jesus.

Wholeness has a name, and it is Jesus. Kindness has a name, and it is Jesus.

Passion has a name. Yearning passion has a name, and it is Jesus.

Now when we begin to worship this Christ, you understand why glory can heal people.

Because we are talking about the nature of someone who is present here.

When we recognize that there is wholeness in him, then because of the glory of God, things begin to happen.

We keep coming back to the one thing that we keep forgetting. A person and the essence of his nature.

There's more.

What happened, Bria?

Oi!

There's beauty.

There's beauty.

There's creativity.

There's greatness.

There's praise.

There's fame.

There's reputation. He often says, I will not give my fame or reputation or glory to some pagan god. I will not.

There's beauty. Everything he makes comes out of his nature.

Guys, when you look at this list, you realize that anything he creates comes out of this, eh?

Every one of you is made because of who he is. You were created out of his majesty and splendor.

You were created out of his holy and true. You were created out of beauty and creativity.

You were created out of kindness and passion. It just surrounds you.

We sing the song, The Splendor of the King Robed in Majesty. He robs you in his nature.

It's out of his nature that you are created, formed, wonderfully made, put together.

And this is who is here right now and this is who we worship.

And when we worship him, whatever he wants to do can begin to happen.

Who is that inside man in the triune godhead? The Holy Spirit.

Follow him and you get to know things that he wants to do.

Where a people of God become conductors of glory.

Don't worry, there are not 238 such things, but 328 verses, sorry.

But I still have a ways to go.

Glorious riches. Glorious riches.

Dominion. Power. Honor. Wisdom.

It's the essence of his nature. Guys, what kind of a being is he?

Who is this? Who could have all this?

Who is this? Who is this who has all this in perfection, in excellence?

He's the same one who's here right now.

You think it's difficult to worship him?

You have to hold back.

This is why when you see him in his brilliance in heaven face to face,

you have to hold back.

This is why when you see him in his brilliance in heaven face to face,

you won't need instruments.

It'll be endless. It'll be endless because there's nothing else you can do,

but burst forth at perfect magnificence.

His nature is goodness. Show me your glory. I'll show you my goodness.

Oneness. He longs for this.

Oh God, make them one as you and I are one and please make sure that they are

with me so that they can see the glory of God.

I want to be with you.

I want to be with you.

I want to be with you.

I want to be with you.

I want to be with you.

I want to be with you.

Oh God, please make sure that they are with me so that they can see the glory

that I used to have before I was sent, that they may see it and restore it to me

so that they can be part of what I actually always have had.

Goodness, oneness, unchangingly faithful.

Unchangingly faithful and one of the words I really like, joyous. Joyous.

I mean, can someone like this be anything but joyous?

It's not always ha ha ha joyous, but it is like a fountain, man.

This Christ, anyone will follow.

Anyone will follow.

Presented to any human being on earth, this Christ, anyone will follow.

But this is not the Christ we present.

Which is why in Galatians, it says, can you pursue Christ who is of unsurpassing worth?

Worth that cannot be surpassed, priceless.

We don't follow him because he's a sin remover.

We don't follow him because he's a pain remover.

We don't follow him because he's a history maker.

We don't follow him because he's a purpose giver.

We follow him just because he is this.

Everything else is gravy.

When people pursue this, they get everything.

He's without deceit. He's without deceit.

He's free of corruption.

He's free of corruption.

He's straight. He is separate, straight as an arrow.

Yeah, arrows aren't as straight as him.

He is separate.

Our God is not a God like every other God in the world that finds his way into nature,

becomes stone, tree, frog.

No, this God is separate.

He makes himself a part of creation, but he has always been transcendent and separate.

He is strong.

He is mighty.

He is undefeated.

He is protective.

He is dread.

And he will also be revered.

Strong, mighty, undefeated, protective.

Isaiah chapter 2, verse 4, or Isaiah 2, verses 4 and 5.

Isaiah 2:4 Isaiah 2:4

It says, I'll build a canopy around you, and that canopy will be a canopy of glory.

I'll cover you with the canopy of glory, and the sun shall not smite you by day, the storm shall not strike you.

This is who he is.

One more.

Dread.

It's strange how the dread of God is something that can happen both to believers and to unbelievers.

To the unbeliever, dread becomes almost like a death knell,

while to the believer, he suddenly realizes that as much as you're friends with this God, this God is God.

Abraham has cut his sacrifices, he's put them in two rows, and he's expecting God to turn up.

And God is going to turn up in a blazing torch and give Abraham a promise.

But as he waits, he's chasing the birds of prey away, and it says a great dread came over Abraham.

Darkness.

Psalm 18.

He covers himself with clouds.

What do you think was happening on Mount Sinai?

God tells Moses, listen, gather the people.

I want to talk to them.

I want to show them that I am God and I'm making a covenant with them.

The people come near the mountain, and it's covered with fire, but it's also covered with dark cloud.

And they say, you go speak to him, not us.

There is this dread that becomes to the enemy a very scary place where they subdue and they bow and they cower and they slide back into the holes they came from.

And for the people of God, it fills you with awe and reverence.

Glory can do that.

The last one for now.

Glory has a voice often.

Peter talks about it when he remembers in 2 Peter what happened in Matthew 17 on the Mount of Transfiguration, and he calls it the voice of majestic glory, the voice of majestic glory.

And it's the kind of voice that splits the earth.

And you can read it in the Bible.

The voice that splits the earth.

And you can read about that in Psalm 19 and 29.

And at the same time, it forms things and it sustains things.

Hebrews 1, 3, the second part of it talks about it.

He sustains things by the power of his word.

This is who is in our midst.

This is what real glory looks like.

Not the trappings, the person.

This is the risen Christ we know.

This is the risen Christ.

We do not, we're not looking for the diesels of Nazareth, eh?

2 Corinthians 5, 18 talks about it.

No longer are we looking for diesels of Nazareth.

We're looking for the risen Christ because we do not look for things after the flesh but after the spirit.

This is the risen Christ we know.

You read about him in Matthew 17, where for a moment in Matthew 17, too,

he strips off his earthly suit and you see his brilliance.

You read about him in Revelations 1.

Eyes blazing fire, feet burning brass, voice like mighty waterfall, a sword coming out of his mouth.

You can't even describe him when you see him.

You have to describe him symbolically and you have to personify him

because how do you describe someone like this to a human?

And yet when you reduce him to a person with a beard who smiles at you,

it's nice but it ain't really the glorious one who is in our midst.

Revelations 1, you go to Revelations 4, you hear his description again.

You go to Revelations 5, you see him as the lamb of God with seven horns and seven eyes.

You see him as the lamb of God with seven horns and seven eyes, the sevenfold spirit.

You go to Revelations 19, he's riding a white horse and he has the name King of Kings and Lord of Lords

and a robe dipped in blood.

You go to Ezekiel 1 and you see someone whose torso is brighter than anything you've seen,

seated on a chariot-like throne.

You go to Isaiah and you see the whole place shake as cherubim can't even look at him.

And they say, holy, holy, holy, this is the one in our midst.

How do you deal with someone like this?

This is why if he ever turns up, you lie flat on your face and he has to say those magic words, fear not.

This is someone else, man.

And it's not like he just comes into a room and you know how you have those rooms scent thingies that dispel

and the room smells good.

He's not like that.

He doesn't turn up into a room and go, some glory here, some glory there.

And you say, oh, glory.

That's not how his glory deals with the universe.

Guys, Colossians 1.17 says, the entire universe is contained in him.

Christ is not some nucleus that is present in a service so that he can emanate what he wants to.

The entire universe is contained in him.

In him, the universe consists.

It's not the other way around.

We're not spraying Christ.

That's not what glory is.

Everything is contained in him, for him, through him, contained in him.

Daniel 7 talks about the same thing.

Guys, all this emanates, all these different things we've mentioned, all this emanates from him.

It bursts forth from him.

It pours out from him.

And none of these things, basically what we've written here is the essence of his nature that fills the universe.

This is why it says, and the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

It bursts forth from him, pours out from him.

It does not exist separate from him.

None of these things are owned by anybody, deserved by anybody, earned by anybody.

It emanates, bursts forth, pours out from him and fills the universe, touches the heart of man.

It cannot exist by itself.

Kindness does not exist by itself.

You go for these Oscar ceremonies, oh, he's a good person.

There is no goodness apart from God.

Everything here comes from him.

It cannot exist separate from him.

Every kind act, every loving act, every word you speak that has some weight of value comes because of one person,

and he alone has it, nobody else.

The glory is given to us.

You know, the word shekinah does not exist, really.

It's actually a word called shekinah in Hebrew, which is basically the visible manifest presence dwelling among mankind.

That's what it really is.

And it was coined by rabbis, ancient rabbis, who probably heard about it and didn't even see it.

It was used to describe God's glorious light that they probably heard about in the tent of meeting

or heard about over the ark, and they probably didn't see it.

But they coined a term for it called shekinah, and we borrowed from that term, and it's heard of in the Old Testament.

When you look at dwelling presence, just so we know, from a biblical point in precedent,

dwelling presence or shekinah, how did it show itself in the Bible?

It was either a devouring fire, or it was a thick cloud, or it was a brilliant rainbow,

or as it says in Revelation, it was radiant jewel-like.

These are the different expressions that keep repeating themselves in the Old and the New Testament.

You see it in Exodus 13, 21 and 22. You see it in Exodus 40, verse 34 and 35.

Exodus 40:34

You see it in 2 Chronicles 7, verse 1 to 3. You see it in Revelation 21, verse 11.

2 Chronicles 7:1–3 Revelation 21:11

So if you want precedent in the Bible, then you have to go with this.

Because there'll be a tendency for people to now begin to describe anything that happens in a church

as representative of the glory of God.

But if you went by biblical precedent, then these are the ways God expresses himself.

Through fire, through cloud, through brilliance, through jewel-like radiance.

And the great thing is in 1 Peter 4, 14, the Spirit of God is called the Spirit of Glory.

I love that name for him. Spirit of God is called the Spirit of Glory.

At the end of the day, the Shekinah, the Christ, is brought to us by the Spirit of God.

And the Spirit of God is also called the God of Glory.

It's also called the Spirit of Glory. Sorry.

So let's try and stick to biblical precedent, unless otherwise shown through Scripture.

If not, there'll be no end to what can be swept under the glory carpet.

Remember, it's a person, eh? Does it matter to Anile what Thuney wears, whether he's wearing a suit or a t-shirt?

She likes him. If he wears a good suit and sprays some perfume, yeah, she may hug him, but that's about it.

Right, Thuney?

Here's the thing, guys. This Christ we are talking about, the glory of Christ exists in four dimensions.

I know the word dimensions is used so often. I'm scared to use the word nowadays.

But let's just go with the word dimension because it's a good word.

It is in me.

Just, just, Silla.

Colossians 1.27. The glory of Christ. This, this person we were just describing.

All those things we said he was is in me right now.

Christ in me, the hope of glory in me right now.

That splendid person we are talking about is that present in me.

Next week we'll talk about if he is in me, then what am I supposed to do with that?

This person is right now in me.

There's a reason that the Father says, be ye holy, because I am holy.

There's a reason he says, be ye perfect, for I am perfect.

Because this person we are talking about that is so, so excellent, so perfect as in me.

And he was the exact imprint of the nature of God.

So what am I supposed to be?

In my interactions with you, in the way I see the world, in every step action I take,

the reality exists that I can be the exact imprint of the nature of God.

All I had to go, poosh.

That's one dimension. The next one.

He is in me. Second one.

He is in our midst right now.

This glorious one is in our midst right now.

Which one?

This one.

The one who is triumphant and victorious.

The one who does signs and works of wonder. It's his nature.

The one who holds the majestic splendor, brilliant, magnificent weight.

You know, it's my favorite thing to do now.

I go to sleep going over this list, because at some point by the time I get to six I knock off.

And then in the morning I get up where I left off.

Because I want to learn this.

You learn things through repetition.

Last night I got as far as mystery, perfection and excellence and I was out.

But this morning you start again and you complete it.

You realize that you can't define the nature of your God yet because you haven't thought about it.

You inhabit what you think.

You inhabit what you think.

He is in me. Second.

This amazing person is in our midst.

So,

he is in heaven

and he is in the whole earth.

Four places he exists at the same time.

In me, Colossians 1.27, 1 Corinthians 3.16,

in our midst, 1 Corinthians 6.19,

Revelations 1.12 and 13,

in heaven, Revelations 4, 5,

whole earth, you just have to read Job chapter 40 to 42,

Job 40 · chapter mention

Romans 1,

Habakkuk 2.14,

Numbers 14.21.

You read these and you realize that this is an old story, it's not a new thing.

He's been this way forever.

Now do you understand why David says,

where can I go from your presence?

If I take the wings of the morning and I fly away, you're there.

If I go hide myself in the deepest of darkness, in Sheol, you're there.

Everywhere I go, you are.

How did this man from the Old Testament even know this?

You know, there's a thing that has to happen for us.

It's called awareness.

Awareness. Awareness of him in me.

And awareness of him in our midst.

Awareness of him in heaven.

And awareness of him in every dark and light place on the earth.

Everywhere.

Like I said, it's contained in him.

He's not spraying things with his goodness.

Everything is contained in him.

It's everywhere.

There's nowhere you can go that the glory or the essence of the nature of God is absent.

There's no place.

How do you cultivate awareness?

By the way, awareness always leads to interactive access.

Every time you become aware of something, you begin to have interactive access.

It doesn't matter with God. It matters with everything.

I mean, simple thing like you buy a VW EV, Volkswagen electric vehicle,

and suddenly you notice every other Volkswagen on the road.

Till then you didn't know Volkswagen existed.

You bought an ID40, and now you see it everywhere.

Everywhere you look, there are ID40s.

If it exists on the scale of non-animate things,

imagine what happens when you become aware of someone.

The moment you become aware of someone, interactive access starts.

And what is awareness?

Awareness is three things put together.

I mean, the awareness that we need for this is three things to put together.

The first, love.

You are always aware of the things you love and the people you love.

Two, practice.

Awareness must be practiced.

What is practice?

Practice is an act of the will.

Awareness is disciplining yourself to become aware.

Practice.

Three, knowledge.

The greater your knowledge about something, the more aware you are of it.

Awareness requires these three things.

If I want to be aware of the things that we are talking about,

then it is only possible when awareness is the result.

Awareness is the result of love or pursuit,

plus practice or disciplining oneself,

plus knowledge.

I mean, it is one thing to get married to someone you love.

That is where you start.

So you become aware of her because you love her.

But now begins the hard process of disciplining yourself

so that your love becomes an act of the will,

so that you behave a certain way, change the way you are,

so that you become highly aware of what she wants,

when she wants it, what she does not want, what she does not like.

And then there is the second thing,

when she wants it, what she does not want, what she does not like.

And then there is the knowledge.

As one gets to know his spouse better,

he becomes more aware of her needs even when they are not expressed.

This is why it says,

the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the seas.

Join these together and you and I can begin to live a very different life.

Any questions, guys?

The great thing about practice is you have the rest of your life.

Pardon?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Pardon?

Some shorter than the others.

Some shorter than the others, true.

You can only this life to make these choices, eh?

Sometimes, sometimes heaven breaks into earthly realm.

Sometimes heaven breaks into the earthly realm.

Sometimes heaven breaks into the earthly realm within a space, a room, an event.

And that's when some of the scenes from heaven,

that's when some of the scenes from heaven that personify Christ,

that personify Christ or His Majesty, His nature begins to burst forth in vignettes in a room.

But may it have, my caution is may it have biblical precedent.

And may it be followed by the voice of the Word of God.

Because there is no manifestation anywhere in the Bible that wasn't followed by the voice of the Word of God.

Not the voice of the Word of the person, not the voice of the imagination of the person, but the voice and the Word of God.

And so if in our midst suddenly there is light, there are sounds, there is healing, there is cloud, there is fire, there is voice.

Yeah.

There is precedent for this in the Bible.

You read Revelation 4 and 5 and you have an idea of what happens in heaven.

Occasionally, scenes from heaven can burst into the earthly realm.

It's not something that you try to create.

It is something that God may choose to do.

And if it happens then we must measure it by two things.

One, is there biblical precedent?

Two, is there a voice of the Word of God that explains what is happening?

When those two are not there, I'd be sufficiently suspicious.

Or at least that's the stance of this church.

Which two things?

Yeah.

We should check for biblical precedent.

And two, we should check for, actually three, check for biblical precedent, check for the nature of the Father.

And then finally, check to see if there is the voice of the Word of God that comes after the manifestation that reveals something about God.

Not through imaginations, but through the Word.

I mean when, let me take an incident.

If someone, if I take my coat and wave it over you and you fall and I begin to say,

Elijah dropped his mantle from the chariot and Elijah picked it up.

This is my mantle and this is what I do.

That ain't biblical connection.

That's 2 plus 2 is equal to 5.

The Father doesn't go around waving his robe over people so they fall.

Stuff like this should be called out.

Go with glimpses of heaven that may break forth in a congregation, that's different.

Because you can't accommodate glory, you can only surrender to it, but the glory must match the person and the nature of Christ.

And if it doesn't, it should be questioned.

Three things.

The nature of God, the voice and the Word of God after the manifestation and a biblical precedent for what is happening.

When these things happen, guys, it's God who grants access.

God is the one who grants access.

God is the one who grants access.

Be it Enoch, be it Jacob's ladder.

Hey, hey, at the end of the day, guys, please, this is common sense.

This is common sense.

Hold me to it.

Hold this church to it.

If anything is brought forth, presented to you, and it does not find its precedent in the scriptures,

sixty books that cover a whole lot of stories,

if it doesn't find precedent in the scriptures, you must at least question it.

We're not that gullible, especially when it comes from pastors or preachers that you trust.

It's even more dangerous.

You guys trust me.

It'd be so easy for me to bring in something into the church and let it slide for a while because you trust me.

But even though you trust me, will you have the courage to say, quietly, Jacob, what about this?

Why are you saying this is okay?

Can you show me from scriptures where this happens?

Is there precedent for it?

Because always remember this.

Any church in any organization that is kingdom-oriented, deception will always come

because the people who lead you get deceived first.

It never comes from the grassroots.

In a kingdom, nothing starts from ground up.

It's always from top down.

So Jesus is rebuking the elders in the church in the book of Revelation, saying,

why are you tolerating that woman Jezebel who has suddenly come into your midst?

Why are you tolerating her?

He's not criticizing the people in the church.

He's asking the elders, why do you do this?

Be it Enoch, be it Jacob's ladder.

The reason I'm giving you this is you'll see a pattern.

God is not predictable, but he has patterns that he has established in scripture.

Be it Enoch, be it Jacob's ladder, be it Zechariah, be it Ezekiel.

Be it Paul, be it John the Revelator.

Doesn't matter which guy you pick.

You'll always find that God is the one who grants access, and it is by his permission.

What often happens now is we think it is by his permission and the Spirit.

You'll find in the New Testament and in the Old Testament a word that's commonly used.

And it says, on the day of the Lord, I was in the Spirit.

It's by the Spirit or by God's invitation, not by manipulation, not by bottling it,

which happens a lot, eh?

Here's the odd thing about religion.

Religion always ascends to access.

Religion always ascends to access.

Christianity always has God descending.

Every religion you'll find will do things so that they can ascend to access.

Take any religion in the world.

Doesn't matter whether it's Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen, Jainism, Islam.

It's always ascending to access.

And it was the case in the Old Testament.

On the first Pentecost, 50 days after Israel left Egypt, what happened?

Moses ascended Mount Sinai, and 3,000 people died that day.

Fifty days after resurrection, what happens?

The Holy Spirit descends, and 3,000 people get saved.

One of the ways you can know the false from the true,

or that which is manipulative and bottled and formulated from the true,

is it will always try to ascend and access where you may or may not have been invited.

It won't fly in this church, eh?

God refers to this in Deuteronomy 30.

I was very surprised.

As far back as Deuteronomy 30, verse 11, and later on Paul quotes it in Romans.

Deuteronomy 30:11

If you go to Deuteronomy 30, verse 11.

Deuteronomy 30:11

I love the way he puts it.

God is speaking, and he says,

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.

It is not up in heaven so that you have to ask,

Who will ascend into the heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?

Nor is it beyond the sea so that you have to ask,

Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so that we may obey it?

No, the word is very near you.

It is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it.

Let's go to Romans 10.

Romans 10.

Guys, if you need a medium to get you to access glory or access God,

again it's back to religion.

If you need a Tooney or a Jacob or a Jane or a Derek or a Don or a May to access God and his glory and his goodness,

again we are back to religion.

There's a common priesthood of believers that is so established that I should not need you to help me to access God.

That's immature living.

Romans 10.

Verse 6.

But the righteousness that is by faith says,

Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into the heaven?

That is to bring Christ down.

Or who will descend into the deep?

He's quoting from Deuteronomy 30.

That is to bring Christ up from the dead.

But what does it say?

The word is near you.

It's in your mouth and in your heart.

That is the message containing the faith, concerning the faith we proclaim.

He is here.

He is in our midst.

He is in heaven.

And his glory fills the earth.

You cannot formulate.

You cannot manipulate.

You cannot bottle glory.

Like Peter tried to do in Matthew 17.

God has always been one that descends to be with his people.

You know when he started it?

Genesis chapter 3 verse 8.

Genesis 3:8

That's when he started it.

In the cool of the evening, he would come walking in the garden.

That is first principles.

The same God who used to do it then, is the same God who walks amongst us now.

What's the first scene that John sees in Revelation 1?

I see one like the son of man walking amongst the lampstands.

If we don't follow this pattern that God advises,

how we try to formulate glory, manipulate glory, bottle glory,

know this, that you open the door to spirit forces.

The odd thing is, guys,

if you try to manipulate, formulate, and do stuff like that,

that does not have biblical precedent.

Even when Elisha asked Elijah, Elijah said,

it's not up to me, it's up to God.

When you begin to do that, know that most of the time,

you will be deceived by satanic spirits

that will pretend to offer you everything that you're hungering for

in terms of an experience and manifestation,

but not in terms of Christ who is present in you, in our midst, in heaven and on earth.

Any questions?

Can you give me an example of where we can call praise as bottling glory?

Bottling glory will look like, Tuni doesn't do this, but let me just pick on him.

Bottling glory looks like Tuni begins to sing a song.

He realizes that every time he sings that song, people really get caught up.

People begin to praise like crazy.

It's loud, it doesn't end, and Tuni thinks, what two Sundays?

Let's make that the starting song of every service.

Now you have created a formula.

A Christ is in our presence, and today he doesn't want the shout of a king.

He just wants Mary-like adoration.

But now we are a people caught up in the shout of the king

when all he is looking for is people that sit at his feet and listen to his words.

That's bottling up.

Or you go for some crusades and you'll see it.

It's almost like a script.

I once went for two crusades and the guy forgot the city he's in.

I had heard him in Geneva and then I heard him in Vancouver.

I'm thinking to myself, this is the same script.

And then he forgot the city he's in and he named another city.

And someone had to come and tell him, wrong city.

And he said, Vancouver.

Formulas.

Like I said, God is not predictable, but his nature is consistent.

That's bottling.

Manipulating, formulating is the same thing.

Any other questions?

Any other questions?

I've been to too many places where people astral travel.

People go back into places in Joshua's war on Jericho and see that by the Spirit.

People go and see Jesus face to face and he looks like the Jesus of Nazareth.

It is unending.

It's like churning.

You begin to churn a ministry out of that.

We have him in our midst.

He is glorious.

Even the scriptures and John the Revelator and people like that could not describe him.

That should be sufficient for me.

Jesus himself said this, I do not need the testimony of man to prove what I know is true of the Father.

We do not need now George coming and telling us what he saw.

Maybe he saw it and maybe he didn't.

Maybe he's traumatized.

Maybe he imagines it.

Maybe it is real.

Maybe it is not.

There's no way to judge that, but I know what the word says.

Hey, hunger after the glory of the Christ in our midst.

If things manifest in terms of glimpses of heaven here in this congregation, embrace it.

Let there be president for it and let the word of God establish it.

The reason I'm saying this is we are at the brink of this, but this must be our baseline.

This must be our baseline.

Otherwise, error will come in like before you know it.

That would be a shame, eh?

Any questions?

Cool.

Let's play.

Then we'll take a break and then Tuni and the boys will be back.

Tuni and the boys and the girls will be back.

Jesus, we want to establish a baseline in terms of the glory that you possess because of your nature and because of your presence in our midst.

We will not separate it.

We also want to establish a baseline of biblical president, not going with everything and saying it's the glory of God because it must match president in the Bible.

It must match the word of God.

It must match the nature of the father.

But more than anything else, I want to return to what we started off with instead of getting sidetracked by these last statements.

I want to return to what we started off with.

And here's what we said, that you are in our midst and we wrote down those characteristics of yours.

That is what we want to focus on, oh God.

That is a substance.

So we open our eyes, Father, and we look at it one more time.

I won't even read it.

We'll just look at it before we take a break.

Because even when we take a break and are having coffee out there, this about you is still true.

So we just look at it, Abba.

We go over it.

It will take a couple of minutes to go over it.

He is triumphant, victorious, all-conquering.

Word it however you want to.

This is his nature.

This is why he radiates with glory.

This is the glory of Christ.

The visible image of the invisible God, the exact imprint of God's nature.

The radiance of his glory is because of his nature.

He is in me.

He is in our midst.

It's crazy, eh?

Can you imagine?

You're in a room and they're talking about you and they're talking about all your good characteristics,

and you're in the room.

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Can someone just start worshipping?

Anyone?

Someone who is not on the music team.

You will be our King.

You will be our King.

From you our God, to you our God,

You will be our King.

You will be our King.

You will be our King.

From you our God, to you our God,

You will be our King.

You will be our God.

Open your mouth and let your words begin to speak.

Anybody, for certain the leaders in this church need to open their mouth and start this.

Can you turn my mic off?

You