Let Us Go to Him: Outside the Camp

I'm greatly blessed and honored to be here.

I enjoyed the worship time, that we are a family, that we have a great God, a great father.

And I'm so happy to be with you this morning and this weekend.

I'm so thankful to Pastor Robert Morris for the invitation for me and my wife and Faez and his wife to join the upcoming conference to be refreshed and fed, especially after a long time of intense things happening in Egypt all through the last three years, especially the last couple of months.

And I am an eyewitness before you of all what God has done, especially in Egypt the last three years, and especially the last three months.

We have seen him as never before, changing the course of history, doing mighty things to glorify himself and to bring thousands.

We have seen thousands and thousands of thousands of people coming to know Christ as Lord and Savior, especially this last terrible year.

And God is unmasking the truth, revealing himself in visions, in dreams, in a wonderful way, just to let the people hear the voice of the Son of the Living God.

I here to testify that we have an awesome God and nothing is impossible for him.

I have so many stories, but I have to speak the word of God this morning.

And I want to take you to a very wonderful passage from the book of Hebrew.

Very few sentences, very few verses here, but it may summarize a lot of the foundations of our faith and walk with Christ.

Hebrew 13 and from verse 11 to verse 14.

The high priest carries the blood of animals into the most holy place as a sin offering.

But the bodies are burned outside the camp.

Look to the idea here.

And so Jesus did the same.

And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gates to make the people, me and you, holy through his own blood.

And all our worship time were focusing on that idea.

Then here is the calling, here is the idea.

Then go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.

For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.

What a wonderful passage explaining what Jesus did for each one of us to cleanse us, to bring us back to the family, to write our names in the book of life, to give us this eternity, this eternal life.

And the analogy here in this passage between the sacrifice of the Day of Atonement, it's a very special sacrifice, that the blood of this animal will be taken into the most holy place once every year, and the high priest can do it alone.

And this is exactly what Jesus did for us.

And the comparison here between the Day of Atonement and what Jesus did on the cross, two things.

Number one, that this sacrifice especially should be completely burned.

It's a total sacrifice.

The other sacrifices, partially part of the meat, part of the animal, will be given to the man offering the sacrifice, and the other part will be given to the priest.

But this sacrifice especially should be burned totally.

The second comparison between the Day of Atonement or analogy between the Day of Atonement and the sacrifice of Christ that should be burned outside the city gate.

Not in the temple, not within the lifestyle of the people, outside the gate of the city.

And the call here is let's go to him.

Let's go to him.

Secondly, outside the gate of the camp.

And thirdly, we don't have an enduring city here.

Three main ideas will explain in a panoramic view what we should do as a followers of Jesus Christ.

Number one, let's go to Him.

We are not just religious people following ideas or principles.

No.

We are in a personal relationship with Christ Himself, our Lord and our Savior.

It's not another religion.

Christianity is not a religion, it's a personal relationship with Christ the Lord and the Savior.

But here he is describing that kind of a relationship.

What kind of relationship should be, should have between me and Christ.

To describe this idea, I have to differentiate between what we call contract and covenant.

Two different words explaining two different ideas and principles of having a relationship.

God is only interested in covenant relationship.

In Genesis chapter 15, verse 18, God made a covenant with Abraham, our father.

Genesis 15:18

God made a covenant.

And here we can see the principles of the covenants, contrary to the principles of the contract.

In the contract, you participate by part of the shares.

You may have 40%, 30%, 60% of the total shares.

But the sum of those in the partnership, the sum of the shares should be 100%.

It's always partial giving, partial investment, partial relationship.

In a covenant, it's completely the opposite.

In a covenant, God is participating 100% of what He has.

On the cross of Calvary, Jesus paid it all, give it all, everything he had, and still he has.

A total sacrifice.

It's not a partial sacrifice.

He gave it all for you and for me.

100% investment from his side.

If you want to have a relationship with him, let's go to him with the same mindset to give it all to him.

Otherwise, you are writing a contract with God, not a covenant with God.

To understand this better, marriage.

In Islam, marriage is a contract between two parties.

This is why you can have one wife, two, three, four, because it's a contract.

I'm serious.

This is what they believe.

But in Christ, we believe marriage is a covenant.

In this covenant, you take your ring, yourself, and give it to your wife to tell her that I'm yours from this day on, one hundred percent.

I'm not partially yours.

No, I'm 100% yours.

And you are giving me your ring from this day on, you are mine.

This is a covenant.

This is a covenant.

And then the same thing with Christ.

Jesus gave it all to you on one condition.

If you want to have a relation with Him, it's on one condition, all.

Love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.

Otherwise, you are writing a contract, not a covenant.

Why many believers are not enjoying the life with Christ?

They are not seeing Him, they are not hearing Him, they are not experiencing His presence because they are in a contract.

Not a covenant.

Give it all.

My mind, my heart, my soul, my body, my money, my home, my family, my future, everything is yours.

And you are mine.

Let's go to him.

Are you in a covenant relationship?

Or a contract relationship?

Do you give a day in your week to Christ?

Two hours every day?

Wow, two hours.

Or your whole life you live for him.

He's everything to you.

Let's go to him.

In the contracts, you can break the contracts, and there is a condition to lose some, maybe 10% of your shares.

But in a covenant, you cannot break the covenant.

If you divorce your wife, you lose everything.

You lose everything.

You lose her.

In a covenant, you lose everything when you break the covenant.

Let's go to him.

The second part of this calling, outside the camp, outside the camp.

Here to understand the idea, why this sacrifice should be offered outside the gate of the city, why Jesus suffered outside Jerusalem, outside even the temple, the ritual part.

To understand that in this world we are governed by the system of the evil one, by the matrix of the world.

How many of you had a chance to see the movie with the name Matrix?

Matrix.

It's not an advertisement about the video, the movie, but it's a wonderful analogy, it's a wonderful example to understand the idea here.

In John, in the first epistle of John, chapter 5, verse 18, we know that we are the children of God.

John 5:18

And that we are the children of God.

And that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

Exactly the matrix.

The whole world is under the control of the matrix.

The software embedded in the minds and hearts of those following the world.

They have their own software, they have their own operating system.

They look like each other.

They think they are free to do what they want, but actually they are obeying the rules of the matrix.

The whole world is under the control of the evil one.

But we are the children of God.

We belong to another kingdom, another values, another principles.

We belong to the king.

Let's go to him outside the camp, outside the matrix.

To understand that, let me give you some of the examples to differentiate between the matrix of the world and the kingdom of the God of God.

In the matrix of the world, selfishness is number one.

Me.

It's all about me.

I'm the most important person in the world.

Why?

Because without me, no word for me.

So it's very, very logic.

Selfishness.

In the kingdom of God, if you want to follow Jesus, number one, what to do.

In Mark chapter 8, verse 34.

Mark 8:34

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself.

He must deny himself.

It's not about me.

This is number one in the kingdom of God.

Here, number one, it's all about me.

I do everything for myself.

I even I marry for myself.

I give birth to children for myself.

I work for myself.

Here, I no longer live for myself.

It's not about me.

Completely different software, completely different matrix.

Another comparison here.

In the world, the system of the word, according to the epistle of John, chapter, ver the first chapter, verse 2, that this word is built on lust and boasting.

Lust and boasting, which is against the love of God.

Completely different from one another.

I see I lost.

I see anything, I see a car, a girl, a job, a home.

I want it for myself.

It's built on lost.

On the other side, in the kingdom of God, it's more blessed to give than to get.

And I think this is the theme of this church: giving.

Giving.

The blessed life is to give.

It's ridiculous because if you have a hundred dollar, then if you take an another hundred dollar, then you will have two hundred.

If you give one hundred dollar that you have, then you have zero.

So again, the intellectual idea of this world, better to get than to give, lust.

In the kingdom of God, better to give, more blessed to give.

You will please others, you will enjoy others, you will serve others, you will make this world better.

This morning we had a funeral, and we had to say goodbye to one of the best, best lay leaders that we have in our church.

A man of God, an excellent husband, a father, a lay leader, a friend, a manager in his job.

And many people questioned, why?

Why such a wonderful man to leave our world?

Hundreds of Muslims came to attend the funeral.

Because this man was more giving than receiving.

Do you know why?

Because he believed in giving more blessed than receiving.

Another comparison in the world, pride, arrogance, boasting of what I have, what I have done in my life.

In the kingdom of God, according to Philippians chapter 2, verse 3, do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility.

Philippians 2:3

Consider others better than yourself.

We are competing to prove that I'm better than him in humility.

No, no, I'm trying my best to prove that he is better than me, he is better than me, that my staff in the church is much better than me.

And my marriage.

Humility will save my marriage.

So easy to say sorry to my wife, so easy for her to say sorry to me.

Humility, humility, humility, humility.

Jesus, the man, Jesus, the Son of God, was more humble than anyone else in this world.

This is the kingdom of God, based on humility.

Last comparison here.

In this world, glory based on power.

To domain, to overcome by force, using weapon, killing others.

And we this is what we are seeing in our land right now.

Those ruled the country when the when the the revolution happened, and 30 million in the first wave went out to say to our president, go home, we don't want you.

And in the second wave, 40 millions went into the street to call to tell him, please, we don't want you.

Never happened in the history of mankind.

He decided to fight back, to kill, burn, destroy, especially churches.

The burnt 85 churches, hundreds of Christian homes, many Christian schools and orphanages, to prove that we are powerful, we will take back our rulership by force.

And the Christian responded in a different way.

The Christian responded, We forgive you, we will pray for you, we will bless you.

Many of our Muslim brothers and sisters and friends decided to go and protect, to be a human shield, to protect the churches from their violence.

And our man of God, the new Pope, said to them, Please go home.

Your life more valuable than the churches.

Let them burn the churches.

We can rebuild the churches, but your life more valuable.

If you die, we cannot get you back.

We love you more than we love our churches.

Can you imagine that?

And they put banners in front of this burned church.

We forgive you.

We love you.

We will pray for you.

And all of a sudden, a huge change in the community happened.

The Muslims started to say, look what the Christians are doing.

Look to the power of love and merciful heart and forgiveness.

They saved Egypt.

Because if they decided to retire and to fight back, we would have a civil war.

You saved the country.

Many people on the YouTube and Facebook said that because of God, the miracle He did in the revolution, and because of the Christians, Egypt was saved.

They are the reason for our salvation.

On this side, they are calling us to kill and destroy.

And in the kingdom of God, they are calling us to love and forgive.

It's a completely different matrix.

Are you loaded with this software?

Do you have the mind of this world or the mind of Christ?

I have four minutes to go.

Lastly.

The last part here, because we don't have here an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that's to come.

Here we do not have an enduring city.

As we worship the Lord, we belong to the kingdom of God, we belong to heaven.

This is not our enduring city.

What do you mean by that?

I mean three things.

Number one, all of the true believers are travelers.

Are travelers?

In a suitcase, I travel a lot, so I know what it means to have a suitcase and to travel a lot, to pack and unpack and pack and unpack.

And you are in a different time zone and different place every maybe couple of weeks.

We are travelers.

Are you resident in this world?

Or a traveler?

Across history, time and place.

Our father Abraham lived in a tent as a symbol of the same idea.

This is not my home.

I'm traveling across this land.

My home belonged there.

Jesus said it in John chapter 17 in his intercession prayer, in his intercessor prayer, he said to the Father, they are not from this world.

John 17 · chapter mention

As I'm not from this world, they are not from this world.

The day you have been born again from the womb of the Father by the blood of the Lamb, since that time you are not of this world.

You belong to another kingdom.

You are just traveling across.

You are not building here the enduring city.

You are building there the enduring city.

The city is to come.

Number two, that it's very obvious that we came to this world with nothing.

Who brought anything with him from the womb of his mother?

Can I see any hand?

A car?

Even a wife?

Even a shoe.

We came to the world naked.

And we cannot take anything with us back.

Am I right?

Do you know anybody took anything with them?

We bury people barehanded.

But the fact that no, we can take something with us back home.

We can take only souls.

We can take souls.

We can take people with us.

To explain the idea, I see our journey as if people traveling in a train, into a destiny.

They are in a mission.

They are in a mission.

They stop every now and then and they go out and bring more people to the train, to the destiny, to the final destination.

And then they stop again and they bring more people and then they stop again and bring more people.

They go to the neighborhood to bring people, they go to work to bring people, they go to church to bring people, they go into a short-term mission to bring people, they go to a long-term mission field to bring people.

This is the only thing that can we can take with us into eternity.

In Timothy chapter 6, verse 7, for we brought nothing into the word, and we can take nothing out of it.

And then in Hebrew 2:13, here I am by the end of my journey.

Here I am, and the children God has given me.

This is the only thing we can take to the Father back home.

The children, the children, the people born again by the power of the blood of the Lamb.

My brother and my sisters, we are in a mission.

All of us.

And everybody can bring more people to this train of life.

And everything we do should be done with this perspective.

We are travelers, we cannot take anything except people, the most valuable thing, the only eternal thing in this world, the souls of the people that we live among them.

Are you in a covenant relationship with Christ?

Did you renew the software, the matrix of your mind?

Did you install the mind of Christ?

Are you not from this world traveling across time and space just to bring more people to Christ?

Let's bow our head.

Let's meditate for a minute.

Let's answer back this very simple question.

Let's go to him.

Outside the camp.

Jesus is outside the camp, waiting for you to go to him.

Jesus is not bounded by the principles of this world.

He has different software.