The Secret of Seeing

If you have your Bible, I want you to turn to two particular chapters.

I want you to go to Luke chapter 11 and Genesis chapter 3.

Luke 11 · chapter mention Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Luke chapter 11 and Genesis chapter 3.

Luke 11 · chapter mention Genesis 3 · chapter mention

I want to show you something this morning that I've seen in the last five months since I've departed from here.

I love this about God is that the day you get saved, you start a journey, and the journey never ends.

I'm looking forward to heaven, don't get me wrong.

But I love heaven here.

If you know anything about me, if you have an inkling of who I am, I'll put it down into you in a nutshell.

I want what Jesus said we could have.

And this is what he said.

I know you're in a 40-day of fasting and prayer.

When he said to disciples, Teach us to pray, he said, Pray for the kingdom of God.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

Where?

How?

Hmm.

That's what I want to know.

How do we get that kingdom that's unseen into this kingdom which we do see?

And where does it intersect?

I want to know where that crossroads is.

I'm a bottom line kind of guy.

I want to know where the rubber meets the road.

I don't care about the fluff.

You show me a coconut pie to take a cream off.

I want the coconut.

I'm looking for the stuff.

That's what I'm looking for.

I've seen some things in the last five months that have caused me to see an intersection here.

Where these two worlds meet, and that's what I want to show you this morning.

So, if you have your Bible, open up to Luke 11 first.

Before I go there, I'm going to read you a couple verses out of Mark just to set the tone for the message titled The Secret of Seeing.

I'm going to show you a secret I've seen, and it is about seeing.

But this verse in Mark chapter 4, verse 10 says this.

Mark 4:10

But when he, Jesus, was alone with those around him and with the twelve, they asked him about the parable he just spoke.

Now, I want you to understand something right up front.

How many of you are in a Bible reading program right now?

You're trying to read through the Bible in the year.

Don't be embarrassed if you're not.

It's okay.

I love those.

So I'm about to make a statement about that, so don't get mad at me.

I love Bible reading programs, but sometimes Bible reading programs cause us to read, to check things off to get to the next place.

And I just want to caution you.

When I read the Bible, one of the things I've learned to do is I've learned to have a conversation with God as I read.

And you know what?

Lightning had struck, and it hadn't killed me yet.

So evidently he's not too frustrated by it.

Alright?

So I just read you a sentence of a verse that I want you to see again.

Watch this.

But when he was alone, those around him with the 12 asked him about the parable.

Now who's here?

It's okay to talk in church, it doesn't offend God.

Matter of fact, I was just talking to him backstage.

He's in a good mood.

He likes you.

It's alright.

Who's here?

The 12?

They're here?

Are there others here?

Okay.

How many of you have ever heard the theology that most of all that he spoke was to the twelve and to the twelve only.

Anybody ever heard that theology?

All three of you.

Very good.

All two of you.

I think somebody had their hand halfway.

That theology is out there that it's not for everybody, it's just for some.

It was for the select, and when that hand did, it was over.

I'm telling you, it's alive.

Got him right here.

The 12 were here, but there's others here, and I want you to see what he says.

In the midst of those twelve and the others being there, he says this to you, the twelve, to you, the others, it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God.

What did he want them to know?

He wants them to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to those who are on the outside, all things come in parables.

Now, again, when I read the Bible, I just have a conversation with God.

I said, okay, God, I'm just going to be honest with you.

It appears to me that this looks like you're partial.

To you it's been given, but to you it's not.

Do you read that way?

Can you see it that way?

That's what I said.

I said, now I read other verses that say you're not partial, so which is it?

He said, I'm not partial.

I said, well then why does it look like you're partial?

He said, okay, where are you in the context of this scripture?

It's very important to know where you are in the context.

He just read them a parable, he just spoke a parable, and that parable was about the sower of the sea, which is really a parable about the heart.

Which is really showing a picture of four conditions of people's hearts.

That's all it is.

Okay?

He said, if you don't understand that one, you can't understand any of the others.

According to what Jesus said.

He said, This is the foundational parable.

Out of the 38 he spoke, this is the foundational one.

So I said to him, You mean to tell me that you're not partial?

So what's the difference?

And he said, the difference is people's hearts.

I said, okay, help me a little bit more.

He said, the reason it's given to some and not given to others is not dependent upon me, it's dependent upon them.

The condition of their heart.

Some can receive and some can't, because something already occupies their heart and has hardened it, and therefore they can't receive.

I said, Oh.

He said, that's why the Pharisees, Isaiah prophesied about.

They would see the miracles, they would hear the truth, but it wouldn't penetrate their heart because something else was already there.

And because it was already there, they won't get what I'm giving, which is the mystery of the kingdom.

You see that?

Okay?

So what he wants us to catch is the mystery of the kingdom.

How did he want us to catch it?

He said, I want you to know.

Right there again in the verse 11.

To you it has been given to know.

Now listen, this is what I heard the Holy Spirit say for the church right here this weekend.

I've said it in every service, and I'm going to say it in this one because I believe what he spoke to me in the very first service is a word for now.

He said to me, sitting on the front row last night, he said, The church is obese with knowledge.

This is not in my notes.

I had no thought of this prior that any of the services are coming.

He said, The church is obese with knowledge.

But we are in starvation with experience.

And I'll give you an illustration.

At the age of 12, I had knowledge of salvation, but it wasn't until I was 14 I experienced it.

And they're worlds apart.

You can have all the knowledge you want about healing.

It's a whole lot different than experiencing it.

You can have all the knowledge you want about freedom and how to get free from bondages of the enemy.

It's a whole lot different than knowing, and actually experiencing it.

So I'm not talking to you this morning about gaining some insight so you'll know and say, yep, I know that.

I'm talking to you about something this morning that you can actually experience that has the potential to change your life forever.

See the difference?

Alright?

So, what is it that he wants us to know and experience?

He wants us to know and experience the mystery of the kingdom.

Now, what is a mystery?

You see how, when you read the Bible, you can ask questions.

You see how you have a conversation?

Do you think he just chose those words because, oh, that's how they cute?

He chose those words because they had a specific meaning.

He was trying to convey something.

He's trying to reveal the Father to us.

Okay?

Every kingdom has a king.

Right?

Every king sets up rules.

If we play by the king's rules, we get what the king says.

If you don't, no wonder the church doesn't see all that we want to see.

We're not understanding his mysteries.

Now I'm going to tell you something about mysteries that I know.

I read in the Greek this word mystery.

I read the English part.

I'm not a Greek scholar.

You can do it too.

That word mystery means secret.

This is where I got the title of the sermon.

Secret.

I'll show you the mystery of seeing in just a second.

The secret of seeing.

But I want you to understand that about mystery means secret.

Now watch this.

How many of you tell your enemies your secrets?

You don't.

How many of you tell your servants your secrets?

Maybe, depending on the depth of the secret.

How many would you tell your best friend your secrets?

I'd do that.

Listen to what Jesus said.

Watch this.

When he's leaving, he says to his disciples, I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends.

If you can catch a picture this morning, Jesus is trying to move us from servanthood of obeying to understanding secrets out of our heart from his heart.

He wants to move you into friendship.

So let's look at a secret.

Alright?

Now, a secret's a lot like a riddle.

Anybody ever played the riddle game at your house?

Have your friends over, play the riddle game.

I want to share a riddle, then you can ask yes and no questions.

Great.

This game's really not popular anymore.

We used to do it.

Evidently, I'm not doing it anymore because it's just nobody does it.

Let me give you one riddle to kind of help you understand what I'm gonna talk about, this mystery, this secret.

A riddle could be something like this.

If you come over to our house, we're sitting around in the living room, and say, okay, we're going to do the riddle game, and you can only ask yes and no questions.

I'll share the riddle, then you can ask yes and no questions, and whoever gets it, then lo and behold, you get to share a riddle.

Won't this be fun?

Okay.

Here's a riddle.

A man was on his way home, he encountered a man with a mask, and he realized he would never get there.

People say, okay.

I said I'll say it again.

A man was on his way home, encountered a man with a mask, and he realized he would never get there.

So the first question is only is Did the man with the mask have a gun?

Nope.

Did the man with the mask, was it Halloween?

Nope.

And so somebody in the group starts thinking outside the box, like you should do with God.

Did the man in the mask have a glove?

Yes.

Did the man in the mask with the glove have a ball in it?

Yes.

Did the man in the mask tag the man who rounded third base out at home?

Yes.

Is this a baseball game?

Yes.

You see what happened to you?

Even in the short time we talked about that riddle, you went, oh.

Oh.

I got it.

And that's what happens with God.

He likes to say, I'm going to show you a mystery, I'm going to show you a secret, and you go, hmm.

And then he says, a little bit more.

Oh.

I still, ah, and that's what I want you to see this morning.

I'm going to share one secret with you, and then I'm going to show you the revealing of the secret, and then I'm going to show you who lived that secret.

Alright?

Here we go.

Luke chapter 11.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

No one, when he has lit a lamp, verse 33, puts that lamp in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light.

No mystery there, no secret there, and you turn the light on, it's for our benefit and for everybody who comes in.

Here's the secret.

Verse 34.

The lamp of the body is the eye.

The lamp of the body is the eye.

Therefore, when your eye is good, watch what the potential of the eye has.

The eye has the ability when it's good to make the whole body full of light, but when your eye is bad, your whole body is full of darkness.

Therefore, take heed, take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.

So I'm reading this verse and I said to the Lord, okay, I don't get it.

Are you talking about our physical eyes?

I mean, do people who have trouble with sight that they not get to play?

You know, I'm 44 and am I getting dimmer in here?

Is there more darkness because I can't see?

He says it has nothing to do with your physical eyes.

I said, Okay, what does it have to do with?

He said, Well, I'm so glad you asked.

Why don't you turn to Genesis chapter 3 and I'll show you?

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

I said, great.

Now, a year ago I preached a message to you, Gateway, that was entitled Relationships, God's Intent.

I read these exact verses to you in Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

These exact verses.

I never saw what I'm going to show you.

I thought I preached the whole counsel of God on these verses.

I had full revelation.

Don't ever get that message.

It doesn't have a clue what's in it.

Don't download that one.

This one.

It's a replacement message.

I can't believe I'm reading the exact book and I don't see any of this.

It's like, did you rewrite this another time?

Because I mean, it wasn't in my Bible last year.

He said, Yeah, it was.

Alright, verse 1, chapter 3.

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field.

We're looking for the mystery or the secret of the eye.

Watch and see if you see it.

He was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

That's the question that the serpent asked Eve.

And the woman said to the serpent, Listen, you dumb snake, what are you thinking?

God didn't say it.

Watch.

He said, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

Now, did God say that?

It's okay to talk in church.

He did say part of that.

He didn't say all of that.

She added a little something.

God said, if you eat of it, you shall.

All three of you, thank you.

You shall.

That's what God said.

Alright?

Jesus, I'm about to show you something.

Jesus said, your eye has the ability to create light and darkness.

God said it had the ability to create life and death.

We're talking about life and death, light and darkness.

They're alike.

Watch.

She said you can't touch it or eat it.

God didn't say that.

God said you could juggle it if you wanted to.

You could sniff it.

You could lick it.

You can play golf with it.

You can't eat it.

That's all he said.

The moment you eat it, death will happen.

Now watch what Satan says back.

His defense to the woman said in verse 4.

Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die.

For God knows, watch the accusation, like he's keeping something from them.

God knows in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

Now you've got to be very careful when you read stuff that he says, because he's a liar.

Right?

He's the father of lies.

So when I see anything that he says, I watch it.

Your eyes will be open in verse 4, and you will be like God, like he's withholding something from them, knowing good and evil.

So watch this, verse 6.

So when the woman saw, wait, now her physical eyes are working pretty well, aren't they?

When the woman saw that the tree was good for fruit and that it was pleasant to the eyes, they're working just fine.

The tree desirable to make one wise, that's what made her do it.

That God was withholding wisdom from her?

He wasn't.

She took of his fruit and she ate.

She also gave it to her husband with her, and he ate.

Then look at verse 7.

Then the eyes of both of them were what?

Uh-oh.

Now wait, didn't that exactly what Satan said would happen?

He said, if you eat of it, your eyes will be open.

That's not what God said, right?

God said you'd die.

Satan said, If you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

And that's exactly what happened in verse 7.

And it said, and their eyes were opened.

So here's the question when you're reading the Bible, you have to have conversations.

You have to say to the Lord, what did they see prior to this?

And what do they see now?

And here's the secret.

What he's revealing to us here is there are two views of life.

The first view that Adam and Eve had in the garden prior to eating the fruit was that God supplied everything.

He was in the center of their world.

Their very existence came from God.

The fruit they ate came from God.

Their marriage came from God.

Their relationships came from God.

Their job description came from God.

Everything that was in their life came through the eyes, through their view of the Father, that he was the one that gave it all.

Okay?

What happened after they ate the fruit?

What did they see?

For the very first time they saw themselves.

They had had no self-awareness, they had no self-consciousness, they knew nothing about self.

Now, how could Satan tell them the truth of what would happen?

He didn't just know about it, he had already experienced it.

Because when he stormed the gates of heaven and said, God, I will be equal to you, God said, No, you will not be.

When he did that, for the very first time he saw himself.

That's why he knew if I can make an accusation against God and get them to entice them to eat of the fruit of the tree, I know they'll experience death, but I'll make them think they won't experience death, that they'll actually be getting a benefit, that they'll see something they've never seen before, and when they saw themselves for the first time, what did they do?

They hid themselves, they had shame, and they drew from the very life that created them.

Can I tell you, a view of yourself will not once, but will always create death.

So what is our problem?

Our problem is we have too big a view of ourselves and too little view of God.

Adam and Eve only knew a view of God, and then they got a picture of themselves.

Our problem is advantageous.

We've only had a view of ourselves, and we're trying to get a glimpse of God.

So let me examine for just a minute.

Let's just stop here just a second.

These are the two views.

If you want to know the secret, here it is.

You're living life today, right now, from one of these two views, from a view of yourself or from a view of God.

Satan would love to trap you in the view of yourself.

This is what he's after.

This is how he trapped Adam and Eve.

Listen, the decision they made in the garden that day is the same decision you and I make every day.

It wasn't a one-time decision, it's an everyday decision, it's an every moment decision, it's an every second decision.

We have to decide today, and you're the only one that can decide it.

My wife, bless Eve's heart, she's not deciding it for me.

I'm deciding it.

Am I going to live in the life in the view of that God is in control of this and that He has something for me to do?

Or am I going to live in the view that I'm, you know, I got some stuff to do here.

I'm pretty important.

Let me just show you on a scale one to ten.

One being the lowest, ten being the highest, how enemy would like to trap you in the view of yourself.

Okay?

See if you recognize these people down here at all.

I'm worthless.

I don't even know why I'm alive.

I don't know why God ever created me.

I don't I don't have anything to offer anybody in life, you know.

Nobody loves me.

Everybody hates me.

I'm going to the garden to eat worms.

Anybody ever been invited to this pity party?

Nobody ever shows up, do they?

It's only you by yourself.

But see, the enemy would love to trap you down here on this end of the scale, and your view of yourself is, I'm worthless.

I have nothing to offer.

And he just heats it and puts depression on you.

And he puts all these things in, and he keeps he just keeps pounding you in, and you work and you don't have anything to offer, and you're sick, and you ought to just kill yourself.

Who do you think is motivating that?

This is a pity part of this, it's the low end scale.

If you have any measure of success at all, he says, Oh man, they're doing good, they're doing good, so I can't trap them down there.

They refuse to stay down there, they crawled out of that deep depression, and they're and they're on the way, and so he tries to trap me on the other end.

He says, You know, I'm really God's gift of mankind.

Really don't know how the earth ever got along without me being here.

I'm pretty important.

Don't you know who I am?

Would you like to touch me?

A lot of people are down here saying, I think I'm gonna go back that way.

That would that look terrible.

But the enemy's trying to trap you on both ends.

Or somewhere in the middle.

The father said it this way: it's life or death.

This is death.

Why?

Because it steals the life of God.

Jesus said he called it light and he called it darkness.

This is darkness.

Take heed that the light that's in you is not darkness.

Okay?

If he can't trap you here, I know you're in the 40 days of fasting and prayer, I'm in the 40 days of feasting in prayer.

I'm not going to tell you what I'm having for lunch.

If he can't trap you in yourself, if he can't trap you to live in your life about yourself, then he tries to trap you in your view of God.

Okay?

He's trying to trap you in your view of yourself.

This is the mystery, this is the secret, or he tries to trap you in your view of God.

So let's take our view of God on a scale of one to ten.

Ten being the greatest, one being the least.

He tries to get us down here and say, don't you know God's distant?

He's cold, he's uninvolved, he doesn't want to be involved with you.

He sent Jesus so he could take a sabbatical.

Jesus came back, so he sent the Holy Spirit.

He's sitting on the throne taking a nap.

I can prove it to you.

Do you remember when they used to go visit God once a year?

They had to have blood.

Only the priest got to go.

Just in case he didn't come back, they put a rope around his ankle.

Because you know, God, he's a little mad.

Don't kick him off.

I mean, he's got a lot of rules and regulations, and you can make him mad.

He tries to paint this picture all the time.

And if you beg Jesus long enough, well, he's not here anymore.

If you beg the Holy Spirit to beg Jesus and He'll beg God, maybe you'll get something.

But you've got to ask a lot.

You ever heard that?

Who's painting that picture?

This is not who God is.

He's on the other end of the scale.

What he wants for you to catch is he wants you to catch a view that I sent Jesus so that I could have relationship with you.

I sent the Holy Spirit so that I can empower you to have relationship with me in the earth.

I sent those gifts through the Holy Spirit to help you have relationship with me, to draw you into me, to entice you to come through Jesus to me.

I want to be involved in everything you do.

This is the view that God wants us to have.

But many of us, somewhere between one and ten, this being ten, we get hung up down in here and we don't know if God loves us.

Listen, He does.

And anything between here and there is an accusation of Satan, just like it was in the garden, from him to get you trapped in your view of God.

He can't trap you in your view of yourself.

He tries to trap you in your view of God.

And I'm telling you, God's bigger than both of them.

So let me give you an illustration of how it works.

If you know me at all, I mean, at all, you know I'm interested in three things.

There's been three things that have been missing from the church for 50 years.

Those three things are called the gift of faith, the gift of miracles, and the gift of healing.

They've been absent in the church for 50 years.

Not present at all.

Hardly.

And some of it looks weird.

So I've been asking the Lord.

He's been stirring me in our conversation.

He's been stirring me.

He said, I want you to start praying for people.

So in the last few years, I've been praying for more and more people, you know, and we come to church and I've gotten real comfortable with people coming up and say, hey, I've got this sickness.

Great, let's pray.

You know?

And I'm, you know, oh boy.

And we've seen some miracles.

We've seen cancer disappear.

We've seen a little girl who needed a bone in her neck.

She didn't have one, her head just flopped around to pray for her, and the bones back in her neck.

She no longer flops around anything.

She kind of likes it.

We had a little boy over at Lake Country Church that had diabetes.

Juvenile diabetes has been taking an insulin shot every day of his life.

He didn't have to take those shots anymore.

He thinks that's kind of cool.

My wife had uh she had a mole growing on her shoulder, and the thing kept growing and growing and getting ugly and ugly, and my mom said to her, She's no doctor, but she said, That's cancer.

My wife said, Really?

My mom was being sweet about it.

My wife said, Lord, what do you say about it?

He said, I gave you authority to curse it.

Okay?

I do.

And it fell off.

Oh, it was already coming off, wasn't it?

No.

Wasn't it shriveling just a little bit?

No.

It was growing.

She just decided to curse it.

It's no longer there.

She kind of likes that.

She said, Don't you think my shoulder's pretty?

I said, Uh-huh.

I do.

So, the Lord's been talking to us about healing, talking to us about praying for people.

So we've gotten boldness.

You know, inside the church, you know, the music's playing, you feel the goosebumps, and you know, you feel the presence and you pray for people.

So one day I'm talking to the Lord and he said to me, Hey, uh, how many miracles did I do inside the church?

And I said, You did a bunch.

He said, How many miracles did I do outside the church?

And I said, Where are you going with this?

He said, answer the question.

I said, You did more outside the church than you did inside the church.

He said, Huh, isn't that shocking?

And you don't pray for anybody outside the church.

I said, Lord, those people out there are mean.

People in here, they love me.

Out there, they mean.

He said, get over it.

I said, so you want me to start praying for people out now?

Uh-huh.

Okay, so that's fresh on my mind.

Two months ago, my wife and I go to Albertson's, and we're in Albertson shopping for groceries.

Men, pay attention to this.

I'm with my wife shopping for groceries.

If you're taking notes, write this down.

She likes it.

She chases me the rest of the week when I go.

Note to sell.

Groceries.

When are you going to the grocery store?

So we're in the grocery store.

We're minding our own business, and we got our cart full, and we got it, and we're paying for our groceries.

And out of the clear blue, we see this little lady over there who is bent at the hip.

She got her neck cocked up like this because she can't stand up straight, and you can tell she's got an infirmity.

She's right here with the grocery cart and she's looking right above the bar.

And she's pushing it.

And my heart breaks that this woman is under.

She reminded me of the woman in scripture with the infirmity that Jesus loos 18 years later after the infirmity.

And my wife hits me.

She said, You ought to pray for her.

I look back and said, What's the matter with your prayer?

It broke.

But I'm already feeling, I mean, my heart's breaking for this woman.

I'm feeling compassion for her, but all of a sudden I feel this.

Like, what am I going to say to her?

How am I going to get her to agree?

People at church, they come to me, I feel the music.

There ain't no music out here.

And I don't feel any goosebumps.

I don't feel like praying for healing today.

And she said, Pray for her.

And so she finishes her groceries about the same time we finish ours, and she's out handing out the door.

And so we're going out the door, and my wife said, I'll take the basket so your hands will be free.

So I'm trying to walk as a slow pace as I can get, because I don't know what to say, but this woman moving at a slower pace than me.

I'm catching her very fast.

And I don't know what to say.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

How am I going to approach her?

I mean, she's going to think I'm a pervert.

Or a weirdo or a wacko or something.

And about that time, her receipt blows out of her bag on to the parking lot.

I said, From heaven, thank you.

I pick up her receipt and I run up to her and I said, Ma'am, you dropped your receipt.

Do you want it?

She says, No.

I said, I told you they're all mean.

They're all mean.

Now, what do you say?

I said, uh, could I take your buggy for you?

I'm like, dear God.

She needs more in prayer.

So I grab her buggy.

And now, I mean, she's looking at me.

You know?

I mean, think about this woman's life for a moment.

She has no friends.

She gets gaulked out everywhere she goes.

I put her buggy up and I see her get in her car and slam the door.

I mean, she's really eyeing me hard.

Kind of thinking, oh God.

I don't know what I'm doing out here.

And so, you know, my heart's just going, gun, go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

I just go back and get in my car.

Shut the door.

Wife says, You pray for her?

I said, shut up.

Talking about this.

She said, that's going to cause me not to chase you attack.

I know it.

I'm lost.

I'll go to the grocery store again with you next week.

So two weeks later, I'm listening to this guy preach, and in the midst of the preaching, I hear the Lord say, Hey, I want to talk to you about that woman in the parking lot.

I said I knew you were going to bring her up somewhere.

I said, Lord, I'm sorry, I'm just too afraid.

I've got fear all over me.

I can't do it out there.

They're just, they're mean, and there's no music, and there's I just can't do it.

He said, it's not fear.

I said, Well, it fear feels a whole lot like it.

He said his cousin or something, because it feels like him.

He said, It's not fear.

He said, You have too big a view of yourself.

I said, excuse me?

He said, You have too big a view of yourself.

I said, help me understand it.

He said, Jeff, you see your incapabilities, you see your lack of power, you see all these things.

You see your thought life, you see, and you're afraid you think you're afraid of what others are going to think.

He said, What it is, is you have too big a view of yourself and you don't have a big enough view of me.

He said, Let me tell you ultimately what it is.

It's not only that you have a big view of yourself, the big thing is you really don't think I'm going to back you up.

I said, why do you have to be right all the time?

And that's it.

I realized at that moment, I really didn't think God was going to back me up.

He said, Can I tell you something?

Jesus never thought that.

Because he saw exactly who I was.

He said, What you need to catch, you need to catch a bigger view of who I am.

Because when you catch a bigger view of who I am, the light on you dim.

And when you catch a view of me, yourself begins to fade away.

He said, I can prove it to you.

It happened to the 120 when they were in the upper room.

They caught such a view of God in the upper room that when the Spirit of God came down on them, they didn't care what they looked like.

They had lost all self-awareness.

Totally.

I said, that's good.

Anybody else?

He said, Enoch.

I said, Oh, Old Testament.

Not just New Testament.

He said, Yeah.

He said, Enoch.

Enoch walked so close with me for 300 years, I took him.

He was six generations removed from Adam and Eve.

If you think they couldn't do it in the Old Testament, how did Enoch do it?

He had such a view of God that he pressed in so hard.

He got so close.

He had the view that on the 10, on the scale, God can do anything.

And he took him.

He said, How about Elisha?

I said, What about Elisha?

He said, What do you think his view of me was?

I said, Well, I think he had a pretty good one.

He said, Well, do you remember the story?

And he took me to 2 Kings.

He said, Remember the story when the servant went out that day to have breakfast?

And he looked out in the Syrians and surrounded the whole city, and they were coming to get Elisha and him.

And he backed back into the room and said, Hey, yo, Eli, we're in trouble.

He goes, We're not in trouble.

He goes, You ain't been out there to look yet.

He said, Those who are for us are greater than those who are against us.

He goes, Would you mind going to take a look?

Because there's two of us and there's a bunch of them.

When I add that up, my mask says, that is a loss.

He said, Go look again.

And then as the servant of Elisha walks out the door, he prays this prayer.

Father, open his eyes and let him see what you've already shown me.

He walks out and he sees the hills filled with the armies of God.

He comes back in with a little strut.

Hey, Eli, we're all right, bud.

Now here, my question to you is this.

Do you think that servant ever forgot that experience?

Not a knowledge thing, that experience.

Do you think that might have carried through the rest of his life?

You see, this is what I'm praying for you today.

I'm praying that God will open your eyes, take the secret of seeing, and let you get such a view of God that we could care less about ourselves, we could care less about what people think about what we're wearing, where we're living, what we're driving, we could care less what they think about us praying for people in the public.

We could care less about us, we could care only about what the Father says and does.

And then when we catch that, folks, that's when we'll start having church.

That's the secret of seeing.

My concern for the church today is along the lines of the prodigal son.

Most of the time we've talked about the prodigal son, the one that left and squandered his father's name.

That was the tragic part of the story.

I'm telling you, it's not the tragic part of the story.

I've seen it in a different light.

The tragic part of the story is the son who stayed home.

Who lived in Daddy's house his whole life.

Who was around Daddy every day.

And never caught Daddy's heart.

That's the tragedy.

This is what I don't want to happen at the end of my life.

I have been in the house my whole life, and I never once caught Daddy's heart.

I'm trying to catch his heart now.

And he says to me, it's not about you.

That brings death not once, but every time.

It's about me.

And when you tap into me, I will bring life every time.

And I want you to change your view of me.

I am not distant and cold.

I am present every day.

And I want to do something in your life today.

And when you get that view, this little woman will be a piece of cake.

I said, hammer down.

Let's get it.

Met a man a couple months ago.

Actually, I met him a year ago.

I saw him a couple months ago.

His name's Ray.

Ray is in his late 70s, early 80s.

He's a good guy.

Ray's a golfer, which is godly.

And uh he was out golfing one day, and the green that he was just finished putting on, he was walking down this incline because it was an elevated green.

He was walking down, he tripped and stumbled and rolled to the bottom.

And when he came to at the bottom of the hill, he realized he had excruciating pain in his ribs.

He realized, I've messed up.

And so they pick him up carefully, they get him to the emergency room, they take the x-rays, and it just confirms what he already knows.

He's shattered.

He is broken, he's busted up.

His ribs are separated and broken.

I mean, he's he's messed up.

And the doctor, one of his really good friends for a long time, said, Ray, I love you, bro, but there's nothing I can do for you.

Here's some pain pills.

You're gonna have to go home, get flat, and it's gonna take a while.

He gets that diagnosis, takes the pain pills, he goes home, and he's sitting on the side of the bed.

And I mean, Ray's a masculine guy.

I mean, he looks like John Wayne.

I mean, when you're around him, he, you know, we go on hunting trips, he's got the 45 strapped, he's got these boots that, you know, rattlesnakes couldn't bite.

He could stomp their head and kill them.

And I mean, he carries his gun and he and he's got this cute little hat, and he walked around.

I mean, he looks like John Wayne.

I mean, you don't want to mess with him.

But inside, he's the most tender, sweet guy.

He's sitting on the side of his bed, he's just weeping.

He's not a wimp.

He's just weeping because the pain's so excruciating.

And Ray said, I was sitting there, Jeff, and I was just weeping, and it dawned on me I'd not talk to my daddy about this.

And this thought hit him.

I'm gonna read you this verse and we're done.

He said, This thought hit him.

He said, Hey Dad, where were you today?

About 10 o'clock?

You weren't taking a nap, were you?

And then he quoted this verse, Psalms 91, 12.

In their hands they shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.

I want to know where you were.

You said you pointed angels.

Did my angels take the morning off?

Did they not go to the golf course?

I know it's godly.

You see how he's talking to God?

Does it sound like he's a little cocky?

Because this is what he's telling me.

I'm not making this up.

You know what it is?

Ray has a view of God down here that says, he said, I can come into the throne boldly.

I don't have to be timid.

God's not mad, he's not hacked off.

He likes me.

And I can talk with him honestly.

It would be shocking to have an honest conversation with God, wouldn't it?

This is what Ray's having.

Ray said, after that conversation with the Lord, he said, I went to bed and woke up the next morning, nothing had changed.

Nothing.

He said, I was excruciating pain.

He said, I went to bed that next night and I woke up the next morning.

And you know how you brace yourself to get out of bed when you got pain, especially when you've broken ribs.

He tries to get out of bed.

He goes, Hey.

And so he tenderly put his hand up there and he's like, No pain.

So he stands up out of bed and he starts.

No pain.

Then he, no pain.

So he calls his doctor and says, Doc, something's happened.

I've got to come down there and see you.

I want you to take X-rays to me again.

He said, Ray, I've known you a long time.

You're not taking those drugs real serious, are you?

He said, Have you OD'd on those drugs, bud?

Come on.

Take more than I told you.

He said, No, no, no.

So he runs down to the doctor's office.

They shoot x-rays again, and he said, Ray, it's a miracle.

It's a miracle.

No explanation other than God has healed you.

It's a miracle.

So I said to her, I said, So what did you do after that?

He said, I went and played golf.

I said, Well, how'd you do that day?

He said, I almost shot my age.

It was a great day.

What does he know that maybe you and I don't know?

Can I tell you?

It's the secret of seeing.

He's lost sight of himself and he's found the sight of God.

He's looked into the very heart of God and he's caught a glimpse of our daddy.

What view are you viewing life from this morning?

What do you see?

Come and ask you to bow your head.

Father, my prayer today is for everyone in the sound of my voice to catch such a glimpse of you that we lose sight of us.

God, would you move on us?

Like you moved on the servant of Elisha.

What Elisha saw, what Enoch saw, what David saw, what the 120 saw, or what Jesus knew, what Ray knows.

Would you move so much on us that we could see?

Lord, we don't want to know more about you.

We want to experience you.

And Lord, in these days of 40 days of fasting and prayer, I'm asking you, would you move in on the people of Gateway Church and unveil, unveil the eyes and let them see.

And this I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.