Powerless religion is hurting the Body of Christ - The Letter kills, the Spirit gives life

There's a reality that we need to speak about. And it's a fact that's been brought to me by many of my friends and people I know as well as things I've witnessed and things that we see throughout history and something that we even read within the pages of our bibles. The reality that some people, the more religious they grow and the more passionate about God's law it seems they get. They start abandoning the love they had at first. They start abandoning even the Holy Spirit himself, and they don't even realize it. And they are set on a path of destruction. Even though they are religious on the outside, they're bankrupt in their inner parts. And this is what the messiah was so frustrated by when Yeshua looked around him. And all of these religious leaders who were supposed to be the guys who had everything straight, had everything crooked in their hearts. And at the same time, Paul witnesses this in his own life. And he writes in his letters, he talks about how the latter kills, but the spirit gives life. Some of us, we don't like that statement. It's like, well, Paul, what do you really mean by that? Are you saying that there's something wrong with the word of God? We're going to get into that. But the hint that I'll give you for now is that there's nothing wrong with the law, but there's a lot wrong with us and our inability to keep it. But yet, while we have all of our apologetics about Paul's words for what he does not mean, and that he does not mean that there's something wrong with the law, he does not mean that the law is abolished. Of course, of course. But have we developed our ideas around what he actually is speaking about? Because I want to submit to you that Paul, what he is saying, there is the core at what is wrong in what we see in this pandemic of godliness without power. The fact that you can consider yourself religious and not have a passion for radical love and unity and forgiveness, it's like those things have become a gifting. It's now a gift to be someone who has a lot of love or who has forgiveness or who wants to go after unity. It's a special calling. I have news for you. No matter who you are, what you think your calling is, at the end of the day, that is a universal calling. That is not a negotiable with following the messiah. Radical love is not a negotiable. In fact, if you have the Torah in you, without radical love, you will be on a path to radical death. You will not survive. Your soul will not survive that journey. Because God's word and his Torah was never meant to be received without the mandate of love and the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. That is the only thing that's enabling that love within us. And so today we're going to talk about that radical love as well as the ministry of death versus the ministry of the spirit that Paul talks about. What does that really mean? But I want to start off with opening up in one John 315, just so you can understand how serious this is, where he says everyone who hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Okay, hold up. You hate your brother. God says you have no eternal life abiding in you. Let's look further. He says in proverbs 1628, the following a dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends, also known as a gossip. He goes on further. Paul writes in Galatians 519. And he writes about all of the fruits of the flesh, and one of them I want you to see, he mentions dissensions, rivalries and divisions. And he says of these things, I have warned you, and I'll warn you again that those who do such will not inherit the kingdom of God. You will note, enter the gates, no matter how religious you say you are, no matter how many times you went to church, no matter how many times you cry on the name of Jesus, if you do not repent of these things, Paul says you are not who you say you are. You can say, I belong to Christ, but your actions have found you out because you truly are not living a life of repentance. You have truly not put these acts of the flesh away. And you are in a ministry of death yourself. That's not only producing death. These things, envy, drunkenness, orgies, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, all these things are productions of death. And if you're a factory of death, you do not belong to the Messiah. And then one more, Matthew 615. He says, if you don't forgive others their trespasses, neither will your father forgive you. What does that mean? That the father will not forgive me. What does that mean when I stand before him and he says, I do not forgive you? I'm not sure, but I don't want to be in that position. So when we're talking about love, unity and forgiveness, these are issues that will lead to death according to the scriptures. But now you might ask, oh, why? Why is it that these things are things that the Messiah expects me to flee from and be free from? Because this is exactly what he's done for you. We see that the messiah, he speaks and he gives a parable of the unforgiving servant and he says, there is a servant and he is called up by the master. The master calls him and says, hey, you owe me 10,000. Pay it. Pay your debt. And he says, I don't have the money right now. And ultimately the master has mercy on him and lets him go. And the moment that that wicked servant leaves the master's courtyard, he goes and he finds someone who owes him that and he starts strangling the man, if I might paraphrase, he starts acting upon the man, give me my money, pay me back. And as the master found out about this, he ultimately said to him the following, and I'll read that part to you in Matthew 1833 should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you? And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers until he should pay all of his debt. So also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you don't forgive your brother from your heart. What is all of your debt? What is all of what you owe? Because ultimately that is your sin. Debt that you have that the father in heaven has forgiven of you. And he says, if you do not forgive others, he will not forgive you of that debt. What does that mean? The cross was there to forgive you of that debt. The father is saying that the cross is no longer available to you when you do not offer the mercy that the cross has offered you. If you do not pick up your cross and follow me, as Christ said, then you're not worthy to be my disciple, as he said, because picking up your cross by nature means that you die to yourself and what people do to you, and you forgive them of their debts and love. As we know what Paul writes in one corinthians 13 two, he says, you can have all prophetic powers, you can have understanding of all mysteries and knowledge, but if you don't have love, you have nothing. And so, brother sisters, I'm starting out with this because our actions up to this point, as you ordered your heart, your actions reveal whether you truly believe the gospel. See, it's not your actions that save you, it's not what you do, it's not how well you keep the law. It's going to save you. It's your faith in Christ and his finished work that will save you. But if you truly have faith, truly, truly. His power is so amazing, is so strong, so transformative. He is not empty in power. But many of us have emptied the cross of its power and through our lives, because we have become those who profess a form of godliness, but deny the power. And so it all begins with loving God more than what God can give us. Now, I want you to think about this. Many of us approach God thinking, God, what can you give me? Subliminally? We don't say this in our prayer to him, but many of us ask, what can I get? Can I get fame? Can I get, can I be exalted? Can I get the acceptance that my mom and dad on earth never gave me? Can I, can I, God, can you give me money that I. Because I'm in poverty right now God, can I get a wife or a husband? God, can I get, can I get, can I get can I get. I want to tell you something about Moses and the beauty of his relationship with the Lord. And one reason why God chose Moses the way he did. We read in Exodus 33, verse 15 the following. Moses says to the Father, and he said to him, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people of the face of the earth? And it says, and the Lord said to Moses, this very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name. And then Moses said, please show me your glory. How beautiful. Please show me your glory. See, Moses starts off by saying that if your presence, Lord, isn't coming with us, like, if your presence doesn't come with me, don't. Don't even bring us out of here. You need to be with us. Moses valued the presence of God more than the promised land. Moses understood that he values God as a person, as who he is, more than what God can give him and the people of Israel. And it is from there where God said, I am pleased, and I will know you by name. And Moses then says, o Lord, please show me, show me, show me this glory. And you know, what Israel does? It's kind of sad, is as Israel receives this stone tablets, the words of God, which Paul writes is holy. It's good. He delights in it. So there's nothing wrong with the law of God in of itself. But as Israel receives the law of God. They think to themselves, well, we've got these stone tablets now. Show us the promised land. And. And this is where they're at in the first century. They're in the promised land that they're in the land of Jerusalem. And the Messiah comes onto the scene and they have. And Israel, they've got their stone tablets. Every week they're coming together to read of the, of the scrolls of the Torah, and yet the Messiah confronts them. Because even though they had what they thought, all they needed, as they thought they had, they had the Torah and they had the promised land, there was still something missing because there was death in Israel everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. The Messiah had to go around and heal and set captives free everywhere he went because of the death. And so ultimately, it seems as if though what Israel thought the Torah would do, it did not do in of itself, and that there was something more that was needed. The messiah was needed, and something the Messiah would give them was needed. And we'll get to that in a moment. But Moses, when he's with the father, he says, you know, may I see your glory? And God says, you can't, because no man who sees me will live. So God allows Moses to see his back as God passes by him. And so we also read, Paul says, for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we'll see face to face. I know in part, and I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. I mean, that's just, that's a radical, radical statement, because I'm going to pull it up. So you read it with me here, this part here where he says, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. You know, I don't understand this fully. I'll be honest with you guys, because it is so radical that it's. It's difficult to wrap my head around what he is saying, because he is saying, look, there's coming in time when I'm going to be, and you're going to be. We're all going to be face to face of the father. We're going to be in renewed bodies who will that will not die when we are with him face to face, as Moses could not see him yet, we will see him. But he says, in that moment, we will know fully as we have been fully known. The level of intimacy that we will have with the father is that we will know him fully as he has known us fully. How much do you want that? How much do you desire that? Because let me say to you that one of the first error of the religious is that they do not desire this as much as they say, oh my. Go sing, or may pray. At the end of the day, this is all about the true heart of a man that is being revealed. As to how much you love God, do you love God radically? Because the Bible says that if you love God radically, you will have no problem loving your brother and your sister. So if you have problems loving your brother and your sister, you have a problem loving God. For how can you say, I hate my brother, but I love God? For how can you not love the one you see, but then say, oh, I love God who you do not see? See, we fool ourselves, but our actions speak louder than anything that we can say or to ourselves or to people. And this pandemic of hate, the fact that there are murderers who call themselves christians and Torah keepers and whatever else they call themselves these days, and yet at the same time, they are the biggest gossipers. They are, their feet lead to Gahanna. They are the people who cause divisions and who break up close friends, as we read in proverbs. They are the people who refuse to forgive from their heart, even though the messiah forgave them. They are the people who have ministries of death, even though they say they have a ministry of life. And so are you that person. Because ultimately, when we love what we can get more from God than loving him for who he is. We've already engaged with Satan and we don't even know it. See it? This is how Satan works, guys. You want to, maybe you're at a car dealership, or maybe you're trying to buy an appliance or whatever. The salesman, he sees you and the first thing he wonders is how much money do you have? Because he's trying to figure out how much can he get out of you. His job is to sell you something, the most expensive thing he can sell you, and that's what Satan wants to do, is he wants to sell you something. But the first thing he's going to do is he's going to look into your wallet. He's going to ask, do you have something that I can work with? Do you have something that I can use to my advantage to manipulate you into a position? And the currency, the thing that Satan is looking for, is an evil motive. See, he is looking at your motives. He's looking at why are you, remember, job, Satan comes to God and he says, your servant job, he's got all this stuff, but I bet you that his motives are evil. I bet you that if we took away everything from him, that he will curse God. See, Satan was looking for an evil motive in job. And so Satan's looking for an evil motive in your heart. And if you give him an inch, he will take it. And he will leave you for death. He will leave you for dead. He will leave you in the place of desolation. Remember when Yeshua was baptized, Jesus was baptized. The father said in him, I am well pleased. What happens immediately thereafter? The same thing that happened to job. Satan comes to the father and says, this messiah, I bet you that if we took away everything from him, that he will curse you, he will deny you. And if we offered him the world, he will leave that kingdom of the Lord for the kingdoms of this world. Oh, I bet you that's what Satan came to do. And so it says. And then God allowed it. God permitted Satan to tempt Yeshua. It says that after his baptism, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness in order to be tempted by the devil. Everything was stripped from Yeshua, even food itself. He was very hungry. It says, he had nothing. And as he was there, Satan comes and offers him everything. He offers him the world. He says, here's bread. And in that moment, the messiah is tested. His motives are tested. No one needs to know what happens in that wilderness. He can make any decision. You know, these are the kind of things Satan would say. And in that moment, his destiny is determined. In that moment, our destinies are determined. When we are in our wilderness, tempted by the devil, when our motives are on the table and God is drawing us into that wilderness with the goal of testing us. To see what? Whether we are worthy to return in power. Listen to me. Listen to me. Some of you are crying out, saying, lord, use me. Greater lord, I need. I need to see more of your power work in my life. Some religious people never get to return in the power of God because they have sold their soul to the devil. And then they come back going to church. They come back going to the synagogue every sabbath, if you will. They come back smiling and waving, but they have sold their soul to the devil. Eucypti. This is crazy. What are you talking about? I'm talking about all of the evidence in the New Testament. Because it was religious people who crucified him. It was not the atheist down the street. It was the religious person who ought to have known better, who had sold their soul to the devil, who had done the work of the devil. As to why, the messiah said, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. They are deceived, they are blinded by the devil. And some of them, he said, you are sons of the devil. So what I'm talking about is not PD's words. These are the words of what is in the scriptures. Was what happened all around the Messiah all the time. So if you want to return in power, if you want to see the Holy Spirit, see that the ministry of the Messiah blew up after he had that wilderness experience, denied the devil three times and came back. Healing the sick, casting on demons, raising the dead, cleansing the leper, these are the things that came as the fruit of denying the temptations and proving his motives as being all for the kingdom of God and not for the kingdoms of this world. And so there I ask of you, oh, I ask of you to repent, turn back to the Holy Spirit. You may say, Petey, I'm religious. I'm not asking if you're religious. You say, Pete, I've asked Jesus into my heart. I'm not asking if you ask Jesus into your heart. I'm asking, have you picked up your cross and followed him? Have you denied the devil? And have you truly, truly, truly repented of your sins and turned to the Holy Spirit? Because I'm going to get to what Paul said now, because he, Paul speaks about this ministry of death and ministry of the spirit in two corinthians three, five. And I want you to read this with me, guys. We're going to spend some time here tonight because this is important. He says, not that we are sufficient in ourselves. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us. Do you claim anything as from yourself, do you? Because if you don't, and if you consider all others as better than yourself, then truly, truly, you have come to a place of humility. But if you think that it is something that you have done your many studies and your many labors and your many, your many, your many, everything you've done, you have disqualified yourself with the gospel which says, it's not by what you've done, it's by what I. What, Yeshua? What I have done. As he proclaims, he's the one who has made us sufficient. So let's read further. Not that we are sufficient, sufficient in ourselves to claim anything is coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the ladder, but of the spirit. For the ladder kills, but the spirit gives life. Now, if the ministry of death carved in ladders on stone. He's talking about the law of Moses. Some of you are like, Petey, where are you going with this? Petey, you're making me nervous. Hold up. Let's listen to what Paul says. Now, if the ministry of death carved in ladders on stone came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses face because of its glory, which was brought to an end, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory? All right, so, Paul, we know that Romans 722, he says, for I delight in the law of God and my inner being. We know that Paul is absolutely in love with the law of God. We know Paul is keeping the law of God. We know that Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ. And Paul is keeping the Sabbath, as is his custom. He's keeping the feast days. He's obviously against any impurities, really demanding holiness of all of his congregations. Okay, so Paul is after the law of God, and he delights it. But he, at the same time, recognizes that there is something that happens when people do not understand the difference between the old covenant and the new. And he speaks of these covenants. And we'll get to those in a moment, in the next few verses here. But I want you to understand that the ministry of death was the fact that God gave a holy and righteous and perfect law to Israel, and there was nothing wrong with it. But Israel, as they looked upon these stone tablets, they themselves, we know that the stone tablets were broken the first time, but it was broken again. Because even though Israel knew about all of these laws so well, and even today, we know of these laws so well, we're trying to put them in our school classrooms. We're trying to put them on the walls everywhere. Cool. But at the same time, how many people gaze upon them but yet cannot keep them? And we are breaking those tablets every all over again. And in fact, many people have ministries devoted to teaching them, but yet their ministry's fruit produces death, not life. How could this be? Is this not a contradiction to what it's supposed to be like? But see, the messiah had to come on the scene for this very reason. Yeshua came, and he came to set the captives free. Say, drink of me and you'll never go thirst again. And he said, I'm going, and it's good that I go, because I'm sending a holy spirit. This spirit came for a purpose. We needed his spirit. His spirit was not just a footnote. His spirit was what this was all pointing to it was what the promised land was all about, to bring you to a place of Zion to experience the spirit. Why? Because the spirit is the new covenant, the Holy Spirit. There is no new covenant without the Holy Spirit. And so Jeremiah the prophet writes of the new covenant. He says the law will be written on the heart. Ezekiel speaks of the spirit that will come and write the law on the hearts of men. Suddenly, it's not just that we gaze upon stone tablets, but the law is now written upon our own very hearts. And we are by nature changed in our very being. Our nature changes as we are baptized, as the Messiah was baptized and we are resurrected. As he was resurrected out of the water. We become a new creation. This changes completely. This is a new person, a new man. Because the old man, the old person, the person who gazed upon the stone tablets, that was a ministry of death. Not because the stone tablets were wrong, but because there was a lot wrong with us and we were unable to keep it in our own ability. And that's why Paul writes. And he started out and he said that we're not sufficient in ourselves. Our sufficiency is from God. We need his spirit. And if we do without his spirit, yes, you can have all of the religious things you want. You can have the law, you can teach the law, but at the end of the day, you cannot keep it. You cannot see it produce fruit in your life, because the Holy Spirit must be the thing that empowers the law in your life to change you, to be able to even keep it. And so now this is the point. It's now not that you'll just read the law, but you'll walk out his law. It's not that you'll read about healing in the scriptures, but that you'll become a vessel of healing yourself. It's not just that you read about the prophets of old and what they prophesied. No. God says in acts chapter two that I am raising our prophets. In these last days, young men, old Menta, dreams, visions, everyone will become my mouthpiece as I pour out my spirit upon them, not just reading prophecies, but becoming the prophecy and proclaiming the prophetic words of the father. And then God comes and establishes himself not just as a God you've heard about or read about, but as the God you know. And as he said then in Jeremiah 32 38, they will be my people and I will be their God. This is what the everlasting new covenant is established by, by the knowing of God's people in him. That intimacy between them. Now let's read on. He goes on in verse twelve, and he says the following. Since we now have such a hope, we are very bold. Yes, hallelujah. Because his spirit is with us, he says, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ it is taken away. And then we read further in verse 15. Yet to this day, whenever Moses read, a veil lies on their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Hold up. When who's there that's reading Moses, but yet has not turned to the Lord? You see, this seems like a contradiction, because he's saying that Moses is being read, but a veil is over their hearts. They're blinded. There's something missing that they're not seeing. But he says they haven't, or obviously they haven't turned to the Lord. Because, he says, when they actually do, the veil is lifted. Just because you are religious and study the law doesn't mean that you've turned to the Lord. We'll figure out what that means in the next verse. Now, the Lord is the spirit. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. See, he is saying, the key to all of this is that member of who the Lord is. This Lord is the Father, but the Lord is also the spirit. The Lord is the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven to be with us and empower us. So many people consider themselves religious, but don't have freedom. But yet the Bible says that where the spirit of God is, there is freedom. Is the spirit of the Lord in your temple? Now we're going to go through trial. We're going to go through tribulation. That is not what I'm talking about. But we are not to be in bondage to sin anymore. He says that ultimately we're being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Holy Spirit as we look upon the Messiah with the unveiled face, beholding his glory. But look at these symptoms. I want to read further. In two Timothy three, one. Because Paul goes on, and he describes that in the last days, this is what is going to happen. Times of difficulty are coming, he says, for people will be loving all the wrong things. Lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy. There is so much of this happening in religious communities, just this, just these few things. People who are heartless to one another, who are unappeasable, who are slanderous, without self control, addicted to pornography. There's no self control anymore. They're brutal to one another, not loving good. They're treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit. Lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having disappearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people because we have quenched the spirit, because we have lowered the role of the Holy Spirit. I mean, when I was a kid growing up in church, I heard about Jesus, I heard about God the Father. The Holy Spirit was there to help me understand the word of God. But really the Messiah said, the Holy Spirit is so important that I'm leaving for his sake. He's saying, I'm leaving so he can be with you at all times and every moment. That sounds very important. And as he exalts the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of his disciples, and the early church grabs a hold of the importance of the spirit, they see the fruit of the spirit operating in their lives. That's why it's called the fruit of the spirit, because you can't have the fruit of the spirit without the spirit. And they see the gifts of the spirit operating in our lives. We don't have the fruits of the spirit. We don't have the gifts of the spirit. And typically, when you don't have the gifts of the spirit in your church, you don't have the fruits of the spirit in your church. And we don't have the fruits of the spirit in your church. You don't have the gift of the spirit in your church because the spirit is being quenched in your fellowship. Yes, you can read the word of God. Yes, you can study it, yes, you can teach it. But if you quench the spirit, do not expect people to be changed, because it is the spirit that works in the hearts of men with the truth and changes them into the image of what the truth calls them to. That is the ministry of the spirit, whilst the ministry of death is just saying, this is what the law says. You need to change. You need to change your behavior. Okay, how's that going? How does that work? When we have laws of the land, everyone knows what the law says, but we know that that in of itself does not have the power to change mankind. Otherwise, we just needed better lawyers with better judges and better laws. But we know that we're just good at making our presence full, whilst the reality is we recognize that we need a ministry of the spirit. That absolutely doesn't just see, the ministry of the Spirit doesn't make prisons full, which is the ministry of death, the ministry of bondage. The ministry of the Spirit sets us free from our prisons and allows us as changed vessels to become a light to those in prison. And so now, today, I want to submit to you that you have access to that Holy Spirit, that your congregation has access to that Holy Spirit. But you have to begin with humbling yourself. You have to begin with saying, lord, there's been something missing in my heart of hearts. Lord, I need you to change me. I'm not sufficient in myself. My behavior cannot do it. I cannot. The law and of itself is not enough. I need you to change me. Write that law in my heart. And then when you look upon him and his spirit now you have to take all of him. See, he is an all or nothing kind of goddess. He is not a. You can't pick and choose him. So if you want his Holy Spirit, if you don't want to offend his spirit, you need to welcome all of him. That means that we begin with saying, God, come with your spirit. Fill me, change me. Give me your fruits of the spirit of my life. And, oh, God, give me the spiritual gifts that you have for me. Because when you have the spiritual gifts operated in you, they are part of the transformation process that changes you from the inside out to bear that good fruit. We see in one corinthians 14, one, Paul writes, and he says, pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. Why is Paul saying that you need to earnestly desire these if they're not important? But think about why this could be important when we think about the gift of healing. Just as an example, healing gives us the compassion of God. For Yeshua looked upon the cross of compassion, and out of the compassion, he healed him. When we pursue the Holy Spirit and his gifts, and we are changed as he works through us, we receive the compassion of God. We pray for the sick, and we see them recover. When we look at the gift of prophecy, we see that God places his voice inside of us. We see with the gift of tongues that we can see God as our father, and we can see how God sees his children as his children speaks to him in their language. We see the gift of interpretation, of how God entrusts us with delivering a heavenly message upon the earth. We see with the gift of faith how God humbles us to see even that exceptional faith comes from him and is not in of ourselves, but is of the Holy Spirit. We see that the gift of miracles lets us see even the hard heartedness of men who deny him despite the fact that he works miracles among them. And then the love of God who dies for them despite their denial of him. Or the gift of discernment that gives us the love of God for people, that even when we discern what's wrong, we can discern God's love for them, despite what they have done. See, we have liked to do away with these in our lives and our fellowships. And then we wonder why there's no life in our lives. And then we wonder, while our heartbeat is growing more and more diminished, until we get to that beep sound where our heart stops, that is the path of rejecting his spirit. But God is doing a mighty work right now. You're watching this because he is calling to, he's bringing the defibrators, and he is calling to make you alive again. He is restarting your heart, because the Holy Spirit is the only one who can come in, change it, renew it, restore it, make it alive again. Brother sisters, that is how radical love is fostered in you. That is how you have that forgiveness. That is how you have that love for unity that Christ had and said, they will know you by the love that you have for one another. When we find all of these things come together, they come together and bring, put our, the puzzle pieces and all the little broken pieces of our lives back together, where even the varieties within God's body we can start to tolerate. There is so many of us. Listen to me. I know I'm going faster, but listen carefully. There are so many of us who struggle to tolerate variety in God's body. We struggle to tolerate the fact that we have brothers and sisters who are believers, who do things differently, who sing different songs, who worship God differently, or who. Who have different customs, or have different gifts, who have different kingdom roles, kingdom offices. And we, on one hand, we say, yes, that's permitted them, but on the other hand, inwardly, we actually look down upon others based on what they're doing in God's kingdom, because we think that what we're doing is most important. And if everyone just does what we're doing, then everything will be good and everything will be fine. What we really want is we want to change the whole body of Christ into our image instead of letting the body be changed into the image of the Messiah. And ultimately, when we do that, it is a thing of pride, because you're not God and you think that you've got it. You've got the secret sauce that's going to suddenly heal the body of Christ. Now, there's many things missing and wrong that can be fixed. Don't get me wrong here, but recognize that God has a body, and you aren't the one who is the Messiah. He is the messiah, Paul ultimately writes, and he says to us in one corinthians 1222, on the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body of Christ, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. Why do we have so much division in the Torah movements? Why do we have so much division in Christianity? 33,000 denominations, plus going probably 100,000 by the end of this message. Why do we have the division? God said through Paul that there will be no division in the body when we start allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through us by these spiritual gifts that this chapter begins with, where he lays out these variety of gifts, varieties of service, varieties of activities that he is working in through us all. But when we do away with this spirit in our lives, and we do away with the variety that he permit that he wants to do through us. But we say my way is the only way. Everyone needs to be made into my image. I make a new denomination. I make a new movement. Everyone. If everyone just does what I do, then suddenly the world's going to be a better place. Well, cool. I'm sure you have something to offer. We better have something to offer, because God is doing something in us, to have us be something to offer this world gifts and service and activities, as he has said. But then, at the same time, recognize that God has given a variety of these, each a manifestation of the spirit for the common good. So if a manifestation of the spirit have indeed been given to you, then you better be careful as to how you judge someone else's weaker. For the Book of Philippians said, we ought to consider all other people as greater than ourselves. Greater. Is there someone around you who you think you're better than? Because that is sin, he says. Ultimately, recognize that you are weak, and if you think you are something, you are nothing. If you think you know something, you do not know what you ought to know, pride is Yeshua is coming with his winnowing fork in his hand and he is making cuts right now. Listen carefully. He's making cuts as I speak right now. He is cutting off the branches that are not producing good fruit of the spirit. The ones who have not adopted the spirit and relied on the spirit, he is cutting off and they will lie on the ground and they will say, I'm religious. I'm religious as there any fruit that they may have even had dyes on the ground because it was rotten from the inside and that was infecting the rest of the tree and he had. Yeshua had to get rid of that. I'm not saying that I'm judging you. I'm not saying that you should judge anyone else. He is the judge. He's the only one who's going to make that determination. But be warned that he is making those determinations and now is the time to repent and turn back to the Holy Spirit so that we can be. So we can be reignited in the radical love that we ought to have. I'm going to end with this chapter. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant. It is not rude. It is not rude. It does not insist on its own way. It's not prideful to do such a thing. It's not irritable. It's not resentful. It forgives. It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing. It doesn't partake in wrongdoing. It doesn't celebrate gossip. It doesn't. It has patience and it rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Do you bear with your brother and sister? Do you believe the best? Do you hope for the best? Do you endure with one another? Or do you allow the enemy to tempt you away in the wilderness with other things because your heart hasn't been made pure? So I'm going to end this off now, here. And I want you to pray with me and just with me, even repent as we pour out our hearts to the father and as we ask him to do a new thing inside of us. You want to see more power of God? Our God is who he is because he's powerful. People are like PD. Why are you speaking about power so much? Because it's who our God is. He is powerful. He is known by his power. That is literally how he made himself known to Israel and Egypt and all the multitudes by the power that came from heaven as plagues upon the world. And he's coming in power again with plagues upon this world. It is prophesied all throughout the scriptures that it will happen, and it is coming. He will make his way known in power. He will appear in power. He will rule with. With power from Jerusalem. And he has put power inside of his people. And that can only be entrusted to his people when his people have proven themselves to be worthy of that. There have been so many who've come before us who will hear, I do not know you. Depart from me, worker of lawlessness. Even though they thought they were keeping all the laws, all their sabbaths, all their feast days and all their diets and all their stuff that they thought were the. Were the good things that they were keeping as to the law. But he will declare, I don't know you. I never knew you were you worker of lawlessness. And they may also say, well, I care. I did all these things by the spirit departure of lawlessness. Because the greatest lawlessness is breaking the greatest law. To love God and to love your neighbor. So you can say, I do all this stuff, but you don't have radical love. It means nothing. And you are operating in lawlessness with which no one will see the Lord. So, Father, I pray right now, God, that you would come and change us, o God, deliver us, o God, remove lawlessness, remove lack of love. Remove pride. Remove conceit. Remove evil motives, Father, even the motives we don't see, even the things in our heart that's there that we don't recognize or know about the things that no one else knows but you. Father, I ask that you would deliver us, make us clean. Father, I ask, O Lord, I ask with tears, O Lord, that those who are listening, Lord, who. Who may have a hard heart at this message, who may even be. Who may be looking at me and being. And conspiring and thinking how wrong this all is. Because they're blinded. They have a veil over their eyes. They do not have the spirit. Who's opened their eyes. Father, I ask that you, despite their hatred in their heart, father, I ask that you would open their eyes as I speak by a miracle, that only your spirit can do. That you would come and do a work in their hearts, that you would come and pierce their hearts, that you would come and expose their hearts. That you would come, Lord, and make them new. Lord, all of us need you. We are so. We can do nothing, o father, without you, holy spirit, there is such a need that we have for you to produce fruit in us. For you to bring forth your spiritual gifts in us, for you to change our fellowships and our children and our pastors and leaders and brothers and sisters and everyone alike. Lord, do a mighty work. O God and o father, help us to forgive. Help us to have unity with one another. Help us to love. In the name of Yeshua, I glorify. Yeshua. Thank you that you died for me to have this. This holy spirit that's so precious. You. No one but you are worthy. No one but you are holy. You are the name above all names. There is no name higher in heaven, on earth, in this age or in the age to come. Yeshua, you. You alone are worthy of all of our worship. Please deliver us. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me. Please consider sharing this message. Please consider praying with me regarding what we've been praying for and do not leave this message the same way you came. Do something. Land on your knees and let the father change you. Many blessings to you and shalom.