0:00 We're continuing today again on knowing the knowing knowing God and in in specific knowing Jesus as the head of the church. As a quick recap of what we we looked at on Wednesday, 0:19 we looked at the question who is the one that builds the church? And uh we read in Matthew 16 verse 18, it's very clear that Jesus is the one who builds the church. 0:37 So, if Jesus is the one who builds the church, the true church, that then anything else that we see on this earth that was built which is not built by Jesus is is definitely not the church. 0:53 And so, it's important to see that the that we as we gather that we need to make sure that Jesus is the one who is building the church. We also see that we also saw that the church is supernatural supernaturally 1:13 built. In Hebrews 11:10, it talks about Abraham looking for a city whose architect and builder was God. And so, the church also is like that. The architect of this church, the builder of this church is is Jesus. 1:32 We also saw that the devil from the beginning till as we read in Revelation as well, he has this tremendous venom and tremendous hatred for one set of people and that's the people of God. There's 1:51 other wars and other things that happen that we read about. But whenever we read about the devil, there's one thing that he's focused on and it's always been to destroy the church, to attack the church. And if we see why is that? Why is that 2:07 that among all the other things that exist on the earth, why is his focus on the church to attack it and to destroy it? And we saw in the scriptures that it says that that's the only authority that can fight against his kingdom. 2:24 Their earthly kingdoms can't fight against the devil. It talks in Matthew 6:8 uh 16:18, it talks about the gates of Hades not being able to prevail against the church. And it also talks about all authority being given to Jesus 2:43 and to his body in Ephesians 1:21. And so as we look at that that there's only one authority that's there on this earth that can defeat the devil and that's the authority of Jesus and his body. And so that's why the devil has such a 3:02 hatred towards the church. So then we ask the question, okay, if Jesus is going to build a church, then what do we have to do? Why are we coming to church? Why are we doing anything at all if Jesus is doing all the building? 3:20 And that's uh that's not true. We We are a part of the church and and we there is a work for us. And we looked at um how it says in in in the scriptures that we are co-laborers with Christ. 3:38 While while we're not doing all the work on our own effort and our own thoughts and our own plans, we are definitely co-laborers with with Jesus. You might remember in Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit set apart Paul and Barnabas for the ministry. 3:58 So, it was not Paul and Barnabas coming up with a bright idea to go and go to all these places and share, but God, through his Holy Spirit, specifically gave them a calling to go and share. We also looked at that that the Lord has given apostles, 4:15 pastors, teachers for the building up of the saints, for the work of the ministry. And so, there is a work in the church that we are called to do. But, we have to ensure that Jesus is the one who's doing the building. And we're coming alongside with Jesus 4:33 to do that. If not, we will find ourselves in what was happening in Genesis 11:4-4, where everybody came together in Genesis 11:4. Genesis 11:4. 4:56 It says in Genesis 11 11:4, it says, "They said, come, let us build for ourselves a city." So, there's another city that's being built, and a tower who whose top will reach into heaven. "And let us make for ourselves a name, 5:12 otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth." And so, we see another city being built, but that's a city which is building a name for itself. And so, we, as we long to be a part of what 5:29 God's doing, we need to be careful that we are not going that route of building a name for ourselves. Today, I'd like us to look together at how that church is going to look, the church which we're talking about where 5:49 Jesus is the head of the church. How is that church going to look? And I wanted to start with us looking at Zion. Zion Zion is a Old Testament picture of the church. And we want to see how God brought people into Zion in the Old Testament. 6:07 Um let's turn to Jeremiah chapter 3 together. Jeremiah chapter 3 Uh if someone can read from verse 6 of 6:35 Jeremiah 3, I want to kind of look at the the condition of the people and then how God brought them to Zion. So, someone can read from 6 to 6 to 10 out loud. The Lord said to me in the days of King 6:54 Josiah, "Have you seen what she did, the faithless one, Israel? How she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the harlot. And I thought, 'After she has done all this, she will return to me.' 7:08 But she did not return. And her treacherous sister saw it. Judah saw it. She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not 7:24 fear. But she too went and played the harlot. Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. Yet for all this, her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, 7:41 declares the Lord. And so we see the condition of the people. So Israel was the northern 10 tribes of Israel uh of of uh of um Israel where it was called Israel. And the other two tribes of Judah and Benjamin were called Judah. 8:00 And the condition of the people was Israel, which is kind of a picture of of worldly Christians, you can call it or worldly worldliness. Th- Those Israel Those which were called Israel, they had already gone into captivity. God had 8:18 warned them over and over again. And the uh king of Assyria came and took them out. And God is saying, "You saw Israel that they went away, that they were I tried to correct them, I tried to reprove them, they didn't listen. But 8:33 you, Judah, you should have known better. Uh you're more upright than they were. But we see in verse 10 what God said to them. That they did not return with all their heart. There was a pretense. Or in my translation in ASV it says, 8:51 "They did not return to me with all their heart, but rather in deception." And and we see in verse 11, God's giving an invitation, but see who's he's inviting in 11 and 12. Someone who's who's in who who's there 9:08 can read it out loud. 11 and 12. And the Lord said to me, "Faithless Israel has proved herself more righteous Go and proclaim these words toward the north and say, 'Return faithless Israel, declares the Lord. 9:27 I will not look upon you in anger, for I am for I am gracious, declares the Lord. I will not be angry forever.'" So so even even though Israel was the more evil of the two in verse 11, do you see which which one 9:45 that God's calling out to? In I'm sorry, in verse 12. In verse 12, which which of those two does God call out to? Is it to Israel or to Judah? It's to Israel. 10:09 And so we we see that that even though they were they were more wicked and and I see that this is the reason that when Judah came back to God they didn't come with a whole heart. There was a deception in their repentance. 10:27 But in verse 13, if we read verse 13, someone who's there can read it out loud. Only acknowledge your iniquity that you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your favors to strangers under every green tree 10:42 and you have not obeyed my voice, saith the Lord. So, what what is God looking for in repentance? From verse 13, what do we see? He wants some people to return to him and have a heart for him not for the world. 11:01 Mhm. And in contrast to what what how Judah repented in in verse in verse 10. It says they kind of acknowledge of your iniquity. It says it there in verse 13, "Only acknowledge your iniquity." And if you go back to 2 Kings 23 where 11:20 you read about Josiah who was the king here in Judah and the the kind of um back to God he was ushering in as king, it's interesting it came from the king so it came in an outward rule of law. And Josiah had a good heart, and he got 11:37 rid of all the idols, but the people simply did it because they feared for their life. Josiah was going to kill them if they weren't going to do it. And I think that's where the deception was, that their hearts were still after 11:51 their idols. Secretly, you'll read that they did it in their tents, and outwardly they went to the temple, and Josiah cleansed the temple, so the outward government was like a force upon their life that cleaned them up outwardly, Mhm. but 12:05 inwardly they wouldn't acknowledge their iniquity. It wasn't that heart of repentance they were coming from. There's that deception in their heart. It speaks to me that hypocrisy is worse than unbelief. Cuz it's, you know, 12:22 it's called Israel faithless, Judah hypocrite. And it was And that applies to us today and come in as well as that if we don't have faith, if we find that because of our lack of faith, we're failing in a particular area, 12:38 God would rather us come to him and say, "I don't have faith. It's not working." And be honest with ourselves than pretend. Uh and that's what God sees. He turns his eye away from Judah, who was chosen one, to Israel because he sees the hypocrisy. 12:55 Yeah, I got it seems that God wants to fill the church with He He longs for us to press on to perfection, but he has a greater longing that there's people, honest people coming together and acknowledging their sin, and he can 13:09 do a work with those kinds of people. But if there's pretense and where there's deception, God can't call out to them because they're they're having that hyp- hypocrisy. Al- Also, we see um I I I to just share a little bit more on 13:27 on the deceptive repentance because that deceptive repentance can as we see is preventing people from coming here to Zion. Um, turn to 1 Samuel uh chapter 15. 1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 25 and 26. Someone can 13:45 read it out loud. 1 Samuel 15 verse 25 and 26. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may worship the Lord. But Samuel said to Saul, "I will 14:04 not return with you for you have rejected the word of the Lord and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel." And verse 30 as well. Then he said, "I have sinned. But please honor me now before the 14:23 elders of my people and before Israel and go back with me that I may worship the Lord your God." Yeah, so what do we see about Saul's repentance here? Or even if we can call that repentance. He just wanted the honor of the people. 14:46 He just wanted the honor of the people. What was the what was the condition of his heart? Did he really was there any remorse? Seems like he was bartering with God. 15:06 Trading the repentance for honor. Like, "I'll repent if you give me honor." Trying to play let's make a deal kind of thing. Mhm. What was more important to Saul? Honor. Honor before the people. 15:26 It's real the real condition of the the sickness of sin in his heart wasn't even a a a a condition for him. He didn't want He just didn't want everybody else to to know about it. It was okay that he was sinning, but he just didn't want anybody else and he was 15:40 scared that somebody will find out. So, he said, "Samuel, come. Let's go together so that they won't know that I'm I'm sinning." It's also interesting that he didn't even acknowledge that he had sinned until Samuel gave him the consequence. 15:55 Hey, you know, outwardly dishonored him and told him the Lord's going to remove the kingdom. All of a sudden, he didn't want that. So, he said then he acknowledged his sin. But before that, if you go back to where when Samuel came to meet him, 16:09 you know, he came and and he met Samuel and he said, "Hey, praise the Lord." In my own words. "Look, I've done the will of the Lord." I mean, just and Samuel goes, "What's all that bleating of the sheep I hear?" And he had even spared King Agag. 16:26 And so, you can see that there was in his conscience there wasn't there was something wrong in his conscience where he wasn't he didn't have that out inward conviction of the Holy Spirit in his life. I see the reason for that is 16:41 verse Uh 17, it says that when you started out you were a nothing. You had a low opinion of yourself. The reason that he wasn't able to see what those talked about and repentance was not genuine cuz he had pride in his heart. He was a king now. 16:58 Things were going well. Before that, he was just a nothing, a nobody. He thought of himself that way. You see what a little bit of pride can do blinding us to see even how seriously we dishonor God. Yeah, that's true. Notice in verse 12 17:17 uh it says Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul and was told Samuel saying Saul came to Carmel and behold he set up a monument for himself. Isn't that interesting? So he sets up this monument for himself right in the middle of this disobedience 17:34 to the Lord. And then he turned and proceeded on down to Gilgal and Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, "Blessed are you of the Lord. I have carried out the command of the Lord." He hid his disobedience. And it's funny that it's not funny but 17:50 it's it's it's more closer to home than we realize that this this kind of attitude towards sin and hypocrisy and deception and things is very close to our heart because we we we tend to have the desire to want to look like there's nothing wrong in our lives. 18:10 And when we want to do that, we will then look for the honor of men rather than dealing with the sin inside. And then by pretense we'll be among those that the Lord is saying are deceptive in repentance. I think part of this 18:28 deception that I see in Saul is that he actually felt like he had obeyed the Lord through partial obedience. He partly obeyed. He destroyed everything that was You could read through the story. He destroyed everything that was ugly and evil and 18:44 despised. He only kept the good stuff. And even that he said the people did that. And so in his he really deceived himself in thinking that he obeyed the Lord partly and so now I have obeyed the Lord. And when the Lord showed him that 19:00 partial obedience is actually disobedience um he wouldn't acknowledge that. He was He was humiliated instead of humbling himself. In contrast uh uh uh uh there there's one one in the New Testament who in Luke 5:8 19:20 we can see Luke 5:8 someone who's there can read it. You see that that that attitude of Peter 19:55 when he first met the Lord he saw Jesus in all his his holiness and things like that and he came to the Lord and he said, "Lord, don't come near me. I'm so wicked and and think and he was honest with the Lord. He was honest with the Lord about his 20:10 condition. And you can see throughout his life when he gets rebuked in the in in Matthew 16:4 uh taking Jesus away from the cross and then from Paul later on in the epistles of in Galatians all throughout that because he had that 20:28 true repentance, that true attitude of humility you see how he was preserved and he was the one who made that confession which Jesus said "Upon this I shall build my church." I wanted to turn back to Jeremiah 3, Jeremiah 3. So, we looked at the false 20:47 deceptive repentance and and a a true humility of repentance. Let's turn to Jeremiah again at chapter 3 and let's read verse 14. Someone who's there can read it out loud. While I'm reading I was thinking about 21:06 the significant thing about sitting Peter, is that it was right after a miracle. And I don't know if I really meditated much on what I wonder what caused Peter to say, after he saw this amazing miracle, God just did it, 21:21 brought fish out of nowhere, essentially, and he says, "I'm a sinful man, depart from me." You wouldn't think that's the natural response. Natural response may be to brag or boast about what God did for him. We see that now when God does miracles 21:34 for people, they love to talk about it. But Peter's response, I think, was a response of love, because he realized how much how Jesus' miracle came out of his heart of love for Peter, undeserving as he was. That's what That's what how I 21:47 understand Peter's response. He says, "Lord, I don't deserve this miracle." I know I asked you for it, but I don't deserve it. When we have that attitude, when God answers our prayer and gives us good blessings, instead of 21:59 puffing our shoulders up or straightening our collar and thinking how good we are, we recognize the goodness of God and his love and his kindness every day, and all the miracles we face, that we can really go down, and then 22:10 it's that heart of love that we recognize. We're more taken up with Jesus, him being my bridegroom, the love of my life, than what he does for me. Amen. Now, so you have no idea about Peter. I think that you can see how he lived. 22:29 He seen Jesus, all those all these years he's spent with And he gets to the end and say, "Lord, don't go to the cross." But if you try to remove the cross from my life, or if we do it or we do it in the church, you know, Peter would have seen this. 22:43 You lived this perfect life. I've never seen you speak an unkind word. I've seen you do all these things. You don't have to go to the cross. But then looking at Jesus' life, and no matter how much I don't want the cross in my life, if I ever get to the 22:58 point where I say I don't need it, then I think I've probably deceived you. Amen. 23:49 It says in verse 14, Jeremiah 3:14, "Return, oh faithless sons," declares the Lord, "for I am a master to you." Or in I think in the New King James, it says, "I'm a bridegroom to you." Or a husband to you. And it And I will 24:06 take you one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to I'll bring you to Zion. And so, you see that the Lord's going to Just because there's a city there, he's he just doesn't take the whole city and brings 24:21 them along. He looks inside that city, which is being built by a builder and architect who's not God, looks in that city and says, "Okay, I'm going to take you from here." And then from a family, he's going to take two from that family, and then he's bringing 24:36 all these people from different places and putting them in Zion. And that's the way we see Zion being built up. It's not people recruiting others and saying, "Okay, come on, let's join Zion." Who who's the one who's bringing them 24:50 into Zion? The Lord's The Lord's the one who's bringing the the people into Zion. And And verse 15 is a beautiful picture of how Zion's going to be. Someone who's there can read it out loud. And I will 25:09 give you pastors according to my heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. And so in in the true Zion, there's going to be shepherds, it says in some translation, shepherds over after God's own heart. 25:25 And again, it's it's talking about that cross, about people who are not set on their own interests, and and their interests are in the interests of God. And that's the kind of shepherds that the Lord will have in the church where God's bringing them 25:41 together. There's a wonderful contrast that we see between Jerusalem and Babylon, and I wanted us to look at that together. Jerusalem, uh Revelation chapter 21, 25:59 verses 9 and 11. Someone who's there can read it out loud. Revelation 21, verse 9 to 11. Then one of the seven angels who held 26:20 the seven bowls came and said, "Come with me and I will show you Come with me and I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." So he took me in the spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, 26:34 descending out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like precious stones and jasper So So we see that the true Jerusalem, it comes down from heaven. It comes down to earth. And we see in Philippians 2:8, we can 26:54 read that, too. Philippians 2:8. Philippians 2:8, it says being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming 27:13 obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross. And so, you see that Jesus, also, just like the New Jerusalem comes from heaven, keeps coming down, down, down, all the way to earth, the Jesus, also, he came from heaven, he 27:30 came down, he humbled himself, humbled himself, humbled himself. And you see that New Jerusalem is like that, it comes from it comes all the way from heaven and comes down. But then, if you look at Babylon, which is Genesis 11:4, 27:45 you can see which direction that goes. Uh we read that earlier, that they build it from earth, and it tries to go which way? It tries to go up. And and and the ruler of their kingdom also seeks to go the 28:02 same direction. In Isaiah 14:13, we read 14:13, it says Isaiah 14:13, it says of the devil, but you said in your heart, and that is the devil, I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne above all the 28:21 stars, I will sit on Mount of Assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the most high. And so, you see the New Jerusalem is coming down from heaven, and it's coming down to earth 28:37 earth, and Jesus, the head of that New Jerusalem, is also humbling himself. But if if Babylon is being built, you see it's going in the other direction. It goes down from Earth and it's trying to go up. And the devil who's leading 28:51 that Babylon, he also wants to seek to go up. And so, as we come together as as as a church, we need to see that which direction are we going? Are we humbling ourselves and going the way of Jesus or are we building a name for ourselves? 29:17 Any comments? Also, the when we talk about the church 30:24 as his body, one one important thing that we see that and we won't we won't go into the verses, but in Romans 12, it talks about every member of the body is needed. It talks about the head not saying to the foot, "You're not needed." But, every single 30:40 member of the body is needed. and if if we're in in the in the church that Jesus is the head then every single part of the body will feel valued and needed and is needed in the church. And every every part of the body is not 30:56 gifted in the same way but the every single member of the body has life and that life and has a connection with the head and and for us as we get together as a body it's important that each each member from the youngest to the oldest 31:13 recognizes that they are very much needed in this in this body. It's in a place where there are some that are considered not needed is where it's not not the body of Christ because in the body of Christ each one is needed. 31:29 And each one rejoices with as one is being lifted up it's rejoicing and when one suffers all the members of the body suffers with it. If you strike your toe every part of your body feels that pain and that's how it is with the true church that God is 31:44 building. We also see that it's it's a wonderful place where God loves to dwell in. You can look at those scriptures and it's like a bride. It's like a bridal relationship of the true church and the true church where Jesus is the head. 31:59 It's a bridal relationship. And the aspect of of that bridal relationship is known by the love that the bride groom bride has for the bridegroom more than the service of the bride to the bridegroom. And even though Jesus died for the 32:18 entire world it says he gave himself for the church. And so we we need to see that God's love for us is even more intense that he then he had for the entire world. Where he died for the entire world he gave himself up for the church and so 32:38 Amen. Stay short like
