A Peaceful Transfer of Power (April 14, 2024)

Jesus is reminding us that we are conforming to Him, not to traditions or rituals. He is our advocate and mediator with God. He saves us from our sins and from ourselves. He showed His disciples His wounds as a sign of peace. He breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit. We should reconcile with others and forgive as we want to be forgiven. Jesus took the first step in reconciling with His disciples. giving honor to our Father and our God. Hallelujah. Today we declare that Christ Jesus lives. And because of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the very essence of who Christ is manifested within us. That's who we are conforming to. This morning, by chance or by occasion, if we have failed to really appreciate who we are conforming to, I want us to be reminded that we are conforming to the likeness of Christ Jesus. Christ Jesus as who He is now. Not just some historical figure. Not some person that we read about and think about Him in the terms of 2,000 years ago, but who He is now. I'm not talking about conforming to the traditions of the elves or to denominational practices or beliefs or rituals, including the rituals of the Church of God by faith. That's not who we are conforming to. We are conforming to Christ Jesus as He is, sitting at the right hand of the Father in His ascended state. Jesus Christ, He is our advocate. He's not our persecutor. He's not our prosecutor. But He is our mediator. He is our high priest. He is our advocate. And there is no one between the body of Christ and God but Him. If there's anything right now, if there's any person right now that is separating us from God, hallelujah, including ourselves. I'm here just to remind us once again that there is only one hallelujah, between us and God. And He's already spoken to us in the essence of His words. He's already said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man, no woman, no person comes to the Father but by me. And to deny Him, hallelujah, and His role as our advocate and as our mediator and as our high priest, to deny Him is to also deny that the Father sent Him to save us from our sins. That's what it's all about. Christ came not to condemn us but through Him that the world might be saved. And so often as He is saving us from our sins, as He is saving us from not abiding by His perfect will, He's doing more than just saving us from general sins as we would like to identify sins, but He's actually saving us from ourselves. And that's what gets me excited, hallelujah, that's what gets me invigorated and inspired to know that the Holy Ghost and that the Word of God works so fervently within me that it helps me to be saved from myself. And I might be the only person on this call to have that testimony, but hallelujah, I can sit by myself and praise God that He is saving me from myself. Could have been, should have been, would have been, hallelujah, hallelujah, dead and gone, but He saved me from my sins and He saved me from myself. I'm so glad about it this morning. I'm so glad about it this morning. I ask you to go with me again. Join me and consider chapter 20 of the book of John. We're focusing primarily on verses 19 through 23. Hallelujah. Let me read the blessed Word of God. Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst and said unto them, peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he showed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, peace be unto you. As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said unto them, receive you the Holy Ghost. Whosoever sins you remit, they are amen unto them, and whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. God bless the cures and the doers of his Word. Let us pray. Abba Father, we lift our hearts and our minds unto you. Although we got on this call, we don't check. Hallelujah. Our thoughts, our ability to think at the door. Hallelujah. It's in this moment that we can reflect on the Word and let this mind be in us, which is also in Christ Jesus. So we receive your Word this morning. We receive the Holy Spirit this morning through your Son Jesus Christ. We reach out and we reach unto you. We thank you for who you are and who Christ Jesus is in our lives. We worship you Father and we adore you and we set our minds in this hour of your great revival to commune with you even more. Hallelujah. To commune with you through the Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray God right now that you will pour into us that we may receive the bread of life that is in your Word and that we may drink of the cup, the cup of your blessedness, the blessedness of your Holy Spirit. Hallelujah. Help us God right now to not only receive your Word, but give us God the wisdom, the knowledge, the understanding to rightly divide the Word of truth and to apply it in our lives practically and poignantly. Hallelujah. As we go forth. It's in the name of Christ Jesus we pray and we praise. We praise and we pray. We thank you God for the grace and for the blessing to come upon us now. Amen. Hallelujah. Amen. Today the thought that comes to my mind is a peaceful transfer of power. A peaceful transfer of power. And as the Holy Spirit gave this to me I didn't think Deacon Donovan that I would see this morning what I saw in the context of missiles and drones. Hallelujah. Being directed from Iran to Israel and those missiles and drones being shot down. Hallelujah. I didn't know about the type of peace that we take for granted but we need God even more so in our lives now than ever before. Because when they say peace and safety, then comes sudden destruction. Now the barbie I think is a reminder once again of how close we are to the soon coming king and how deeply we are in the book of Revelation. But this morning as we consider the verses that have been lifted up for our consideration in a nutshell, hallelujah, we see this peaceful transfer of power between the risen Lord Jesus and his ten disciples who are present in the room. They're in the room, they're locked up, they're locked in for the fear of the Jews but Jesus Christ comes suddenly and he is standing in the midst of them. And as we reflect upon the verses there is no doubt an evident stark contrast between what we see in Christ Jesus, what we see him saying and what we see him doing. There's a stark contrast between what we see here in the text when we consider ourselves we see Christ Jesus, he's encountering the disciples for the first time collectively after his Sunday morning resurrection. And while there is an evident stark contrast it's because he comes in the room and he comes in the room with the words of peace be unto you. What we see Christ Jesus literally being reconciled to his brothers even though they didn't come to save him they didn't come to get him out of prison. There is no bold rescue. There is no mention in the text that the disciples and the followers of Christ were in all day and all night prayer meetings interceding on the behalf of Christ Jesus. There's a stark contrast here when you think about if we were similarly situated what would we do? Hallelujah. Would we be like Jesus standing in the midst, in the posture of being reconciled to his brothers. Jesus denied. He was betrayed he was abandoned, he was forsaken by those closest to him and this morning it begs the question that if it was me or you would that be our testimony that we would go and find our brothers and sisters. The same brothers and sisters hallelujah that denied us, betrayed us, abandoned us, left us hanging on the rugged cross. That's why it's a stark contrast. And I think if we're just honest with ourselves it would be difficult, at least I believe it would be difficult for most of us to go find and reach out to those who have left us and failed us and even support us in our darkest hours. And it's not often our experience or the case that we with grace and we with nobility as we see here with Christ Jesus it's not often the case that we can let bygones be bygones. But right now in this moment, in this hour of God's great revival I believe that the Holy Spirit is sharing with me just to share with you that some of us really need to let it go. We need to let the past injustices and harms and hurts, we need to let it go. Wherever we feel that others have left us, let us down we need to just let it go rather than retreating from our brothers and sisters. We need to be reconciling with one another. Hallelujah. The Father has given us the ministry of reconciliation, not retreating from one another but the ministry of reconciliation in our new walk with Christ. And it's evident to me this morning, hallelujah, that the reason why we we like that word often in our vocabulary we, we, we, why we can't get nowhere, hallelujah is because we are not in agreement. And how are we going to be in agreement if we are retreating from one another, not being reconciled with each other. How can two walk unless they agree. We need to be walking in agreement and reconciliation is about agreement. It manifests agreement even when we pray the Lord's prayer. We pray Father forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. If we this morning think that anybody still owes us something this morning, he's saying forgive them. Forgive them, forgive them. That prayer, the forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors that's a prayer of limitation. Because in essence we are petitioning God to only give us in proportion to what we give to others in the area of forgiveness. If you want to be forgiven a little bit, forgive a little bit. But if you want to be forgiven for a whole lot, you need to forgive your brothers and your sisters a whole lot. Glory be to God. However, however, however in our selected verses today, Christ shows us a more excellent way through His grace and through His nobility by standing in the midst of His disciples. Hallelujah. They didn't find Him He found them. He went to them. He sought them out. He came to them. He was reconciled to them. Yeah, you might have to take the first step. But didn't Jesus do it? Didn't He take the first step? When He came here, hallelujah, He took the first step. When He went to the cross, He took the first step. When He was buried and resurrected again, He took the first step. And when He entered into the room, hallelujah, He took the first step to be reconciled, hallelujah, to the brethren. And He did so not in bitterness but in the measure of God's God's amazing grace to speak unto them, peace be unto you. And when you read the text there's no rehashing of what has happened over the past several days. What has happened to Him at the hands of the Jews and at the hands of the Romans and at the hands of His own family or even at the hands of His own disciples. There is no walking down the memory lane of bitterness and unforgiveness. There are no reminders of taking a hit for the team or unjustly being subjected to an unmerciful beatdown and being ridiculed and humiliated publicly from going, from being scourged to carrying your own cross and then being blamed to the cross that they made you bear. There's none of that here in the text. The Lord Jesus is not bringing with Him the history of His pain. He's not talking about the last 400 years. He's just standing in the midst of them and He's saying, peace be unto you. And He reveals a new story of God's glory that as the resurrection, hallelujah because He is the resurrection. But He brings this new story that as the resurrection He lives. He lives. And as He is standing in the midst His first words of salutation and reconciliation with His leadership team is simply, peace be unto you. And I want to encourage us this morning to consider that whenever we walk into the room, wherever that room might be when we walk into the room, hallelujah we're walking in as the ambassadors of Christ Jesus. And when we walk in to the room, it should be the essence of fresh air and there should be the essence of the spirit of peace upon us when we walk into the room. There should be the joy of the Lord, hallelujah. When we walk in the room, there should be the peace that surpasses all knowledge and understanding. When we walk in the room, our feet should be charred with the preparation of the gospel of peace, hallelujah. When we walk in the room, there should be the good news of the gospel, hallelujah. And when we walk in the room, there should be liberty and freedom because we know that where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. So when we walk in the room, we can even talk to a not-now generation about a now-living God. Hallelujah. We're not bringing in our baggage. We're not bringing in 400 years. We're not bringing in our own individual and collective, hallelujah, injuries. We're not bringing in the baggage of the past like Jesus didn't bring it in when He walked in the room. He brought with Him, hallelujah, the spirit of peace and the salutation of a new beginning to do greater works. Hallelujah. We're called to do greater works. As you go to the Father, He's sitting on the right hand of you now. We're called to go. As God has sent me, so I send you. He ain't told us to invite people to church. He has called us to invite people to Christ. When we get in the room, hallelujah, hallelujah, we need to begin to talk about a new beginning, not about the past injuries, but a new beginning in Christ. If a man, if a woman be in Christ, they are, hallelujah, new creatures and old things are passed away and behold all things become new. Let us walk in this newness of mine and in this newness of life. Hallelujah. From the text, I see these four cardinal points. Cardinal points suggest we need to apply to ourselves individually and is there also for collective leadership in the church and we need to focus on it. Hallelujah. If we are going to truly understand the times, hallelujah, my mind is set on our conference coming up nationally in June, so we're going to really understand the times. These are the cardinal points that need to be evident. Hallelujah. In our business meetings and in our prayer and in our fasting, hallelujah, these are the four cardinal points. One, Jesus must be our center. Hallelujah. He's standing in the midst of the disciples. He's the center of the attraction. Hallelujah. Jesus must be our peace. He's still saying unto us even now, peace be unto you. Jesus must be our author, the author of our faith because he's saying to us, as the Father has sent me, so I send you. And finally, Jesus must be our finisher, the finisher of our faith as he says to the leadership team and breathe on them, hallelujah, receive you, the holy ghost. So Jesus must be our center. He must be our peace. He must be our author and he must be the finisher of our faith. And if those four cardinal points are not in play, the church ain't going to be in progress. Hallelujah. We're not going to progress. We're not going to understand the times if the cardinal points are not in play. As I meditated on the verses, it is interesting to note here that Jesus says, peace be unto you. He says it twice in the text. Why does he say it twice in the text? He's repeating himself. He says it early on in his greeting, in his salutation, in his ministry reconciliation. He says peace be unto you. But he says it again. He says it again as a prelude to his peaceful transfer of power to his leadership team. Look at the word with me again. Verses 21 through 23. Jesus said to them again, peace be unto you as my father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he hath said this, and when he hath said this, he breathed on them and said unto them again, receive you, the holy ghost. Just another peaceful transfer of power. And then he goes on to say, whosoever sins you remit, they are remitted unto them. And whosoever sins you retain, they are retained. Family, this morning, that's the peaceful transfer of power that he gave to the disciples then. And he's given, hallelujah, to us now as his disciples. And it's interesting as he's given them this peaceful transfer of power, that there is no, he doesn't reference any specific names. He's not saying, for example, I called you now, Simon Peter and Peter Cephas, hallelujah. And upon this rock I will build my church. He's not identifying James and John. He's not talking about Andrew or Thomas. He's not referring to any specific names, but he is giving them all. This blessing of his peace and this blessing of the power of the Holy Spirit. He didn't select any particular disciple to get a double portion of his spirit. That's not what's going on in him. He's giving his holy ghost to all of them. And there is no mention, thank God for this, there is no mention in the verses of the prior jockeying of the position and title by the disciples. He's not bringing that up. There's no debate here about who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom. There's no discussion about who's going to sit in relations to Christ Jesus. None of that, hallelujah. None of that has any significance in the moment that the Lord Jesus is standing in the midst. And it has no significance in the body of Christ now. God is no respecter of persons. And there is no distinctions, hallelujah, based on our birth or based on our social privilege or based on our education or based on our gender. We're all one in Christ. There is no favorite child syndrome in the eyes of our Father. He's not playing favorites. As a matter of fact, in verse 22, we see that there is no favorite disciple. As we read that the Lord Jesus says, breathe on them, them, them. Breathe on them and share unto them. Receive you the Holy Ghost. See, breathe on them and share unto them. I'm just trying to emphasize, italicize, boldface, and underline the word them, hallelujah. I believe that you are on this call are part of the them, hallelujah. Them, them, receive you the Holy Ghost. Them, them, them. As I close, family, as I close, I think too often that many get so caught up in following a person, following a favorite preacher, following a favorite bishop, following a favorite pastor, following a favorite prophet or prophetess, that they miss him and then they miss them, hallelujah. I don't want you to miss him and miss them because the one thing that we are preaching is Christ and Him crucified, hallelujah, but resurrected, sitting on the right hand of the Father and He told them, hallelujah, on His way back to the Father to carry them in Jerusalem until I send you the Holy Ghost and after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you you shall receive power to be witnesses unto me. I don't want you to forget about the commission and not for you to be sent to church but you to be sent to the lost. Hallelujah, hallelujah. I don't want you to miss hallelujah, that the Lord Jesus breathed on them and said unto them, receive you the Holy Ghost and right now for all of us who want this anointed intelligence of the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus is breathing on all of us in this moment and He's saying, I believe even now, just start receiving just start receiving, hallelujah, the Holy Spirit all we got to do is just receive the Holy Spirit in this hour of God's great revival we know that the issue is not about whether the Lord Jesus is breathing, I want to dispel the notion that He's not breathing, He's breathing even now as He breathed on His disciples, that He's breathing, hallelujah His Holy Spirit, the real issue the crux of the matter is whether we are receiving, hallelujah, while there are others, hallelujah, who may be waiting to exit, I believe the Lord Jesus saying to us this morning, I'm just waiting on you to inhale, hallelujah inhale, hallelujah, inhale, inhale and receive the Holy Ghost, when we start getting anxious, hallelujah, receive the Holy Ghost when we're getting fearful, inhale the Holy Ghost, when we're getting nervous, uptight, upset, frustrated when we're feeling down and low, robusted and disgusted, that's when we need to inhale, take a deep breath hallelujah, take a deep breath, take a deep breath and inhale, hallelujah the Holy Ghost amen, amen, amen amen