Me, I see you in everything where God can do amazing things in the midst of His holy ones. Amen. Hallelujah, Father.
For the Spirit of grace has much to say. And in my heart, I hear the Spirit of grace saying, "You have read, and so you know it to be true that I inhabit the praises of my people." But I inhabit the praises of my people because I choose to. For your praise speaks to my joy. And so in the place of abundance of praise, there shall always be an abundance of joy.
So the Spirit of grace is saying to you in this season, indeed in every season, let your praise make your heart merry. Let your praise make your heart merry. And your weakness will be swallowed up in strength. And the darkness will be swallowed up in light. And through the strength of His joy, your situation will be made right.
So go ahead and lift your voice in this place and in this time. Give Him praise right now. Oh me. Oh me. Michael, you looking for some people? You looking for some people to follow you? All right. I follow you anywhere, buddy. Hallelujah, Father.
All right. Before we get into the word this morning, we got a couple things that I want to do. Something that we have done in years past, and I'm going to explain it to you. Probably you're familiar with it, but then we're going to do it a little bit different. I'm just going to ask you to go ahead and stand up and do it now.
Okay. But we have the opportunity to be a blessing to people that are in what I would be amiss if I called it a nursing home, rehab center, nursing home. And, you know, my wife and I have learned over the past two and a half years of our journey how many families put their parents, their loved ones in nursing homes and never go see them again. And it's sad. It's deplorable. It's disgusting that we treat our elderly that way.
And, you know, for the past two and a half years, my wife and I have heard every time in every different facility, you know, we've gotten commended because we show up. And so this is our opportunity to love on people that aren't even our family. And so it's called the angel tree. And I have a couple like here. There's a man. And they write down what they could use. And I don't know if they have to do everything on the back or, okay, you know, a sweatsuit or a warm sweater, socks, body wash, deodorant, Kleenex, calendar. I think we have about 40 of these. And my wife and I will take these four.
And so here's what I want to ask of you. If you would love on someone for no other reason other than they need to be loved on, would you please stand up right now? Ushers, everyone that's standing up, give them at least one of these. My wife just said many of them, they don't even have the resources to get these simple things.
So I want to know when we have them all passed out. Once you have one in your hand, you can go ahead and be seated. Now, we'll need that in-house. I think the service before December the 20th, right? Huh? That's the 15th. So we need them in-house by the 15th. Ushers, are we all done? We got everyone passed out?
Okay. Listen, if you're standing up and you didn't get one, bring some stuff anyhow. Trust me, it's going to go. So toiletries, toothbrushes, toothpaste, a warm sweater. If you didn't get one and you don't know the size, just get a sweater, okay? Would you do that for us? Even if you didn't get one, would you go ahead and bring something on the 15th? And can you say amen?
That's the way I like to get it done, 40 of them out like that. Y'all are awesome.
Okay. Now, next I have something that I want to address. And we need to address it so it doesn't become an issue, either real or perceived. And so I want to talk about prophecy at RLC. And many of you know God's really adding to our numbers, and we've got a lot of folks that have joined after we had our conference.
We had a very foundational, instrumental, purposeful conference earlier this year called the Voice of God, and the purpose of the Voice of God was this: to bequeath God's people the courage to believe that they hear the voice of God and the body can rise up and do the work of the ministry. How many of you know that the entirety of the work of the ministry does not belong to the apostle, prophet, the evangelist, the pastor, or the teacher?
I mean, I had a guy one time, he came up to me and said, "It's not my job to build the church; it's yours." I said, "Well, keep believing what you want to believe." But we have to—my job is to help you do your job, you know?
And so I want to talk about how we do prophecy because people either embrace it and throw off all restraints, right, and it becomes a free-for-all and people get hurt, or churches say, "We just ain't having none of that," and people get hurt because you're not going to be able to do that because you and I were not designed by God to be simply churchgoers.
This is just where we come to encourage one another, receive from one another, hear from one another, love on one another, then go out into the world and make a difference. This is not God's ultimate intention for His children to gather together into an enclave of saints and never go out and be the light.
Okay, so, but this is a great place to practice because if you're not courageous enough to say, "I think God gave me something for you" in the church, you ain't going to do it in the grocery store.
So, but you know, we do have to understand that from the very beginning—and Steve can attest to this—we've always called Real Life Church a safe place. But that does not mean that you are to interpret it as a place where you'll never be challenged because if I can't challenge you, provoke you, maybe even irritate you, then you're never going to grow.
And if you never grow, then what's the whole—you might as well just stay home and watch videos, right? So the question is, how do we as a church from that safe spiritual place, the place where we flow in the gifts, yet we still are safe?
So I want to follow—so I don't ramble too long—there are inherent risks when we allow the Spirit to operate, not because of the Spirit, but because of our humanity. Now this might shock you, but you ain't perfect. And this will shock you even more: neither am I. We're all learning how to hear, how to flow, how to cooperate.
And so primary approaches to this and still not just let it be a free-for-all, as some churches throw off all restraints, even the scriptural ones. And the other night, there was a massive church in Tulsa for a while. It was the fastest growing church. The pastor literally made it so no more operating in the gifts of the Spirit. He shut it down rather than guide it.
You know, I'm—am I going in and out?
Okay, so I was having lunch with a pastor one time who once had a very thriving church in the upstate, and I'll never forget it as long as I live. He looked at me and he told me, "The worst mistake I ever made in all my years of pastoring was letting the gifts of the Spirit operate in the church."
But once again, he was weary and he was unwilling to challenge wolves and address situations. I'm not weary. Okay? And I like to address—I like to address things before they become an issue. And the truth is, it isn't easy and it's always risky.
Bishop Miller told us a story one time. It's going to take me a few minutes, but I want to address it in such a way that we all understand. I know the pastor's now in heaven, but there was a pastor many years ago, again, of a thriving church, and he had two elderly ladies. And it sounds so funny, but in truth, it would have been a really bad place to worship because these two old ladies always tried to out-prophesy each other.
And, you know, when you're in competition, you're in the flesh. Just period. If we're competing out spiritually, if we don't spiritualize each other, you ain't spiritual; you carnal. Because in the Spirit, we love one another and we celebrate each other's victories, right? In the flesh, we want to be seen as something we ain't.
But these two old ladies, you know, if ever one had a tongues and interpretation, the other one would stand up and have a tongues and interpretation. And then it was just going back and forth like ping pong. And for whatever reason, the pastor never sat them down and shut it up.
But the story was that Bishop Miller shared: one lady stood up and she gave a word. And the other lady stood up and said, "Thus sayeth the Lord, thou thinketh thou art a humdinger, but thou art not a humdinger; thou art just a dinger."
Do you think that was God? No. You know, so there are some things that you have to speak to. But here's the thing. Listen, y'all, if we don't allow for some wildfire, we'll have no fire at all, right? Because we're all being human.
So as we go forward, what do we do? We remain teachable. That means you've got to be teachable; I've got to be teachable. He's the teacher. Okay? So we've got to remain teachable, but we also have to remain merciful.
Meaning that if somebody comes to you and gives you a word and it don't fit, don't assume they're a false prophet. Most of the time, their heart is right; they just made a mistake. Everyone say, "Teachable." And "merciful."
Right? So if I came and I gave Cleve a word and it didn't fit, and Cleve just tore me up and tore me down, it might take me the rest of my life to recover. Because if you ever get smacked down in church, it's hard to find the courage to ever step out again.
So if I came to Cleve and gave him a word and it didn't fit, I've got to be teachable. And he's got to be merciful.
Okay, now I want you to—I'm going to show you a verse, a couple verses, actually, and then we'll get into the word. And then I want to—1 Thessalonians chapter 5. I want to read it to you out of the Amplified.
Do not quench, suppress, or subdue the Holy Spirit. Do you notice that? Do not. Why would that be written if there was not a tendency to suppress and quench? So the apostle is saying, "Do not quench or suppress or subdue the Holy Spirit."
In verse 20, "Do not spurn the gifts and utterances of the prophets. Do not depreciate prophetic revelations, nor despise inspired instructions or exhortation or warning." Verse 19, do not. Verse 20, do not. Verse 21, but test.
So the apostle is saying, look at the answer. The answer is not suppression; the answer is guidance. I want to say it again. The answer—if you receive a word and it challenges you, that don't mean it's wrong.
You've heard me say this to you before, that if you ever receive a truly prophetic word, it won't seem to fit you. Because God's not speaking to the you that we all see. He is speaking to the you that He has ordained for you to be.
This is the reason why He finds a person named Gideon hiding out and calls him a valiant warrior. He wasn't speaking to the coward hiding behind the wine press. He was speaking to the person inside of Gideon that Gideon didn't even know existed yet.
Is this okay? But now the apostle goes on. He said, "But test and prove all things until you can recognize." Do you see that? Test and prove all things until you can recognize what is good. To that, hold fast.
So here's the way we operate. I believe that each and every one of you are anointed by God. I believe some of you are. I believe some of you are called to be prophets, apostles. I want you to excel me in ministry. That would be my greatest honor.
At RLC, we want you to speak up. But we don't believe in hallway hallucinations. Don't believe that you got to pull someone off to the corner and be secretive about it.
So here's what we have. We have gatekeepers. We have Wendy. We have Steve. And even though I haven't, we have Cleve and Yvonne and we have others. If you're receiving something, tell the person, "Let's go down and find a gatekeeper." I want them to hear this.
And also, if you ever notice Shelly Webb running around with her phone, she's doing modern-day scribe work. She records the prophetic words. Why? So that we find that divine string in the things that are said and we know where God is taking us as a church.
We test. And we prove. And then we learn how to recognize what is God, what was well-intentioned but missed, and we hold fast to that which is divine.
Okay? So at RLC, if you're uncertain, come find Cleve, Yvonne, Steve, or Wendy, or me or my wife, and we'll listen to it as well. But what we don't want to do is just shut it all down because then we might as well just go home.
Is this good? Is this okay? All right. Enough's out of that. You ready for the Word this morning? Already got it. Well, you're going to get some more. I'm excited to preach this to you. I'm excited about everything I preach to you because I just like the Word.
Go with me to 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. This is a really powerful verse. The apostle said, "But we all." Everyone say, "That means me." We all. We all. With unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Some years ago, I preached a series of messages entitled "Life Is." And in that series, one of the truths that the Holy Spirit brought out is that life is reflective. We all have this mirror-like tendency in our souls to reflect that which we behold.
This is one of the reasons why the Bible says, "Set no evil thing before your eyes." Because if you behold it, you become it. And we all know that this reflective nature exists. What we mistakenly think is that we grow out of it. But you've got to understand that reflective nature is not a sign of immaturity and that you're suddenly immune to those you hang with when you're mature.
You ever read the first book of the Psalms? The Bible starts out with, "Blessed is the man who does not hang with idiots." Because if you hang with an idiot, you'll become an idiot. You hang with lazy people, you'll become lazy. You hang with thieves, you'll learn to steal.
Because this reflective nature that we have is there by divine design. You don't outgrow it. But every parent knows it because you know that sweet little angel you gave birth to. You know the one that on the day he was born, the angels got together and decided they'd make a dream come true.
So they sprinkled stardust in his hair and gave him eyes of blue. My mama used to sing me that song. Well, your sweet little angel one day says he wants to go hang out with Bobby. And so you let him go down to Bobby's house and your sweet little angel comes home dropping F-bombs like nobody's business.
And you're stunned and you're in awe and you're angry and you wonder how this happened. Angels gathered together when you were born. And then you realize it's Bobby's fault. And so you prohibit your little angel from hanging out with Bobby because of that mirror-like tendency that your angel has.
That mirror-like tendency stays with you your whole adult life. Listen, this is why the Bible says this. I want to read you the same verse in a couple different translations and then we'll get into the word.
1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 33. Out of the New Living, "Don't be fooled by those who say such things, for bad company corrupts good character." When does it stop? It doesn't stop. Because God put a reflective nature within you.
Now sin twisted that. The original purpose of your reflective nature was so you would behold God and reflect Him. Yes. The same verse out of the Contemporary English says, "Don't fool yourselves. Bad friends will destroy you."
Now let's get into the message. The title of this morning's message is "Behold and Become." Behold and Become. I'm going to go back to the verse we started off with, 2 Corinthians 3:18. "But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of God."
The glory of the Lord are being transformed, all of us, being transformed into the same image. The image of what? The glory of God. We are being made to look like, walk like, talk like, act like, reflect His glory.
But the secret is we have to know the process. Before you can become, you've got to behold. In order to behold, you have to have an unveiled face.
So now the question is, if inquiring minds really want to know, what's the veil? Because we can't assume that we're going into the presence of God with an unveiled face if we don't even know what a veil is. Right? Does that make sense?
I mean, I don't know about you, but I want to become like Him. And if in order to become like Him, I've got to behold Him, I want to see Him. But in order to clearly see Him, I've got to take the veil off.
So what is the veil? Is it real? Is it physical or is it metaphysical? Well, it's both. A veil is, listen to this, by definition, a veil is a symbol of separation. It separates.
But a veil can also be defined—and this is potent right here—a veil can be defined as a disguise. Right. I want to say it again. So a veil is a barrier. It's a separation. Sometimes it's a curtain hanging in a temple. Sometimes it's a piece of cloth a man named Moses would put over his face.
And other times it's a disguise we wear so nobody really knows who we are, what we've been through, what we're really feeling, how we're really thinking. We don't even want God to know who we are.
But you've heard me preach this before, and it's just a rabbit I'm chasing. God can't heal what we conceal. So if we're always hiding our hearts, God can't heal our hearts, and that's the reason why we're going through life with broken hearts, because we're not allowing the mender of the broken heart to mend our heart, because we're pretending to be whole when we're really shattered.
The growth with God requires above anything else honesty. You can't even get saved until you admit you need a Savior. As long as you're a self-righteous, pompous—you can't even get saved.
Because the first pretense you've got to drop is that holier-than-thou. Amen? In the Old Testament, the veil in the temple separated humanity from the holy of holies, the most holy place.
Put up on the screen Exodus 26, verse 33. Oh, by the way, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I just wanted to slide that in there. And for those of you working to help make sure I keep my jelly rolls, thank you very much, because I got no willpower. When chocolate cake comes into the house, it's over with, man.
I'm like, I wish they would stop. And then my wife would say, "Well, stop eating." No, they just need to keep bringing it.
Exodus chapter 26, verse 33. "Hang the inner curtain from clasp and put the Ark of the Covenant in the room behind it." Now, notice this. This curtain will separate. Everyone say separate.
A veil or curtain is a separation, a barrier to keep sin from the glory, to keep unbelief from the glory, to keep fear from the glory, to keep self-righteousness from the glory. So the curtain was a physical representation of a veil of unbelief and sin.
And the curtain represented the veil which symbolized the hardened heart and spiritual blindness. 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 14. Listen to this. I'm reading it to you out of the Passion Translation.
"Their minds were closed and hardened. For even to this day, that same veil comes over their minds." Now, this then—this then is not physical. Remember, I told you, physical. I don't really want to call it spiritual because in my mind, spiritual means good. It's metaphysical.
It's not physical, but it certainly in my mind ain't spiritual. So their minds were closed and hardened for even to this day, that same veil comes over their minds when they hear the words of the former covenant. The veil has not yet been lifted from them, for it is only eliminated when one is joined to the Messiah.
Now, the imagery here is really rich. And if you think about it like a traditional wedding. In a traditional wedding, the bride will wear a what? Now, that veil is not allowed to be lifted until the ceremony is over.
But when the ceremony is over, who lifts the veil? Okay. Let me try that again in case y'all ain't ever been to a wedding. When the ceremony is over, who lifts the veil? The bride don't lift the veil. The groom removes the veil.
So that he can fully behold the bride. And the bride can see him without any separation. That's the first moment of intimacy.
Now, Paul said this veil that's over the mind of unbelief can't be lifted by the bride. Can only be eliminated or removed when they are joined to the Messiah who is the groom.
Now, what we have to do is we have to allow the groom to remove the veil of tradition and unbelief and hardness of heart so that we can go before God with no barrier. Because the only way we're going to become is to completely behold.
Is this okay? The veil is a barrier. The veil is woven by different threads. Unbelief is in there. Tradition is in there. Self-righteousness is in there. Sin is in there.
All of these things have formed for all of our lives a barrier between us and Christ. But when we join ourselves to Him, it's not just enough to go through the ceremony. We've got to allow Him to see us.
And that takes some courage. Because a lot of us don't want to be seen. We don't want people to know the struggles we have on the inside, some of the thoughts that we've had that we wished we would never have.
And every time we rebuke them, they come back again. And we do things that we wish we would never have done. We don't want anyone to know that. But He already does.
And so we need to go before Him as we are. Not as we think we ought to be. Is this okay? As I said, the veil can also be a disguise. Not just a piece of cloth, but it can be something we wear so that no one ever sees.
We hide behind a mask of happiness, and that hinders us from experiencing actual joy. Of holiness, and that hinders us from actually becoming holy.
See, I've learned it's better to have the spirit of holiness than the pretense of holiness. And the only one that can make me holy is Him. See, none of us earn holiness.
It's not like there's degrees of holiness. We go from being unholy to JV holy to varsity holy to lettering in holiness. The same way we're made righteous is how we're made holy. That's by Him. It's all of grace.
We don't earn it. Y'all ain't even listening. We don't become holy because we dot all the I's and cross all the T's and wear the clothes they tell us we ought to wear and have the hairstyle they say we ought to have and speak in King James English and do all of these different things to pretend that, "Hey, I'm holy."
So many of us, we come to church and we pretend before. As soon as we get in the parking lot, what do we do? We put on a happy face. Because we don't want anyone in there to know we actually had a bad week.
Is this okay? Can I chase it? The rabbit? This is the reason why you don't want to go to a church filled with Pharisees. Because Pharisees have what I call the doctrine of perfection. They demand perfection from everyone but themselves.
And if you ever prove or show that you're not imperfect, that you are imperfect, they will lacerate. And so we wear the mask as a form of protection. But your protection is a hindrance between you and the world and the one who can make you whole.
So again, hiding behind a mask of holiness actually becomes a hindrance to true holiness. Go with me to Matthew chapter 23. I'm going to read this to you out of the Passion Translation, starting in verse 27.
Chapter 23, verse 27. "Great sorrow awaits you, religious scholars and Pharisees, frauds and impostors. You are nothing more than tombs painted with fresh coats of white paint. On the outside, you would have been impressed. But he who sees beyond the facade was clearly not impressed."
You see, one thing about God, people are impressed by what you are in the exterior. You are not impressed by what you are in the interior. But the Lord doesn't judge according to what is seen physically. He looks at the heart.
So when He looked at their heart, He said, "You're nothing more than tombs painted with fresh coats of white paint. Tombs that look shining and beautiful on the outside, but within are found decaying corpses full of nothing but corruption."
Verse 28, "Outwardly you masquerade as righteous people, but inside your hearts are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." They had a disguise on, and it fooled everyone but Him.
But not only did it not fool Him, this is the sad part of the story, it hindered Him. Because He couldn't transform them. Because they wouldn't allow themselves to be seen. They continued to wear the mask. The veil was not lifted.
I wrote this down, and we need to understand this. Truth is the only commodity that God deals in. This is why when, if our relationship with God is built on a lie, it's not true. It's a non-relationship.
Because until we become real with Him, He can't do much with us. As long as our entire self-image is a disguise, pretending to be what they want us to be, we can never become who He wants us to be.
Pretending that everything is okay when nothing is okay is self-defeating. The most expansive experiences I've ever had with God have been those times when I was angry and hurt.
And I went before God, and I didn't pretend to be anything but angry and hurt. I don't get a whole lot out of my prayers when they're right. You know what I mean by that? When they're scripted and I'm praying this way because that's what I was told that's how God wants me to pray, the most expansive and transformative times I've ever had with God is when I've gone before God and I was just Jimmy with all of my flaws, fears, and concerns and disappointments, and I just laid it all out—not in a spirit of complaints, but just in saying, "God, I need help up in here."
And when I've been real, He's been a real present help in those times of trouble. We've got to—if we ever want to encounter grace, we've got to remove the veil of self-righteousness. If we ever want to know joy, we've got to remove the mask of happiness because it's really a whole lot better to truly be joyful than to pretend to be happy.
Wearing a mask not only disguises you, it hinders you because you can't see clearly out of those things. The veil disguises us from seeing clearly.
Now listen to this: we can't become what we can't behold. We can't become like Him when we never actually see Him. So the trick is, or the key is, to behold the glory of the Lord.
Let's look at this verse in Exodus chapter 34 and verse 34 because this is what Paul was alluding to. He was alluding to the veil that Moses put on his face over the former glory—the glory that came at the giving of the law.
And he was comparing it to the glory that came with the coming of Christ. And the former glory was fading; the new glory was eternal. But even in the old glory, which was absolutely glorious, the glory was so strong that it irritated the people.
So Moses would put a veil over his face so that they would be comfortable in his presence. You and I need to learn to become comfortable with the glory of God.
But Moses would put this veil over his face so that the people couldn't see the glory. Some scholars say that actually he put it over his face so they wouldn't see the glory fade. Another disguise.
But look at this verse right here. "But whenever he," being Moses, "went into the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he would remove the veil."
When he was speaking to people, there was a veil on. But when he went to go speak to God, he'd remove the veil. Now, if there's anything we know about Moses, remember he said, "Lord, show me Your glory."
Moses wanted to see God. I would say it was the deepest desire of Moses. So he wanted no separation between him and God. He could never be satisfied with going into the presence of God and there being any type of barrier, any type of veil.
So when he was in front of the people, he'd wear the veil. But when he went to go talk to God, he would remove the veil. Because I think Moses knew he could never become what he didn't fully behold.
So when he would go before God, he would remove the veil until he came out again. Then he would give the people whatever instructions the Lord had given him.
When we come before God, this is what I'm trying to—like, remove the veil. I understand there are some people that'll walk away from you when they really discover who you are.
Truth be told, when you're courageous enough, you gotta let them go anyhow. But there are some people you gotta pretend with. Don't ever pretend with God.
When you come into His presence in worship, let it go. Quit worrying about being dignified. Some of you, the reason why you don't jump and dance is you're concerned about what they think.
You're concerned about what they think. You're wearing a disguise of dignity because you don't want everyone to know you really want to jump around like popcorn.
Drop the disguise and just be real with God in worship, in the word, in His presence, in prayer. Quit praying in a language you don't speak. God understands Southern, y'all.
God understands, and He knows who you are. He wants to remove the veil from off of your face so He can look fully. If He can look fully in your face, then you can look fully in His face, and then you can become like Him.
Hallelujah, Father. Moses wanted no disguise and no blocked view. Go with me. Go to begin to 2 Corinthians 3:18. I'm going to read this to you out of the Passion Translation this time.
Listen to this: "We can all draw close." We can all draw close to Him. You know something that I discovered a long time ago? Cost is the great disqualifier of life in every area of life.
See, you think that your hindrance is because of your skin color, your gender, or your background, or your mistakes you've made. Those are really just excuses. Can we keep it real for a minute?
You'll never know success in any area of life until you eliminate your excuses for failure. "Well, mama didn't breastfeed me long enough." You need to grow up. You're 35 years old.
"Well, you don't—the person I voted for ain't in the White House." And that means what? White House and throne. Two different things. And the one who sits on the throne ain't never been voted out.
So we have to eliminate all of our excuses and realize the only reason why we live in a shanty at the bottom of the hill instead of the mansion at the top of the hill ain't got nothing to do with the way we look. It's got everything to do with we ain't willing to pay the price.
If you are willing to pay the price, you could live anywhere you want to live. You could drive whatever you want to drive. And taking it beyond the natural and into the spirit, you can be as close to God as you want to be.
You can be as anointed as you want to be. If you're willing to pay the price, you could be a hero of faith if you're willing to pay the price that those heroes of faith who came before us paid.
There is a price to pay if you want to achieve anything in life, and therefore price cost is always the great disqualifier. "I want to watch my sitcom instead of reading my scripture." You're not willing to pay the price.
"I want to eat Twinkies instead of fasting." You're not willing to pay the price. If you're willing to pay the price, you can be whatever you want to be.
We can all draw close to God. That proximity of closeness is not reserved for the apostle. It's not reserved for the prophet. That door has been opened through His blood for each and every child of the living God.
We can come close to Him if we're willing to pay the price. We can all draw close to Him with the veil removed from our faces. With no veil, we all become like mirrors.
Remember that reflective nature I told you we all have? Now we're discovering what it was really for to begin with. God's intent of putting a mirror in our soul is so that when we spend time with Him, we start reflecting His glory.
We carry His essence. We become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. And the cleaner the mirror, the purer the image.
And so you understand that when we're going before Him and it's by the Spirit, not by our works, we don't work our way into being like Jesus. We just spend enough time with Him.
Remember, they looked at a bunch of uneducated fishermen and said, "What's going on with these people?" Then they noted, "Oh, yeah, they've been with Jesus."
When we become—when we behold Him, we become like Him, and we leave His presence. Everyone's like, "What happened to you?" There was a transformation that took place because the veil was off and we beheld each other face to face and we became like mirrors shining His glory.
So that when you've seen Jimmy, you've seen. That's the goal, so that when someone looks at you, they're like, "I know Christ is real because I see you."
Hmm. We all become like mirrors who brightly reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus. We are being transfigured into His very image as we move from one brighter level of glory to another.
And the glorious transfiguration comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. So we don't need to pretend nothing because we got the real.
So what does it mean then to behold? I'm trying to hurry this up. To behold means an intentional focus, setting your eyes on Him, refusing to be distracted by the cares and the concerns of the world, looking at Him.
And we look at Him through the scripture. When we read the scripture—and I said this to you a couple of weeks ago, and I noticed some of the people that were here ain't come back.
And I think they ain't come back because they didn't hear what I said when I said what I'm about to say to you, if you don't really listen, will sound sacrilegious. The Bible's just a book if you don't add faith to it.
But when you approach it and you're looking for the face of God, then it becomes the perfect law of liberty who shows us who we really are. And we begin to see God in there.
And as we begin to see God in Him, we live and move and have our identity. So when I get to know God, I get to know me because I'm made in His image. I'm made just a little lower than Him.
If I don't know Him, I ain't got a clue who I am. So I'm always looking for someone to validate me because I need someone to tell me, "Who am I?"
The only way I'm going to know me is to behold Him. Because He establishes my identity and He establishes your identity. And when you know who you are in Him, you don't need them to validate you.
Which is why they can all walk away and it ain't going to change your purpose one bit. Thank you, Father. Thank you. If I don't have no one, I'll preach myself happy this morning.
So it's intentional focus. Beholding as in a mirror. A continual gazing, not a passing glance. And then it becomes a transformative encounter.
Beholding the glory of God transforms us from within. As we fix our eyes on Him, we are changed. Psalm 34, verse 5 says, "They looked to Him and were radiant."
They were the radiant ones because they looked to Him. And they began to reflect His radiance, His glory. And their faces will never be ashamed.
Again, out of the Contemporary English, "Keep your eyes on the Lord and you will shine like the sun and never blush with shame."
So how do we behold? As I already said, in the word. In worship. In the Spirit. We spend time with Him. Cut out all the distractions because everything else is a distraction.
And spend some time with Him. Morning, evening, noonday. It don't matter when you do it. You know, I've become one. But back in the day, I was an evening person, not a morning person.
And I was tormented by that verse that said, "Those who seek Me early shall find Me." Because I would try to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning. And the only thing that happened would be slobber on my Bible.
Because I would open it up and pretty soon my face was in it. And slobber coming out of my mouth. And I'd wake up at 8, and my Bible would be wet.
Then I studied to show myself approved and discovered that early wasn't chronological. It just meant commitment. Those who seek Him diligently.
And I thought, "I can be diligent at 9. I can be diligent at midnight." And then you seek Him. And as you're seeking Him, He does the transformation. You don't even got to think about it.
You don't have to try to become better. He makes you better. You don't got to try to become holy. He makes you holy. You don't got to try to become righteous. He makes you the very righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
So what do we close with? We're closing with this. No more veils. No disguises. Just keep it real. We reflect as we keep it real with Him.
We reflect the character, the love, and the holiness of Christ. And it's an ongoing journey. Transformation is progressive. We go from this level of glory to that level of glory to the next level of glory.
And, but it's not again, it's not by our efforts. And we got to hammer that home. It's not by our efforts. It's from the Lord, the Spirit.
It's not from self-effort and law-keeping. So what we have to do when we come before God—and we may need to pray and ask Him for help.
And just say, "God, help me keep it real." You already see my heart. So I just want to expose my heart to Your holiness.
And some of you have heard me say this before. Can I come down here as we bring this to a close? I'm not really asking permission.
Holiness isn't so much about morality as it is being whole. You see, when you're all together whole, then you don't got to lie. Because you have no need to impress anyone. You're whole.
When you're all together whole, you don't need to steal. Because you lack for nothing. You see, when you're all together whole, then you are by definition holy.
And your morality comes out of your holiness, not vice versa. So you're holy because He has made you all together whole. Nothing broken. Nothing missing.
I don't have to change my character because my character has been fixed. I don't got to impress you. I don't got to do all these things. I don't have to covet.
Because my wife's prettier than yours anyhow. You understand what I'm saying? So we can drop all the pretense. We can quit pretending in order to impress one another.
And sometimes that's going to mean vulnerability. When you come down to the altar and you kneel, it's just because you want some alone time. In the middle of a congregation, you just want to be alone with the only one that can help you.
And at that point, our job is just simply to support you in your quest, not to get between you and Him.
Lift your hands. And I'm going to ask my prayer team to come forward. And we're going to pray together. And after we're done praying, if you need someone to join hands with you, our prayer team's up here.
But here's how I want us to pray together. Father, let me pray first and then I'll guide you. Father, as the pastor of this place we call Real Life Church, you know it's always been my desire for a safe place.
A place where the broken can come and not be further wounded. But they can come into a house of healing. Not only for the physical, which is obvious, but more often for the internal, which is less obvious.
But wounds are wounds. And so, Father, I pray in Jesus' name that Real Life Church would be that safe place. A place where Your Spirit moves in and around and among Your people healing things, making whole.
So now here's what I want us to pray together. Say this with me: "Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the strong Son of God, I give You permission to remove the veil. I want to stand before You with no disguise, with no barrier.
And Father, help me keep my hands at my side so I don't keep pulling it down." Again, say this with me: "Father, look deep within. As I gaze at You, I ask You to gaze back at me.
And I pray that Your presence would do in me what You have ordained for it to do. I ask You to look back at me. And I would reflect Your glory.
So in Jesus' name, again I say, I hold nothing back from You. I will no longer pretend. I keep it real. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen.
Amen. As we bring this service to a close, if you need prayer, come down here and let these folks pray with you. Apart from that, I bless you in the name of Jesus.
And I ask you to go out into the world and make a difference. Be who God created you to be. We love you. God bless you. We'll see you next week.
on Dec 01, 2024
