Over the next few weeks, we will be discussing the four rivers that flowed from the heart of the Garden of Eden. But before we can, we must understand the importance of the Garden. We need to go back to the beginning. Genesis tells the story– “In the Beginning…” In the beginning, God planted a garden. He didn’t make the garden magically appear; He planted! He put seed in the soil! Soil is a second part of this already mind altering concept! God created soil to be worked. Let that sink in. God purposefully designed soil to be worked so that it could produce. Growth requires work. Soil must be prepared; seed must be planted; work must be put into it; and then there is growth! God set everything up from the beginning. He planted the seeds to grow the Garden in rich, worked soil, producing Paradise. Eden is the image of what the earth was supposed to be and can be again.

Referencing back to Matthew 13, the human heart is the soil where all seeds are planted. The human heart is designed to have things planted within. It craves seed. It does not care which seed is planted as long as something is planted and something grows. The heart is the battlefield; you are responsible for the outcome. You are responsible for the condition of the soil; you are responsible for what goes in; you are responsible for what grows. You and you alone are responsible for the garden of your heart.

And whatever you let into your heart flows out of your life. Jeremiah 17 talks about what happens when a person allows the knowledge of the world to be planted in their hearts. They become a shrub. That is what it says: shrub. The very word is unpleasant. Have you ever met a person who is a shrub? I have. You can see it all over their lives. They are dry and barren and salty. They are a shrub barely scraping by in the desert of their life. However, in contrast, Jeremiah calls those who place their hope and trust in God and who willingly submit to His covering tree planted by the river.

So choose now:]Will you allow your heart to get dry and shrub-like? Or will you work to till the soil of your heart, allowing God to work along side you in breaking up the hard ground of attitude and bitterness and pain to create a soft field that yields to the seed and produces good fruit? What will it be?

Verses Used:
Genesis 2:4-14
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Matthew 13: 11-17

What is so wrong with washing your hands? Nothing, but that is not what made Jesus so angry. Jesus criticized the Pharisees for being so careful to clean the outside of the cup, while the inside was full of wickedness. God made the outside and the inside of the cup. He told them not to try to be holier than God. How can someone desiring to be so right, be so filled with wickedness? The Pharisees’ cup was full of greed. The cup of greed feeds itself with self-centered wickedness. Wanting to add to the law comes from figuring that it can’t be this easy to be righteous. There are man-made traditions that disguise themselves as part of the Light. Jesus is talking about religious deception. Religion hates freedom. The spirit of religion is exclusive, and Jesus called it wicked. God set out to destroy religious hierarchy. He replaced the law with a better covenant, the original covenant with God.

The cup of greed contrasts greatly to the cup of life. God wants to fill our lives. Our senses are a gateway to our inner self or to our cup. Jesus says the eye allows light into body. When you are filling the eye with good, then you are filling your cup with good. In John, Jesus says He is the light. When our vision is clear and good, the vision from the world tries to darken it. What we think on, touch, or see, fills our cup. As we allow little things, small deceptions, to creep into our consciousness and thinking, it can begin to fill us with the wrong stuff. When your principles are good, you are full of light. The problem with allowing non-biblical principles into our lives is that they are easy to justify. As soon as we justify our ungodly behavior, we are filling our cup with the wrong stuff.

In John 17, Jesus is praying to His Father, knowing that He is about to leave. He knows He will no longer be visible to the world. He is leaving Himself in us and sending us into the world in His place. If He didn’t send us, He couldn’t get into the world. As the Father is in Him, He is in us. Jesus did not come for the ones that already knew Him but for the ones that don’t have a clue. In Luke 15, Jesus tells three parables. One is about the lost sheep, one is about the lost coin, and one is about the prodigal son. You can be lost in the world like the sheep; you can be lost in the house like the coin; you can leave the House and become entangled in the world liked the prodigal; or you can stay in the House with a religious attitude like the brother. How do we go into the world and not succumb to the world? When we have the choice to judge others, default to love. There is only one qualification for living a life full of God. The only way to distinguish us is by our fruit, and the fruit is love.

Our cup can be full of religious mess. We wall ourselves up with religion to protect ourselves from the world. Religion blinds us to the needs around us, in the same way the men walked by the beaten man in the parable of the Samaritan. The Pharisees could not distinguish between following rules and serving God. Our cups have to be filled with something. If we don’t allow God to fill our vessels, we are choosing to fill them with the world. Allowing other things to fill our vessels will not allow us to lead others to God. The only way to get the life of God into our vessels is to walk with Jesus and do what He says. We want to fill our cup, repent, and put everything else aside. Every other relationship is secondary to our connection to God. God wants to get that old stuff out and fill us with Him.

Verses Used:
Luke 11:33-39
John 17:11
Matthew 7:20
John 14:6

Jesus sets us free from SIN, which is the slave-master of humanity. Sin slowly degrades and eats away at the conscience of a human being. We cover up, trying to cope with living under the world’s system. Then along comes Christ to shield, block, and destroy the power of sin. As we believe, at that moment we are released from bondage. Where the Spirit is, the truth is also! Galatians 5:16-18 says, “My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?” These 2 natures that we grapple with—sin and Spirit— are bound by the world and bound by Christ.

Galations 5:19-21 continues the results of living in sin. We are led into bondage by not choosing the Holy Spirit to guide our lives to freedom. “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.” BUT as we look on to the next verses, we are told what it looks like to live & be led by the Spirit, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness & self-control” – the last one is the most important!! Respond in worship and prayer to convictions. When we’re worn down after allowing sin to rule us, prayer and worship lead us to strength to repent and become stronger.

When we give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to move freely, He will break the rules!! We struggle to stay free –even the apostle Peter got called out by Paul when he chose to stop fellowshipping with Gentiles once other important Jews came to the town they were both in at the time. Religion may make us FEEL spiritual, but it’s a counterfeit and does NOT set us free! Sin has no power over us when we’re led by the Spirit. The law exposes sin, but we can never get to God thru obeying the law—only thru Jesus and the Holy Spirit and not by the works we do. There is a constant fight within all humanity between the flesh and the Spirit to do the right thing or the thing we WANT to do. Only the life-giving, freedom-loving Holy Spirit, who can’t be contained, brings pure, real, total freedom! He obliterates what we think God should or should not be doing. We know we are being led by the Spirit when His fruits show up in our lives (while the fruit of religion is hypocrisy -the thing that set Jesus off the most!)

This week we are going to be led into a new level of freedom during the Encounter conference. There is a response to the conviction of the Spirit, to repentance and letting go—let it flow through you!

Next, it’s important to realize that our souls are birthed at conception, and the being which is created at that point never dies. Our conceived beings are eternal, as we are made in the image of God, and He is eternal! So when the horrible happens and a child, born or unborn, dies, we can take comfort in knowing that God receives them and that their names are written in the Book of Life, burning brightly as innocents. As we age, when we turn to the Lord, again our names are bright lights in that book as we become more like Christ and want to make His name higher than ours. Those who continue to turn away from the Holy Spirit’s promptings will find their names fade from that book, if they choose not to reach out to what God is offering them. Our name is a vital component of who we are, and, in Proverbs, we find out that “a good name is better than great wealth” – Prov. 22. Your name is your calling card, for good or bad, and for all eternity.

The Holy Spirit is God on the earth today, and it is HIS job, not ours, to convict all men of sin, to comfort, and to bring understanding as we continue to search out what God is saying to us individually. In the Old Testament, God the Father spoke to the men of that time, and the Holy Spirit instructed the prophets what to say to the people of Israel & Judah. Then, for 33 years, Jesus was God the Son on the earth, showing us what God looks, acts, and sounds like. He had to die, not only for the sins of man, but to release the Holy Spirit to empower men, women, and children to have the authority we are talking about. Our authority comes from living in Christ and being filled with the Spirit! Remember how important that is! Even our impossible situations can be fixed up and made BETTER by God’s miracle-working power when we know who we are and what we have. In 1906, people were for revival in the country of Wales, UK, and in the city of Los Angeles; now, as a result of their prayers, over 1 billion Pentecostals filled with the Spirit are in the world today! We must look up to heaven, position ourselves in alignment with God’s Word, and realize that in every situation, God is bigger, more powerful, more abundant, and “able to do exceedingly more than we ask or think” – Ephesians 3.

Continuing on the idea of veneer—that piecemeal pseudo-wood covered in a shiny thin layer of pristine hardwood—and how it can symbolize the Christian life, we return to the book of Matthew to read another account of Jesus’ challenging false authenticity.

Matthew chapter 6 deals mainly with the concept of one’s private versus their public life, those circumstances when the veneer is pulled back and the substance below is exposed. Jesus begins in verse 1 addressing good deeds. All Christians, once they have been regenerated, are called to what are often referred to as “good works.” (We’re not saved by our works, mind you, we are saved to our works.) But, more important than the works themselves, Jesus implies all throughout this chapter, is the heart of the worker. Jesus states in verse 4, for example, that it is better to give your gifts in secret. Why? When good deeds are taken out of the context of public adulation, they are left only for the Father to see. It will therefore being His affirmation and reward that drives our actions, and not the world’s.

Once again we find the teaching of Jesus in direct conflict from the deportment of this world. Our tendency is to reveal only the good in us and to hide those things—our shortcomings, mistakes, and brokenness—of which we are ashamed. In the kingdom, however, God asks us to conceal our good deeds and share with our fellow believers our messes. This may strike you as completely counterintuitive! Exposing our foibles, however, shining light into those places we’d rather keep hidden ultimately robs them of their power. And once these shackles have been removed, their powers zapped, that’s when real change can come into our lives. Another byproduct of exposing our baggage is the generation of trust within the Church. Jesus ultimately wants you to feel freedom in the very areas of your life you struggle most. Such a methodology is not always the easiest or the most fun, but it’s precisely the medicine that can begin to heal your heart.

Moving forward in the chapter, Jesus says in verse 5, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them” (emphasis mine). Another word I have found for “hypocrite” is the word “actor.” Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t be an actor, pretending to be something that you’re not!’ (Again, this idea of a veneer.) Hypocrisy, Scripture shows us, is one of those hot-button issues that caused Jesus to go nuts! Just read Matthew chapter 23 and you’ll see Jesus lay down seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees, calling them, in machine gun cadence, “Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites!” In Matthew 23:27 he refers to them as whitewashed tombs—shiny and pristine on the outside but dead within. Indeed, if there’s anything that gets Jesus’ foot tappin’ a little bit, it’s hypocrisy.

These areas of instruction all lead into a larger idea, which opens chapter 7: “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.” A well-known adage, this revolutionary notion accomplishes two things: first, it instills in you a God-given grace for your fellow man; and second, it insulates you from incoming judgment as well. There is only one position in the universe whose job it is to call out our sins and screw-ups, and that’s the Holy Spirit. It is his job to convict us and it is his job to correct us. That is not to say that you can’t acknowledge sin in your fellow believers when you see it. Please do. And please pray for that person and, if you feel called, extend to them a hand of support. But do not judge them because, as Matthew 7:2 plainly states, that will become the standard by which you yourself shall be judged.

Jesus closes out this chapter speaking about worry—about money, shelter, food, and clothing. That these things are such basic necessities is what makes Jesus’ teaching here so bold. We need these things to survive, and yet Jesus instructs us not even to worry about them. I’ve found in my own experience that worry not only fails to help a situation, it most often hurts it instead. This is because worry sows the seeds of doubt into our very spirit and, if left unchecked, will begin to kill our relationship with God. The engine of our relationship with God—the engine of any relationship, actually—is trust. Simply put, God requires our trust to accomplish His work in our lives. And worry is the opposite of trust. Pastor Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life fame said it this way (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Worry is practical atheism. If you worry, why pray? And if you pray, why worry?” We need God to clean up our messes, to get us over our mountains, to walk us through our failures. And worry breaks our connection to Him by questioning or outright jeopardizing our trust in Him.

The truth of the matter is that, without God, we remain capable of getting ourselves out of our messes from time to time, but eventually our strength, wisdom, and self-reliance will tire and falter. We simply cannot rely upon our own cleverness to sort out the problems we face with any consistently. And we weren’t built to. But God is never short of an answer, never incapable of a miracle, never lacking in strength. He is infinite, and He alone is meant to be our source. So we needn’t ever worry.

I know this is hard teaching, church. Of course it’s hard! That is, after all, why Jesus spent so much time talking about it. And please don’t overlook the context of this sermon either. Within a year the disciples who were listening to Jesus would be asked to walk out his ministry in boldness. They would soon take his place to battle the Pharisees, heal the infirm, and build the Church. They would need to expand to encompass all that Jesus was handing over to them. And the weakness that comes with worry would have robbed them of the vastness God had placed in them and shortchanged the legacy they were charged to build.

It is no different with us. Therefore we need not, and should not, worry. God took care of them and He’ll take care of us too.

Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

There comes a time in the growth of a church where it becomes less about getting new people into the House and more about GROWING the people you already have. People discover who they are and what they can do in the growth. The key to growing is willingness. God can do anything with a heart that is willing.

God has a big pan for the earth. Ephesians four talks a lot about this plan. Verses seven and eight outline it quite nicely. God wants to fill the universe with Jesus. How can He do that? Through His people. However, His people need to be willing to grow or to become mature.

Christian maturity is when we attain the stature of Christ. Back up. We can attain the stature of Christ on earth? Yep. But how? Paul tells us. Continuing through verses 9 to sixteen, Paul outlines what it means to be mature in Christ.

The first step is developing ourselves to the place where we know the Spirit is in us and we flow with Him. This means we are no longer thrown in confusion by the “winds of the world.” This means new philosophies that challenge our faith do nothing to us. We know who we are, we know what we believe, and we know where we are going. That knowledge, that place of pure faith and trust in God is the foundation for the stature of Christ.

The second step is the ability to reign in the tongue. Paul calls it “speaking with love.” We are able to halt what we want to say–things we know we will regret later but feel right in the moment of emotional turmoil–and speak the Words of the Spirit instead. An undisciplined tongue comes from an undisciplined minds and underdeveloped emotions. By submitting to the Spirit, we subject our minds to Him and allow Him to take us through the necessary GROWTH that leads to the ability to reign in the tongue.

The third step is the commitment to growth. This is, perhaps, the hardest, for commitment equates submission. We set aside our pride 24/7 and listen to the correction of the Spirit. This means being willing to be corrected even when you think you know everything there is to know about a situation. Humbling yourself before God and being willing to listen to Him are key. He can do ANYTHING with a person who is in this state.

God wants to take imperfect people and use them as a force–with Him at the Head–to fill the universe with Jesus. He is seeking the mature church. A church that knows who they are, has control of their words, and are willing and humble before Him. Then, and here is the kicker, Jesus makes His Body PERFECT! He creates His Body. And His will is accomplished…PERFECTLY!

Romans 10:1-15 (NLT): Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved. I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law. For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”

Why did Christianity reach the whole world when there were thousands of different religions vying for attention? Why did the message and truth of Jesus travel to the ends of the earth? One word: FAITH! Faith is believing without seeing. Faith is enough to transform your life and the lives of all of those around you! When you believe in your heart and confess with your words that Jesus is Lord and that He was raised from the dead, you are saved and you move from confessing faith to LIVING in faith.

This transformation is something that the world and the religious despise. Jesus warned His disciples to “beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod.” What He meant was “Beware the mindset of religion and of the world.” The religious mindset casts doubt on faith and replaces grace with works. The world’s mindset turns the focus from God to self and ridicule any who profess to believe in things unseen. Both attack the faithful; one from the outside, one from the inside.

Yet Faith has the transforming power to change us, bringing us to a place where the mockings of the world or the doubts of the religious do not bother us. We simple do not care, for we have faith in God, who is greater than all things. This transforming power of faith is rouses the misdirected zeal that Paul talks about in Romans 10. You see, the religious and the worldly were not much bothered by this new religion. It was when the lost were drawn to the transforming power of faith that the two groups became angry. Paul was witness to this event time and time again in his travels, yet he never stopped, for he knew that FAITH was stronger.

Faith is more powerful than doubt and self. Faith is the power to transform. Faith brings us closer to God. A few men and women of faith changed the world!

Faith is enough.