Scripture Reference: Matthew 6:9 (KJV); Matthew 5:1-19, 33-35, 37-38, 43-44 (NKJV); Matthew 6:1, 4-16, 19-34 (NKJV)
Pastor Sharon Bendixen:
Father, we pray together for Pastor John. We ask again, Father, wWe ask and we keep receiving. We ask for Pastor John once again to be speaking as Your oracles, Lord. Again, Father, he will say only what he hears You say. And again, Father, he will do what he sees You do and he hears what You say. And he sees what You do and that’s how he flows, Father, in continuous, perfect oneness with You. And we all believe and we all receive today, Father, as we have been in Jesus’ name, and we bless You for it. And we all say, Amen.
Pastor John Bendixen:
Well, I know that you all want to be praising for about another hour. [Congregation answers; Yes] But tonight is another night. And you better come ready for tonight because tonight we’re going to enjoy some praise. Amen. Hallelujah.
I’m very glad you’re at church this morning. I want to commend all of you for being here this weekend, for doing and being what God wanted to do. And that was for us to give first fruits to Him this weekend. Amen. So I want to make an obvious statement before you’re seated. And the obvious statement is this; this is Easter Sunday and it’s possible that there are friends, family that are visiting here. So I’m sure that if you’re a friend or a family or someone that’s just come to visit here this particular Sunday, and it’s not normal for you to be here, I’m sure you would want to know this, that we are a radical people. We are rather fanatical about what we believe. You know, I’m sure though you would also want to know that we are not a cult. I’m sure that you would want your friends and your family also to know, and maybe there’s some people watching with family on the couch or whatever on livestream. I’m sure you’d want to know that although we might be radical and fanatical and quite determined to have God’s plan for our lives, we find it in the Bible. We don’t find it from all kinds of books and materials and stuff like that. We find it from the Bible. And so I’d say to anybody that’s a friend, a family, a visitor here today, if you don’t 100% like the way that the loud sound goes, particularly, I like it. If you don’t particularly like the way the services are conducted or you don’t particularly like some of the things that are said, well, you’re welcome anyway. And I ask you just to have an open mind and open heart just to hear what we have to say, and then if you don’t like it and you really want to know more about it, find it in the Bible. Test it with the Bible. Don’t just reject it and ignore it. And, if you’re here this morning, you would actually have witnessed very spontaneous praise. That’s because we’ve been in the Word the whole weekend, and that’s what the Word does. It just brings spontaneous praise out of you. We didn’t try and hype it. We just live it. Now having said all of those obvious things, I think you should turn to someone next to you, around you, and say, “I’m glad you’re here this morning. Enjoy the service,” and then you can be seated. Hallelujah.
We’ve had an amazing weekend this weekend. It’s not over. We’re going to have some lunch together after today. We’re going to socialise together in the car park. That sounds a bit weird, but, anyway, it’s true. So we’re going to have some fellowship and a braai vleis in the car park. And, we look, Pastor Sharon and I look forward to fellowshipping with you out there in the car park. And, glory to God, who knows what might happen in the car park? God doesn’t stay here. God goes with us wherever we go. Hallelujah.
Now, I’m going to take up an offering right now because, you know, for a long time, we went without taking up offerings and the Lord wanted me to take up offerings. So, I was reminded again this morning, I need to take up an offering because we’re going to do a Bible lesson this morning. We’re going to go through some chapters in Scriptures, and when I get to the end of the teaching, it’s going to lead us into what we’re going to do tomorrow morning for three hours. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about the way God’s Kingdom talks about money and Écclesia money and how the Church has got it all wrong about money, generally speaking. And how money works, and we can work money. So, I don’t want you to think that I’m taking up an offering because I preach on money. But we want to give our, show our love to God and show our faith towards God by putting money in offering. Amen. So, are we ready to take up an offering? We got our little baggies ready. Thank you. Let’s do it. Praise the Lord.
I want to encourage everybody here that has not done Bible School. You should do Bible School. If you can’t come to Bible School and do it live, you should do it in a different way. And if you don’t know what ways are available to you, please call our ministry and let us help you understand how you can do it. And if there’s some way that you want to engage in the ministry and be part of what’s going on in the ministry, get on the website, hofmi.net, and you can see everything that’s going on there. Amen. Praise the Lord.
I’m blessed, blessed, blessed that you all came here this weekend because we showed God that our true love is for Him, not for traditional holidays. We showed Him that we do love Him, and when He speaks, we want to obey. Hallelujah. I have a great expectation of what God will do and what God is going to be amongst us because we have given Him special time. A time that we would mostly just take as a free holiday. We have given this time and our energy to God. Amen. Hallelujah. So, when you’re done with the offering, I’d like to just pray over it, please. Glory to Jesus.
The Continuous Perfect State of Being, who is the Father, doesn’t need money. God is love and He’s a Continuous Perfect State of Being. He lives in that continuous perfect state of being. He doesn’t need money. Hey? Does He? No, He doesn’t need money. Money is an exchange element with men, with people. He doesn’t need money. The money that we give Him is for us so that blessings can be unlocked for us. Amen. Won’t you just stretch out your hands here? And we thank You, Lord, for every seed that is sown. Whether we give money on an electronic funds transfer or whether we give seed into the offering this way, we thank You, Lord, for the opportunity to give, and we ask You to bless it, multiply it, increase it, and I thank You, Lord, that we have all sufficiency for everything in every circumstance, more than enough because of Your grace and Your love that abounds towards us. We thank You for it in Jesus’ name. And everybody said Amen. Thank you. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
If you weren’t here for the whole weekend, there’s a lot that you can catch up and you can catch up. You can either watch our messages on YouTube or on the website or some other kind of social media platform. But, I encourage you that if you haven’t been here the whole weekend and for some reason you couldn’t make it, I would encourage you to watch it, listen to it, catch up on it because it’s been a marvellous time that we’ve had. Amen.
So there’s a few things that I’m going to say today that if you haven’t been here, you wouldn’t necessarily catch all of it but I have to keep going anyway because this is part of the whole weekend. So when God created the earth, His intention was to increase His family. I heard a preacher preach this once and at the time, I was really astounded by it because it was quite a radical idea to me. After some time of meditation on it, it certainly makes sense to me. I certainly don’t want to make a doctrine out of it, but it certainly makes sense to me if I say this to you, that in the beginning was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the Father was so pleased with the Son that He wanted to have another son, so He made another son, and that son was Adam. He wanted to make another son that would be an environment that looked exactly like heaven. So He made earth to be exactly like Heaven. When He made that son, I mean, what I’ve just talked about is a motive of God. I mean, certainly, as we discussed yesterday, God made everything for His pleasure. So, you can’t disprove this point, but everything in the Bible would suggest that this is correct. He made the earth and He made a place where this other son could live. And then, of course, He looked at the son and He realised that the son, Adam, had all three, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all of Them in one being, and He said, it’s not good for this being to be on his own. He needs to have a helper. He needs to have someone else that looks like him that compliments him. So He made Eve, but He couldn’t make another one like Them because He put all of Them in one. So He had to take a part of all of Them that He put in one, and make a second one, that the two of them would become one in the same that the three of Them were One. Amen.
So His original intent was to create an environment on the earth that looked like heaven. So as I have been saying, the way that God revealed love to me, was that His love was a Continuous Perfect State of Being, unconditional love. I’ve been through that the whole weekend. Can’t go through it again. But then, if God is love and love is God, and God is God, then He is always there. He is the I am. He is in a continuous, perfect state of being, always. So when He made Adam, and then Eve came to be with them, He made them to be in a continuous perfect state of being. He never intended for the earth to deteriorate. He never intended for the earth to be anything other than a perfect environment for Adam and Eve to thrive in an environment that was equal to heaven. That was the whole deal. Right?
So if you haven’t read your Bible, go read it again in this context, and you will see this makes sense. It makes biblical sense. So His intent was to have an extension of heaven on earth. This is also all about what the New Testament is all about, 9 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9 KJV). When Jesus came, everything He said, He said, “I’ve come to preach the Good News to you, and the Good News is the Kingdom of heaven is at hand, or the Kingdom of God is here.” So when Jesus came on the earth, He became the Son, the original Son, that came back to earth, that came to the now corrupted earth. He came to the corrupted earth to restore mankind back to the original family that God the Father wanted in the first place. But in order to do that, He had to live by the order of heaven.
Remember what I said as we have gone through the weekend? In this perfect continuous state of being, the place that we call heaven, is actually the place where God occupies. And wherever God is occupying, that is called heaven. And we look up to heaven, because we know He is up there, and so we call it heaven, because we want to know where God is. So wherever God is, there He is occupying that place. We call it heaven.
So when God created the Earth, He intended man to occupy the earth, in the same way that He was occupying heaven. So when Jesus came to a corrupted earth, He said, “My reason for coming is to restore the original purpose of earth back to the Father, to the original thing that He created.” So the only One that could restore that, would be the Original Son. The Original Son. So His purpose was to create a family that would look like Him, talk like Him, behave like Him, occupy like Him. Right? And so it was designed that the family would also live in the order of the Continuous Perfect State of Being.
So when they defiled the order, a new order came into the earth, and I preached on that right in the beginning, and it entered into the blood of man. So the blood of man is corrupted, and when the blood of man got corrupted, then sin came into the world and evil came into the world because now it’s the DNA of fathers, and fathers give to their children a corrupted DNA. It’s just the way it is, but Jesus came to fix that. The original intent was that when God made Adam and Eve and He stood in front of Adam, when He stood in front of him, and he was a moulded image of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a moulded image. In order to get life into him, He had to breathe His Spirit into him.
So the original intent that God had was that He would breathe His Holy Spirit, His Spirit of life into this modelled being from earth. When He breathed His life into him, He breathed all of the Holy Spirit life into this being. And from that time till now, He has always intended all of us to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He also gave man an assignment, and He gave man an assignment to have dominion. He just said, “Live here on the earth and have dominion over all the living creatures, of everything, have dominion. So in your dominion mandate, you have authority. You can represent Me completely because you have My Spirit in you. Do it.” Amen.
So when Jesus came to the earth, what did He come to do? He came to bring the Kingdom of heaven to earth. He came to recreate the family that was lost. He came to make sure that the family was filled with the Spirit of God so that they could be connected to heaven. He came to give the reassignment back to the earth, to people so that they could have dominion. And then, finally, the last thing that he was going to do, was to restore everything that had been lost back to God. And that would be the fact that He died and paid the price of sin that was done by Adam. The only way that it could be restored was that His perfect blood had to be shed so that that bloodshed could pay for the ultimate price of sin that Adam made, which was a sin of betrayal. A sin of his own will against the will of the Father. And so Jesus had to submit His will completely to the will of the Father, and in doing so while shedding His blood, He restored all of us back to Him forever. Hallelujah.
And that is why it was a very important thing that when Jesus was on the cross and His blood was all over Him and it was on the cross, being a type of the altar that Jesus was on, that when He said to His Father, “It’s finished, the job that You sent Me to do is finished. I’ve done everything You asked me to do. I came from heaven. I showed everybody what the Kingdom looks like. I brought healing. I brought miracles. I brought the way of life.” A miracle is actually just God’s way of life normally on the earth. Come on. And so what He did was He came to live the way God lives in heaven, He came to live on the earth that way. We call it miracles. In His life, it was just the normal life of God restoring, fixing, bringing everything back to the way it should be. He said, “I’ve come to do all of those things, and I’ve done everything that you originally planned.” And now the last thing to be done is to restore all of humanity back through one sacrifice, that there doesn’t have to continue to be sacrifices all the time. One sacrifice, once and for all.
So when He said, “It’s finished,” the last words He says, “Now I’ve done the job. I don’t know what the rest holds for Me because I’ve never been this way before. Into Your hands do I commit My spirit.” And the Bible says He breathed His last breath, and God the Father was now in a place where He could judge sin and judge all of the bad stuff that man is up to, in Jesus, so that Jesus would pay the price for all of us. Amen. That’s a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing for us to live. It really is. Jesus did an amazing thing for us. He really did. And we owe our lives. We owe our eternal lives to Him, and this is not a hard thing. This is an easy thing. Amen.
So, you want to just do a Bible lesson with me for a little bit, please? Are you ready for a little bit of a Bible lesson today? So in Matthew chapter 5, verse 1, ¹ And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. ² Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying this: ³ Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:1-3 NKJV) Come on. Just please note what he did not say. He did not say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall receive salvation.” He didn’t say, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for they will get born again.” Did He? He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Because what’s He come to represent? He’s come to represent the way God lives on the earth. So, if someone is poor in spirit, then they are a prime candidate to receive the way of heaven.
⁴ Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Comfort comes from which being of the Godhead? The Holy Spirit. ⁵ Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. Well, why would the meek inherit the earth? Because the proud can’t. Because the proud will be against God, while the meek will understand that it’s His authority that gives them the inheritance of the earth. ⁶ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled (Matthew 5:4-6 NKJV). Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Well, if you hunger and thirst for righteousness, what you’re saying is, I’m hungry and I’m thirsty for the ways of God and the order of the Continuous Perfect State of Being. I’m hungry and thirsty for the order, the way of life, the order of God who is a Continuous Perfect State of Being. I’m hungry for that way. I want to know. I want to live that way. Blessed are those people.
7 Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. 8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God. 9 Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. 10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, so there is going to be persecution for those who really want to live in the order of God, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Everything Jesus is talking about here is God coming back to those that are meek in spirit, to those that are poor in spirit, those that are ready for God in every way, the Kingdom of heaven, the Kingdom of God, the Continuous Perfect State of Being, which is God, has sent a One from heaven, His Son, who is also a Continuous Perfect State of Being in flesh. And He’s come to say, “I’ve come to bring this continuous perfect state of being back to earth now. And all those people that want it, you can have it.” And if you just study these categories, it kind of covers most people, if not all people. 11Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:7-12 NKJV).
So now I just want to deal with this question of reward is in heaven. Who is the One who has never left heaven? The Father has never left heaven. Jesus has left heaven. The Holy Spirit has left heaven. The Father has never left heaven. Not that we can know, other than when He walked in the Garden of Eden, when He came to have fellowship with Adam, since then, He’s never left heaven. Right? But Jesus has left heaven, and the Holy Spirit has left heaven. And so, if this scripture says,12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:7-12 NKJV), well, the persecution of those that were in heaven is given to them by the Father, by the Son, and by the Holy Spirit. And the same reward that they got is the same reward that you’ve got. I’m not going to get stuck on reward. There’s a lot that I can say about reward. Maybe if the Holy Spirit will allow us, we’ll get there tomorrow.
Do you understand that what’s happening is that Jesus is speaking about a way of living, a way of being, a way that God wants us to see the life of God. Can you see that? He’s saying blessed. If we want to use that word in the way that we have become used to using that word, I command you, I empower you, I declare you to be prosperous. So prosperous are you that are poor in spirit for yours is the Kingdom of heaven. Prosperous and empowered to prosper are yours, those who mourn because your prosperity will be in the form of comfort. And empowered are you that are meek, for you shall inherit the earth, you meek ones. You are empowered to prosper in inheriting the earth. Do you get the meaning? I don’t want to belabour this point too much. I need to move on, but I’m wanting you to see that when Jesus is talking to His disciples, He’s speaking about a state of being that is blessing. He’s talking about a state of being that is goodness. He’s talking about a state of being that is giving power to. He’s talking about a state of being that is in anybody that is ready to hear it, God is going to open Himself up, and He’s going to show Himself to these people. Amen.
So He goes on, and we have to do this Bible study so that you get context because yesterday, I read some scriptures about vision that I think it changed a lot of people’s minds about what those scriptures mean. Because when you read the Bible in the context of the Bible, it gets the proper meaning. He goes on to say, because now He’s teaching people, 13You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:13-16 NKJV). What’s the whole point of this? Glorifying the Father in heaven. Glorifying the Father in heaven. So we are the salt of the earth, we are the light. Are we not? Amen.
You are all loud, very loud in praise and worship, and now you’re suddenly all quiet in church this morning. Wat het gebeur? (What happened?) Are you listening? [Congregation answers; Yes] Yeah. I know. But, you know, if you’re sitting at the dinner table, I know you sort of, eat and talk at the same time. I mean, that’s why you go out for lunch or dinner, right? So you can eat and talk at the same time. Now I’ve got you. So you can say, Amen, to that. [Congregation says; Amen] There you go.
So I am going to share some of these scriptures and then I’m going to just do some headlines, and then we’re going to get into some more Scripture. Verse 17, 17 Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. I preached about that this weekend. So, 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; So if someone’s teaching something that is causing people distress in the way that they have a relationship with God, those people are going to be least in the Kingdom of heaven, but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. But if you’re teaching them the right way of the way God lives, you’re going to be great.
Now Jesus begins to talk about a number of things. What’s He doing here? He’s talking about the Kingdom of God, and He is representing the Kingdom of our God coming back to earth, and He’s talking about the order, the Continuous Perfect State of Being. God has a continuous perfect state of order. So now He goes and He begins to address the order. I’m not going to go through all of this, but I’m just wanting to show you how important this is. He begins to order, and if you have a Bible, one of these Bibles, you’ll see that they have decided to give subheadings to these things. And so the subheading of the next section of verses would be talking about murder. And murder is actually in your heart, it’s not just something that you physically do. And then after that, He begins to talk about adultery, and He says adultery is not just about the actual physical act of sleeping with someone. It’s actually if you’ve already committed adultery in your heart, and if you have the intent of doing but didn’t follow through with the intent, you’ve already committed adultery in your heart.
Then He talks about the fact that marriage is sacred and binding. In other words, there were a whole lot of questions about the fact of, you know, divorcing one person and remarrying another person, and there’s a whole lot of laws that the Sadducees and the Pharisees were all very quick to make all kinds of things about. And He talks about the fact that marriage is a sacred and binding thing. And then He goes on to talk about giving an oath and giving a vow. And, again, verse 33, 33 Again you have heard that it was said that those of old, “You shall not swear falsely, but you shall perform your oaths to the Lord.” 34 But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King (Matthew 5:33-35 NKJV). He’s bringing heaven’s order to earth. Are you getting this? From the whole weekend, He’s bringing heaven’s order to earth. The Continuous Perfect State of Being, He’s come back to earth and say, “You guys, everybody that are God’s covenant people that have studied the law and studied all of the things, you have put such a burden of so many rules and so many regulations and you have so many things to say about so many. I’m bringing the Continuous Perfect State of Being, I’m coming to bring His order back to earth.” And so when I speak to you, I’m speaking about God’s order, not the one that you say is His order.
And then, verse 37, 37 But let your ‘Yes’ be your ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ be your ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. (Matthew 5:37 NKJV) He’s just making it plain. You don’t have to swear by anybody. If you say yes to something, then let your ‘yes’ be your ‘yes’. If you say no to something, then your ‘no’ is your ‘no’. The order of God. God never said yes to something and then changed His mind. Whenever God said yes or no, that was what He did. In fact, if you really want to get more understanding about the book of Job, then what I’m just telling you is what the book of Job is actually all about. Because God blessed Job, and so God was having a council in heaven and the enemy comes into the council, and God and the enemy have this conversation, and it’s about Job. And the enemy says, “But You, Job will curse You if You remove Your blessing and Your protection from him.” And God says, “He’s in your hands.” He didn’t say, “I’m giving him into your hands.” You go and read it. “He’s in your hands,” because Job had put him in his but the whole thing became a question of God’s integrity of His way of dealing with mankind. So the enemy was getting God, trying to get God to go against His Word. Remember what I said holiness is? Holiness is integrated. So if you are an integrated being, your words, your thoughts, your actions are the same. You are having integrity. Holiness is God integrity.
So if we want to call ourselves holy, then we make ourselves one with God’s Word, and then His Word is our thoughts, is our actions. That’s called holy living. Come on. This should set you free because we’ve had a holiness as this weird thing of all kinds of, you know, pious behaviour. You know? And I’ve got to behave and be quiet, and …, then I’m holy. No. Holy is just thinking the way God thinks, speaking the way God speaks, and living the way God lives. You are integrated into that, then you’re holy. That’s why He can say, “Be holy even as I am holy,” because He expects you to think like Him, talk like Him, and live like Him. Why? Because He brought Kingdom to the earth through Jesus. Now you can live like the original Son. We can live like the original Son. You know, of course, Jesus being the original Son.
So then He goes on in verse 38, and he talks about, go the second mile. 38 You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ (Matthew 5:38 NKJV). And He says, “No, turn the other cheek. And if anybody wants you to give him your wants you to give him your shirt, give him your shirt and your underpants. Now that’s why I came here publicly the other day and asked Grobbies for his shirt, and he nearly took it off in public. And then we thought, o gats, we’re in trouble. No, I mean, those days, they used to walk everywhere. They used to walk with an outer garment and with an inner garment and then also even an inner garment, and so what Jesus was saying, “If someone says, give me your tunic,” He says, “Well, don’t just give him your tunic, give him your inner shirt as well. That’s a whole different way of thinking. What if that’s all you’ve got? You think Jesus only said that to people that have got cupboards full of tunics? What if that’s all you got? And Jesus said do that. If you obey Jesus to do that, that means you have a Kingdom mindset. That means in that mindset, you would know that He’s got more tunics coming to you because you’ve obeyed His order. Okay.
The next few verses, it says; love your enemies. 43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44 NKJV). So can you see Jesus is having this whole discourse about the way that people had been bringing what they said is the order of God, and now He’s bringing a correction to what is the real order of God because the original Son is in the house. Now the original Son is telling everybody what the real order of the real Father is, and so now they’re beginning to hate Him for it. Then He gets to … So, I mean, you know, when they did the Bible, they put chapters and verses so they could have a reference. But this is just one discourse that God’s having, that Jesus is having. He’s just having one long conversation. So we get to Matthew chapter 6.
You understand we just started with Jesus’ discoursing, Matthew 5; blessed are those. Blessed are those. Blessed are those. You got it? You’ve heard it say this but I say this. You’ve heard it say this but I say that. You’ve heard it said, you must behave like this, but I say this. You’re all with me?
Now we’re into chapter 6. 1 Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Because why? Because you’ve done it for men, not for Him. Right? So He talks about that, verse 4, 4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly (Matthew 6:1, 4 NKJV). Now, this deals primarily with the way that people were doing things in that day. So they would make a big fanfare out of giving big things to people, and they did it to draw attention to themselves. If you do something like give a car to somebody or give a bicycle to somebody or give a house to somebody, someone’s going to find out about it. You can’t do that in secret. That doesn’t mean to say you’re violating this thing. God’s talking about the motive of your heart. Are you doing it because you want all men to see it, or are you doing it because it’s in your heart to do it? Okay. We got it?
Then we get to this thing that we’ve been talking about a lot. And then He says in verse 5, 5And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. 6 But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly (Matthew 6:5-6 NKJV). This is not addressing corporate prayer where everybody comes together and prays together. This is talking about people who are trying to puff themselves up and go and stand in the corner of the street and pray these big fancy prayers so everybody could think that they’re all these great people. Yes?
Verse 8, 8 Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. I’m going to go back to verse 7. 7 And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 “Therefore do not be like them, praying many, many words, For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. (Matthew 6:7-8 NKJV) So let’s just be practical about this right now. You sitting right here, right now, you haven’t asked the Father anything because you’re listening to me. Whatever need you have, the Father knows what you have need of, and you haven’t even asked Him yet. Some of you, you might have a financial need. Some of you might have a relational-restoration need. Some of you might have a need to have direction and know what your assignment in life is. Some of you might have different kinds of needs to be free of some sickness, some disease, some kind of thing. Without you saying anything, the Father already knows what you need without asking Him. So doesn’t that make you realise, “Wait a minute. I’m sitting here, and the Father knows I have need of whatever I know I have need of.” And I haven’t even asked Him, but He knows I have a need. Come on. This is a good thing. This is a good thing. I mean, you can walk out of here, and while you’re walking down, out there and you’re thinking, you know what? I’m supposed to pay a bill tomorrow, and I don’t have the money to pay it. I wonder how I’m going to pay it. That thing, the Father already knows you have need of it. That thought you’re having that you didn’t think the Father knows about, He already knows that you need it. So if He knows that you already need it, what do you think He wants to do about it? We’re going to get there in a second.
⁸ Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. ⁹ In this manner, therefore, pray: and we’ve quoted this alot, Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Glory to Your name. ¹⁰ Your kingdom come. Your will be done here On earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:8-10 NKJV). Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
That’s the reason Jesus came to the earth. He’s saying to them, “Pray like this because the Answer is in front of you already.” Watch the rest of the prayer. ¹¹ Give us this day our daily bread. Didn’t Jesus say when He was tempted, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God?” The answer to all bread was standing in front of them also. Come on. Work with me here. ¹² And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. The forgiveness of all sins was standing in front of them as the answer to the prayer that they were going to pray. The Kingdom of God, the will of God, the bread of God, the forgiveness of God. “Pray this prayer because the Answer is standing in front of you. You can’t see it yet, but I am the answer to that prayer.”
¹³ And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. The One who delivers us from all temptation is standing right in front of us, and He is going to deliver us from the evil one. Pray like this because the Answer is standing in front of you. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen (Matthew 6:11-13 NKJV). He’s saying, “When you get to the end of your prayer, give thanks because all your prayers are answered already.. And you don’t know it, but the Answer to all your prayers is telling you how to pray. And the Answer is in the praying, and the Answer is standing here, and it’s just about to happen for you.” Hallelujah.
You know, I mean, you know, you gotta read the Bible in context because, ⁸ Therefore, do not be like them, for your Father knows the things you have need of before you even ask Him (Matthew 6:8 NKJV). So this is how you should pray. Pray like this because He’s already answered it. Your Answer is standing in front of you. Isn’t it wonderful when you get to understand the Bible a bit better?
So, ¹⁴ For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. You know, this is something that is in your power to do. If you want to hold something against somebody, do it. It will hurt you. If you want to release somebody, do it. It will deliver you. ¹⁵ But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:14-15 NKJV) Why not? Because that’s something you hold on and the Father can’t override your choice. Hallelujah.
So then He goes on and He says, 16 Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites (Matthew 6:16 NKJV). Because they do all kinds of weird things when they fast. So He’s talking about praying, then He’s talking about fasting. Look what He talks about next. Are you guys ready for this? I don’t know if you’re ready for this. Are you ready for this? {Congregation answers; Yes] Jesus. So He’s talking about bringing the order back, the Continuous Perfect State of Being that is in heaven, the Father, He’s come to bring the order of that Being through the Son, the original Son, back to the earth.
So now He’s going to talk about the thing that’s very important to most people, your treasure. 19 Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, because your treasure on earth can be corrupted with moth, rust can destroy it, and thieves can break in and steal your treasure. 20But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:20-21 NKJV). Yeah, nê. I wonder if you’re still ready for it. So how much treasure do you have, and how much value do you put on your treasure? Your heart will tell you. Your heart will tell you. If you can’t let it go, then it will tell you that you own it. You made it happen, and you own it, and it’s yours. And so if it’s yours, God says, “It’s going to get stolen from you, and is it just not the case that all of the systems of the world are designed to stop people from stealing what’s yours? Everything that this world is trying to do is trying to prevent a corrupted system from corrupting wealth. Why do you think the world is so adamant to try and bring inflation under control? It’s a form of moths. It’s a form of rust when inflation raises prices of things.
Let’s just say and some of us would know, you know, when I was in the military many years ago, my monthly income that I got from the army, my first paycheck was R26. R26 got me at least two tanks of petrol. In my 1960, 1200 Beetle that had little flickers that came out the side like this. That was an old car. Then I got danger pay, what they used to call ‘jumping pay’ for jumping out of aeroplanes. They paid me another R20. Then when I got through all of my basic training, they increased my pay for another R20. Suddenly, I went to R60, it was like I was living with a fortune. I wonder what R60 can get you today. You can’t even buy two cups of coffee, really, for R60. Yes? Maybe two loaves of bread, you know? Now what they’re doing is they’re selling you a loaf of bread that’s minus two slices, and they’re trying to keep the prices down, so you think you’re getting the same amount of bread, but actually, you’re getting less bread because inflation is eating in their cost. Moths, corruption, rust, and so the point I’m trying to make about inflation is that once inflation starts increasing prices, you never go back to the original price because inflation always keeps increasing the prices. Housing increases, fuel increases, cars increase, and the price just keeps increasing. What is happening? It’s eroding treasure. So people have to continually try and make more money and do more things to keep themselves ahead of the corruption. I wonder if what Jesus said is true. Isn’t that true? Isn’t that what’s happening? So if that’s true already, I mean, we should really think that whatever else Jesus is saying is true.
So, 21 For where your heart your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Then He goes on to say, 22 the lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? (Matthew 6:21-23 NKJV). In other words, I was alluding to that yesterday when I was talking about vision, and you thought Pastor John was just rambling about things the whole weekend. Vision is such an important thing because if your vision is wrong, then everything else you’re doing in your life is incorrect, it’s wrong, and your darkness will be so great that you can’t even see that your life is wrong because your vision is what you can see through darkness and in the darkness, you think that what you see is the right thing that you see, but you don’t even know that the thing that you’re seeing is in darkness because you can’t see.
It’s always been one of my greatest prayers that I’ve prayed, and I’ve shared this with you many times. Lord, wherever I am deceived, wherever I lack truth, please let me see the truth because if there’s one thing I don’t want to do and be in my life is deceived. I don’t want to be in a place where I’m shut down to truth because I’ve set my foot on a certain course or I’ve established my way of life, and I’ve established my own order, and now I’m not prepared to change my order because this is what I say is my way. But, actually, God is wanting me to move just one step this way, and now I’ve got a whole different truth and I’m in the real truth, and I won’t shift a little bit because it’s my way. That’s what He’s referring to; if you’re in that kind of thing, then you are completely dark because you won’t even receive light. Why did He say that immediately after He started talking about money? Because of what He’s going to say next, 24 No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, God and or money, at the same time (Matthew 6:24 NKJV). You can’t serve God or money at the same time. So why did He go treasure and then God and money and serving two masters, and in between, He’s got this story about light and what you see? Because if your whole vision is about what you can provide for yourself and what you have to do to provide for yourself, then you are always going to be the one that needs to say, “I’ve got to take care of me because no one else will,” then your way of providing for you has become your master because you’re not going to let God provide for you. Your way of provision is your master. It’s gone quiet in this Pentecostal church. Okay?
25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, well right there He has lost most of the people in the Church, the modern-day Church. 25 Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, I think we spend most of our time worrying about our lives. What you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:25-26 NKJV).
I would like you to say something with me now. I’d like you just to take your index finger and point it at yourself [Pastor John puts his index finger to his chest] and just say; I’m more valuable. [Congregation repeats after Pastor John] Say it again, I’m more valuable. [Congregation repeats after Pastor John] This is a powerful thing because if you’re more valuable than everything else that exists on the planet and God takes care of them, what does He want to do for you? I’m more valuable.
So, when you get up and those Rock Pigeons that are on your houses, or those doves that make a noise in the mornings, and they irritate you. For Pastor Sharon, she’s got a wonderful competition going with the Egyptian geese, and they are determined to be on our lawn, and she’s determined to make sure they are not on our lawn. And, when she gets back from church, the first thing she does is open that door and run down with a stone in her hand and chase those Egyptian geese, and lo and behold, you know what they do? They waddle first, and they see she’s coming too fast, and then whoosh, they fly and dive into the water. You know the… [Pastor John laughs]
So, she’s asking me the other day, you know, “What’s…?” I said, “Babe, it’s a couple of weeks and they’ll all fly away. Don’t worry. They’ll go somewhere else for the winter. Don’t worry, then you’ll be free for a couple of months.” Then she says to me, “But they’re going to come back.” Anyway, we’re going to build our faith to command them to go somewhere else.
But you know what, hey. They walk around our lawn and they eat our grass. [Pastor John gestures with his hand how the geese eat the grass] And they swim in the water there and they go and they eat stuff in the water. And the Rock Pigeons come and they nest in our roofs, and the doves make a cooing noise in the morning, and it’s like, “Get out of here. You’re waking me up with a coo, coo, coo,” early in the summer. [Pastor John imitating the sound that the pigeons make] No? Yeah? And before you know it, you got a nice big tree outside of yours, and you got all these Weavers, and Finches, and all these things. [Pastor John imitating the loud chirping of all the birds] They got feathers. They got food. They got places to stay. They don’t worry about tomorrow. God takes care of all of them. I’m more valuable. I’m more valuable. [Pastor John puts his index finger to his chest] If they don’t worry about their future, then neither should we.
You should see Pastor Sharon with those geese. [Pastor John laughs] She’s even got me roped in. Because sometimes she’s now moeg (tired) from all these things, you know. She says, “Babes, babes.” “Okay, babes. I’ll go chase them.” And there I find myself running down the stairs. [Pastor John demonstrates chasing the geese while shouting] Hey! Hey! It’s just a bunch of geese. We counted them one day. I think there’s 44 or 48 of them trying to be on our lawn there, you know. They leave all their poops and all their stuff all over. You want to walk on the grass you’ve got to watch out for all these geese poops. Praise the Lord.
So, 26 Look at the birds of the air, especially those ones, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit, or one day or one week or one month to your living? 28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon, one of the wealthiest men on the earth, ever, in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore, get your faith to the point where you don’t worry, saying, “What are we going to eat?”, or “What are we going to drink?”, or “What shall we wear?” 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Does your heavenly Father know you need all these things? Does He? Like, He already got saying earlier on; while you’re sitting here thinking about stuff, you don’t even have to pray and ask Him for something, He already knows what you need. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble (Matthew 6:26-34 NKJV).
So tomorrow might have some troubles. This afternoon might have some troubles that you can’t yet see. I think it was late yesterday afternoon, early last night, I think when we came here just on one of these roads here, there was a car accident. Anybody else see it? Coming into the road, there was like a little car accident there. One car rode into another one, and there was a tow truck there and all that kind of stuff. And I’m sure that an hour before they both got to that intersection where they both wanted to be in the same space at the same time, you know. They didn’t realise that someone was going to compete for their space, and so they decided to make a collision there. And so it caused a whole lot of trouble they didn’t realise they were going to have because they were not going to give up their space. Ja, né?
So tomorrow, today, might have some trouble, but don’t worry about what it is because your heavenly Father knows what you have need of. But our job is to do what? Seek first the Kingdom of God. So how do we do this? I have spent a lot of time this weekend talking to you; the Kingdom of God is where God is, it’s where God’s order is, it’s the Continuous Perfect State of Being being. He is continuous. He’s perfect. His order is perfect. Everything about Him is perfect. His original intent was to create a space where His newly created son could live like Him. Everything provided, just fellowship, order, dominion. That’s what He wanted. He wanted His son to have dominion. Come on now.
If you and I, as natural, and the Bible talks about this, If you and I, as natural people, know how to give good things to our children, how much more does our Heavenly Father know to give us good things? So how many of you would really want your children, if you had to have children, I mean, I suppose how many … I could start with this question, and it’s probably a better question. How many of you desperately want to be poor? I mean, come on. I’m sure some of you desperately want to, you really, really want to be poor. You really want to be very poor. Who wants to be poor? You think the poor people want to be poor? The poor people look at the millionaires and say, “I want to be a millionaire.” Why do they want to not be poor? Because if they’ve got more money, then they know that money is a way of controlling their circumstances. Come on. If you have more money than less money, you’ve got more chance of controlling your circumstances. If you’ve got very little money, you’ve got less chance of controlling your circumstances.
So all of us want to have dominion. We want to be in control. This is God given because He put it in Adam. Have dominion. Be in control. Run the show. That’s why poverty is an aberration of God’s order. It doesn’t come from God. It’s not part of God. He never ever wanted it to be part of the earth even. So what God wants us to do is to say, “Hey,” and I’m finishing up with this right now. He wants us to say this, “Father, I recognise that You sent Jesus. And when You sent Jesus, He came to pay the price of all the disorder that was created by Adam. And when He died and He was raised again by You, You brought back the order that was originally in heaven. Now you have brought it back to earth. Now I receive what Your Son, your original Son, paid the price for. I receive redemption. I receive redemption from all of this disorder that has ever been in my life.” You and I have disorder in our lives. Where did it come from? Our culture, the way that our parents raised us, from the schools we attended, from the businesses we run, the communities that we live in. There’s a whole lot of disorder everywhere in the world. We are in the world. Disorder has come to our doorstep. It’s been part of your life. Whether you liked it or not, whether you wanted it or not, it’s been there to you, in you, and it’s affected you. There’s not one of us that has not been affected by this. It’s the sin factor in the earth.
So our job now is to say, “I recognise, Father, that Jesus redeemed me from all disorder and the continuous perfect state of being that is heaven, You have brought that to earth. I now receive the continuous perfect state of order that You have designed for my life. I receive it now in Jesus’ name. I receive it because of the Blood. I receive it by the way of the Holy Spirit. I receive it because Jesus brought it for me, and He paid for it for me, and I have it. I receive it. It’s mine. Now, Father, I have many needs that You have know of. I call them met now in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. Where my relationships are not in order, I speak order to them. Where my mind is out of order, I bring the order of God into my mind. Where my life is out of order in any way, any place, I thank You for the order of God that comes back into it.”
Hallelujah. And every time you want to start to worry about money or worry about things, you say, “Thank You, Lord, that the order of God is taking care of everything that I need. The order of God is taking care of everything that I need. The order of God is taking care of everything that I need, and I’m going to keep speaking it because I’m seeking Your way of order.” Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So what Pastor Sharon preached while I was away and what you learnt and what you have learnt is, how do you demonstrate that you really want His order? He wrote it in the Old Testament, and He wrote it in the New Testament. He said, “Bring your tithe into the storehouse because the storehouse is a place where we all meet together”. So God said, “Bring your tithes to the storehouse. Bring your offerings to the storehouse. When you bring your tithes and your offerings to the storehouse, you’re telling Me that I’m seeking Your order.” I told you I was going to do an offering before the service at the beginning of the service because I didn’t want to do an offering. Now in case anybody allowed the devil to come and tell them, I’m preaching this so that I can take your money. Well, you all know me better than that by now. Anyway.
But I’ll tell you, Pastor Sharon and I, we have lived this, and I know many of you have started to live like this, that you’ve said, “Everything that we have, You gave us anyway. So if You want it, you can have it.” Just starts with tithes and offerings. That’s the beginning of showing God that you’re in His order. Hallelujah. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Jesus.
And so I leave you with this thought now, we have another service at five o’clock this evening. And then tomorrow morning, we have three more hours. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. And God has done an amazing thing. He has lifted us up with His Word all of this time. I don’t know what’s happened to you in your spirit, but it certainly isn’t your spirit becoming alive because the Word is making you more alive and more alive? It’s like when you leave here, you’ve been having so many hours of the Word and yet you can’t go away and stop talking about it. You keep talking about what you just heard. Right? Because you’re full of it now. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus.
Well, you know, the Lord would have us minister this because we have got to have a different standard of living than everybody else in the world. Otherwise, they can’t see the Kingdom. When Jesus came into the earth, they saw the Kingdom of God at work because tomorrow I will talk about this, God willing, for a couple of hours and if you’re interested, you should be here. Uh-huh. But, you know, Jesus, when He said, “I’ve come here,” because when Adam was placed on the earth, he had complete dominion, when Jesus came to the earth, He demonstrated complete dominion. So there wasn’t ever something that He needed that He didn’t have an answer for immediately, and we’ll talk about that more tomorrow. Jesus is the Way. He’s the Truth, and He’s the life. He is, the Bible says that no man comes to the Father but by Him, and I, for one, am extremely grateful and thankful to the Lord Jesus that I serve Him. I love Him. He has always been the Lord and Savior of my life, and I trust that you can say the same and that you do say the same because God is a good God, and He’s the only living God there is. All other gods are dead. They are. They’re just idols, but our God is a living God. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus.
Won’t you stand with me, please? So we’ve got food for you. It’s brown bread and peanut butter. [Pastor John laughs] And a bottle of water. [Pastor John laughs] No, we’ve got a braai vleis going out there. No, I just want to say, before I close the service, I want to say to all of the iXchangers and all of the people that have made this weekend and worked and all of the ladies, all of the people in the Church that have cooked some food, that have made things available, the people that have rearranged things and done such a marvellous thing of making our weekend such a smooth and wonderful weekend; thank you. Thank you to everybody. May God bless you for all your serving and all your loving that you give us that has made this a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Won’t you take your hand and put it on your heart here and just declare this with me and say, “Jesus, I thank You that as I seek You, the Kingdom of God comes in my heart and comes in my life. And I thank You that I have Your life not just in me but all around me, in Jesus’ name. Amen.” Well, I pray that the peace of God would rest upon you and I pray for the food that you’re about to consume, that it’ll do your body good and not any harm. And if I could, I would command those calories not to come upon you. All those extra ones, you need calories to live, but those extra ones but, anyway, that is what it is. But I pray that you are blessed in your eating and that the fellowship of the saints, as you eat together, you will enjoy the fellowship together, and it will be blessed, in Jesus’ name. Amen. We will see you at lunch.
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