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For those of you who weren't with us at the Feast of Tabernacles, Dr.

Dye was in from New Mexico.

And as a part of her teaching, she taught on the story of Jonah.

And she actually taught it in a way that I had heard a couple of times before, but was not exactly sure where she was going to go with this.

You know, I've heard Dr.

Dye teach.

I've known her for a really long time.

She's a personal friend of our family.

We actually got to spend more time around a campfire talking with each other this year than probably the previous 12 Sukkots that we were a part of.

And so it was nice to just have that fellowship and have that time together.

But she taught it from a different perspective than what is traditionally taught in Sunday school.

She looked at whales, you know, those cute little whales that we see in the ocean.

You know, you see those videos of like Alaskan mountains in the background.

And here's this big humpback whale majestically coming out of the sea.

And then you have those little like cute cartoon ones, you know, not the baby shark, but the baby whale.

Right, Malachi?

Baby whale.

It's like, that's not a thing.

It would be better if it was baby whale, but it is not.

It would have fit more in line with my message.

But that's OK.

The Jewish sources actually teach that the whale was not just a literal whale.

They teach that it was the Leviathan.

Now, what is the Leviathan?

Well, it is this sea creature.

It is this beast.

It would pop up in a DC movie, not in a Marvel movie, but in a DC movie.

And it's this big sea creature that was created in the depths that nobody knows, nobody sees.

But when it comes up, it's got this majestic power, kind of like a dragon sea creature.

Like, does that make sense?

Like, it's not this cute, cuddly whale that everybody would like to hang out and ride.

It's this like, think of like, argh, like mean dragon in the sea.

That's how she taught Jonah, is through that Jewish concept, through the Jewish literature.

That this sea creature, Leviathan, we actually see Leviathan in the Psalms.

When David is writing in the Psalms, we see that.

And that the entire story of Jonah was not just about Jonah's rebellion.

Jordan also rebelled too.

Him and Scottie Pippen aren't close anymore.

But we're not talking about Jordan's rebellion.

We're talking about Jonah's rebellion.

And in Jonah's rebellion, that's not necessarily the point she was trying to make.

What she was trying to make is that what if the story of Jonah was less about his rebellion, less about the literal things he did, and more about the concept of new creation.

Now, new creation is a concept that is throughout the Bible, which basically says that God created a new creation.

The heavens and the earth.

He placed them in the garden.

He placed male and female there.

They were to co-reign with God in this garden.

Well, what happened?

We screwed up that creation.

And so new creation is a concept that God is cyclically trying to make things new and give us new opportunities all the way until the heavens and the earth pass away and we have the kingdom of God at one.

And so the concept of new creation is something that is all throughout the scripture, kind of like trying to get back to the garden.

When we say like we're getting back to the garden or I've said before, I have no desire as a pastor to take this church back to Sinai because I don't believe Sinai was the goal of God.

I believe the garden was the original goal of God.

Sinai was necessary, but the goal was always the garden.

And so every new creation that God is doing or invitation into new creation is an opportunity to get back to what God had originally intended for us.

That Jonah would somehow go into the deepest, darkest depths of the underbelly, the Leviathan.

And yet come out and proclaim the good news.

That there is a God who cares for you, who loves for you, and that he would go to people who would then repent and turn away.

She taught the story as an entire story of Israel.

You know, we see a cyclical pattern.

There's a lot of cyclical patterns in the Bible.

Israel obeys God.

There's blessings.

Israel gets lazy.

And all of a sudden Israel rebels against God.

And what does he do?

He brings a prophet to warn them and then ultimately he brings them back.

And it's the age-old, age-old.

We even see it in American politics.

There's times where we bless God and as a nation we speak about God and we put God at the forefront of what we do in our lives collectively.

And there's seasons where we don't.

And he causes us to go back and cycle over and over and over again into a new creation.

So what is a new creation?

God trying to get us back to get us back to the garden, right?

But Paul outlines this many, many, many years later than Jonah.

So let's tie Jonah together with the writings of Paul.

It says in 2 Corinthians 5.17 when Paul is writing to Corinth.

Now remember Corinth?

Corinth wasn't exactly like, they weren't like great.

If they would have been camping in one of our RV spots at Seco, we would have spent a lot of time with them.

Like, hey, we probably don't do that here.

Like, hey, you didn't read the welcome packet like everybody else.

Hey, all the other things.

Because Corinth wasn't exactly on the up and up with Israel at the time of Paul.

And he says, therefore, if anyone.

So he takes this out of just a collective corporate person, all of Israel.

But if anyone, any one of you, if any one of you is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is passed away and behold, the new has come.

I heard Brent say many, many, many, many, many years ago.

And he was talking in light of the sexual issues that are in the world.

And he was talking to a group of kids at a youth camp.

And if anybody knows, like, look, anything you look at outside the windows of this church, you know, sexuality and all that stuff, it is permeating the culture.

And just like it was cigarettes back in the 80s and the 90s where they had Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man, and they were trying to influence the children with cigarettes.

Nowadays, it seems like sex is everywhere.

If we can get somebody to lust, male and female, it's not discriminative.

If we can get them to lust, then it's caused us to fall off the wagon.

But the old is passed away and the new has come.

Brent had talked about, I don't care about how you're born.

Because you have to be born again.

That's what the Bible says.

So let's take that for instance, let's take it outside of the sexual addiction and the lust of the flesh and stuff like that.

Let's talk about Israel.

Doesn't matter if you were of the bloodline of Israel.

If you were born again, you could say yes.

Theoretically, you could say, oh, I traced my lineage on 23 and me before they got hacked and exposed all my DNA to the world.

That never happens.

That I was of the tribe of Dan.

Awesome.

Welcome member of the tribe of Dan.

But in order to get into the king's house and into the kingdom, it says you must be born again.

It doesn't matter how you're born.

What matters is when the old passes away and the new has come.

In Christ, we are a new creation.

This should give you hope on every level.

You can say, hey, you know, I didn't have a great mom.

I didn't have a great dad.

Hey, I grew up in a really low income family.

Hey, I did something stupid in my childhood.

A new creation.

You must be born again.

And in becoming a new creation, the oldest passed away and the newest come.

How many of us have some things in our life?

Don't raise your hands.

How many of us in our life has something we wish we could take back?

I know I do.

Got a couple of doozies.

This passage lets me know that when I am in Christ, I am a new creation.

The old has passed away and the new has come.

Just like in Genesis, Chapter one, we see on the fifth day that good old sea creature.

We're going to go jump back to that sea creature.

The old and the new, the old and the new.

We're going to keep talking about everything today is going to be about the old and the new, the chaos and the clarity, the old and the new.

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teams that moves about in it, according to their kinds and every winged bird, according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good.

God saw that the Leviathan was good.

Everything was created by God.

So let's go back to the first part of the teaching.

There's really cute whales, you know, the ones that's little spout of water out like, no, this is like a dragon whale in the sea.

And it's like, ah, like a Kong.

There we go.

There we go.

It's like a King Kong, like Godzilla King Kong.

I've never actually watched a movie.

I tried to watch it on the plane with my wife and it was really, really bad.

And the screen was really, really small.

But like, think of it that way.

Some mythological creature that's there.

This isn't some large fish.

This isn't some shark.

Yet when we look at the Hebrew scriptures, let's say it's metaphoric.

Because there's some who will watch this or some of the streams like, oh, well, it wasn't a literal whale.

Like this big demon creature didn't come out of the water and eat him.

It was metaphoric and it's talking, OK, let's cover all bases.

Because I think both sides lead us to the same result.

In the Hebrew scriptures, we see that the same word for the sea creatures, for the that that evil beings carries the same connotation of evil and chaos.

We see that in the scriptures from a Hebrew perspective, we see that this means more than just a sea creature.

That these sea creatures that were created bring chaos and they bring evil, which means they're opposed to God.

Now, does the Hebrew scriptures carry the same concept as the Babylonian?

Sometimes the Babylonian writings from early in historical facts do not carry the same thing as the Hebrew scriptures.

And you have to see weighed in.

Why is there a difference there?

Uniquely in the Babylonian writings, the head of the Babylonian gods, Marduk, we talked about Marduk in the don't Jeremiah 10 talking about don't cut a tree out of the forest and carve it into.

Yeah, that's a Marduk.

That's not a Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree is not mentioned in the Bible.

It's a Marduk.

Marduk actually battled ancient sea monsters.

Think of him as a metaphoric Aquaman before there was Hollywood.

Marduk battled these sea creatures.

He would used to ride on them and he would battle them.

And then when he killed them, their writings say that he took that sea creature skin and created the heavens near.

Interesting, right?

Because we know that Yahweh created the heavens there.

We know that the scriptures say that the spirit was hovering over the void of the water and that he spoke into existence.

All things, including this very thing that Marduk apparently created the heavens and the earth with.

We know that's what the word says.

But the Babylonian writings also speak of these sea monsters.

So these cute little cuddly whales that we think of in life is actually probably like a little bit darker.

Like just a little bit darker.

We're going to say like Spider-Man versus venom.

Similarities, a little bit darker, just a little bit darker.

See, Chris Brown laughed at that.

See, every once in a while, Chris, you and I are going to connect on something.

Every once in a while.

Venom, Spider-Man, just a little bit darker.

A lot of similarities, but there's a darkness to one that there isn't in the other.

So we can't think of these things as these cute cuddly whales that, oh, we're going to go swim with the whales and the dolphins.

Like, no, this is a monster.

It's a demigod, if you will.

Yet we see in the Hebrew writings that God says he alone has complete dominion over said mean fish gods.

And he has all the authority and all the honor.

He's the greatest of beings, even the most darkest of evil powers.

Okay, so I think now I've ruined all of your cute whale stories and all your cute whale pictures.

And you say, okay, well, good.

What does that have to do with anything, Chris?

Like, okay, awesome.

Like, I'll go watch Venom now or whatever.

Like, I don't understand.

The reality is that God is showing us in the very first portions of Scripture that we have a wrestle.

We have a wrestle with the earthly nature, the fleshly nature, and with the kingdom of God.

A lot of times those are opposed to each other.

Yet in the Scriptures early on, it tells us that God has power over all those things.

Let's take the adversary, the Hasatan, the greatest of the enemies that are there.

When you get to level 10, that's when you get to Hasatan on the Mario game.

Like, he's the Bowser.

He's the boss.

In Job, it says, Job chapter 1, it says that Satan has to go and receive permission from God to tempt Job.

Okay, so let's look at this in balance.

There's chaos and evil.

There's good.

Chaos and evil and good.

In our own lives right now, when we leave, especially parents of children, when we leave today, we will have chaos and good.

Right, Tay?

You're going to be the giver of good, and it's going to be a brother who's going to bring the chaos, right?

Or it's going to be reversed.

There's chaos and there's clarity in what's happening in life.

Yet God has early on established the fact that all these demigods, all of these earthly, fleshly, spiritual things that are here are under His dominion and authority and must ask for permission to engage.

God is establishing all earthly power, authorities, and leaders under Him for His purpose.

Now, they might, they might rebel.

They might act out.

We see that in the scripture.

But at no point in time does that not change the hierarchy.

Think of it from a corporate structure.

If I am the big boss baby in charge, also known as the CEO of the company, I'm the top of the company.

I'm the top of the positional authority.

Every person I hire, whether they're a good employee or a bad employee underneath me, still answers to me.

So one employee in a division can go rogue, but that doesn't change the fact that that employee is under me and I have the ability to execute the judgment on top of them.

Well, it's the same thing in the cosmos and the earthly design.

Sometimes we like to give the adversary in the works of evil a little bit more credit.

We like to say that they're equal with the power of God of good and evil, and the Bible just simply says they're not.

And you could say, Chris, it's a little bit different than how you approach things.

I think it's extremely important in this church, especially and where we've come from in our corner of Christianity, we have power and we have dominion because Christ in us creates us into a new creation.

Unlike many, many centuries before when we read in the scripture, we have access to the power of the Holy Spirit to dwell inside of us, the ruach ha-kodesh, and to work, to write the Torah and the words of God on our heart.

That's a different power than we saw in the days of Moses.

That's a different power than we saw in the wilderness.

That's a different power that dwells inside of us today than existed back then.

But sometimes we're running around here and we're acting like we have no power, that Satan has dominion, that we can't do anything, that we're less of a human being.

Hogwash.

It's not what the scripture says.

In Genesis chapter 3, we see the transition from those sea monsters and we see the serpent.

There's always this juxtaposition.

There's good, there's evil, there's things, there's this way to do things, there's that way to do things.

The serpent comes in and the serpent is in the garden and the serpent is evil.

The serpent can also mean the whispering one, enchantment to divine, to view attentively chains and fetters.

Those sound great.

How many of you like the whispering ones?

Not so much.

How many of you like people who are into doing divines and conjuring up spirits and all these types of things?

Eh, not so much my thing.

Like, gonna stay away from that.

How many of you like to be bound in chains and fetters?

Awkward.

How many of you like to be viewed by evil or chaotic people or things attentively?

I know none of you do because the ones that I've hung out with are like, why are you, why are they looking at me weird?

What do they want?

This is also what the serpent means.

When you talk about the serpent, this is what this could also mean.

So a lot of times we talk about the serpent is like, well, I'm not, I'm not in bed with the devil.

I didn't make a deal with Satan.

I'm not celebrating Halloween.

I'm not doing these things.

Okay.

But, uh, are you whispering?

Are you gossiping?

Are you attempting to speak or do things that would put people in chains or fetters and bind them into slavery?

Are you attempting to manipulate through the divine for their harm?

Those are all practices that would be like the serpent.

You don't have to walk around with the serpent.

Please don't here.

We're not Pentecostal.

We have a no serpent policy in here, which also means we have a no whispering policy.

We have a no chains policy.

We have all these things.

Does anybody catch where we're going here?

We read historical stories in the Bible as if these were something that happened then, but they very much are still engaging in our lives today.

They're engaging in our fellowship.

They're engaging in our home.

They're engaging in our workplace.

Some of them they're engaging in your own mind.

Some of you are already still wrapped up in these things in your life.

The serpent's mission was chaos to oppose the authority and the order under God.

Spiritual rebellion of God and who God would place in your life to help you to become more like God.

Yet God promises a savior who would deliver his people from the serpent.

And not only does he say he's going to deliver them from the serpent, he's going to crush him.

He's going to crush him.

So think of that.

Think of the times in your life where the whispering of the gossip has hurt you or harmed you.

Think of the times when people have done things to enslave you into things that were not freedom in the Lord.

It says that God promises that there's going to be one who's not only going to defeat that whispering, but he's going to crush it.

It's pretty violent language.

I'm not just going to defeat the serpent.

I'm not just going to put the serpent back in its glass cage.

I'm going to stomp on its head.

I'm going to destroy that.

Through the Savior, a new creation and a time of peace, justice, and order can finally be established.

The same way God had originally intended in the garden with us and him.

The first Adam, the things the first Adam failed to do, there could be Yeshua who could come like the second Adam, and he could conquer all of those things.

Whether it was Moses' staff or the Leviathan in the Psalms or the dragons of Ezekiel and Isaiah, the Bible depicts powerful works of evil that are meant to steal your identity, kill your soul, and destroy your life.

And that's the life that Jesus said on the opposite side that I came to give you abundantly.

So in your life, any area of your life, you have to ask yourself, am I living life abundantly?

Now, this doesn't mean that you have $10 million.

This doesn't mean that every day you're not going to have some struggles or things that happen.

But do you live a life that exudes the fruit of the Spirit on a regular basis?

Do you have joy?

Do you keep the Sabbath with joy?

I've said this before.

I don't care how many times you kept the Sabbath.

If you don't have joy in the Sabbath, then you didn't keep the Sabbath.

Good job telling everybody, "Oh, I kept the Sabbath.

I'm a Sabbath keeper.

Ooh, I'm not like the Goy."

Good job.

But you didn't keep the Sabbath if you didn't have joy and peace, if you didn't have rest.

If the elements that says the Holy Spirit would be manifesting in your life are manifesting in you, then you didn't technically do it.

Well, we just kept the Feast of Tabernacles.

We kept Sukkot.

And guess what?

We did it exactly the way that Leviticus 23 said.

Okay, but if you didn't have joy, you didn't keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

If you didn't have peace, you didn't keep the Feast of Tabernacles, because it's a time where God dwelled with men.

Well, if God's Spirit is dwelling with men, there should be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness.

Oh, but guess what?

I did it on the right day.

I looked at the moon.

What's more important?

Chaos or clarity?

What has existed in our corner of Christianity for years and years and years is chaos.

We argue over the days.

We argue over the celebration.

We argue over the times.

We argue over, well, can I go to Sabbath or can I not go to Sabbath?

We argue over all of that.

That's chaos.

That's not the Lord.

The Lord is ordering clarity, always.

And so if we have chaos in our life, if we have chaos in our feasts, if we have chaos in our marriage, if we have chaos someplace, then we should diligently be looking to the Lord to provide the clarity.

Some of our chaos is short-lived.

It's just momentarily.

Oh, I blew out a tire.

Woe is me.

I got a spare in the back.

It's a 30-minute fix, a 15-minute fix.

Short-lived.

Some of it is lessons that we've not learned yet.

Anybody ever had those in their life where it's like there's this low-level chaos that keeps coming around and around?

It's like, you know, God's trying to teach you something, but you can't figure out exactly what it is.

And then all of a sudden you're like waking up one day and that 10 dBs of chaos in your life is gone.

You're like, oh, I finally learned the lesson God was trying to teach me.

Some of it is lessons we haven't learned yet.

Some of it is edges that haven't been taken off.

And some are things that we haven't forgiven ourselves for.

That's right.

Some of the chaos in your life is you trying to identify yourself with the chaos or the missteps of your life and not finding your identity where the Bible says you should, which is in Jesus Christ, Yeshua, HaMashiach.

Sometimes when you're carrying around the lack of forgiving yourself, remember, Jesus says when you repent, it's as far as the East is from the West.

That's how far it's gone.

But that doesn't mean that just because Jesus lets it go that we let it go.

Guys, especially, you like to beat yourself up.

Walking around carrying around that guilt, shame, and condemnation.

Two years ago when my wife and I came back from our first sabbatical in one of the real shifts of this congregation, this church, I did a series called The Pain of Change, three parts.

If you haven't heard it, I do welcome you to go back on YouTube and watch it.

It will explain why we don't look the same way as a lot of other people.

Remember, I've been doing this over 17 years, been in a lot of environments, a lot of Messianic Jewish places, a lot of Hebrew roots, been all over the place, traveled the country.

There's a reason we don't look like all of the rest of them.

That's because I've been there and I haven't seen fruit.

And I'm not saying that there's not fruit in those people's lives or congregations.

Corporately and collectively, long term, I haven't seen fruit.

And I saw, generally speaking, people engage in idol worship over and over again.

Whether it be the Torah, you can make the Torah an idol.

Whether it be the customs of Judaism, whether it be other manmade things.

They took Jesus off the throne and they said, "Jesus, you can be on the throne of number three in my life, but this is my number one and number two."

And we decided, when I tried to ask the Lord for a way out, we decided we were going to go all in on not knowing what to do, but to trust the Lord.

Kind of like Peter stepped out of the boat.

I would say I'm a lot like Peter.

I'm hard headed.

I like to get in fights with people on the Brent ball field.

Peter was in Samaria.

Similarities.

Peter had his Ian, called him John.

I'm going to call you John from now on.

Oh, okay.

I invite you to go watch the Pain of Change from a couple years ago.

There's a three part series because it's about me not being willing to go through the pain of change because the pain of the present or the pain of the expectations of movements and leaders and everything else.

That I feared more than making the changes in my life.

Now, two years later, here I sit, you know, hindsight's always 20/20, and all the chaos that existed in my life in that time, all the cult leaders I worked with, all the things that happened, I am in a place now where I understand exactly what that means.

The fear of change and the pain of changing was a lot less harder than I thought it was going to be.

And the reward is a lot greater.

However, many of us are allowing the adversary to lie to us about who we are and what is available to us.

Well, the Lord will never forgive me for what I've done.

The Lord will never, never see me the way that he saw people in the scripture.

And so you've bought into lies that keep you in this cycle of who you are, the chaos.

That's not who you are.

Never was who you are.

It doesn't define who you are.

But the pain of making changes in your life seems to be overwhelming versus the pain you're currently experiencing in your present.

This is the work of the adversary to help us to believe the lie that there's not something better, that the Bible isn't true, that Jesus didn't really want us to thrive.

My identity is in Jesus Christ.

Each one of your identity, according to the Bible, is in Jesus Christ.

It is not in your failure.

It is not in the things you do.

It is not in your talent.

It is not in anything else except for the fact that in Jesus, Jesus loves you enough that you are perfect the way you are in him.

And he's going to be with you on the journey as you go through this.

It isn't your guilt.

It isn't your shame.

It isn't your condemnation.

Jesus is enough.

And I know that's hard for a lot of people because they immediately say, well, should we go on sinning?

No, don't be stupid.

Nobody's making that argument.

Nobody's saying that just because Jesus is enough, now all of a sudden we can turn into a Satanist.

That's not what that's the two extremes.

That's not what we're doing here.

Jesus is enough to identify you for you to find your identity and finding your identity in him as the king.

This should cause you to want to be molded and made in the image of our king.

How we do that is an ongoing process, and it looks different for many of us as we go through there.

But if we're not willing to address the chaos in our life, the evil, then we're not being molded in the image of Christ.

And Mark, we see that Jesus comes out of the waters.

We're talking infant Jesus.

And I'm not talking about sweet eight pound, three ounce baby Jesus here.

I'm talking about infant in his ministerial career, his ministerial calling.

I know some people don't like the word career because like he wasn't a mega pastor.

Yes, he was.

How many people, how many millions of people, billions of people think Jesus is the greatest out there?

Yes.

Okay, Jesus was the first mega church pastor.

I'm just saying, saying and he did it for free.

He did it for free.

In the Book of Mark, we see that the adversary immediately comes into the wilderness with Jesus.

Before his ministry even had really kicked in and he tempted him.

He tempts him with three things, possessions, physical security, the possessions that create physical security, popularity and influence and power to rule.

When you strip down the words of the Bible and you actually look at what he's offering him, it should be a light bulb moment.

I spent a little bit less time on Instagram this week because when you got to number two, who said amen?

Thank you, Mark.

Because when you when you talk about that part of what the adversary is trying to tempt Yeshua with was popularity and influence.

We live in an entire culture that's about influence.

Literally, I saw a whole bunch of teenage girls going.

Trust me, it'll make a reel.

And yet this was one of three things the adversary used to tempt Jesus.

So if you think the adversary had his shot to derail the mission of Yeshua before he even really kicked into his ministry, don't you think maybe we should step back and say like, OK, maybe the adversary knows these are three things humanity in general struggles with.

And Jesus didn't have Instagram.

He sure as heck didn't have TikTok.

China wasn't even a thing at that point in time.

But influence and popularity is one and power to rule was another.

Possessions and physical security were another.

How little things have changed.

See, chaos comes from your lack of possessions or your desire to hoard.

I mean, I came here today and I know with size 15 shoes, I'm going to step on some toes.

But I think I'm going to be stomping a little bit today because financial and wealth building for security.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having financial security and wealth.

But when you're building those things, because that's where you provide your comfort and your release in, you might as well go.

They'll corrupt you.

Our desire to be liked and influential.

I haven't figured that one out yet.

But this is our culture.

This is our current culture.

Parents, this is what your kids are struggling with.

Ladies and men in this church, some of you I have heard.

I'm just I just want to be liked by you guys.

Why?

I want to do kingdom work with you.

I don't care whether you like me or not.

I'm not here to be popular.

If I wanted to be popular, I would have just taken a pastoral position at some other church that already had a whole bunch of people.

We wouldn't have gone through the process of needing to publicly repent for being horrible pastors for seven years.

But America says, well, you know, the more followers we have, the more likes we have, the better off it is, the more people like us.

No, no, that's fake.

It's not true.

Our ability to lead and to have power.

If I get a raise, I'll be more influential.

And then if I'm more influential, more people will look up to me and try to try to try to raise your kids according to the scripture.

Try to hold them accountable for rules.

You are not going to be more popular just because you're powerful.

When you discipline your children, especially as they get older, you become less popular.

Mom, dad.

Like you're the one who did it.

I don't I don't think so.

Like literally you punched your siblings.

What's the rule of the house?

Don't punch anybody.

But you, you discipline me.

Hashtag homeschooled.

Something's not connecting here.

You disobeyed.

There's consequences.

Guess what?

We do the same thing as adults.

We disobey.

We transgress the Lord.

We we show up at the Hymes with with our own agendas.

We show up at Sabbath with our family with our own agendas.

We just do things.

We're human.

So how do we find clarity and chaos?

Not by worrying about possessions and physical security.

Learn that one from Yeshua.

Not by popularity and influence.

I got a cool car.

I'm popular.

I'm the teacher's pet.

Great song.

But not what God has called you to find clarity in.

It helps create chaos and the power to rule.

We have exactly the same choices that Yeshua faced at the beginning of his ministerial opportunities.

Now, some would say, well, the moment that that Yeshua has overcome the adversary, why does he have to go through the rest of his ministry?

Why do you go through the rest of his life?

He's already overcame the adversary.

He's provided a way back for a new creation.

He's going to give his life all these things.

It's because he knew that we were humans and he had centuries before of us taking the words he gave to Moses on Sinai and turning them into our own religious systems.

We have the Pharisees.

We have the Sadducees in the time of Yeshua.

Post Pharisees and Sadducees.

We have all kinds of commentaries on all things.

Judaism has created all kinds of mission on the Talmud.

And, you know, there's messianic teachers out there who are saying, you know, this is a commandment for the Sabbath because they read it in the Talmud.

Jesus had to continue to walk out his life because he knew that we were going to do exactly what all of humanity has always done, which is we're going to say.

My will, not your will, Lord.

I mean, that's not what I'm really saying to you, but that's what I'm going to do.

And guess what?

We add to the already existing chaos.

Let the word be true and every man be a liar.

Because if the world word says that when you repent of your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you of all unrighteousness, then why are you walking around carrying it with you as if it's some badge of shame?

God's not doing that.

Oh, guess who's doing that?

The adversary.

How many of us would say, well, I don't do Ouija boards.

I don't do Halloween.

I don't do any of those.

I'm not working with the adversary.

But yet you're still carrying around things you've repented for.

That's the adversary who's trying to make that a part of your identity.

Jesus says it's as far as the East is to the West.

I'm not trying to teach a prosperity gospel or something that's out of line to the scripture, but the truth is, now is a time to be bold.

Now is the time for the feast keeping Hebrew passionate Christians of the world to get right with the power of the Holy Spirit that they have and stop playing with the nonsense of somehow.

If I just keep my tassels at exactly six inches and one centimeter, I'm right with God.

None of us can be right with God without repentance in the blood of the lamb.

The blood speaks a better word.

And so sooner or later, we're going to have to take the same opportunity you shoe had in Mark's gospel and say, are we going to tackle our chaos?

Because the reality is, is the more this church grows, I think there's 272 people who are regular attendees in church center.

If all of you are cooperating with some form of chaos in your life and you refuse to deal with it and you bring it here with you, we're going to end up doing what?

Just dealing with chaos.

Who wins in that scenario?

The adversary.

Why?

Because what's the clarity of the calling of God?

That you can be redeemed, that you've been provided a way to be saved, and then you're supposed to go do something for those who don't know that.

You're supposed to tell them to model that.

We're still trying to shake off some of the religious trappings of our livelihood in the Messianic Hebrew Roots movement, and we're trying to follow through with what the actual scripture says and what we're supposed to do.

Yeah, we're still carrying that you haul chaos with us.

Well, that one time on the very first pay sock I kept, I didn't keep, I didn't have my tallit on.

I'm not sure God can forgive me.

And I'm not trying to beat you up.

Some of you know my testimony.

I was so religious that I believe because of one mistake I made in my life that God was judging me and not allowing me and my wife to have have children.

Every Rosh Kadesh, every new moon.

Oh Lord, would you please just find favor in your eyes to forgive me.

We go through our mikvahs.

We do all these things, all these things, all these things, as if somehow God was just sitting up there like God was borderline Catholic.

After you get to the 43rd mikvah and 32 matavu's, you can be forgiven.

And I know what changed.

I laid it down.

I stopped carrying the guilt, shame, condemnation and chaos into my present that God had already forgiven me of in my past.

And I will never forget that moment because it was a day to two laters.

I had already hopped on a flight and flew to Florida to start recording an album.

My wife called me and told me that she was pregnant.

It was either on my birthday or the day before my birthday or whatever.

There's a lot of numerology in there.

We'll get into Gimartre one of these days.

God is clarity.

The adversary is chaos.

We all have areas in our life.

Worship team, you can come back.

We all have all have areas in our life.

That we have chaos.

We all have areas that we have unforgiveness for ourself.

I need to ask you a question.

Have you stopped and asked yourself if that's really the Lord?

If you ask the Lord for forgiveness and it's still weighing on you, that's not the Lord.

That's not out of nine.

It's Hosea time.

Once you realize that the pain of change doesn't have to be bad.

It's not that hard.

Those monsters in your life aren't quite as big as you think they are.

Once you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us of all and righteousness.

Once we get to a point where we go to war against those things that we have temptations over.

See, a lot of times people are like, oh, I have temptations.

Temptations aren't bad.

Temptations are the check engine light of your life.

They're to say, hey, we might be getting close to not have enough oil.

Hey, you might have a power steering leak.

Hey, you might need a new drive motor.

Hey, check engine lights are the warning signs.

So temptations are the warning signs to say, hey, you might have an issue here.

They help create boundaries.

But I want to leave you with this before we go on our sabbatical.

When you look at the messianic Hebrew portion of the of Christianity, they only do about four things different than most Christians.

The Sabbath, the festivals, the tassels, dietary.

It's actually few and far between.

And I know there's different.

I mean, yes, there are.

There's differences there, but the main, they're small.

We spend so much time worried about what other people, what the Baptists are doing, what the Pentecostals are doing, what all these people are doing.

That's not the type of church I want to be.

And you all know that because we were never founded on that.

We didn't take issues on that.

We didn't say you have to eat kosher, you have to do those things to come here.

I want to be a church that recognizes the power that God has given each and every one of us to absolutely step on the head of chaos, to find the clarity of the calling of God, to have the power and the Holy Spirit in us and be able to walk as a church through that.

Whatever the giants in the land are, I don't want to be the people to say, well, the giants are too big.

Hogwash.

I want to be a church that locks arms with people and says we're going to go to war and we're going to get over this.

And this isn't going to define you.

And we're going to heal and then we're going to be empowered.

And then we're going to go out and we're going to tackle more and we're going to tackle more and we're going to tackle more.

Because I believe that's the power that God has given each and every one of us.

The responsibility that was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai was huge.

But now we live in a day and age where the temple was destroyed and we are the temple and the Ruach HaKodesh can dwell inside of us.

So if the responsibility to the Hebrews at that point in time was huge at Sinai, how much more is the responsibility now to us as Hebrew loving Christians?

The gospel said that Christ came to tear down the middle wall of partition so no longer there was a Jew or there was a Gentile.

Some of us are Gentiles and we're looking back and like, well, I want to be a Jew.

Some of the Jews are saying, well, I'd rather just eat the things that the Gentiles do, you know, like I don't want to have so many rules.

I'm tired of looking at the regulation.

I want to be walking in the revelation of God.

I want to see the moments where the angels of the Lord are talking to John and giving him the revelation of when the heavens and the earth come together.

When we come to the Sukkot, when we come to Pesach, when we come to these areas, I want to see the revelation of God in each of those feasts.

And the revelation is Yeshua.

It's always been Yeshua.

It's always and will always be Yeshua.

It says when the bridegroom comes and the bride comes out of the sky, Yeshua is sitting at the temple and it is his radiance that shines forth.

Like, oh my gosh, how cool is that?

But in the meantime, I have a responsibility to be a better father, better husband.

My wife has a responsibility to be a better wife and mother.

We have the responsibility to be better brothers and sisters.

And you can't do that when you're walking around going, oh, that one time in 1989, I'm tired of the Eor's.

East to the west, that's how far he has removed our transgressions from us.

I'm tired of the Eor's.

This is the best it's ever going to be.

Then you don't know my King.

And my King is your King.

You have the opportunity to walk with him.

Somebody, you've got to find some clarity and stop getting in bed with the chaos.

The scripture says he came to give life and life abundantly.

For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things of the present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor death nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There isn't a blanket thing on this earth that can separate you from God when you give your heart and you give your life to God.

I like to call this time between the festivals the space between.

The space between is a time where Israel traditionally would prepare their hearts and prepare their minds.

Most of the time what happens in the space between the festivals in the scripture is Israel goes wayward.

Okay, so then let's take the principle and the parable.

Everybody loves to go.

Everybody loves to campfire.

Everybody loves hanging out.

But what is that going to be enough to remind you to be a good husband, a good father to undo the chaos to be a better person tomorrow?

No, because normally we get lazy in the space between.

Nothing can separate you from Christ Jesus.

Not the fact that you came to seclude on the wrong day.

Not the fact that I didn't get my complete Jewish Bible.

I'm still reading the ESV.

How dare you?

Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.

Some people in this room need to understand that because you're going through some doozies in your life right now and you're saying I'm not sure that God loves me.

I'm not sure that God cares about me.

He absolutely does love you.

He absolutely does care about you.

I was talking with a brother who I really, really loved this week and I asked him, I said, what could your children do to cause you to no longer love them?

I didn't say what can your children do to cause you to be angry or sad.

What could your children do to cause you to stop loving them?

Alicia, what would it take for your kids?

What could they do for you to ever stop loving them?

Nothing, right?

Jensen, what could Eliana do that wouldn't cause you to stop loving her?

Nothing.

You've met Elias.

There's nothing he could do that would cause me to stop loving him.

If that's how we feel as human beings and we know we're imperfect, how much more is the love of Christ?

It's like, oh, I stumbled this way today.

He's still fighting for you.

He still cares for you.

He still loves you.

And you're in bed with your chaos because the chaos brings you guilt, shame, and condemnation.

Repent, confess, move forward so that the Father can open His arm and hug you again.

You guys are the ones throwing the fit in your bed saying, "Daddy can't love me."

And He's saying, "I'm right here.

I love you."

Sometimes it's a lot more simple than we like to make it.

Well, if I didn't like the Sabbath candles, if I don't do communion, if we do do communion, we can't be saved.

I'll admit, I've been sitting on that table since February.

I'm like, if I bring communion out in this church, they're going to crucify me.

God will still love me.

He will.

I know that makes some of you mad.

He will.

Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ.

And when you kind of let go of that U-Haul, when you drive away and you let it just roll down that hill and crash and burn at the bottom of the mountain, think of what you can do because think of what you've been able to accomplish while carrying that burden around.

Think about what you've been able to do to overcome.

Let the U-Haul go.

And some of you in this room right now, you're in the midst of fighting your battles.

You're in the thick of it.

You don't know what God wants you to do.

You don't know what God's telling to tell you.

You're in the midst of fighting it.

We're going to take a little bit of time here.

We're going to play a song as a response song.

And I want you to take this time to fight the battle.

Can I let you in on a little secret?

I know some people will say like, "There's no way, Chris, I can't receive this.

It seems too simple."

Lay it on the throne of Jesus.

If you've been fighting the battle by yourself for a really long time and you still haven't overcome it, what do you have to lose than to lay it on the throne of Jesus?

Obviously you didn't win.

Lay it on the throne of Jesus.

As we respond, if you are wrestling with something, if you're fighting with something, if you want to be set free from something, if there's some area of your life that you know you have a calling but you haven't walked in, take this time to fight the battle.

Don't continue to say like, "Oh, the feasts are over.

I can wait till Passover next year."

No, you can't.

You'll never get to it.

It'll kind of be like your New Year's resolution.

You showed up at 10 gym 10 times and then you never went back.

I'm smarter.

I just don't show up with Jensen to begin with.

Because I know I'm not going to be consistent there.

Fight your battles through prayer, through praise, and stop allowing the adversary to tell you that somehow your identity isn't somebody else.

Your identity never has been according to the Word of God and anything other than God alone.

In Jesus Christ, Yeshua, never anything else.

It says in the book of Hebrews that Moses, Enoch, all those people get the same reward that we will.

The same promise, the same reward.

Take today and let it go.