March 10, 2024
Sermon Part 4: “Worship “I AM” Alone!”
Praise the Lord Saints, and Happy Sunday!
Introduction/Review
DIVE, DIVE, DIVE INTO JESUS CHRIST!
Like a submarine diving into the deep blue ocean, let all who know the name of Jesus Christ, having departed from all iniquity, forever submerse themselves deeper and deeper into the beauty of God’s Holiness (Morality, The Word of God). Let’s worship together the Great “I AM,” Alone!
My, my, my, we have made great progress in this Sermon Series. Most important, we all have acknowledged the need, and returned to our “first work,” when we heard Jesus Christ call us into the fold and received Him as our personal Savior and Lord. Specifically, we have recommitted to “deny” ourselves.
In denying ourselves we have fully committed to divorcing ourselves of all “selfish” interests in order to become followers (disciples who are disciplined learners who become teachers) of Jesus Christ. To completely surrender our “will” and “way” to God’s Will and Way. We have turned over to Jesus Christ full control of our lives. Am I right about it?
Jesus Christ is the Master, Ruler, and Controller of our beings (spirit, soul, mind of the soul, and physical body) and all we possess in this material world, including our money! The Godhead has made its holy habitation in our born-again hearts for eternity and we sing glorious praise unto His name forever.
The denial of “self” is a lifestyle. Daily, we present our bodies as living sacrifices unto God, holy, and acceptable in His sight. This is our reasonable service as the Apostle Paul wrote. (Rom. 12:1) Whatever Jesus commands us to do, we say, “yes” and “Amen,” and go do it!
For example, as extreme and severe as it might seem to the world’s way of thinking, if the Lord says to go and sell all we have and give it to the poor, we do it! If Jesus says to leave our families/jobs and go and preach the gospel to the people of the world, we get our Bibles and gas up our cars and go preach! If we suffer persecution for our belief in Jesus Christ, that’s fine too. For we glory and rejoice in tribulation, counting it an honor to suffer with the Lord; knowing that it works patience, experience, and hope. (Rom. 5:3 & II Tim. 2:12)
I say with all Godly fear and trembling within me that “no person” can become a disciple of Jesus Christ, and at the same time hold on to their life as they selfishly choose to live it. Jesus has made clear the qualifications for becoming a disciple at Matthew 16:24. (Amplified Bible)
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me].
When we come to Jesus Christ and receive Him as Savior and Lord it’s the most serious commitment a person can make in life; for all eternity! Yet, in Christian Circles, most Christians think they can live as they please, pick and choose what Scriptures and Commandments of God they are willing to obey and others they refuse to adhere to. While at the same time insisting that they are blessed of God and on their way to heaven.
But they are mistaken. They don’t realize this is the practice of idolatry being fueled by “Ungodly Pride.” Rather than bearing the image of God in Christ Jesus in the world, they bear the image of “Self.” They are Self-Made idols, and no idolater can inherit the Kingdom of God. (I Cor. 6:9-11)
The “denial” of selfish interest (e.g. our opinions, traditions, and actions that oppose God’s Holiness) is powerful to root out Ungodly Pride and destroys the practice of idol worship; which in essence, is the core reason for all sin committed by born-again Christians. For there is NO sin that can be committed by a Christian without foolish pride making first a determination to disobey God’s Word.
Oh yes, denying ourselves is the way to go and to live daily. Then Jesus Christ, having complete control of our beings, is free to express His Life and Mind through us by the Holy Ghost and power. We are dead to sin, and alive in Christ’s Righteousness; forever being conformed to the example Jesus displayed of living while on earth, and as He is seated at the right hand throne of God! Even in sufferings and persecutions for Christ’s sake, and if necessary death; come what may, we endure it all as good and faithful soldiers of the cross! This is our inheritance.
Oh praise God, I have a vision of all of the members of Exousia Ministries, Inc. being impassioned and thirsty for the life of Jesus Christ; wanting only more of Jesus Christ.
–Do you want more of Jesus Christ?
–Do you want to be like Jesus?
–Do you want to have the Morals of Jesus; His Character, Personality, Behavior, and Performance?
This is a Great Time of Celebration as Idolatry Has Been Defeated in Your Life!
My heart is made happy right now. Because I believe for all of us, “Ungodly Pride” and idolatry has been drowned in the sea, just like Pharaoh’s Army drowned after chasing the children of Israel into the parted waters of the Red Sea. (Ex.14:15-31)
We have been delivered from “Self.” My God, it was the deifying of self and other created things that had us practicing sexual immorality, hatred, anger, rage, revenge, addictive behaviors, lying, thievery, coveting things, and un-forgiveness. Idolatry as I have said before only takes you into the land of deception, falsehoods, and destruction. But now that idolatry is dead in us, we are living where we are supposed to be; in God’s sanctification. We are sanctified in the truth and live in God’s Holiness! The truth is we have the Spirit of the Life and Mind of Jesus Christ abiding in us!
Turn to your neighbor and say, “neighbor, through Jesus Christ, I have the victory over “Self.” “The victory over ME, MYSELF, AND I.” BECAUSE OF JESUS I AM FREE OF “ME!”
We have the same testimony as the Apostle Paul documented in telling of his relationship with Jesus Christ, recorded at Galatians 2:20. Paul wrote:
I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
(Say this every day of your life! “The life of Jesus Christ is me and God wants me to believe!”)
As we live in Christ, we can celebrate our victory over idolatry, like the children of Israel sang unto the Lord after their miraculous victory over Pharaoh and his army. (Ex.15:1-2) We can sing:
I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse (ungodly pride) and his rider (Idolatry) hath he thrown into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and I will exalt him. (Forevermore)
We will forever exalt our God in Christ Jesus alone in the beauty of Holiness. God Almighty sits on His throne in the third-heaven and rules over eternity, and sits on the throne of our hearts forever. No longer do we seek and live by the “I” “idol;” on fantasy island. Now, we seek and live in the “I” in “Christ;” the Truth!
Finding the “I” In Christ!
Prior to this Sermon Series, I had never considered the word “Christ” in the way I am going to share with you now. God is amazing and unfathomable for sure. The more you get to know Him, the more there is to search out. God is endless and beyond finding out.
We have well known the epitaph “Christ,” which conveys the meaning of the “Anointed One.” Jesus is the Messiah, anointed (rubbed/smeared on) by God the Father with the Holy Ghost and power; who went everywhere healing all that were suffering from demon possession and doing good works, because God was with Him. (Acts 10:38)
Isaiah 10:27 defines the “anointing” as the burden-removing, yoke-destroying power of God. The anointing is the power that delivers people and sets the captives free. Literally, the anointing is “God-good” on human beings doing what human beings cannot do for themselves. Oh praise the mighty name of Jesus Christ, on the day we received the Holy Ghost, God rubbed/smeared on us the same anointing that rested on Jesus! (I John 2:20)
Recently, God enlightened me about another use of Christ’s anointing. The Anointing of Christ removes “spiritual blindness and dullness” from the eyes of our understanding to receive deeper knowledge and understanding (Truth) about Jesus Christ. (REPEAT)
God said to me, I revealed to you the “I Idol; meaning the root cause of idol worship, which is Ungodly Pride. Now God says, look closely at the word “Christ” and find the “I” in Christ. Find the root cause for the “I” in Christ. Yes, find the root of the Anointing that is in Jesus Christ and all who are born-again!
Finding the “I” in Christ is the greatest of holy ambition we can have in true worship of God, as it enables us to see Jesus Christ as He is. I now understand that every miracle performed by Jesus Christ recorded and not recorded in the Bible, including His Resurrection on the third-day and Ascension to the right hand throne of God the Father; all serve as “signs” that point believers to the “I” in Christ.
Saints, look at the picture below. Begin to thirst and hunger to know about the “I” in Christ. Dive, Dive, Dive into the “I” of Christ! There is so much beauty in the “I.” I will give you a few minutes to meditate on the “I.”
I long for the day when every born-gain Christian comes into their respective Church Services only looking and searching for the “I” in Christ alone! Oh, what explosive worship services we would have, and more importantly, how our lives would be forever transforming into the likeness of Christ. If we sought out and found the “I” in Christ and worshiped Him there!
What if we all had the heart to search for God like King David did and wrote about at Psalm 27: 4; with a holy determination David cried out saying:
One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.
Saints, let the “I” in Christ draw you into it like Moses was drawn to the burning bush with continuous flames on the backside of the wilderness; on the mountain of God. (Ex. 3:1-4)
I believe as God spoke with Moses out of the burning bush, God also desires to speak with us through the “I” in Christ. Go deeper and set all your affections on the “I” in Christ; and consider no “thing” or person on earth besides Christ. (Col. 3:1-2) The prize of the high calling of God is in the “I” in Christ; stretch and press toward it. (Php.3:14)
The “I” in Christ positions us to see how “unsearchable the riches of Christ” are written about by Paul in Ephesians 3:8. The “I” in Christ so desires to fill us with the fullness of God! Paul prayed that this too would be our experience. See Ephesians 3:17-19 of the Amplified Version.
May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love,
That you may have the power and be strong to apprehend and grasp with all the saints [God’s devoted people, the experience of that love] what is the breadth and length and height and depth [of it];
[That you may really come] to know [practically, through experience for yourselves] the love of Christ, which far surpasses mere knowledge [without experience]; that you may be filled [through all your being] unto all the fullness of God [may have the richest measure of the divine Presence, and become a body wholly filled and flooded with God Himself.
It is through God’s great love for us that He desires to reveal and share the deeper meaning of the “I” in Christ.
The “I” in Christ reveals the “Revelation” that Jesus Christ gave to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos. Jesus proclaimed “I AM.” Jesus proclaimed Himself to be “Alpha and Omega” in Revelation 1:8 shown below; and 21:6 & 22:13. The Alpha and Omega is the root of Christ.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
In the Greek alphabet, Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters represented (beginning and end, the whole of everything). Jesus was expressing to John that He is the beginning and end of all things. No one but the true God could make such a statement of eternality.
In Revelation 22:13, Jesus says it even more emphatically, as He proclaimed that He is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” He is the beginning of all things and will be at the close. He created the beginning and the ending. In other words, Jesus was saying to John that He always existed and always will exist. As God incarnate, He has no beginning, nor will He have any end with respect to time, as Jesus is from everlasting to everlasting!
Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, brought about creation. John 1:3 says through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. Jesus’ Second Coming will be the beginning of the end of creation as we know it. (II Pet. 3:10)
Another meaning of Jesus Christ, as the Alpha and Omega, is that the proclamation identifies Jesus as the God of the Old Testament. In several passages the prophet Isaiah wrote about the identity of Jesus:
–Isaiah 41:4, “I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last I am He.”
–Isaiah 44:6, “I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.”
–Isaiah 48:12, “I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.”
Furthermore, in Jesus saying “I AM” to John parallels the Old Testament with how God introduced Himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Saying “I AM that I AM.” Just as God was saying to Moses, Jesus was proclaiming to John, that He is the “Holy One,” the “Only One,” “The Self Existing One” who created all things…the beginning and the ending. He sits down and reigns over Eternity and created everything visible and invisible as the second person of the Godhead.Jesus Christ also tried to give the Revelation of the “I” in Christ to the Jews, but they could not receive it, and tried to stone Him to death. See John 8:56-59.
Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
Praise God, there are many other ways in Scripture that the “I” in Christ speaks to us about the identity of Jesus as “Alpha and Omega,” the “first and the last.” For example, the writer of Hebrews says Jesus is the “author and finisher” of our faith. (Heb.12:2). Jesus started our faith and will carry it out to completion. We are saved by grace through faith, and when Jesus returns to rapture His Church He is looking for faith to be at work in us. (Eph. 2: 8-9 & Luke 18:8) Jesus is the Word of God, He is the Law and the Gospel. (John 1:1 &14 & Mark 1:14-15) Jesus is embodied in the first Verse of Genesis and in the last Verse of Revelation.
Lastly, as I read through the seven “I AM” statements recorded in the Gospel of John:
[i.e. “I Am” the Bread of Life (6:35), the Light of the World (8:12), the Door (10:7), the Good Shepherd (10:11, 14), the Resurrection and the Life (11:25), the Way the Truth and the Life (14:6) and the True Vine (15:1).]
And then now, in Revelation Jesus’s statement that He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and ending; it feels like a great earthquake at the ocean floor that sets off a tsunami! Flooding and overtaking and drowning all false gods!
Come let us humble ourselves and bow down before Jesus, The Christ. For Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the first and last. Jesus is, and which was, and which is to come. He is the Almighty God!
Only Jesus Christ is God incarnate. Give Him all the honor and praise! All hail to the name of Jesus Christ, the Anointed One and His Anointing! Let no other entity, organization, person, or thing claim the name of Alpha and Omega!
The “I” in Christ Abides In You!
God would have you know that the “I” in Christ dwells in you. At Colossians 1:27, The Apostle Paul wrote about the mystery of Christ not only dwelled in the Jews who believed in Jesus Christ, but also in the Gentiles. Paul wrote:
To them God would make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Paul said the mystery is that in every born-again Christian, “Christ” is in us, whether Jew or Gentile. We have the “I” in Christ in us: The “I AM Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, and the first and the last in us!” Oh what love has God the Father bestowed upon us!
The body of Christ, as well as every born-again Christian individually, should be, but are not, obsessed with giving “excessive devotion and reverence” to Jesus Christ as “the Alpha and Omega.” The Lord who declared “He is, was before, and is to come.” The “Almighty God.”
We have not realized and rightly apprised that the omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent God abides in our holy tabernacles. (I John 4:15 & Col. 2:10) Oh what humbling fear, trembling, terror, joy and delight all intersecting at the same time we should have knowing that “Christ” in us is the hope of God’s glory!
Paul says that having Christ in us springs forth a “hope” (expectation) of glory. In other words, God has an expectation to receive the glory from our lives because we have Christ, the anointing, the Great I Am, Alpha and Omega dwelling in us! An expectation that the deeper we dive into Jesus Christ in worship of Him in Truth, that we surface and appear before the world to display His Holiness (Morality) before the world. That we live out the life of Jesus Christ before people because in Christ we have God’s Holiness living in us. I say again, Christ, the anointing, is given to us to display God’s Moral excellence before all people so that He may be glorified in the earth!
It is mandatory and expected of those who desire to be “true” worshipers of God that we worship Jesus as He is: Alpha and Omega. He is the whole of everything created! God is seeking for people to worship Him as such. (John 4:23)
We are to set all of our affections on Jesus Christ as Alpha and Omega (as He is seated at the right hand throne of God) and acknowledge, praise, exalt, and inquire of the Great “I Am” who abides in our hearts. To spend quality time of devotion learning of His omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipower. To listen to and keep His every command, and say, “yes Lord” and go forth and do as He wills. This is worshiping God in the beauty of Holiness. This is how we live in God’s Morality.
Daily, humble yourself before the Lord and seek the “I” in Christ, and the Lord who knows the whole of everything will speak and give direction. Value His Words above your necessary food, as the air you breathe, and as containing your expected end; which is the plan of Peace for life!
When you worship Jesus Christ as the Alpha and Omega you will discover your interests, personality, behavior, and performance in the human experience of life will be changed. God does it! In your daily living, you will be inspired and compelled by the Holy Ghost and power to act like Jesus Christ. Not some of the time, but all of the time! You will be eager to put on the Righteousness of Christ Jesus; to adorn yourself in everything that He represents to the world. See the Amplified Version of Colossians 3:12-17.
So, as God’s own chosen people, who are holy [set apart, sanctified for His purpose] and well-beloved [by God Himself], put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience [which has the power to endure whatever injustice or unpleasantness comes, with good temper];
bearing graciously with one another, and willingly forgiving each other if one has a cause for complaint against another; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so should you forgive.
Beyond all these things put on and wrap yourselves in [unselfish] love, which is the perfect bond of unity [for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others].
Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]. To this peace indeed you were called as members in one body [of believers]. And be thankful [to God always].
Let the [spoken] word of Christ have its home within you [dwelling in your heart and mind—permeating every aspect of your being] as you teach [spiritual things] and admonish and train one another with all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
Whatever you do [no matter what it is] in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus [and in dependence on Him], giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
The more excessive you become in your devotion and reverence to Jesus Christ as “I Am” the Alpha and Omega, the more your life mirrors the “One” who created you. When God looks at you He expects to see His shadow in the earth; shining brilliantly before all people of the world.
The Apostle Peter walked in such illumination, as the people carried and laid the sick down on beds in the street hoping that Peter would walk by and his shadow would fall on them and heal them. (Acts 5:15) What an impression God’s Morality can leave on the people of the earth when men and women are intimate with Christ!
Holiness I say is your heritage. So have the courage to possess it! Become possessed with possessing the “I” in Christ and worship the Lord in the beauty of Holiness. Amen to the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Next week, don’t miss our final message in the Sermon Series, entitled: “The Future is Predictable When We Worship in the Beauty of Holiness!”
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