Our Personal Witness of Experiencing the New Covenant

Well, I want to get right into the message today, and I am humbled and honored that I might be able to share some of God's words with you on this high day, and not hopefully only the the words of God, but the Spirit of God that should underline everything that we say, that we do, that we are, and what this festival of first fruits, this festival of Pentecost is all about.

When we think of Pentecost, you cannot help but have kind of a smile in your face and kind of get up for it and get to going, as we say. Pentecost is a high day, and actually every high day brings its energy with it, but that Pentecost has a certain energy with it, I think, especially when we think of two factors that we associate with that experience in 31 AD, and that's number one, is the wind, the mighty rushing wind that came into play there in Jerusalem.

And when we think of wind, and here in the southwest, especially when you're in the interior or up the mountains or up in the passes, we tend to associate wind with the aspect of power, of movement, and also, I think, of sweeping things clean. When a really powerful Santa Ana wind comes through the passes, nothing is going to quite remain the same as it was before that wind came.

So God uses this factor of wind on Pentecost to begin to allow us to think. And another one that I would like to share with you is simply the aspect of fire, and remember the fire that appeared on the head of the 12 apostles. And when we think of fire, we also again think of energy, of something happening, of a certain amount of dynamism, then that creates light and creates spark that wasn't there before. And I kind of like to build upon those two factors, allow me to go back a second and bring them forward now, thinking of the wind and thinking of the fire.

Not only the fire as being a light, but also a matter of a purifying factor, because fire does purify, it does purify. And so that's kind of what I like to build upon. So we see a lot of energy going on, not only—stay with me, please—not only back 1900 years ago, because our God, the living God, and the Lamb of God, not just a dead Lamb, not just a dead offering, not just a dead sacrifice, but the living Lamb at the right hand of God, is still doing things today, not only in Jerusalem, not only back yonder, not only back then, but in our lives today, and for each and every man and woman that is on this Exodus story of being drawn out of this world and moving forward to the promise of God, that time when ultimately heaven and earth come together as one under our Father and Jesus Christ.

And that's the great GPS of all of God's festivals, of moving to that, and for allowing ways that are in the Scriptures called the first fruits of God, not by our doing, but by God's grace, to recognize that in that sense, we can experience the first fruits of God and display how heaven and earth come together, even in these mortal vessels. And I would speak to you on that this morning. I'd like to begin by going to Acts 1 and verse 8. If you join me there for a second, chapter 8, the book of Acts, pardon me, Acts 1.

Let's take a look at something here for a moment in Acts 1, and we're going to be going all over the Scriptures, but let's start with Acts 1 as we kind of are moving towards that time when it's not Pentecost, it's before this, Jesus is about to ascend to heaven.

Okay, but notice what he says here in Acts 1 and verse 8. But says, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And then notice, And you shall be my witnesses to me, to me, not about you, but to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

We have been called—and that's a part of this festival of firstfruits—we have been called to witness not of ourselves, not of our abilities, not of our intellect, not of who we are or what we bring to the game of life, but what is telling us here as he's describing it to his disciples at this time and as it speaks to us today, that we are to be witnesses of him and what God the Father has brought into our lives because of him—him being Jesus the Christ. With that thought in mind and with that just kind of right out there with us being a witness, the question is then, what might we ask witnesses of what and to whom and to how? To whom, to what, and to how? And we can even throw in again the reporter's questions of when, because if we're going to come to find when is always in the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. I know oftentimes we look at this as a launch pad, as it were, to get the gospel out to the entire world, and that is a part, either individually and or collectively, as an instrument in the body of Christ, to do that. But what is our greatest witness and what are we witnessing and what are people individually witnessing in us today in Las Vegas, in Henderson, in Kingman, in Bullhead City, in Fresno, in Bakersfield, in California Hot Springs, in Agoura, in Silmar, in Pasadena, in Pomona, in Fontana, in Chula Vista, in La Mesa, my old home town, outside of San Diego.

What are they witnessing as we encounter them daily? What are our spouses witnessing as they are our closest neighbors? What are our co-workers? What are our neighbors witnessing, even now as we are going through a threefold crisis here in the United States of America? What are they witnessing? What will they see? Will we be like everybody else? Because you and I have not been called to be like everybody else. We have been called to be a witness of Jesus Christ. I'd like you to look at Acts 2 and verse 36 to expand upon this. These are scriptures that are familiar to us, but sometimes repetition is the best form of emphasis. And I want to read it to you for a second, and then I'm going to build upon it because I want to share something that maybe you've never considered about these verses. This is Peter, good old Peter, good old runaway Peter, who's now right in the main square, and he's right on the main stage, and he is witnessing for Jesus Christ. And he said then therefore, verse 66, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucify, both Lord—that means ruler, that means king, that means sovereign—and Christ. Yeah, he's the Messiah. He is the anointed sent from above to this earth. Verse 37, now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Here he was speaking to the, do I dare say, the fickle crowd. Have you ever met an individual that's kind of fickle, like this one moment, then this way, another moment, and you don't know which way they're going to go, due to the way that the wind's going to blow? It was a very fickle crowd. This is, in a part, the same group that had been shouting, hosanna, hosanna, just weeks before, as Jesus entered in a sense of triumph into Jerusalem. But they crucified them, and Peter is saying then, they're caught. They are up against a brick wall.

They're horrified. They thought that they had been doing God a favor, and they killed the Son of God, God in the flesh. And then Peter said to them, repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift. And it is a gift—and I'm going to really lay into that this morning with all of you, dear friends—it is a gift. It's not something that's manufactured down here below, of receiving the Holy Spirit. It's not something that is within our grasp. It's not in our domain. And I want to make that very real to you, to allow all of us to understand where we might be, and where we need to go, and what God has done, and then what we do with it as we become a witness for Jesus Christ. This message of Acts 2, 36 through 38 is kind of the cornerstone of all messages. It is in one sense the great sermon after the Sermon on the Mount. It is the launch pad for his disciples. We know that as we read further that 3,000 people were baptized on that first day of Pentecost, knowing God never wastes a miracle and he never wastes a moment, and that was a big launch pad. That was power-packed. You had the fire, you had the wind, you had the speaking in different languages, and then you had the greatest miracle of all, which is the conversion of mind and heart and something was placed in there. Here's my question for you with me. Here's my question simply. What was it that was communicated to those 3,000 individuals? And it says, men, I think, so there might have been more. What was communicated? Was Peter powerful that day? Was he dynamic? Peter was probably a pretty big personality. Was it the power of what he said?

Was it the words that he used?

Was it that you don't get it? I was with Jesus for three and a half years. You need to listen to me. Or was it something much deeper?

Because it isn't that which is much deeper, that I think underlines all of us, that we need to grab a hold of and to understand how the gift of God comes into our life.

I'll simply put it this way. When Peter got up, he talked to people that it hit a brick wall in their life. He was speaking to people of the covenant. He was speaking to people that were under the old covenant. He was speaking to the ancestors of the children of Israel that went out of Egypt under the Exodus, and God was revealed to them.

These were not strangers in a sense to the promises.

These were people that at the end of the day, just weeks before, worshiping in their mind the God of Israel, a people that lived by the rules that had been established in covenant, and thinking that they were doing God a favor by getting rid of this individual, came to be convicted, came to an understanding because of not only what Peter said, but how he said it, and the depth of heart.

Mr. Smith talked about the heart and the offering, and Peter offered up his heart. The bottom line of Acts 2, 36-38 is simply this. He spoke as a dying man, a dying man that ran out of his own answers, had been running on his own ability, pouting his own self, and he'd hit a brick wall.

And he had recognized finally in himself that he was a dead man walking.

How do you know that? How do I know that? All you have to do is go to John 21. John 21, where it speaks to that encounter that Jesus had with the disciple Peter.

And it's a very interesting story. Peter's there with Jesus, and it's a setup because Jesus never wasted a moment, wasted a setting, wasted an opportunity to express and bring a disciple along. And there's Peter, and there's Jesus on that shore.

Peter might have known a little bit of what was coming.

Here we are again, Peter. This is where we started three and a half years ago. This is where it all began when I said that I'd make you a fisherman of men and that you would represent me.

This is where you laid down your nets, and you said that you would follow me.

And here we all are all over again. You've walked with me. You know who I am. You've gone out and baptized people in my name. And then he begins to peel Peter like an onion for those three famous questions.

Peter, do you love me?

And Peter comes back, oh, you know that I love you.

How could you ask that?

Good question. Well, Peter is the one that said he would be the one that would stand by him, even though everybody else, Vlad.

Look at me like Tarzan. Me, me, me. I'm not like them. I will never abandon you.

How'd that work? Jesus comes back again. Peter. Not a different question this time.

So it must have really begun to get under Peter's craw. Peter, do you love me?

Peter says, I love you. You know that. Finally, Jesus would not let go. And he asked one more time, Peter, do you love me? But Peter didn't answer in the same tone and in the same way. He knew. He knew that he did not have that godly love that Jesus had expressed to him. And he downgrades it to the term of Philia. Yeah. And he was up against a brick wall.

He put two and two together, and he knew what Jesus was doing. And Christ had to do that to our friend Peter for him to be an instrument, and this great instrument that would stand and be able to convey, not by Greek, not by Hebrew, not by a time chart of, we've got everything all figured out from here till Christ returns, but just at the personal essence, just at the personal being.

That he wanted Peter to understand something. That if he was to go on and be a witness for him, it couldn't be about Peter. It couldn't be what he brought to the table. It couldn't be any of his quote-unquote physical gifts. He had been found, he had been found weighed in the balances and found wanting just as much as that cord in ancient Babylon. But God was going to use him nonetheless. And when he hit that brick wall and he recognized he did not have the answers, he of the covenant, he of the rulekeeping, he that I've done this and I've done this and I've done this and I've done that.

Humanability. Rules that could never be kept perfectly in the human condition. And when it was at that point, when it was at that point, and it's at that point in our lives that God and his Christ can use us for the very first time. I have a question for you. May I? Thinking of Peter. Thinking of Job.

And Job's story is a little bit of our story, who was caught up in his own righteousness. Was Job a great man? Was he a wonderful man? Was he a good man? Yes. But even Job had this kind of Teflon exterior of everybody else, or I'm not going to accept anything. And there's something that we need to learn about this on this, the Feast of Pentecost. Here's my here's my question. You may be surprised as your friend and as your pastor that I asked this of you, but I'm asking it of myself because I'm just preaching to myself. Is it possible that as Christians, as good people, a good man like Peter, a wonderful patriarch like Job, that we as Christians, we call ourselves Christians, are we living under the Old Covenant or the New Covenant?

And can you tell the difference? Are we living under the Old Covenant and or are we living under the New Covenant? When we go back to that term of Acts 1a that you be my witnesses, that's an interesting word. You can jot it down. It's smartest. M-A-R-T-U-S. M-A-R-T-U-S. And in the Greek, that means a credible witness that has observed something firsthand.

A credible witness. A credible witness. Authentic. Sincere. Through and through.

His story cannot be broken. You know in the lawyer cases or when we read this in the newspaper, we're always looking for people that have changed their story.

As disciples of Jesus Christ, you and I have been called not to change our story. In fact, it's no longer our story. It's his story. It's his spirit. It's the spirit of his father, as we heard yesterday through that message on love. Me and you, you and me, I and them, they and us, it's no longer our story. Because like Peter, we have discovered and uncovered the reality that we are dead men walking and are only given life, real life, true life, for the very first time through a miracle. That fourth miracle that is in the book of Acts. There was the wind, there was the fire, there was the tongues, but the greatest miracle of all. After Peter's sermon of a dying man who knew he was just like those people, and those people caught wind, talking about wind, that he was the real deal. He was with them. He had been where they were, just in a different way.

You see, we have not just been called to be lambs for the slaughter and or a dead duck.

Our witness, our credibility, that when we say we are followers or disciples of Jesus, or to use the term Christian, or that we're in a way of life, we are not just simply in a way of life, of rules and knowledge. But a way that started that we were dead men, dead women, walking. And God, by his grace, came into our lives. Here's a thought I'd like to share with you. I'm going to show my age a little bit. I was just a young person and a teenager at that time, but I think some of us will remember what's my line. The old game show during daytime, back in the old days, where you'd have three different individuals. And boy, they all kind of were into it. They all kind of had to really, really, whoa, which one really is the real individual that did this? What's my line? And ultimately, you had to guess who it was. And they kind of go up and they kind of go down like they're going to stand up and be the one and stand down. Some of you will remember that. But there was only one that was truly credible.

There was only one that had gone through that experience. So on this Feast of Pentecost 2020, I just simply have a question for you. What is your line? What is your line? I'm going to talk a little bit about the old covenant and the new covenant today and the Spirit of God. We often say that the Spirit of God is what came on that day of Pentecost, that day of first fruits. I want to share something with you. I've got some bookcases here. Are you with me? These are bookcases. And so often, because we think of the Holy Scripture, and it is all God breathed, it's weird yesterday, and it is one in part. So we see the Old Testament. We think of the Old Testament. We think of the Old Covenant. We think of the New Testament. We think of the New Covenant. And so we kind of put it here together. That, well, here is the Old Covenant.

And here's the New Covenant over here. There you go. But they just kind of go together. They just kind of blend in together like this. Okay, we did this, but now we do that. We did this, but we now do that. They're just kind of sealed together. I don't think that is what the Bible is telling us, dear friends. I think God did give an Old Covenant, an Old Covenant that He gave with Israel. And we'll talk about how that covenant worked out in a few minutes. And then He gave a covenant to the Israel of God, to a new people that were not a people, that it was not only just about race or an ethnicity, but for all of humanity, a gospel for everybody. And so what we have here is not like this, but this was happening. Something was occurring between the book of Malachi when Christ came and the book of Acts. And you don't really have a bridge between them. It just doesn't happen this way. There is something that happens, and what happens in between this is—you see my face is simply this—and between this is it's the miracle of God. It's the miracle of God—conversion and living in the Spirit, and having the Spirit of God.

And thus, then, being a witness of God is a miracle. John 644, for as many as we know it says that the Father calls. We do not join a church. We do not just simply join a way of life. God calls us, begins to open up our minds, begins to nurture our hearts, and something begins to happen. I'd like to thank that for a few more minutes that this festival and this message will be a crossroads in your life. That there will be a miracle that occurs in your life for some of us that perhaps have called ourselves Christians, but are still exerting and existing as if we're under the Old Covenant, stacking up of what we are doing and saying that we will do that. Somehow, we don't think so, but it's really under our power. It's under our human muscle. It's under our mental capabilities, rather than recognizing that we've been called as a clay-like vessel and tool to God's glory to allow the life and the Spirit of the Father and the Son to come into us. Acts 2, verse 16. I want to show you something, because so often we often say that, well, the aspect is that the Holy Spirit was given on the piece to Pentecost. There is more than the Holy Spirit was given, and that's enough in one sense, but no, no, no. The Holy Spirit is a part of what was given in a larger package. Are you with me? Are you with me? And notice what it says in verse 16, but this is what Joel spoke by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass from the last day, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and my men servants and on my maidservants. What's going on here? It says that he's pouring out the Spirit, but again, the Spirit is but a part of a larger package that I want to share with you and get into your heart, your mind. So let's focus on this. What is our personal witness of experiencing the New Covenant? Because that's what I would really like to hit on, the New Covenant for the rest of this message. Join me if you would for a moment to—I'm going to go right to Ezekiel 36. Join me if you would in Ezekiel 36.

Ezekiel 36. And this is coming out of the the Old Testament. And again, remember, while there is a difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, there is that area in between where there is not just a natural fit, but to recognize over here with the New Covenant that there is a doorway. There is a doorway. And we know who that doorway is. There is that door. He says, I am the door. He says, I am the way. I am the truth, and I am the light.

And that's Jesus Christ. The same Jesus who said, Father—I don't know, he's talking to his disciples. I can do nothing. I can do nothing apart from the Father above that he bids me to do. The same one that said, it is my food. It is my meat to do the will of the Father. Even as Jesus came, and there was so much that it was about him, he always focused upward to recognize and to glorify his Father above. He was, yes, God in the flesh, but he was also the Son of man. And he recognized his limitations even in that part of being fully God and fully man. So it was all about God and our Father, which art in heaven. Now, with that thought, then, let's look at Ezekiel 36. And let's pick up the thought if we could. In verse 24, For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. And then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. And I will clean you from all your filthiness, and from all your idols. And when you think about this for a moment, what is the biggest idol that we have to contend with as human beings? Is it a hundred-foot Buddha over in Ceylon or Sri Lanka, pardon me, or over in Laos or Cambodia? Is it a large kind of idol in Africa? Is it worrying about statuary that's in some church in Rome?

What is the biggest God that the great God is bumping up against? And that's in us, the little God, the little idol, that we have just not let go, that we're still operating so much on our own, and thinking that we're doing God a favor by showing up here and showing up there, doing this, doing that, knowing this, knowing that. But to recognize without His Spirit, without His help, we will, like Peter, we will, like Job, fall flat on our face and our lives.

It says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and ye shall be clean, and I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from your idols. I will give you notice, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone.

These are covenant people. These are people that had bumped into God more than once in their history.

These were people that knew the commandments. They knew the rules, as it were.

But they weren't doing so well.

And I'll give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them. And then ye shall dwell in the land that I give to your fathers. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will, I will deliver you from all of your unfilliness, and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. And he talks about a multiplication of harvest and of fruit. And here we are on the Feast of First Fruits. Let's go back—are you with me? Let's examine this very closely. When we come to where Peter came, and then when we come to where Joe came, and to recognize and to put down all of our artillery, all of our instrumentation, all of what we think is getting us along that only takes us to the grave, and we believe. Can we be useful to God? But God says, look, this is what I will do. Notice, it says, I will give you a new heart, because the old heart, just knowing the rules on the outside is not enough. And it's not the rules. God's law is holy, and it's wonderful. But as we notice in the Sermon on the Mount, you look at the Sermon on the Mount—I know our North County San Diego group just went through that—if you look at the Sermon on the Mount, and you think that as a person that you can keep that perfectly inside out, outside, but inside in your mind and your heart, good luck. As Edward R. Morrow used to say, good night, good luck. But God says, I will give you a new heart. I will be your champion. I'm going to intervene. I will be your God. I will do what you could not do on your own, and I'm inviting you. I will give you a new heart. I'm going to put a new spirit, and I will take the heart of stone. You're not talking to atheists. You're not talking to agnostics. He's talking to the people of the covenant, people that, like Peter, who had walked with Jesus, and people that had sojourned their ancestors with the word through the wilderness. This is kind of up close and personal for all of us.

And I will give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments. It's about God. Let me share a few thoughts here about covenants, if I could, for a moment. That is that, Barkley puts it this way, that William Barkley and his commentary in dealing with the—I've actually got it right here for a second. Let me see if I can find it here. I've got my glasses. It's interesting what Barkley says here for a moment. He talks about the aspect that in covenant there were two different kinds of covenants in the ancient world. There was the sutha—it's in the Greek—there's a sutha-kay, and there was the diathakay—sutha-kay and diathakay. The sutha-kay was based upon equal partnership. You do this, I do that. We're coming at one another on equal terms—on equal terms. It's kind of—that's almost like a contract, as it were, but they call it covenant—is that—and that's the term of sutha-kay. So you do your part, I do my part. We're just going to kind of meet in the middle, and we're all on the same plane, and we are partners—equal partners. But that's not the covenant that you and I have been called to and blessed to perhaps understand. That is diathakay. And what it says here—I'm going to read a part of the poem—that is why our relationship to God is described as a diathakay, a covenant for the terms of which only one person is responsible.

That relationship is offered as solely on the initiative and the grace of God.

As Philo—Hebrew gentleman in Alexandria—as Philo said, it is fitting for God to give and for a wise man to receive. When we use the word covenant, we must always remember that it does not mean that man made a bargain with God on equal terms. It always means that the whole initiative is with God. The terms are His, and man cannot alter them in the slightest. The ancient covenant—that is, the Old Covenant—so well known to the Jews, was the one made with the people after the giving of the law. God graciously approached the people of Israel, and there is the experience of grace in the Old Testament. He shined His favor on them and gave them an opportunity to be the first fruit of the nations. He offered them a unique relationship to Himself, but that relationship was entirely dependent on the keeping of the law.

Paul speaks to this, and he will join me over in Romans 7.

Paul grew up under this system. Paul grew up under this system, and it challenged him, even later, as a Christian and as an apostle, recognizing the inner frustration of being a human being and recognizing what God has given us. And then, at times, he has fallen short.

It says here in Romans 7, verse 18, For I know that in me that is in my flesh nothing good dwells. For the will is the present with me, but now to perform what is good I do not find. For the good thing I would do I don't, but the evil I will not do I practice. Now if I do what I will not do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law that is evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in me, members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. Then notice what he says, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. God did give him a mind. God said that he would give him a new mind and he gives us a new mind and he gives us a new heart. And we can know that intellectually, but we can lean back upon our own strength, upon our own ability, upon our own doing, upon that which comes to the natural man and to the natural woman, rather than as it says in Zachariah, not by my might, not by my power, but by your spirit, says the eternal of host. Notice chapter 8 verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit for the law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ has made me free, made me free from the law of sin and death. I'm harkening back to what Mr. Schutz mentioned yesterday, days of 50 and days of Jubilee, a new beginning, a new start, the same start that Peter echoed out over that square Jerusalem, men of Israel.

At this moment of angst, when nothing seems to be working, God gives you a gift. God fills in that back, and he fills in that space.

And he wants to covenant with you.

He is the great testator, and the Christ is the great mediator.

And it's not about you, but what he wants to do with you. If only you will recognize, like me, that you are dead men walking. And thus, you're going to surrender your life to the Christ, to the Lord Jesus Christ. He will be your king. His throne will now be on your heart. It will be your governor. That Spirit of the Father and of the Son, that living essence will be in you. That living essence will be in you. Because of Jesus, he is salvation.

And he is the one that came to make things right, that you might have relationship with God.

Notice what it says in verse 8, So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

So those that are, but you are not of the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. Now, brethren, I, to a sense, and please understand, I see myself on my screen in front of me. I don't have notes in front of me. So I'm saying, mirror mirror on the wall, is my witness to Jesus worth at all? Because if you're just seeing Robin Weber today, if you're just hearing my voice again, and if I'm not speaking as one that has been a dead man dying, and yet being given life of the Spirit and life under the covenant, and having the robes of Christ-righteousness cloak me, because I will continue to stumble, but that cloak is in place. Not my righteousness, not my right-doing. This, this, this. If I do this, if I do this, if I do that, if I do this, if I do that, because I'm not going to be able to do it all, neither are you. But if we can allow the cloak of Christ-righteousness, he is righteousness for him. I want to point a verse out to you, please, for a moment. Join me if you would in 1 Corinthians 1.30. 1 Corinthians 1.30. Notice here at the very end. 1 Corinthians 1.30. Notice what it says. But of the hymn, oh, verse 29, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

I don't think Peter was glorying in that day other than glorying in Christ.

He was not glorying in his fisherman skills.

I don't think he was telling everybody that he, too, like Christ, had walked on water.

In that moment, as the wind came, as the fire was on his head, as the languages were being spoken, and people were being convicted in their heart, he spoke as a dead man dying and would never forget it. I can't help but think of Shakespeare out of Macbeth. It says, he justed scars that never felt the wounds.

If we are to have an effective witness in our lives for Jesus Christ, I think it's sometimes just going to be one-on-one. Oh, yes, we're a part of a church organization. There are other instruments in the body of Christ out there proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, proclaiming the kingdom of God. Got it. Been a part of that all my life. But if I, as an individual disciple, as a learner, as a student, if not learning the great lesson that Peter shared with us and the conviction that he had on that day that moved people and motivated people, and they said, he is the real deal. He's credible. I get him by his body movements, by his heart, by the words that are coming out of him. There's something different. There's something different. There's a difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, brethren. There's two different words all together. My eyes can fall—yeah, there's two different words in the Greek. One is neos and the other is kenos with a K. Neos is like new and improved. Took this one off the shelf and now replaced it with this one. Added a little chemical and upped the price. New and improved. But when you're dealing with the term of the New Covenant, the word there is not neos, just meaning next in a line. The word there is kenos. It means it's not from around here. It's quality.

What it is, this gift that comes from God the Father through that door of Christ, is completely different than anything. It's not earthbound. It's not homegrown down here. It is the literal intervention of God because he loves us and has called us at this time to be a first fruit, to be a witness, to be a witness as I speak Susan's right above me, to be a witness of the love of God visited upon me in his grace and his favor, to her. She's my closest neighbor to our children, to our grandchildren, to the person that I meet in the street, to you that I am with in the Southwest in Nevada, Arizona, California. To be a witness as at times I write in our publications, that hopefully to God above, and I'm saying that very carefully, it's not about Robin Weber. It's not about putting words together that will keep people's interest. But because they see a fellow traveler, they see somebody that is in there with them doing the life. That has been a dead man walking and been given that living spirit, that alive spirit that comes from Christ. Here me in 1 Corinthians 15. In 1 Corinthians 15, let's notice verse 23. Oftentimes, what we call the resurrection chapter. Let's go to verse 20. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first fruit of those who have fallen asleep. Christ is the first of the first fruits. That's why, as was mentioned yesterday, the wage sheet during the days of 11 bread was brought up and lifted up. That was the first fruit of the barley harvest. Then 50 days later comes the feast of first fruits, and that was the first of the wheat harvest that was taken up as an offering. So there's a uniqueness. Yes, Jesus is a priest, there's a uniqueness. Yes, Jesus is a first fruit. Yes, we follow along as first fruits, but he's totally unique. He's the first that was raised from the grave, having been in the flesh, and hadn't died. And then lifted up. And then we follow along. For as an Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.

But each one in his own order, Christ the first fruits, afterwards those who are Christ at his coming. My concern, and I'm just talking to me, I think God has called me more than to be like Adam.

But at times, personally, I can walk like that first Adam.

I can be on the grounds of the garden of Eden, and I can know where the tree of life is, and yet I'm still working off of my own mind. My own whatever. Human nothingness, as the Apostle Paul said, that all my righteousness is as rags.

And I therefore fall short of the glory. My question for you is, we move out of this period of jubilee from Unleavened Bread to Pentecost. As we move forward, my question is simply this. Are we going to follow Jesus Christ's footsteps in the cadence of the first Adam?

That when it came about, he faltered and fell, and leaned on his own understanding, and wanted to be his own little God? Or are we going to not only follow the second Adam, that greater Adam, that life-giving spirit?

Because that's the whole power. Join me if you would in Philippians 3 a second. In Philippians 3, this is the power. The very power of the Scripture is that from death comes life. It's the very opposite of what we think as human beings. We think life should engender more life, but God in Scripture says that it is in death that true life can come, just as much as when Jesus came as a sacrifice and gave himself that it was the power of God Almighty above that resurrected Jesus. And when the Apostle Paul always speaks about the power of God, it is always associated with the resurrection and with life from death, from life to death. And that is that same spirit that God is still exercising and those that are made in his image and likeness today. And if for some reason you've hit the wall of life, that brick wall, and you keep on hitting yourself on that wall, you're like, you know, you like to torture yourself, but you're not going anywhere. You're on that hamster wheel.

Recognize that the day of Pentecost and that God the Father sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be that door, that way to the new covenant and to set the example and to humble himself. Well, I can do nothing but my Father in heaven did me to do, not my will but your will, and remain in constant contact with him. Philippians 3. Then I've got one more thought, then we'll conclude. Philippians 3. Notice what it says here. Verse 8, Yet, indeed, I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I might gain Christ, that I might take up that invitation to be a first fruit, that I might be able to walk through the gateway into the sheepfold of God's way of life through Christ and be framed by him. How's that happen? That I might be found in him and not have my own righteousness. Yuck! There are so many times over almost the 50 years that I have lived and existed that at times I can think that I'm operating on God's righteousness and I'm operating on my own.

Confession is good for the soul.

Brethren, more than ever, especially as Susie and I, we're the same age, so I'll just say this, as my shelf life narrows, I want to be found in Christ. That's why the Father sent him. I want to be found in him, but I also want to be cloaked, not with my good, not with just the rules that, unfortunately, because it's both in the spirit and the mind and the heart, I will falter and I will stumble, but I will know that there is that cloak of righteousness and that his righteousness is imputed to me. That's what gave hope on Pentecost to those 12 traders on stage that were no longer cowards but now conquerors through the new covenant coming to this earth and through the spirit coming to this earth and to galvanize and to change and to encourage the lives of the men around him. Brethren, the greatest witness we know right now to do today with everything that's going on in America that challenges that witness, that challenges our human nature, this threefold trauma that we're going through right now with the riots, with the, not the protests, but the riots with the economy and with the health.

Boy, we can get... No, no, brethren, the greatest witness we have right now is heart to heart and person to person and who we are and what we express. Brethren, I know most of you love you all, but you know and I know how often that, well, we get together and do we have conversations like Jesus would have?

Do we use the words that Jesus would use? Do we talk about the topics that Jesus would use?

Do we go on and on and on in our carnal hamster wheel?

We're to develop fruit. We are to be the real deal.

You know, we can know and know in the knowing that, okay, Jesus is the first fruit of the first fruits and we can all about the different resurrections. You're reading Daniel, John, 1 Corinthians.

That's knowledge. That's knowledge. God gives us knowledge for hope, too. I understand that.

But God doesn't want your knowledge. Knowledge goes to the grave.

He wants your heart. He wants your being. He wants your full surrender that it's not going to be my way or the highway, but it's going to be your way on this pilgrimage.

How are you doing over in Kingman? How are you doing up in Las Vegas?

This is for a Fresno and in Bakersfield and all of LA. Brethelins. You that are up in the San Bernardino Mountains or you that are down by the harbor in San Diego.

Brethren, we have more homework. We have more hard work.

You and I have been called to be witnesses. I was going to go through John, which I'm not, but I want to show you one thing.

See this? This is a branch. It came out of our garden. Susan doesn't know this yet.

I have a question for you. You know, when you go to John 15, it says to be tied in. Jesus said, I am the vine. He is the first of the first fruits.

In ancient Israel, there were two different kind of branches that would come out of a vine.

Two branches. One would bear fruit and the other would just bear leaves. Are you with me? One would bear fruit. Our fruit, our major fruit, is that you will be my witnesses by having the life of Christ in us demonstrated.

I want to show you something. What they used to do is there you go, is to have a vine and to bear any fruit, they have to continually be nurtured. You have to start doing this. Doing this. Cut here.

Because God has not called us to be all leaf.

And the way that we remain grounded in the new covenant and enliven that lively spirit, that spirit of life, is to be yielding and willing and able to be manicured and nurtured by God's pruning. How many of you like to be pruned by God?

Okay. But you need to recognize that anything that God allows into our life is for our good. That we might confront it, face it, and conquer it, just like Jesus Christ.

And so he's going to keep on. Are you ready to be, as a first fruit in the making, are you going to be willing to be pruned again and again? And again, God has not called us to be a leaf.

He's called us to bear much fruit. And that means, as it says in John 15, we must be anchored in the soil, in the life, the death, the resurrection, and the love of God that Mr. Toms brought out yesterday. God's love is not manufactured, just as God has life inherent and is. His love, his love, God is love, not just God's love, God is love.

Peter stood on the stage over 1,900 years ago as a dying man speaking to other dying men.

Men that knew that they had been blown, had blown it. They had been caught with their pants down, as it were. They had nowhere to turn.

Just as Peter did not have any way to turn on the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus began to peel him like a human onion. And yet, at that moment, whether we've been in this way of life and known the rules, we've known even the doctrines of the Bible, but have not had the heart and the surrendering spirit to the living presence of God the Father and Jesus Christ in us. Just like on that first day, that message of hope, that no matter what we've done, no matter what we've done with this journey so far, God always says, Welcome, and I've got a gift for you. Come, my son, come, my daughter, sink yourself into the soil of my son's experience. Glorify me as your father, and bear forth much fruit. After all, you have been called, not by your own doing, but by my favor and by my grace, to be a witness, to be a witness that something wonderful is coming to everybody one day as I continue to harvest.