Mike Bickle emphasizes that the Beatitudes are the only true path to happiness and greatness, framing the Sermon on the Mount as the Constitution of God's Kingdom. He urges believers to measure their spiritual growth by their adherence to these teachings, highlighting the importance of complete obedience and the pursuit of a vibrant relationship with Jesus. Bickle challenges the church to focus on the Beatitudes and the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, rather than merely seeking numerical success in ministry. He stresses that true fulfillment comes from a heart committed to living out these principles, which leads to a bright spirit and a deeper connection with God.

Thank you for the move of your spirit and what you're doing at FMA and what you're doing in this spiritual family. Lord, we ask you for a greater wind, a greater release of the activity of your spirit on our heart. We could walk with you in a greater connectedness and we thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, tonight I want to talk about the Beatitudes as the only way, that's what I'm titling this, the only way to happiness and the only way to greatness and the Beatitudes, the 8 Beatitudes, they're not the best way to happiness, they are the only way to happiness and that's a revelation in itself. We'll get to in a few moments. Roman numeral 1, the Sermon on the Mount, which most of you know is Matthew 5, 6, and 7. It's three chapters. It is what I call the Constitution of the Kingdom of God. Not only in this age, this is the principles of God's Kingdom forever. The principles that are underlying some of the application that is for this age in a particular way. The Sermon on the Mount is the litmus test for spiritual development. If we want to know if we're growing spiritually or if we want to know if our ministry is having an impact, the way that we tell is by measuring our life by how much of the Sermon on the Mount we're walking in or if we want to measure our ministry, we measure not how big it is. That's not how the Lord measures ministry. The Lord measures our ministry by how many people, not how many, that's not actually the way He does it, but by the response of the people to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. And so if your ministry is one-on-one and you're touching a small number of people, the question you're asking before the Lord is, when I interact with them, when it's all said and done, do they have more resolve and more confidence and more revelation to walk out the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount because of my impact? If they do, your ministry in God's sight is successful. That's what the move of God across the earth is all about in the generation the Lord returns, is to get the Bride of Christ with a resolve, with a revelation, and with confidence to live this lifestyle. And so as I'm addressing many of you that will have one-on-one ministry, one-on-ten ministry, some of you will talk to thousands, settle it in your mind that the most important part of the Bible to really have clarity on for your own life and for the lives of those you're impacting are these three chapters. I was talking to some pastors the other day, I got the minister at a citywide pastor's meeting and I asked him this question, and it's a good question for all the everyone who teaches regularly, I said in the last 52 weeks you've taught in your Sunday morning congregation, how many of those 52 weeks were devoted to a subject directly related to a theme in the Sermon on the Mount? And if it's one or two, that's not good. It needs to be more like 40 to 50 in that direction. And you don't have to reference the Sermon on the Mount every time, you don't have to turn to those three chapters, but the vast majority of our ministry, whether it's singing, speaking, writing, one-on-one discipleship, whatever application it needs, its number one theme must be the Sermon on the Mount. This is a huge statement from heaven and the reason I'm saying this is so simple, it seems redundant, is that most of the body of Christ is not aware of how big and important this sermon is to God's kingdom. It's something that people are kind of just casually kind of glance at, like I'll just uh just to kind of uh give you a uh kind of a little pop quiz. Now don't answer publicly of course, don't raise your hand, don't do anything, but if I was to ask you right now to list what are the eight beatitudes, you know, I wonder how many people could could number all, I mean could mention all eight of them, what they are and what their promise is. And and if we can't, and my point isn't to get everybody all stressed out because they can't, the reason we can't, and part of it's my responsibility as well as as a shepherd here, is because those eight are not the primary focus of our thinking and our spiritual pursuit. If they become the the focus of our pursuit, we will clearly know what they are because we're we're exerting energy and lots of time making sure we're walking in them and the promises will become clear to us because when we draw back in falling through, the promise is what motivates us. And so we will know them well and we will know the promise if they're important to us. And I don't mean important just to be able to memorize and say, but if they are the true focus of our heart, we will know what they are. And then after the sermon on the after the eight beatitudes, the next thing that happens in the Sermon on the Mount, there are six different areas in Matthew 5 that Jesus outlines that hinder our growth in the beatitudes. And then in Matthew 6, the next chapter, there's five areas of grace that were to pursue five positive things. So I would ask you, what are the eight beatitudes? What are they? Just right from your heart, what are the six things that that stand in the way that Jesus said you must war against these six things and you must do these five things. And again, my point isn't to make a point about how, like, oh my goodness, I don't know them. But what I'm saying is if this sermon is going to be the focal point of your heart and your ministry, we have to become familiar with it. We have to grapple with it. We have to not just learn how to say it to others because that really doesn't really work that well if we're not pursuing it in our secret life to actually walk it out. And so one of my goals as a shepherd is to get everybody in this spiritual family very aware of these eight things because that's what they're thinking about. That's what they're talking about. That's what they're studying. That's what they're believing for. And that's what they're trying to impart to other people. And then, of course, the six negatives, they'll have to know them because they war against our hearts. And then the five positives. And of course, I got this all laid out here in this handout. And most of you have heard this. And most of you, a lot of you are familiar with these things. But I just wanted to mention them anyway. Paragraph B. Jesus said in Matthew chapter seven, verse 24, at the very end of the sermon, he said, whoever hears these sayings of mine. Now he's talking specifically about the Sermon on the Mount. He's not talking about the Bible in general, although that's good enough to include. But he's talking specifically about Matthew five, Matthew six, Matthew seven. If a person hears these and does them, he does them secretly and consistently and doesn't perfect them. I'm not saying that you're perfect in them, but is aiming for them in the secret place of their life, not just for show, but they do them secretly as well as openly. But I'm saying that there it's something that is really captured their heart. It's not something we're doing because people are applauding it. And we do it consistently if a person will do that. Jesus calls that person, that man or that woman, a wise person. He goes, this is a wise person. And he will say that at the judgment day, the judgment seat of Christ, he will proclaim the wisdom of the man or the woman who actually sought to obey these and to impart them. So a couple of verses later in verse chapter five, verse 19, he adds, uh, no, I guess before, uh, chapter seven, it's in Matthew five, 19. He says, if you do them and teach them, you'll be called great in the kingdom here. He says, if you do them, you'll be called wise on the last day. The Lord himself will call you wise. And the Lord likens this person to one who builds their house. Now their house is their personal life, as well as their ministry. They build it on a rock. Now the rock is not just the teachings. The rock is a vibrant relationship with Jesus, but according to these teachings, because a lot of people want to relate to Jesus on their own terms, but Jesus wants us to relate to him on his terms. And the rock is the, is the, the man Christ Jesus, our relationship to him and relating to him on these terms. That's what the rock is. And Jesus said, this man's house, his life, as well as his ministry, his impact on others will be a solid on a rock. When the rain, the flood and the winds come, this man's life and his ministry won't fall apart. Paragraph C, I asked the question. It's important questions. Why do you want God to anoint your ministry? Everybody wants the Lord. You should want the Lord to anoint your ministry again, whether it's one-on-one or one on a million, it doesn't matter what the number is. Why? And I, I asked this to pastors regularly either talking about, they went to church to go, I go, why fill the building for what reason the building's full, then what, why do we want thousands of young adults to come to Bartle Hall to this conference? Why have a cool four days? Well, it will be cool and it will be four days, but that's not the reason we want him to come. We don't want a full building for as an end in itself. We want to impart revelation and resolve and confidence about this lifestyle to them. We want them to come in contact with us, to leave Kansas city, believing that the Sermon on the Mount is central to what their whole life in this age and the age to come is all about. And they, we want them excited about this reality. Now they don't have to, again, use the phrase, the Sermon on the Mount, but it's the principles. It's the, it's this relationship with Jesus based on this reality. What is your dream in ministry? When I talk to some people, their dream of ministry, it has to do with size. I want to challenge you, and I know many of you have already done it to align your heart with God so that the dream of your ministry is more about the quality of what you impart, not how many people get in a room and listen to you, but what actually happens to the hearts of the people when they're in the Bible study, when they read your article, when they hear your song, when it's a one-on-one discipleship thing, what actually happens inside of their heart because you touch their life. People want more influence. It's a very normal thing to want in ministry, greater influence. What will you do with more influence? We're about to, uh, uh, and just after the turn of the year begin, uh, going, uh, uh, broadcasting a number of our meetings here on television. So the numbers of people is going to increase. Why do we want that? Why is that cool? So we can sell more tapes, sell more books, sell more. No. Why do we want that to happen? We want to convince people that walking out the Sermon of the Mount is doable and wise and inevitable for anyone who's wise. We want to convince them of this reality. We want an influence so we can pull them into this reality by the grace of God and by the word of God. Roman numeral two, our primary calling in life. This is really important to get this as, I mean, just as one, two, three as possible, as crystal clear as possible. Your primary calling in life is stated in Matthew chapter five, verse 48. It's also stated in Matthew five, six, verse 22 and Matthew six, verse 33. But we'll talk about that at another time. It says the same thing in different language. Here it is. Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, verse 48, he says, you should be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Now he says this after he gives the eight beatitudes in Matthew five, then he gives the six negatives that we have to resist. And at the end of those beatitudes and six negatives, right before he talks about the five positives, he said, here's the point to be perfect, to be perfect. So let's go back to the paragraph now, paragraph a, what does it mean to be perfect? Cause this is the number one thing God is calling you to. This is what he's going to evaluate your life on. This is what he wants you to impart to others. And if we don't have clarity about this, then we end up just losing our way during the decades that unfolded our life. This is why a person has X amount of years on the earth so they can, so they can attain to this, to be perfect. Paragraph a, Jesus called us to be perfect. And what he means is perfect in our obedience. Does it mean perfect wisdom? Does it mean perfect gifting means perfect in our obedience? Another word for perfect would be the word mature, mature in our obedience. The word that Paul, the apostle used, well, he used perfect and he used mature actually, but a word he used more often than any other word is the word complete. He talked about the praying and he had, he put a, uh, talked about the reason he wanted to visit them different saints. So he would cause them to be complete in their obedience before God. Because when we meet the Lord, the devil's agenda is that our obedience would be incomplete. God's agenda is that obedience would be complete. He gives us X amount of years to run a race and the object of the race is that our obedience would become complete, mature. The word perfect throws us off a little bit. Other translations say mature or complete. It's exactly the same idea. So don't be thrown off by that. Now, what does it mean to be a perfect in your obedience? He's talking about that. We would walk in the light that the Lord gives us on as, as in whatever season of our spiritual life we're in. If we walk in all the light that God gives us, we are walking mature or complete in our obedience. A brand new believer honestly can meet the Lord on Tuesday. And if the instruction is right and the grace of God is touching them, they have a resolve to obey totally everything they know they're actually doing. Matthew five, verse 48, right then within one day of their salvation, every area that they have understanding of, they bring it consciously into submission to the Lord. Now, I don't believe that walking a mature in the Lord only means attaining the victory. I believe that walking mature in the Lord, perfect in the Lord means that we're aiming, we're seeking. That's the key word. We're seeking to obey him in every single area. The Holy spirit puts his finger on in our life. Now seeking is very different than attaining. Somebody might say, how, how far much have you attained in your obedience? I don't measure what I attain. I don't know how to measure it, but I can measure somewhat. It's an imperfect science, this thing called measuring, but I can, I'm much more aware if I'm seeking obedience in every area of my life and I come up short, but it's the seeking of to walking in all the light is what Matthew five, verse 48 is talking about. We are to walk in all the light we have in the same way that God dwells in all the light that God has. Do you know that there's there that all the virtue that God understands, he walks in, he dwells in it. He, he is a complete embodiment of it. All of the light that Jesus has that the father has, they completely walk it out in their life and their reality and their relationships within the Godhead and with the people and with the angels and with the demons. He walks out perfectly all the virtue that he knows, which is totally, which is obviously all virtue, but there's no element that God knows that he does not commit to do that. He does not actually do. You don't talk about God being committed in this. He does it. And so what Jesus is saying is whether you're one week old in the Lord, one year old in the Lord, in the same way that the virtue that God has insight into, he fully embraces, embrace and endeavor to do all that the spirit of God has made clear to you. Now the devil does not want us to walk, uh, uh, perfect. He does not want, but he does not want that. But understand this, this is the main issue for which the spirit of God is focused in your life. Is this one issue? Now, many believers, this is not a thing they think much about. They think more about, well, what am I gonna do with my job? And what am I gonna do with my ministry? And what about my friends? And how am I going to settle this problem? And those are important things to think about. They are, but the absolute consuming reality for our life needs to be Matthew chapter five, verse 48. That is the thing of which all of our life is in the balance of whether we do this or whether we do not do this. Let's go to paragraph B, the pursuit of complete obedience. I'll just give you a few areas. And of course the sermon on the mountain lays it out really specific, but I'm just giving it just for just very, very general, the pursuit of complete obedience or of, of, of, uh, again, I'm talking the pursuit of it, not the attainment of it, because in time you will attain that which you sincerely pursue. But when we attain it, you know what happens? The Lord increases the amount of light. It's the analogy I've been, I've said a lot of times the last few weeks on the Friday night, particularly it's the microscope and the slide. We think the slide's clean. We put it under the microscope. There's a lot of dirt on it. We clean the dirt off. We think, wow, it's clean. We put it back under. We turn the power up 10, 10 power. Whoa, it's dirty. We clean it off. It's all clean. Now under 10 power, move the microscope up to a hundred power. Then it looks dirty again. We clean it off. Then a thousand power, then 10,000 power, then a million power, whatever. Whenever we get clean, the Lord turns the power up. He goes, wait a second. You just lifted the bar of my understanding. He says, yeah, but there's grace for it now. And the reason the Lord cares about this, because the more light we have, the more insight, and then we agree to go after, the more we feel his love and the more we can return it. The Lord isn't raising the bar kind of in a rigorous religious holiness contest. No, he's saying, no, I'm the God of light. And if you, if I give you more light and you actually say yes to it, you feel me more. My love, you understand my mind and you have the power to love me back. And we have an X, a dynamic together. That's exciting to God's heart and to our heart. God wants the light to increase out of his zeal for relationship, not out of a, a religious holiness paradigm. That is a, is a kind of a negative thing. Cause some people think of, you know, grit their teeth and count the cost and endure holiness. When the truth is it's the call to enter into a, a, a voluntary mutual love. We're loving God with all the light we have. And he's loving us with all the light he has in that sense. It's mutual. Now he has a lot more light than we have, but it's mutual in the sense that we're doing it with all of our strength, with all of our light. Now we're down at the 10 power and the Lord can turn it up to a billion and he will in time. But the Lord is excited when we walk in the light and we feel his heart and we understand his mind and it excites us and we give ourselves back to him. And that excites him. I mean, this is really what it's about. It's a love relationship. God's zealous about this. He, he really means business about this because he is in love with people. Paragraph B, the pursuit of complete obedience. It includes these areas, bridling our speech. Now, again, it's the microscope 10 power. Our speeches were obeying. We get our speech under our order. Then the Lord turns it up to a hundred power, like, Whoa, our speech is the file. Well, I thought you said your speech was doing good. Well, it was to the Lord, turn the microscope up, you know, a few years go by and now we're actually attaining, we're walking in all of the light we have. Then that goes up to now a thousand power, then 10,000 power. The Lord keeps increasing the light on the area of our speech, the disciplining of our physical appetites. We have four or five different categories of physical appetites. He wants them brought under submission to the Holy spirit. He wants us to manage our time and to manage our money under his leadership. And he wants us to make a covenant with our eyes. Now, many believers think if I stay away from scandalous sins, three or four big ones, I can think of, and I'm pretty nice. Most of the time I'm a little bit moody, but not that moody. And when I'm moody, I duck away. So I don't say too much bad. I go to my prayer meetings. I do my sacred trust. I mean, come on, that's what I'm doing it. Beloved, the Lord has far more zeal for your heart than that standard. He doesn't want you just to avoid a few scandalous sins and do your sacred trust and kind of duck away and kind of hold your tongue when you're moody. He wants our mind, our eyes. He wants our time. He wants all of our time. That doesn't mean we don't have time for relaxation and recreation, but we're doing it consciously in relationship with him. We don't have God time and then non-God time. We don't have God money than non-God money. This is the money I give to God. This is the money I keep. The Lord says, no, no, that's, that's maybe the first week or two you're saved. You can operate under that, but no, you've been saved a whole year. No, all of your money is mine. All of it. Yeah. And your words are mine. And what you look at with your eyes is mine. You are mine because I am lovesick over you. So I'm talking about asking the Lord for insight on all these areas and then endeavoring to walk perfect in them, which means to we're endeavoring to obey. We come up short and the Lord gives us grace and we, he, uh, we push delete. We start new. We every day we, we, we, we sign up again and the Lord is delighted. He sees our failure. The failure does not trouble him. What troubles him is lack of interest to go after the light that he gives us on these areas. The failure does not trouble him. He can fix the failure. If we agree to go after the light, paragraph C going after this relationship with God is an expression of our love for him. I mean, it's just, it's just simply said, it says it in the Bible many times, the same thing, John 14, 21 to the person that has my commandments and actually does them. This is the person who loves me. Now, again, the doing of them begins with the setting our heart to obey them to the air, to the amount of light we have because the commands of God, we don't really do them in the absolute sense. We don't obey in the absolute sense to eternity. We obey in a relative sense in this age. We obey in the sense of which we have light. And so God gives us a little bit of light. We agree. We go after it hard. We don't actually, you know, attain to it. We come up short all the time, but the Lord is delighted with us. He loves that we're going after this and we get more and more victory over time. Then he increases the light. So then we have a greater sense of failure, but the failure doesn't trip us because we feel his pleasure while we're going after the light. So we're in a very safe environment in the grace of God to discover the darkness of our heart and to come up short because there's a tenacity in us to obey the light in every area. They remember there's not God time and the non-God time. There's not God money, non-God money, God words, the non-God words. We belong to him and he just goes way out there and says he belongs to us. I mean, he's the God of Abraham. Like what? Like Abraham, I just imagine this. He said, I'm the God of Abraham. He's talking to the children of Israel. Abraham's going, that touches me, Lord. Wow. You're a God that you're my God. Yeah. Yeah. I'm connected to you that way. And Abraham took that personal. Paragraph D, we only experience the full light or the brightness of the spirit. This, I don't have the exact term for it. You know, the prayer we pray all the time over the fire of the night is that the Lord would release bright righteousness. And so this word brightness in our spirit, a bright spirit. We only have a bright spirit. Catch this. It's very important. We only have it if we're going for a hundred percent obedience. If we're trying to be perfect, that's our heavenly father's perfect. In other words, walk in the light in the way he walks in the light that we, that we commit ourself to the virtue in the way that he commits himself to the virtue he knows. Now this is, uh, Matthew chapter six, verse 22, which is really similar to be perfect as your heavenly father. It's saying the same thing in a different way. So this could be the kind of the, uh, the, the, the number one verse as well. I mean, I think of Matthew five 48 as the central verse of the entire, it's what the entire sermon, the mount is about, but it says exactly the same thing in Matthew six 22. So you could really say this one as well. Here's what it says. The lamp of the body is the eye. Now that's, that's different. That's difficult language to work through. The lamp of the body is the eye. The eye is what shines light into your inner man. The way that light gets into your inner man is by the function of your eye. Now that this is a, this was a revolutionary concept. There's darkness in our inner man, but God wants to shine a lamp inside of your inner man and bring light to the inside. But the lamp, the source is the eye. This was revolutionary. There wasn't anybody who knew this principle before Jesus said it. Now he says, now it's the eye of the heart. So what he's talking about, he goes on to say, if the eye is good, I like how the King James says that if the eye is single and several translations use the word single, good and single are synonymous in this context. If the eye is good, if it's focused your body, instead of the word body, don't think of just the fleshly dimension of your body is talking about your personhood, your personhood, your inner man will be filled with light. If your eye is focused on a hundred fold obedience, beloved, I promise you this. I promise you this. If your eye is single, I want to obey you in words, time, money. What I look at. I mean, everything, the appetites. I really want obedience. The Lord, I'm so far short, but I'm going hard after area. I'm consciously thinking of you in every one of those areas. I assure you a new dimension of light will touch your spirit because the light enters the, the inner man through the eye, through the focus of the heart, because the eye is the focus of the heart. It's the Ephesians one that we pray out so often that the eyes of the heart, the eyes of the understanding, but he goes the other direction. Verse 23, if the eye is bad, the eye of the heart is not locked in to be perfect as the heavenly father's purpose. He goes, you will have depression and darkness in your inner man and just layers and layers of it. The body of Christ that I know in our nation is profoundly steeped in darkness. There is no way we cannot fool the Holy spirit. There's no way to beat the system. There's only one way we get a bright spirit. That's where they clear eye and a clear eye is synonymous with be perfect as your heavenly father's perfect endeavoring to walk in all of the light, all of the virtue that we understand. And we know we're going to come up short, but it's the endeavoring that the Lord is excited about. And if we set our mind, we endeavor to, we seek it that we are again, we're in a safety environment. We're in a safe context of grace and he will forgive us. And then he will reenergize us and we'll be recommissioned by the Lord to start that day in our war against that area. Beloved, I want my body. I want my personhood to be filled with brightness. Now I've known, I've known over the years, what it means to have seasons where my spirit was bright. It was, you know, I don't know the theological word. It was sparky. I know what it means to have that flash of God touch my spirit, just a whole lot. And I know what it means not to, and I always lose it on the issue of mostly on the issue of words, because the words will shut our heart down more than anything will, because words will affect our eyes. And when they all go together, we can't separate one verse the other. But whenever I feel that lack of that spark in my spirit, I have to go back to these issues in a certain amount of weight. Where am I negligent where I'm not actively trying to obey in when I repent of that, it's not long till the spark comes back in my spirit, or I feel his presence and I feel the power to love him. And it was strengthened my spirit. I love that feeling. We were made to experience light, to feel him and to give ourselves back to him. That's what light is. Top of page two, only paragraph E we, again, as always, we won't finish the notes tonight, but I like to always give them to you just to look at later. And maybe we'll look at more of them next week. Paragraph E, this is important that only that's the keyword only in a lifestyle that seeks full obedience, that seeks to be perfect, that seeks to be, have a single eye, you could call it be perfect or have a single eye. It's exactly the same idea. Only there can we know the brightness. Some people want the brightness imparted to them by laying on of hands. It can't be because the lamp of the body, the lamp of your personhood is not another person's hands. It's your, the eye of your heart. That's where the lamp is. Nobody can be the lamp to your inner man. Your eye is the eye of your heart is if it's clear, the light will be there. Again, a brand new believer. I've met brand new believers that I'm talking about in the first week or two or three, they had the joy of salvation. They had a bright countenance. They had an exhilarated spirit say, well, that's only because they were new. No, it's because they were fully obeying to the level that they knew. And the reason some months and years went by and they ceased to do it because they were no longer careful to obey all the areas that the spirit of God was touching in their life. They became familiar with God in the kingdom of God, and they got negligent. And then the darkness took place with the light, but you can get the light back really quick. You really can't. You don't get the light back by conquering all the areas. You get the light back by deciding to obey in all the areas. It's the decision to obey, not the conquering that brings the light. Because it's the light that gives us the power to actually, you know, to, to, to walk it out, to attain it. It's the decision. I want to challenge you. I'm telling you by the end of the week, there's a number of you that could have a brightness in your spirit and your walk with God. Literally by Friday, it comes that quickly. You're saying, Lord, I mean, everything, my words, my thought. I mean, I don't even know how to do this. Lord says, I know you don't know how to do it. I mean, I'll make a mess of this. I'll be kind of walking around. You know, you can see them, you know, this is the way I did it. And I can always tell when someone's doing it first, their zombie mode, they're afraid to look or talk or, you know, I'm going to obey and everything, you know, and they're just trying to making their way through the room and they don't want to look or, you know, they're, yes, I love you. I love you. I love you. You know, just that, that goes on for a couple of days, but they're trying, you know, the Lord's smiling. He says, I like their effort though. They'll sort it out. I did the zombie thing a few times. I understand it when I see it. Paragraph E in the middle, there are powerful dynamics in the human heart. Powerful. I don't know exactly how to say them, but I know it to be true. And these dynamics are this. When we decide to obey 98%, I mean, this is a fact. If you obey God, 98%, I mean, decide to obey God. Again, I'm not talking about how much you attain. I'm talking about what you decide. If you decide to obey God, 98% of your life, I assure you this, most of your spiritual experience is dull and depressed. There is not hardly any power at the 98% decision mark. The power is in the final 2%. That's an absolute fact. I mean, it's 35 years later. I want to assure you what I've just told you is true. 98% will keep you spiritually dull and spiritually depressed. It's the final 2% where the double grace is. That's now I'm just saying double grace. I don't really know that, but that's where the power is. The power is in the final 2%. I've said this for years. And I, I regularly have people who come and testify about this. They go, you know what? It's really right. I just had one of our main leaders that I hopped has come to me the other day and says, you know what? I've got a new resolve for the a hundred percent. I feel it already. I said, it's real. It's real. I feel it and I've lost it and I get it back and I lose it. And it's always about the final 2%. That's why most believers walk around mostly spiritually dull and spiritually lethargic. They love God. Loving God's not the issue, but their eye is not single. Their eye has not made a decision to obey perfectly in all of the areas of their life. Now, Jesus in paragraph F Matthew Hebrews one says he loved righteousness. He hated lawlessness. He's talking about in his humanity as a man. Well, he did as God as well as God, he loved righteousness, but we're talking about as a man on the earth, he loved righteousness. Now notice there's a cause effect. Therefore he had joy. The oil of gladness put the word joy in joy comes when we, when we set our heart to love righteousness, even though we don't fully love it yet. We set our heart. That's where it begins. Joy is there when we war against iniquity in every area of our life, come up short. We will many, many, many, many times every day we'll come up short. That's where grace comes in. And, but we get grace and we recommit ourself. And the Lord, the Lord so loves the, that movement of our heart to do this. He loves it. It really excites God's heart. It really does. And we feel it when we're living that way with him. Now, what happens is throughout the body of Christ is people get this, uh, very, very common thing in the body of Christ, perverting the doctrine of grace. The, the doctrine of grace is the number one doctrine perverted in the body of Christ. I've been talking about that on Friday. Most of you come, so you know what I'm talking about, but where the doctrine of grace is presented as making us feel more comfortable while we're careless about our sin, just feel better with God. We get doctor of grace. We get more friends, more money, and we feel comfortable while we're sending there's grace. Just kind of do what you want to do with your time, your money, your energy, because you're under grace. So grace is kind of presented as God's a Santa Claus up in the sky. Doesn't really care if we're close to him, relationally do what you want to do. You're not in trouble. Boys will be boys because of grace. It's a perversion of the understanding of grace. It's the main perversion in the body of Christ in our nation right now is the doctrine of grace. And what, what happens is that people in their human sentiment, they reduce the message of the kingdom of God to do what you want to do and get covered by grace. And in that they think they're liberating the people, but what they're doing, the people that believe them, they're condemning them to a powerless, dull experience in their, in their spiritual life. The people that believe that if you've told that to people and you've talked them into grace and the, in the modern popular way, which is a perversion you've actually, they bought into it. You've actually condemned them to a life of spiritual dullness and darkness. There is no power. If they don't go a hundred percent the other way, there isn't power in the inner man. God loves them and they can be saved, but they won't feel an exhilaration in their spirit. In this age, we cannot in human sentiment, get them off the hook by binding them to a powerless experience, which is most believers that I know across the nation. I know many, many believers across the nation over the years. We want to look at them and say, you know what? He's worth it. It's not just he's worth it. Your spirit will feel it go for broke, go all the way. And I tell you, you will liberate them. If you do not in this religious sentiment, lower the standards and present a gospel that really in truth is not the gospel at all to present a kingdom that is really not the kingdom of God. It's religious ideas with Jesus's name mentioned, but it's really not the kingdom of God. And it's got grace all the way through it. The fact that the person says grace does not mean it's grace at all. Paragraph Roman number three, the call to be complete in Christ. There are two complete different realities. This is huge point. This is so important theologically that you get this, the call to be complete in Christ. The scripture paragraph a presents two aspects of being completed Christ. The first aspect, and this is what almost everybody focuses on, and this needs to be focused on, but this isn't the whole of the idea of being completed Christ. It's only a part of it. It's critical, but it's only a part. The moment we're born again, we are instantly complete in Christ instantly as a gift in our legal position before God, we are instantly complete. It's our legal position. It's called justification. And we're complete in Christ because of Jesus's work on the cross. The second one, look at the second one. The second one is not instant. It's progressive. We are complete little by little over time. It's not talking about our legal position, how we stand before God in the court of God. It's talking about our living condition, what we actually experience in real life on the earth. It's not imputed righteousness. It's imparted righteousness is how some, uh, uh, people will use those theological terms. It's not imputed. It's imparted. It's righteousness that we're actually released in our character. Now, this is, we call this sanctification. Both of these truths are very, very important. Colossians two, right there at the PowerPoint, you are complete in him. Colossians two, it's talking about imparted. I mean, imputed righteousness is talking about justification is talking about the day you're born again. You are complete in the court of God, in your legal position, paragraph B. Now we're going to look at the other one because they're both. If you don't understand these two, you're going to be very confused by many, many of these passages because there's just a, a ton of Bible verses that exhort people who are already complete in the first sense, exhorting us to become complete. Now, how can I be complete if I'm already complete? Why is Paul exhorting me to be complete? I thought I was. And Paul would say, well, you are in your legal position, but you're not in your living condition. So a person who is complete legally still needs to become complete in their living position, in their living condition, their, their, their walk with the Lord on the earth. And the way we become complete is to become complete in obedience. It's complete in our response to God. Yes, there is an element where we are complete in our information, but beloved, the information is easy to get to people. And if there is true, a new believer or well, everybody, we need more complete information. So we're completed by gaining more revelation, unquestionably revelation, or you can put the word information with power. That's what revelation is information with power. We are made complete by receiving that more, but that's not the crux of it. The crux of it is our response to God is complete. That's the number one objective you have from the day you've been born again. It's not even your ministry. Your ministry flows out of this. You have X amount of years before you meet the Lord. You have one primary thing. The Lord wants to see in your race. Did you become complete in your response to the light? If you did, there's wonderful things. If you did not people are, many are still saved, but they suffer loss. Paragraph C. Now here's just a whole bunch of Bible verses. Now, those of you that don't have the notes again, you can get them on the way out or you get the, all this is on the internet right now. So you can go home and get these. If you want paragraph C says this, the scripture uses most of this is Paul, the apostle, most of it, the scripture uses different terms for the exact same concept. He says complete. Now he's talking about complete in our obedience, in our response to God. And again, the element of being complete revelation is there for sure. He's talking to believers to become complete. I thought I already was complete. Well, you are in your legal position. You're not in your living condition. Another word that Paul uses, so does Jesus is the word perfect, but it's the same thing. The next word is the word mature. Paul uses in Philippians three. It means the same thing to be mature means complete means perfect. It means you're going to say yes to the light that God's giving you blameless, worthy to stand, meaning not to fall, to stand in obedience, rather than drawing back in disobedience. That's what it means to stand, to stand in obedience. It's the exact idea of being complete in obedience. So any one of these words that you want to use conveys the same idea. It is a, a oft repeated exhortation. The goal of our life from the day we're born again is will we become complete in our obedience, in our responsiveness to God before we die and meet the Lord. And that's why we're on the earth to decide this. Our number one mandate on the earth is not mostly about our ministry. It's not mostly about our occupation. It's not mostly about our mate. It's not mostly about our money. All those things are important. The number one thing on your God's point of view is will you get in the race to become complete in the words of Jesus be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. Now, when a person is aiming at this lifestyle, the beatitudes, the eight beatitudes really make sense. You know, blessed are the poor in spirit. When we're trying to be perfect in our obedience, then we know what it means to be poor in spirit. We know what it means to mourn. If you're not aiming for perfect obedience or mature obedience or complete obedience to all the light you have, then this idea of mourning doesn't make sense. Like mourning over what at a funeral over a, my girlfriend broke up with me morning about what we're mourning because we're coming up short of complete obedience and it hurts our heart. It's real. And it produces meekness in us, which is the next bad attitude. Then it produces hunger, this resolve to go after hunger for what hunger to be complete in our obedience. The beatitudes do not make sense out of context to going after Matthew five 48. Now look at some of these verses that, that, that, that I have written here. Cause I, this is such a huge point and many believers, this is not a focal point in their life, kind of their ideas to have fun and be in the kingdom and see what happens when it comes. Beloved, you have a race to run and a lot of fun things will happen. A lot of hard things will both, but there's another point going on in your life besides even what your occupation, your ministry, where you're going to live, what you're going to do, what you're met. There's another huge point. Will you, or will you not get in the race to become complete? Will you bring consciously your eyes, your thoughts, your words, your time, your money under a conscious obedience to the Holy spirit? Will you endeavor to do that? Not attain it. Will you decide, will you go after it? And if you do, I guarantee you not a hundred percent of all day, every day, but mostly more times than not, you'll have a brightness in your spirit. You'll have a spark in your spirit. You'll feel God's presence a whole lot more. Now look at these verses. Paul says, we pray Kalash second Corinthians 13. We pray that you'd be made complete. You think, wait, I thought they already were complete. Why is Paul praying for believers to be complete? Aren't they already complete? Yes. And the first way, but not in the second way. He looked at the Corinthians. He goes, you're not complete in your understanding, nor in your responsiveness. And responsiveness is always the, the, uh, the major point. Look at the next one. Colossians four and the very book where he said, uh, Colossians two 10, you are completing Christ. Paul says the same thing in the same book of Colossians. He says, he, Paphras is laboring in prayer, always laboring for what's he laboring for so that the saints would become perfect and complete. What does that mean? Completed the will of God that we know we're supposed to buy, start a new church on the South part of town or the North part of town. He's not talking about geographical direction. He's not, do we buy the building or not buy the building in ministry? Do we start the business? That's not what he, Paphras is laboring earnestly in prayer. He's laboring. They would be complete in the will of God, in the responsiveness of full obedience, not in, uh, it's, it's good to have direction on those things, but that is really a secondary issue of what our life is about. I used to think the will of God was mostly about, do I come or do I go? Do I buy it or do I sell it? And the will of God has a dimension there, but that's a real secondary issue of what the will of God is our life. The will of God is that I would obey him in all these areas that we laid out. Look at Colossians one, same one in color. You know, the word complete is used in the book of Colossians over and over in both. It's used in both ways. Here's what Paul says. We preach Jesus warning every man. Now he's talking about warning believers. He's talking about believers here. He warns believers and he does more than warning. He teaches them. Why? Because Paul wants to present every one of them perfect. He means complete in their obedience. He says, I'm warning you because on the last day, we will be together in a certain way. On the last day, we stand before the Lord as individuals. And the last day we stand before the Lord, his families, his spiritual families. We really do. And even as generations and nations, there's many dimensions of how we answer to the Lord for our time in history. And Paul said, my number one reason for teaching you and warning you, he goes on to say in verse 29, I labor for this one thing to get you to buy into a lifestyle where you're complete in your obedience. And so I think of this verse often that I don't want to just be negative, but I want to, but the spiritual dullness in our nation is just unbelievable. Now that's all you've ever known and thought. It doesn't seem that that intense, but I assure you the dullness in the spirit of the church in America is, is, is, uh, tragic. How dull the church in America is the church in America is so far from this mindset. And we need to be warned. We really need to warn them and to teach them not only to warn them for one reason that they would be complete in their obedience before the Lord. So I'm going to ask you this verse 29 in your ministry, whether one-on-one or one-on-10 or whatever, whether it's friends or you're planning for singing, writing, intercession, preaching, whatever your future ministry is, is this the thing you're going to labor to make sure the people are complete in their obedience? Or are you going to, and I know the answer is no, you're not going to do this. Or are you going to buy into the perverted grace message to try to get numbers packing into a building so you can make them feel good while they're going nowhere but into darkness. We want to warn them. We want to, we want to, we want to labor so they can, are awakened in their understanding. So they're convinced of the winsomeness of righteousness. Righteousness is winsome. It's beautiful. It makes our spirit alive on the inside. Beloved, this other religious sentimental thing of giving the easy way to people, it condemns them to a spiritually boring and lethargic and dark experience. And I just know so many believers that are stuck in that and they claim, boy, they wave the grace flag and I go, there's so much grace is 20 years later. Why are you still so stuck in darkness? Because it's not grace. Look at the next verse, James one, the testing of your faith produces patience. Now the word patience means endurance. The other word you should put there is the word perseverance. The patience is not impatience in a conversation with a friend or impatience in traffic. And that's, it's not talking about that. Here's the traffic. Hurry up. You guys, it's not talking about impatience at that level. It's talking about perseverance in your spirit. We're talking about a supernatural resolve to say yes to God. That's what patience is. Verse 14, let the patience have its perfect work. And again, you've got to read patience the right way, or you're going to think this is just being, you know, just nice in relationships, which certainly it has an application there, but that's not the main thing he's talking about. Because here's what patience will do. It will cause you to be perfect and complete in your obedience where you lack nothing in your response to God. If patience is worked into your spirit, you won't lack anything in your response to God. Is that fantastic? Or is that fantastic? I want patience. Oh no. The testing of your faith trials is what brings patience imparts it to us. The spirit of God will impart patience or again, it's steadfastness. It's perseverance is what he's talking about. Okay. Let's go to the top of page three. I'm going to have the worship team come up now. If you would, I just wanted you to see it. I got to the AB attitudes. I just wanted to be able to technically say we got to them. That's it. Okay. Let's stand.