Rabbi Schneider - God's Supernatural Peace
All of us that love God, all of us that have been drawn to the Father through the Son and by the Spirit, we have a hunger to experience the Father's presence and Yeshua's presence in our life by the Holy Spirit. You know David said, "As the deer panteth after the water, so my soul panteth after thee oh God". God's presence is so beautiful, so satisfying, so beyond anything that this world has to offer. Those of us that have been touched by His presence, we're just so hungry to be touched again in a profound and in a powerful way.
I know in my life there are certain times that God has made His glory so manifest in my heart, that even though some of those times were five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago and longer, I still remember those times. And some of those times lasted like one second, but they were so impactful, so powerful that I never forget them and I yearn for the Father's next touch. In this series, God's Supernatural Presence, we're talking about how we can enter in to a more consistent walk in which we're experiencing His presence in our every day lives.
Now let me stop and say this, we want to experience His presence, but we need to realize beyond our desire and beyond the importance of you and I experiencing God's presence, there is something even more profound and more important. And that is beloved, that we exist, get this now, for God's glory. In other words, when we think about experiencing God's presence we want to experience God's presence that's an awesome, beautiful thing that we should all desire. But that's about what we want. We want to experience God's presence. But there has to be something in us that recognizes and prioritizes that there's something greater and that is God's glory.
You know when Jesus came to earth His purpose was, listen now, to bring glory to the Father. And God's ultimate purpose in everything that He does is to glorify Himself. In fact Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians that we've been saved to the praise, listen now, of His glorious grace. When we look into heaven we see the divine beings worshiping Him day and night. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. We need to understand that the Gospel that was once and for all delivered to the saints was first and foremost about the glory of God. Not us first, not our desires first, not our needs first. These are all important, but what is most important, listen beloved ones, is God's own glory.
And the reason that I'm sharing this with you in this first session, this first episode of Experiencing the Supernatural Presence of God Season 2, is because if we're gonna walk in greater fellowship and a greater experience of His presence we need to recognize that we're here, listen now, first of all not to feel Him, listen, but to glorify Him. Well with that being said I just wanted to lay that ground straight, because God's Gospel is God centered, not man centered first. That being said, I want to pick up now where I left off last season. You see God is sovereign and He manifest Himself to us, listen now, when He wants to. The glory of God that I've just been talking about, what that actually means is when God, listen now, makes Himself manifest.
In other words, when we look into the heavens, the heavens declare the glory of God. Why do the heavens declare the glory of God? Because when we look into the heavens we can see God's glory. In other words, we see the infinite of space. When we look at the earth we see the beautiful mountains, the beautiful rainbows, the beautiful rivers, God's beautiful pine trees in creation. It declares His glory, once again, because it is His presence being made visible or being made manifest. And so when we talk about feeling God's supernatural presence what we're actually talking about is experiencing His glory, it's He's making Himself felt to us. He's making Himself known to us. And there's an element of this that is a mystery in the sense that God chooses to glorify Himself and manifest Himself to us when He wants to. Yet on the other hand there's a role that you and I play to enter in to a deeper, consistent walk in which we'll experience His supernatural presence, His supernatural glory.
This is why the Lord said, "Draw near to me and I will draw near to you". This is why Jesus said, "If you love me and obey me I'm gonna disclose myself to you. I'm gonna make myself known to you and my Father and I will dwell with you", in John fourteen. So even though God's glory is mysterious in the sense that He's sovereign and He manifest His glory to us, His beauty and His value and how precious and awesome He is. He manifest Himself to us when He wants to. On the other hand when we choose to love Him, draw near, obey Him, put Him first, then that causes Him, or draws Him, or inspires Him to manifest Himself to us so that we experience His glory on a more consistent basis.
Now last season I talked about some practical things that you and I could do to posture ourselves in a place where God will manifest Himself to us more regularly and we'll have a more consistent relationship with Him, experiencing His presence in a more regular way. Number one I said, we need to come out of the world. The scriptures tell us, "Come out of the world sayeth the Lord, draw near to me and I will receive you to myself". If we're feasting on the things of the world, if we're valuing the things of the world, seeking after the things of the world more than God, we're just not gonna be experiencing His presence on a consistent basis. God is loving. He's merciful. He manifest Himself to sinners. But if we're gonna walk in a consistent realm of experiencing His presence beloved ones, we have got to come out of the world. We have got to make a decision to love Him more than the things of the world. It's a denying of the flesh.
Jesus said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God". We have to value Him above all else, more than our finances, more than relationships with human beings. Let me give you an example. So many times, I pastor a congregation, I run into women that begin to attend the congregation. They're single women. They want to be married. They love God. They're pursuing God. They're passionate about God. And then all of a sudden some guy comes into their life. And too often times what happens is I see these women that love Jesus, but when a man came into their life they completely got off course and fell away. You see the problem was they love the things of the world more than they love God and that beloved ones won't cut it. Whether it's material things, whether it's your job, whether it's your family, Jesus actually said, "Unless a man hates his own father, mother and even his own life he can not be my disciple".
We have to value God above all else. Let me say that again. If we're gonna experience God's supernatural presence in a consistent way we have to value Him. We have to place value on knowing and experiencing Him above all else. The Apostle Paul began to brag about his previous life before he met Yeshua. He said he was a Hebrew of Hebrews, from the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised the eighth day, educated under the leading sage of his day, Gamaliel. But he said, "All those things I count as rubbish for the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, Yeshua Hamashiach my Lord". He forsook all that he had in the world, the power, the position that he had as a leading rabbi, or sage, or pharisee of his day. He forsook all that, that he would know Jesus and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings.
So I want to say to you, you may be saying, "I want to feel Your presence in my life God". But if you want to feel beloved, His presence in your life consistently you gotta maybe make some hard decisions. Maybe there's some things in your life that you're involved in that are not of God. You need to cut those things off, come out of the world to follow Him and then you'll be in a posture where He can drop His glory upon His life in a brand new way. So we taught number one, about coming out of the world. Then secondly last season I spoke about the concept of stopping from running. You see ever since Adam and Eve fell in the garden mankind has been running.
You may remember, I'm gonna get back to this some time later in the series to talk about it from a different dimension, but when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil immediately what they did was they realized they were naked. And they began to run. They began to run from God. They were actually running from themselves as well. They were trying to escape a feeling inside of not being right. They were trying to escape this feeling of anxiety and a fear. See the Bible says that right after Adam and Eve ate, listen, it says, "Suddenly just like that they realized they were naked".
Now they were naked before they ate of the tree, but it didn't bother them. They weren't conscious of their nakedness, but once they ate of the tree suddenly they felt exposed, suddenly they felt they had to cover themselves. In other words they became deeply anxious, deeply insecure, deeply self conscious, deeply aware that something wasn't right and they tried to run from that feeling, but the problem was they couldn't get away from it, because wherever they ran there they were. The problem is that you and I are doing the same thing today even though we may not recognize it. We're trying to get away from this feeling of uneasiness, this insecurity, this anxiety, this feeling of fear that something isn't right. You might not even be aware of it, but this is the plight of all humankind until they're reconciled with God and made whole in Him.
And we try to run from this feeling by maybe trying to get away from it in our jobs, where some people are workaholics. Why do they always have to be working? Cause they're not comfortable just doing nothing and being alone. They're running, trying to escape the feeling once again that something isn't comfortable within themselves. Some are running to drugs, to alcohol, to relationship, to gossiping, to materialism, they're trying to escape who they are. We have to stop running from who we are and turn and face God if we're gonna be made whole and experience God's supernatural presence in our life. And beloved this is hard work and it takes discipline. We want to do in order to escape just being, because we're not comfortable with who we are ever since the fall. But God sent His Son beloved ones, to heal us, to restore us and to make us whole.
So I taught last time about how important it is to practice the art of just being still before the Lord. You know the Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God". The Lord said in Isaiah, "In quietness and silence you will find strength". We need to just have a discipline in our life of just sitting before the Lord.
I remember a dream that I had sometime back, I might of even shared it on the last broadcast, where the Lord showed me I was sitting at a table across from a man in a very simple room. There was a window that I could see outside and I wanted to leave the room, because I was getting tired of just sitting there. I recognized in the dream that I'd been sitting across from this man a long time. And then as I thought about getting up and running the Holly Spirit spoke to me and said, "No, that man that you're sitting across from, that's Jesus". I couldn't see His face. I just recognized that He was a familiar friend.
And the Lord said to me, "Just keep sitting across from Him. Don't try to escape, because you want to go do something. Just keep being still sitting across from Him and I'm gonna make you completely whole". Beloved, you and I need to take time every day just to be still and sit before the Lord. We need beloved ones, to stop running. And I want to pick up today with a brand new dimension, adding on to this. We've talked about coming out of the world. We've talked about being still before the Lord. We've talked about not running.
And I want to add another dimension to this. I want to talk now about receiving God's peace. Sometimes we don't recognize how closely related to the Spirit of the Lord peace is. I mean we all want peace. We all know peace is a good thing, but did you know that the Bible says, "That the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet"? Why does the scripture tell us that it's the God of peace that will crush Satan under your feet? Because peace is the essence of the Holy Spirit. Remember Jesus breathed on His disciples and when He breathed on them He said, "My peace I leave or give to you".
I want to read now for you the Gospel of John 14:27, and then I'm gonna go to John 20:21-22. I want you to get how important peace is to experiencing the supernatural presence of God. Hear the word of God. Jesus said, Yeshua said, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful". So Yeshua's speaking about a supernatural peace that He's leaving with us. He talked about this peace being the remedy for fear. He said, "I'm gonna give you peace". And then He said, "Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid". Which tells you and I that we have to keep fear and anxiety out and we have to receive the peace that Yeshua has breathed upon us that He left us.
Let's continue this same theme. I'm going now to the Gospel of John chapter twenty verse twenty one and twenty two. Hear the word of God. "So Jesus said to them again, 'Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you'. And when He had said this", get this now, "He breathed on them and He said, 'Receive the Ruach Hakodesh'. Receive the Holy Spirit". I think that's phenomenal that Jesus said, "Peace unto you". And then He said, "Receive the Holy Spirit". So as He released His spirit, what He was releasing was peace. Peace beloved, is the foundation of having authority. Unless we're in peace we have no power. Love is rooted in peace. Peace is rooted in love.
And so it's important to begin to develop discernment so we can stop spirits that would cause us to be anxious, so that we could stop spirits that cause us to run, so that we could keep spirits that would take away peace from our heart and mind. We keep them out. We shut the doors to those spirits, because we recognize that God's spirit is a spirit of peace and unless we're abiding in peace and receiving God's peace we're not gonna be able to beloved consistently experience His presence, because His presence is a presence of peace. Jesus said, "My peace I give to you". Then He breathed on them and He said, "Receive the Ruach Hakodesh". And so if we want to receive the Ruach Hakodesh we have to beloved ones, receive peace. So I want to pray with you right now that God will strengthen us and establish us in His peace.
Father God in Yeshua's name we can talk about these things, but we know to receive these things is supernatural. We think Jesus about Peter and how You said to Him, "Who do you say that I am"? And when he answered back to You and said, "You're the Messiah", You said to Him, "Blessed art though Simon son of John for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven". And so Father God we come and ask You right now to sovereignly and supernaturally strengthen us and bless us with peace, with the very peace of the sar shalom, the peace of Jesus the Messiah. We ask You to strengthen us by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead in our inner man. Strengthen our soul, gird our mind Father I pray, in peace. Father in Jesus name breathe on us a fresh once again, with the same word that spoke over those first apostles, "Receive the Holy Spirit My peace I give to you".