← Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Dufresne Ministries Podcast
The Greater Knowledge Of God, Part One | Morgan Dufresne | World Harvest Church | Murrieta, CA
00:39:44
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message. If you would go ahead and turn with me to. I want to start with Hosea, because I want us to look at a passage. God has been speaking to me while I've been up here. And if you'll go to Hosea, Chapter four. I'm so grateful for God's Word. It's an answer in every situation in life. You. You never have to. If I. You remember what I had said last week or a couple weeks ago, that every situation you're facing, there is already an answer for. You have to reach out by faith sometimes just for the answer. And oftentimes we are wanting to reach out by faith for the result when we need to be reaching out for an answer, because we only see a known part. And if we'll pursue knowledge, if we'll keep seeking, if we'll keep knocking, we will find we will have doors open to us. And I want to talk about that this morning because oftentimes we can be so focused and actually get into worry and fear because we haven't seen the manifestation of what we're believing for. But if you'll keep searching and seeking after knowledge and revelation, what happens is, is the manifestation will come into your life, will come to pass without you making any effort. And so when we act outside of the knowledge of the Word of God, it's when we're trying to make things happen, but when we stay in the knowledge of God's word, when we are seeking after what he knows. What he knows and what he sees is not based on the natural. I cannot emphasize that to you enough. What he sees and what he's operating by, what he's working by is not based on what you and I see. It's only based by what is going on. In the supernatural realm. There is two realms. When you get born again and you come into the family of God, you get born again, your spirit man is recreated. You come into a family that is not only here on this earth, but is also in the unseen realm. That family is in heaven. God, he is a being that you may never see physically with your own eyes while you're here in this earth. But I tell you what, he's more real than the Bible that's in front of you. He's more real than your couch, than your table. All of this will be gone one day. All of this that we're in, all of this that we see with our natural if you think about it, the natural body dies. And so where do we go? What happens to us when you die? Your spirit man has only two places to go. The real you on the inside. You're either going to heaven or you're going to hell. Hell is a very real place. We don't use it to scare people. But we, we need to teach the reality that there is two places that, that we will end up. People will end up. One is hell and one is heaven. And thank God. Aren't you thrilled? You know where you're going? If you're watching this morning and you say, I don't know where I'm going. I don't know if I've ever received Jesus as my, my Savior. I don't know if I've ever asked him to be my Lord and, and walked into the family of God. Come into the family of God, then you can have that assurance right now. You can reach out and say, God, I believe you sent your son to die and pay the price for my sins. I believe that your son died for me, that he was raised again and I receive him. I receive you as my father and I join the family of God today. Once that happens, that spirit man you can't see is recreated, brand new, is washed. The blood washes you completely clean. All that sin, the weight of that sin, the weight of your past, the weight of, of the mistakes that you made is completely washed away. Not just covered, but washed away. You are brand new. And that brand new being is able, if we could put it this way, to contact and to have full fellowship with the unseen realm. And it's nothing weird, it's nothing to be scared of, it's nothing to be unusual. But we must understand we're spirit beings. And if we're not connecting to the unseen realm, if we're not learning how to draw on what is in that other realm, or we're going to struggle in this life, we're going to only be able to live by this natural realm. And I don't want to live according to, according to what I see, according to what I hear coming from the outside. I want to live and move and operate according to what God sees. He is looking at your situation from heaven's seat. And, and I'm here to tell you this morning, you can also look at your situation from heaven seat. You can see every need the way God sees your need. You can see that need and answer that need and address what you don't know based on the word of God. And that will Put you right over into God's realm of operating. So we see here in Hosea, chapter. I want us to look here in chapter four and verse six. It reads, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge because you, the priestly nation, have rejected knowledge. I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me, seeing you have forgotten the law of your God. I will also forget your children. Now what we must understand is Israel here had been so immoral, living so out of line. They had built idols. They were living out of line with the. The covenant that they had with God. They were living, we could say, according to their flesh, they were worshiping idols. They. There was perversion going on. And God was so discouraged and so disappointed, we could say, not discouraged, disappointed in them. And he basically said, I'm done. He, he, the. He asked Judah, he if you go on and you look, he asked Judy said, please, Judah, do not go that direction. But if you, you look here in this passage, you can read all the things that they were doing. Burning incense, that that was to worship other gods. Their sons and their daughters were living in perversion. And God was upset. These people, he had made a covenant. He had promised them the. That he would take care of them, he would prosper them. They were to be healed. He was their healer, Jehovah Rapha. He was going to be everything to them. And yet instead of reaching out for everything that he is to them and everything he had promised, they were reaching out in this natural realm for what they wanted. What felt good, what feels good to the senses and to the body will never feel good to the inward man. And you understand what I mean? Whatever is going to satisfy and bring relief to you in coming from pressure from the outside, whatever you think is going to be and bring relief to your flesh oftentimes will only bring hardship, discouragement and frustration to that real you on the inside. Only when we walk and live in line with God's word, with the knowledge of God's word, can we truly be happy, can we truly be satisfied? So they had decided that they were, it says in verse 10, because they had forsaken the Lord for harlotry. They had decided to walk away from God. And God said that all of this in verse 6. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. He didn't say that my people are destroyed because they're so carnal. My people are destroyed because they only want to live by the flesh. He said, they're destroyed for lack of knowledge. Why is it that we see maybe young people Going the wrong direction. Maybe they. They marry wrong. Why is it we. We see couples struggling in their marriage, Their marriage doesn't look like what God has authored. Why is it that we see people struggling financially in any arena of your life that doesn't have the word of God flowing to it, it doesn't have knowledge. Why is it that any area of our life would look like it's being destroyed? And that is because of a lack of knowledge. So this morning, I want us to start a series on knowledge. How do we gain knowledge? And not only that, what is the importance of knowledge we can have? Knowledge is not just in a moment. Knowledge is for a lifetime. Meaning you can gain knowledge this month, but next month because of the Word of God being alive. It's living, it's powerful, It's a living. This word is not a dead book. It's an alive book. There's Revelation, it's in. We're going to get into that this morning. But because the Word of God is alive, we must continually feed on it. We know that the Word of God, the scriptures talk about that. In fact, turn with me real quick before we go any further. Go to Romans. I think it's only fitting that we look at this passage if we're on this subject. Romans, chapter 12. You know, when we feed on natural food, if it's real food, it only lasts a certain amount of time. Man has altered food. They've added preservatives, artificial things. There was one time we came here and nobody had been here for to the, to the barn, to the ranch for about six months. And there was bread in the pantry, and it wasn't good bread. It was full of preservatives. It was about six months old when you looked at the date, and there was absolutely no mold on it. Nothing was wrong with it. Why? Because man had taken and altered that to last. Man cannot alter the word of God. And I'm not saying that the word of God will go rotten, but it's just like fruit. It's just like food. When we take it in, we have to keep consuming it. We have to keep taking it in. What you fed on yesterday's manna is not going to last you even through the end of the week. Now, once you get Revelation, you, you, you must still keep feeding on that revelation. It's alive. So we want to keep feeding. And taking in it doesn't mean you have to get something new. It just means that what has come alive to you, keep feeding on that, keep taking it in. Don't Take it and think that you can read a scripture and get revelation from it and never return to it. The word of God is so good, we can return over and over, morning, noon and night. We can go back to God's word and there's still still more life, there's still more. You can feast on God's word every, every moment of every day and you will never exhaust the life and the nutrients and the richness that it will provide for, for you and for your family. Look here, Romans chapter 12. And it says verse 2. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. I always, I actually think about when I, when I read the scripture, I always go back to, and I think about Joshua when God wanted to bring the children of Israel after 45 years, bring them into the promised land. And God said to Joshua in Joshua chapter one, meditate day and night, stay in my word that you may make your way prosperous and have good success. Be not conformed to this world. That nation had been conformed to one way of thinking for 45 years. And really that the them conforming had started back when they were still in Egypt. And so when I think about not being conformed and what it can do for you, I think, think about Joshua, I think about Caleb. Two men who wouldn't conform, they renewed their mind. Then they came into the promised land, took mountains, took over cities, knew how to, because their mind was renewed, knew how to lift their hands, worship God in the face of adversity and let God fight for them. And so when we are saying, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God. We know this God's perfect will. They were able to bring that to pass in an entire nation, for an entire nation because they renewed their mind. God's word, even under the Old Testament, is just as powerful as it is under the New Testament. And so we can feed on God's word. So when we don't, we don't want to be conformed. We don't want to look at our situation according to how the world would define it. The Holy Ghost said to me this week, a carnal mind, and, and this is where we want to start this week. There's so many things I, I want to get into. Uh, but we'll start here. Carnal mind looks to feelings, but a renewed mind clings to knowledge. A carnal mind is going to cling to feelings. And so this morning I want us to talk about the difference between feelings and knowledge. A carnal mind looks to feelings, but a renewed mind clings to knowledge. This life is never going to come up short with feelings, emotions. Every opportunity you're going to have to have a feeling, an opinion about something that you're facing, something somebody said, something that you're going through. But a carnal mind looks to feelings. Now, what does it say here in, In Romans chapter 12, be not conformed to this world. We could say, be not conformed to carnal thinking. Be not conformed. This world is only ever going to offer you carnal thoughts. Carnal thoughts are not just perverted thoughts. Carnage. Carnal thoughts are not just natural thoughts. Carnal thoughts are any thought that exalts itself against the plan of God, the will of God, the goodness of God. Do not be conformed to any thought that is contrary to the goodness of God. Any thought that you have, that you wake up with, that you go to work with, that you have when you go to bed at night, that is contrary to God's love and goodness is a carnal thought. And that thought didn't come from in here. That thought came from here. It came from out here. It came from situations. And our job as believers, remember we talked about the two realms. And part of the responsibility, even of those in the body of Christ, those in five fold ministry, is to help people, to help not just ourselves, but to help others. Understand that you don't have to live by this natural world. There is a whole nother realm of the Spirit that God sees and operates in. And in that other realm, victory has already been provided. Victory has already manifests in that other realm. Victory. Because as we were talking about earlier, Heaven is in that spirit realm, but hell's in that spirit realm. What happened in hell over 2000 years ago? Total defeat. The light of God shined, shone down into heaven, if that's proper English, went down into heaven, pulled out our Savior, rescued him as a symbol of us being rescued no more living dictated by the thoughts and what the devil brings and what our body says and what our finances say. We're no longer controlled and living by the realm of darkness. We've been translated into the kingdom of the Son of God. And so hell knows what victory means. Hell recognizes. Hell has seen what victory looks like. If you would only get that revelation, if we can walk in that every day, that everything that opposes me has already seen victory What? What, what? What opposes us didn't get victory, but what opposes us has been defeated by. By victory. So when I'm facing a need, when I'm facing a situation, if I remind myself instead of going by what it's. What feeling it's trying to generate from my thought life from the outside. But I have got to get into the knowledge of God's word of what victory actually looks like. Like what victory has already been manifest. Knowing. Listen to this. Knowing comes before believing. Many times we are trying to believe without having gotten in the word to know some things, we have got to take time to know what God knows, to see what God sees. It's going to take knowing to live according to that spirit realm, according to what God has already done. When you struggle with believing, it's because there's no knowing. If you say, this morning I'm struggling, I know that I'm not living at the level. And my feelings, you know, it can be as simple as maybe a relationship. I was meditating on some things this week regarding even offense in our lives. You know, getting offended is just a lack of knowledge. There is, in fact, I even wrote some things down regarding this that the Holy Ghost was talking to me about. And when people have a lack of knowledge of God in his word. Well, let me say it this way. Offense is wrong thinking, energized by wrong feelings. So if there's a temptation for offense in your life, maybe it's being offended with your spouse, maybe it's being offended with those that you work with, those. What about being offended with folks in the body of Christ? Offense is wrong thinking, energized by feelings. And if we can deal with offense and recognize that when we get offended, we're tempted to get offended, that we can deal with our thinking. Yes, it's energized by a spirit. The devil would love to feed you the sour fruit of offense he wants you to take and have the bitterness in your heart towards others. But I'm here to tell you, if you can deal with the wrong thinking, get into the knowledge of God's word. If you understand how much God loves you, it'll be very easy to walk in love with others. So we can see when we get offended. Oftentimes it's a lack of knowledge. And I've talked to the Bible school students about this many times. We want to go off. We think and we, we. And this is right. And I want to clarify what I'm about to say. We think. Well, I just need to go pray in the Spirit, because, you know, I, I'm not yielding to the Holy Ghost. And oftentimes we think we're going to go pray in the Spirit because you're tempted to get offended, we're tempted to get upset with somebody, we're tempted to say something we shouldn't say. And so we think we're going to go pray in the Holy Ghost because we need to get full of the Spirit. Well, sometimes you can pray in the Spirit and still be thinking every thought because your mind is not renewed to the knowledge of God regarding what you're facing. And so I've told the Bible school students, sometimes you need to go get in God's word, get into the knowledge of God's word and deal with those wrong thoughts, those accusational thoughts. Don't just cause come to us. If you can take an accusational thought towards somebody else, you'll take an accusational thought towards yourself. And so we have to be careful what we, how we respond towards others and how we act towards others oftentimes is either how we've been acting towards ourselves, how we've been thinking towards ourselves. And so it comes. That's when the Holy Ghost said, offense is wrong thinking. And it's just energized by wrong feelings. And so you think I'm. This is a very real feeling. They hurt my feelings. They what they said. And we live in an offended world. You can turn on the news and see that offense. And if you're not careful, you watch too much, you'll start creating an atmosphere of offense because your thinking comes in line with other people's wrong thinking. And so we, we need to stop energizing that those feelings we need to set aside. If we get our thinking right. Feelings have nothing to energize. I'll say that again. If we get our thinking right, wrong feelings and wrong emotions have nothing to energize. So if I'm tempted to get offended with somebody or if I'm tempted to be discouraged about what's going on in my life and this situation I'm in, maybe what's going on in my finances, what's going on in my body, my maybe symptoms are trying to come on your body. And you know that the word of God says, by his stripes I am healed. And you know that God said, I am your provider. That Jesus became poor so that we might be made rich, meaning rich in all things, in God, financially taken care of, financially supplied, rich in love, rich in God's mercy, rich in relationships. If you understand and you know These things. But you have to continue to walk in the knowledge of that. Hearing it once is not knowledge. We know this, that our kids, in order to have knowledge, what do we do? We keep sending them back to school. They go over the same fundamental, the same foundational things. As believers, we are called to forever be students of God's word. We are sheep and he is our shepherd. We don't ever become. Even as a pastor, I am still an under shepherd, still being led and guided by the Great Shepherd. What are sheep? Sheep are not. It doesn't. That's not a diminishing term. That just means that we're led and provided for, our great deliverer, that we are not looking to ourselves. Sheep don't look to themselves to feed themselves, to take care of themselves. They look to the shepherd. This morning, you can rest assured, and you can have the good news. You don't have to take care of yourself. You don't have to heal yourself. You don't have to provide for yourself. You don't have to restore anything for yourself. The Great shepherd wants to do that. But how do we access all that he's provided? That's through knowledge. When it said over in Hosea, my people perish for lack of. Of knowledge. They were stepping outside God's provision, God's goodness. He had to take his blessing, his hand off of them for that moment. He said, look, I can't help them anymore because they have no knowledge. All that carnality, all of that going in the wrong direction, worshiping, idolatry, hollow tree, perversion, all of that came from a lack of knowledge. Why is it that we walk away from and we find ourselves struggling, worried, anxious, fearful. What have we done? We've stepped away. We're magnifying the situation more than we're magnifying God. We're magnifying what we don't have. When you worry, you're simply magnifying what you don't have over the one that you do have. When we have learned to successfully, according to God's Word, cast all of our cares over on him, is because we have full knowledge of the One who cares for us. So when we're looking at God's word here, I want us actually go with me to James, turn with me if you would, and we. I won't keep us too much longer because again, I. This is starting a new series for us and so I want to make sure that we're. I'm just doing somewhat of an introduction this morning and I have so many directions. We could go. But. Listen. True discipline is keeping your knowing ahead of your feelings. True discipline. And if you and I said it in and dedicate in our hearts, we want to live as the Scripture says, as good soldiers, the body of Christ disciplined unto God. One of the lies of the enemy is that he tries to convince, especially young people, that if you go God's way, if you go the direction of God's word and God's plan for your life, that you'll forever be in bondage and you'll never have your own choices and you'll never be free. When it's quite the opposite. It's the word of God and His plan that sets you free, that brings you into the freedom of all of the perfect will of God. There's so much freedom in the plan of God because to live according to your own plans, as the children of Israel were doing, they were going their own way. It didn't pay off for them. It didn't pay out. God's word always pays so richly in our lives. And so look here in James, chapter one, in verse six. Actually look at verse four. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have play and do a thorough work so that you may be a people perfectly, perfectly and fully developed, with no deficit defects, lacking nothing that's possible. Don't think that you have to live with every flaw, with every failure. I said this a couple weeks ago. The Holy Ghost was encouraging us that no matter what your past looks like, your future in God is always greater than your past. Always. And so, verse five. If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God who gives to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or fault finding. And it will be given him. Only it must be in faith that he asks with no wavering, no hesitating, no doubting. For the one who wavers, hesitates, doubts is like a billowing surge out at the sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. For truly, let no such person imagine that he will receive anything he asks for from God. For being as he is, a man of two minds, hesitating, dubious, irresolute, he is unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything. Listen to this. Everything he thinks, feels and decides for being as he is, a man of two minds, hesitating, dubious, irresolute, he is unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything he thinks, feels and decides. And this is what we want to get to in this series about knowledge. It starts off but if you're deficient in wisdom, let him ask, what is wisdom? It's knowledge of God. And you will be. If we don't walk in God's knowledge, we will be unsure in everything we think, everything we feel, every decision that we make. We are called to be believers whose lives are built on the word of God. You can know God today. I don't care what you've been through, what you face. You can know him. You can know who he is by picking up the. The Word, picking up the scripture. Knowing God is not seeing him. It's not feeling him. Knowing God is by reading his Word. And I. I want to give this example. As I was sitting this morning watching, I didn't get to watch the sun come up. It just got a little bit brighter. And we watched the. All the clouds, the low clouds, the snow clouds rolling in. And God said to me, the Spirit of God said to me, he said, what happens when. When these clouds are rolling in? Well, as a result of that, what that's coming from is there's a pressure change. And there's been lots of fires here, here in California. And they were saying that just the change in pressure, in barometric pressure is creating a different weather pattern, and that's bringing in snow. The weather pattern that we have had has been warmer, windy. The sun has been out. There's been absolutely no clouds in the sky. So when there was a change in pressure, we saw a change in the weather. We saw a change in what began to come out of the sky. What, what we could see. Listen, this morning when I got up, normally we can see completely into the distance. We can see. See the mountain ranges, the. The Continental Divide. We can see across for miles and miles. It's so beautiful to be able to get up in the morning and watch the sun rise over the grand peaks of the. Of the Rocky Mountains. But when the pressure changed, what it brought was clouds. We could only see so far. And what began to come out of the sky was, first rain, and now it's snowing. I can see outside right now it's snowing. And this is what really this scripture is talking about. When pressure comes, when there's a change in pressure on your life, be it physical, financial, relationship, any kind of pressure comes. Don't be tossed to and fro by the winds, by what that pressure is going to do, what it's going to shift, shift, what it's going to change. We are to be faith people. Faith people only rest on the knowledge and the wisdom of God's Word. This word is unfailing. It is divine wisdom written down by men of God. It is God speaking to us. If you say, well, I don't hear from God. You can read from God. You don't have to hear with your audible with ears. Out here, you can hear with the ears and the eyes and see with the eyes of your spirit. And so when the pressure began to change, we saw weather change and it changed how far we can see. We are not to live is what this is saying. According to weather patterns. We're not to be tossed to and fro because when pressure changes, when pressure comes on us, what happens? We start seeing ourselves differently. We start seeing, one minute we believe God was our provider, and then pressure showed up and we began to doubt it. We begin to be thrilled with all the things we can do with our body. And the moment symptoms come because of pressure, we begin to doubt and be tossed to and fro and it limits what you can see. But I tell you what, pressure may come. And we're not here, as we said a couple Tuesday nights ago, we're not here to get rid of pressure. We're here to stay stuck, steadfast, have patience and endurance and let those have a full work in us, according to James, so that we are people fully developed and lacking nothing. That means that pressure can come at any time, in any season and in any moment, and we will not be moved, we will be steadfast. We will be stable. What does knowledge do? Knowledge keeps you stable because when circumstances change, when symptoms arise, when finances change, when relationships change, when the economy changes, when the news changes, my goodness, if anything's changing these days, it's the news. When the news changes, we don't change because God doesn't change. I need to know him so that I can be more like him and he doesn't change. We want to be people that when the pressure changes, when the pressure goes from low to high, we are so stable and we can be people that still see clearly. Our answer, we still see clearly according to the wisdom of God, the word of God. This is what true discipline, Christian discipline is. True Christian discipline is not getting up and just praying an hour a day. Why do we pray is because we want to know God and fellowship with the God of all knowledge. True discipline is not reading the entire Bible in one year. People look at it and go, well, I haven't read the entire Bible. That's not discipline. Discipline is gaining knowledge of who God is through his Word and then living by it, acting by it, not Being moved by anything else other than what the word of God says. So if the word of God says, fear not. If the word of God says, cast my cares, if the word of God says that he is got a rich harvest for me according to the seed that I've sown, then I can rest in that knowledge. I know him according to his word. One of the things God said, and we'll close with this, to me this week, is many of man's plans need motivation to fulfill it. But God's plan only needs revelation. So wherever you're at, right, right now, today, wherever you're at, if you say, I know that I'm in the plan of God, or you say, you know, I don't know if I'm in God's perfect plan, both people need God's wisdom and God's. God's knowledge. We are never too developed, we're never too far in God's plan to say, I've got enough knowledge to last me the rest of my life with the way God described it, the Holy Ghost described it to me is knowledge is the fruit that we pick. And revelation is all of the. The meat and the seeds on the inside. So as we pick God's knowledge, as we get into the Word of God and, and take a hold of his knowledge, what he sees, what he's showing us in His Word, then as we do that, it begins to open. There we go. If you need to get up every day and be motivated and have motivation to live for God or motivation to do what you're doing, and you've got to be pumped up and have somebody you know to encourage you every morning and how do they say it? You know, you get on and people listen and I'm not against these. And they, they listen to podcasts and they listen to motivational speaking because listen, God's plan, even as a mother, as a wife, if I need my husband to do certain things for me to be motivated to be good to him, then that's not living by God's plan, that's not living by knowledge. Because revelation out of God's word is all I need to know how to be the mom, I'm supposed to be the wife, I'm supposed to be the pastor. I'm supposed to be the person that you're called to be. All you need is to get into the word of God and let that knowledge break open into revelation for your life. We trust you've enjoyed this message. Visit us at dufresneministries.org to learn of our upcoming meetings, share your testimony, become a partner, or visit our online store. This program has been made possible by the friends and partners of Dufresne Ministries.