(1) And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, (2) Speak unto the children of Israel, and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers, of all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods: write thou every man’s name upon his rod. (3) And thou shalt write Aaron’s name upon the rod of Levi: for one rod shall be for the head of the house of their fathers. (4) And thou shalt lay them up in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony, where I will meet with you. (5) And it shall come to pass, that the man’s rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom: and I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel, whereby they murmur against you. (6) And Moses spake unto the children of Israel, and every one of their princes gave him a rod apiece, for each prince one, according to their fathers’ houses, even twelve rods: and the rod of Aaron was among their rods. (7) And Moses laid up the rods before the LORD in the tabernacle of witness. (8) And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.
I. Am I the only one that wonders How God Thinks. I know what the Bible says in Isa. 55:(8) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. (9) For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
A. With that said let me ask, which comes first, the day or the night? Most would say the day. Night comes when the day is over. That's what most people would say, when it gets dark it is the end of the day. That's how most people in the world see it. Day leads into night. But it's not how God sees it. If the day leads to night, then everything goes from light to darkness. Everything gets darker. To the world everything is in the process of darkening.
1. We go from day to night, from youth to aging, from strength to weakness, and ultimately from life to death. It's the way of the world, but it's not the way of God. When God created the universe, it was not day and night. It is written, Gen. 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. There was evening, and then there was morning. The day began with night. There was night and then there was day. In God, it is the night that comes first. That's why Jewish holidays always begin at sunset; not only Jewish holidays, but every biblical day. Each day begins at sunset. There is evening and then morning.
2. The world moves from day to night. But in God, it is the opposite; He goes from night to day ...from darkness to light. The children of this world live from day to night, but the children of God should be living from night to day. We are born again in the darkness and move to the day, and if you belong to God, then that is the order of your life. You are to go from darkness to light, from weakness to strength, from despair to hope, from guilt to innocence, from tears to joy, and from death to life; every night of your life will lead to the dawn. Weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning.
3. We are to live according to God's divine order of time ...that your entire life should be always moving away from the darkness and to the light. God moves us from our problems not in to them. God is telling us to move forward, move out. Your life, job, health, home may be in darkness but you are the light that is to shine in those areas. 1Pe 2:9 But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:
B. Jesus said for many be called, but few chosen. Do you know who you are? Sadly, this question is still being asked today, but what is most alarming is we as church folk, blood bought, children of the Redeemed, are looking into our mirrors asking who am I. We live in a time where we feel that we must carry some sort of label. People run to Dr. Phil not for help but Identity. They want a label a term to help identify who they are and why they are who they are.
1. Let’s just try a little social experiment here, how many of you have a smart phone? Now I am going to ask you a series of questions, I need you to be honest now.
*) Do you check your phone regularly for some form of notifications (FB, twitter, email, etc..) even when you don’t get a notification tone. *) Do you keep your phone with you at all times or in close proximity?*) Do you sleep with your phone?*) Do you feel your phone vibrating or ring when it doesn’t?
2. If you answered yes to any of these questions you suffer from a psychological attachment to your phone and have what Psychologists call “NOMOPHOBIA” and for those that feel the phone vibrating when it’s not you have “PHANTOM RINGING SYNDROME”.
3. Researchers say the reason why people check their phones so much is because of dopamine (the hormone of” happiness”). So, every time we see a notification, e- mail, or hear the phone ringing, the dopamine level starts rising because we believe something new and interesting is happening. The problem is that we can’t know in advance what will happen or what that notification will be about so the feeling to keep checking occurs; your phone is like a mini slot machine, which either can make you feel good or bad.
C. You have now been labeled and identified by something you never knew existed. One of Satan’s favorite tricks is to tell us that we’re something when we’re not, and then make us unsatisfied with who we think we are. When we fall into that trap, we spend all our time trying to self-help our way to understanding.
1. America sells more self-help books than any other nation in the world because Americans are constantly trying to change themselves into something they think other people will like and accept. "If I could lose a few pounds..." "If I drove a different car..." "Maybe I should have that plastic surgery." "If I could live in a different house, marry a different spouse, get a better job..." Ga 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. I don’t know about you, but I want to be like Enoch and Please God.
2. People are so desperate for identity that they would rather be known as a disorder or condition than to never be known at all. There has become an epidemic of Identity crisis; many have become persons unknown in the church. How often have you asked yourself, "Who am I?” Perhaps I should ask you a different question; how many times has your answer to "Who am I?” changed over your lifetime? Before you can have confidence, before you can be a victorious, committed man or woman of God living the abundant life; you have to settle the question of identity.
3. If we had the ability or capability to make our lives perfect, then Jesus could have stayed in heaven with the Father, the Cross wouldn’t have been necessary. But it was necessary because we don’t know who we are, let alone what we’re supposed to become or how to attain that.
II. When we talk about the name of God, we’re talking about His identity and by extension our own, since we are members of the family that carries His name.
aa. Do you know the Name of God? It's made up of four Hebrew letters, YHVH. It's the most sacred of names, so sacred some refuse to say it. And yet you say it all the time. When you speak of yourself, you say the Name. When you feel happy, you say, 'I am happy.' And when you're not, you say `I am sad.' When you tell others who you are, you say, 'I am' followed by your name.
bb. YHVH means 'I Am.' It's the Name of the Eternal, the Name of God. His Name is I Am. We all say His Name. You have always said it. It is woven into the fabric of existence that when you speak of yourself, you must say His Name.
cc. Your existence comes from His existence. He is the I Am of all existence ...the I Am of all I ams. Your I am only exists because of His I Am. And as you exist from Him, so it is only from Him that you can find the reason and purpose of your existence. Therefore, when you say your name, you must always speak His Name. And you must always speak His Name first.
dd. Because His existence is first and your existence flows forth from His. That's the flow of existence. Therefore, you must put Him first and then let everything flow from that. Let everything begin with Him and flow forth from Him. That's the secret of life. To not only live for Him, but to live your life from Him, to live from His living, to move from His moving, to act from His actions, to feel from His heart, to be from His being, and to become who you are from who He is ...I am.
A. When we are born again, we take on His nature and name. But because we haven't figured out who we are in God through Jesus Christ, many of us don’t live powerful, Spirit-led lives. We don’t know our spiritual identity and are still searching. We have a whole world full of people trying to “find themselves." I want to tell you that you were "found” when you came to Christ! 2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
1. The Psalmist said, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: God has made you to have dominion in the earth, but when you don’t know who you are; whatever you come up with to define yourself is usually wrong.
a. If you go to yourself to find yourself, and you’re lost, how are you going to have the answers? You're lost because you don’t have the answers in the first place! If you go talk to a psychologist who doesn’t know who you are in Christ, all he can tell you is dysfunctional psycho-babble and worldly labels. If you’re lost and he’s lost, where do you think you’re going to end up? That’s a classic case of what the Bible calls “the blind leading the blind; where both fall into a ditch”. The only answer is to take your broken self-back to your Creator and let Him show you what He made you to be.
2. The Bible refers to Jesus as the "last Adam". The first Adam was created in a particular way to fulfill the purpose of God in his life. When the first Adam messed up, man no longer had a perfect model or example to look at in order to figure out who or what he was.
a. Throughout history, man kept looking to imperfection to try to get some sense of his spiritual composition. Needless to say following a pattern established by a defective template can only lead to the wrong answers. When you start at the wrong point, you’re going to end up with the wrong answer. So Jesus came to show us what the perfect man is supposed to be like, so that we'd quit looking to people for our identity and start identifying with Christ.
B. Ac 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; …, For we are also his offspring. It is not our doing; it is our being. God did not make us human doings. God made us human beings. Paul did not say "I do what I do by the grace of God.” He said, "By the grace of God I am what I am". If it’s in Him that we live and move and have our being, then we will never figure out what we are, or what our being is until we understand that it’s wrapped up in our understanding of Him.
aa. Who we are is founded on and defined by who He is. The disciples asked among themselves after Jesus calmed the storm, “Who is this man?” “Even the winds and waves obey him!” Peter said it best when he said Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.
1. God has already settled your purpose when He settled your identity. And His identity in you has been pushing you toward that purpose. That's what the Scripture means when it says, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you u prophet to the nations. (Jer. 1:5) What God said to Jeremiah here is true of all of us. Before we were born, He knew who we would be. In fact, He formed us specifically for our purpose. He does not allow us to come into the world and then just say, "Man, what am I going to do with that one? Let's see if I can find a slot to stick that one in." God knew you before He created you. And He created you for a purpose.
2. Society will take every opportunity to tell you that if you were raised this way and that way, then you’ll grow up and act this way and that way. And you won’t know any differently! If they say you’re supposed to be messed up, and you don’t know that you’re not supposed to be messed up; you can’t help but be messed up!
3. Those messages are communicated over and over again, and if you don’t know who you are, you can’t help but be what you’re not supposed to be. Many of us are living below our Christian privileges because nobody ever told us what we were supposed to be or enlightened us about what we’re capable of doing.
III. Let me help you. God went through great lengths to get you back in to the family. He saved us so that we could be “about the Father’s business” and His business is being a world changer, a life changer, making an impact where ever we go. God chose you to be His rod, you are God’s rod.
A. From my opening text, God takes something that is long dead and dried up and gives it life. He chose you, purposed you for such a time as this. Ro 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Whenever you see any form of the word “Quicken” in the King James Bible it means to cause to live, make alive, give life, by spiritual power to arouse and invigorate, to give increase of life, to be endued with new and greater powers of life.
1. We came into this life separated; dead and cut off from God because of sin. Sin just comes naturally to us all because that is how we are born. Psalms 51:5 - Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Romans 5:12 - Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: Job 14:1 - Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. Psalms 58:3 - The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.
a. We have been cut off from the source, but through Christ, He established our connection back to God. He can restore us and use us, we can produce even after being cut off. Joh 11:25 Jesus said, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: Yeah you may feel like trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
2. God doesn’t mind dead or broken things, He knows how to revive and repair. Unlike us, He accepts broken packages. Look at all the scriptures that refer to dead being brought back, Sarah’s, Rachael’s, Hannah’s dead womb, the widow of Zarephath’s son, the Shunammite woman’s son, Widow of Nain’s Son, Jairus’ Daughter, Lazarus; dead four days, Jesus Christ.
a. What place in this world is more hopeless, more depressing, more sorrowful, more despairing, and more forbidding than a tomb? And yet of all places on earth, it all begins in a tomb. Redemption begins, faith begins, good news begins, the word of God begins, the message of salvation begins, the Gospel begins. It all begins in a tomb. Did you ever consider how radical and completely upside down it is?
b. What is a tomb? It's the place where hope ends, where dreams end, where life ends, where everything ends. The tomb is the place of the end. But in God, the tomb, the place of the end, becomes the place of the beginning. It's the radical way of the kingdom. In God, the journey goes not from life to death, but from death to life. The end is the beginning. So, to find life, you must come to the tomb. You must come to a place of death to find life.
c. Only those who come to the place of the end can reach the new beginning. For in Jesus, it is in the place of ending that we find the beginning, and in the place of hopelessness that we find true hope, and in the place of sorrow that we find true joy, and in the place of death that we are born again. For in God, it is in a tomb ... that we find our birth. It doesn’t matter if its dead in the womb or the tomb, that will not stop God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.
3. I told you earlier that God moves in opposite of our thinking, He moves from Night to Day, Evening to Morning, Death to Life, weakness to strength, despair to hope, guilt to innocence, tears to joy. 1 Cor. 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (26) For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: (27) But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; (28) And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
B. What God did with Aaron’s rod was a supernatural grafting that established life back in to it. It was there on the cross a place was made for us. In Joh 19:34 But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. We can now be transplanted or grafted into the family of God. It is there we can be a part of the body of Christ, flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone. "A joint heir". Eph 5:30: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
1. When you accept Christ everything about you changes, Jesus supplied the necessary components to alter our DNA; all that is in Him is now in me. Every time His heart beats blessings, healing, miracle, etc. flow to me. Acts 17:28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; …, For we are also his offspring.
2. Jesus is the true vine and we are His branches, His rods. In John 15:1 Jesus said, I am the true vine, …4) Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. (5) I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
3. As long as we stay connected to Christ we live and produce. A few years ago, during winter I cut down four trees and stripped them of their branches to make four 10ft. log post and took them home and stuck them in holes that I dug around my patio and strung lights from them. In the spring those logs that should have been dead began to grow new buds and bloom. Even though they no longer had roots; because they were in good ground and had a source they lived.
4. That’s us church, we were cut off, but in Christ we have a source and as long as we stay connected to the source we live and flourish. Those logs I had in my back yard the moment I pulled them out of the hole and laid them down, it didn’t take long and they died. If you don’t stay connected to God you will not make.
C. When you are God’s rod and stay connected; it shows because of the newness of life you live as well as the visible fruit you bear. God’s house for you is fertilizer, you come to get strengthened so that you can keep bearing fruit for the next six days, but for those that are not they come in on Sunday morning and move because a man moved them but God’s rod moves every day not just Sunday and doesn’t need man to move them.
D. It is believed that Aaron’s rod was from the almond tree which is referred to as the Awakening Tree. What makes that so significant is it is a symbol of the coming spring, In the dead of winter when everything looks grey, dead, and barren. The almond tree will begin to bloom.
1. Let me tell you something about seasons. We spend a lot of time trying to figure them out. God said I’m trying to tell you stop looking at the seasons, waiting for them to change. God changes the order because your season is already here! God can cause you to bloom early and to go into your season. Here you are bright and blooming when everything around you are grey and dead. You are getting a taste of the new life that is to come. The almond tree is known as the first producer of fruit in the dead of winter, even in a dead season God says we can produce.
2. Aaron’s rod had not only blossomed as the Lord said it would, but it was also producing ripe almonds. The full cycle of the almond tree had transpired overnight. What would typically take ten weeks was accomplished in one night’s time.
3. That means Church you have access to divine acceleration, God can remove time from off the table and place you in the middle of your miracle.
E. Be prepared for some hate because people will question why you bloomed, Aarons rod had gone beyond the requirements of the test, a strong affirmation of his authority and a sign to the haters that He was God’s chosen.
1. The reason for so much jealous acting church folk is that they think they have to be rewarded, if they do this they will get that. That was fine in children's church but you should be on the meat, you don't need someone to open your milk for you. It's time to grow up and rejoice for others stop treating God like merit system, if haven't got yours it may be because you are focused on the reward instead of the rewarder. I used to exercise for free stuff from our insurance, when I stopped getting rewarded I quit exercising. Some people think that all they got to do is shout and throw a dollar in the plate and God will bless them and use them.
a. Let me go ahead and give you a heads up, because when you have the favor the God on your life, be on the lookout for haters; cause guess what they are going to hate, but let ‘‘em hate, because “favor ain’t fair…” Not my fault you want get your trifling self-up and serve the Lord.
F. The Hebrew word for Almond means to watch, God is always watching over His word to perform it. (10) For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: (11) So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (12) For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. (13) Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree: and it shall be to the LORD for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. As God’s rod you have access to every promise in the Bible.
Conclusion: It all belongs to you, everything that is in the vine belongs to you; healing, miracles, etc… belong to you. As God’s rod it is time to extend beyond the walls of the church. Your fruit should be evident in your home, job, school; it is time for the church to make a difference. You have access to power that can snuff out anything from hell. If the fact that Jesus said He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. So, what’s it going to be church are you a dead stick or God’s appointed rod here to show the world that Jesus is the way, the truth, and light.
