Disciple: Behold Christ - Pastor Joseph Pringle

What you behold begins shaping who you become. In this message from the Disciple series, Pastor Joseph Pringle walks through three ways we behold Christ: in Christ Himself, in the new creation He has made us, and in one another. Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 3:12-18, Hebrews 1:3, John 14:9, John 14:21, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Colossians 3:1-2, Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 6:38, Acts 20:35

Show Notes

You and I have an open invitation to behold Christ with an unveiled face. And what we behold begins shaping who we become.

This is week ten of our Disciple series, and today we land on transformation. Not just the idea of it, but what it actually looks like to be continually formed by the Spirit of God as we fix our eyes on Christ.

We work through three modes of beholding Him:

Behold Christ, the glory of God revealed.
The Father has given us the perfect revelation of Himself in Jesus. His patience, his authority, his tenderness, his obedience. You do not have to invent an image of God. Look at Christ. We behold Him through His Word, through prayer, through worship, and through obedience. And there is a warning here too. Solomon drifted not all at once, but slowly, by beholding other things. The same drift is possible for any of us.

Behold the new creation. See yourself in Christ.
The Word of God is a mirror. The question is which mirror you are looking into. If you keep claiming the old creation over your life, you will miss what God is doing in you today. When you behold Christ, there is revelation, repentance, and then commissioning. He cleanses you and He sends you.

Behold Christ in one another.
The same Spirit who is at work in you is at work in your brothers and sisters. When you see that, it changes how you love people. It gets you over your preferences. It gives you patience with the people who frustrate you. And it moves the church forward in unity.

We would love to have you join us at C3 Orange County any Sunday.

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 3:12-18, Hebrews 1:3, John 14:9, John 14:21, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Colossians 3:1-2, Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 6:38, Acts 20:35

What is C3OC Church?

We are a local Church in Orange County California who are passionate to witness lives being renewed in Christ, strengthened through discipleship, and to thrive in the fullness of living for Christ.
Get connected to us by visiting www.c3oc.com or emailing us at [e-mail]

So today, we are focusing on transformation. Like I said before, Jesus is not like the sprinkling of cocoa on top of the cappuccino. He's the substance. He says, I am the way, I am the truth, And I am the life. Which means, oh man, like if all of this meaning, well, what am I doing with my life? Well, there is a way in Christ. Oh my gosh, what is true in this world? I mean, everyone on Reddit disagrees. And they say, this is the truth. And everyone on Instagram is a news reporter spouting their truth. And every politician is saying this way and that way. And every newscaster is saying, this is what's happening. But there is a truth that you can rely on. And Jesus says, I am the truth. And there is a life, there is a life in Christ. And we're gonna get into it today, like one of my favorite scriptures that I always come back to because I have a slippery brain. I don't know about you, but a slippery sometimes. And I need to be reminded that Christ has made me and you a new creation. He's not here as like a car wash for your old life. I'll just wash it up and polish it up." No, he says, I'm not polishing up the old life. I am giving you a new life. I am giving you the potency of what true life is. And that is in Christ. It doesn't wanna be the skincare of your life. He wants to be the person who molds and shapes your heart, who brings transformation into your world. and God is and Christ in the Holy Spirit. They are agents of change, instant change in our lives. But also at the same time, there was a surrendering that He would form our lives that we are being transformed by beholding Him. So we're incredibly influenced by what we send our attention to in this life. And you can be so immersed in a culture, maybe you go on a holiday and you go to like, let's say you go to France and all of a sudden you come back and you go down to your bakery and you go, can I please get a croissant? The language starts affecting you. You say, your friend goes, how was Ibiza? And you go, excuse me, no, no, no, Ibiza. Like it begins to influence you, right? The language, the culture, the everything. you come back and you're like, where are all the street cafes and the 4,000-year-old streets? And you're sitting in the parking lot of the Costco, trying to drink sip of your espresso, whatever. But what gets your attention or what you are immersed within, what you are beholding in your life begins to shape who you are. And we live in this world that is always inviting us to behold something. It's throwing at us so many different things. It could be the personal problems within your life and all of a sudden I'm beholden to the problems so my life is becoming even more problematic. I'm beholden to the news, you know, my wife at one point says you're so stressed out and you're getting negative, you need to stop looking at the news because it was beginning to shape this perspective of doom and gloom and that everything is going one direction, but what you behold is going to begin shaping, shaping this perspective, shaping your affections in this world and we spend hours cooking ourselves, thumbing around, thumbing up and down. I'm a victim to this and some of us have stronger thumbs than we have strong spirits that we've got, we've got get strong in our spirits and maybe weaken our thumbs that are scrolling. Slowly what captures our attention, it begins capturing our affections. And what captures our affections is starts governing our decisions and those decisions begin shaping the people we become. question isn't for us, you know, am I being formed? It's more, what am I being formed by? Whose image am I being formed into? The good news is this, that you and I have an invitation to behold Christ with unveiled eyes. What does that mean? Don't worry, that's what the whole message is about. The you and I have this invitation. There is no reservations on the invitation. There is no exclusivity that all those who receive Christ in their life have the open invitation to behold the Father in heaven, to have full relationship with Him. Like, man, some of, I saw this, this Instagram, see my head is just having so many thoughts right now. I saw this thing, it was kind of like heartbreaking, but such a great reminder is it was interviewing all these parents, and the parents, they were Australian, by the way, so I'm making fun of my own people here. But they were asked by the interview, who would you want to have dinner with? No one around was like, oh, Tom Cruise? Oh, maybe who would I want to have dinner with? Maybe it's this person, or it's Tom Brady, or maybe it's the president, or maybe it's this or this, and then they go to the kids, and they go to the children, and they say, hey, if you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would you want to have dinner with? You know what their response was? my mom and dad. And we have this open invitation to actually sit and commune with our whole lives, the living God. Yet we have sent so many invitations to sit down and have communion with this person. And man, I want the shaping of my heart. I don't know about you, but I want the shaping of my heart to be amidst all of the invitations that I get, I-R-S-B-P, to that invitation, to commune with God on high, to behold Him in every circumstance. We have access to so much information right now. Come on, left, right and center. There's no time in history where it's so easily accessible right now. All the sermons, all the news, bam, bam, bam, it happens and it's right there. And just because we know about Christ does, it's not indicative that we truly know who Christ is, that we have the presence of Christ within us. Jesus confronts. He confronts teachers of the law, the Pharisees of the law who knew the Scriptures back to front. I mean they had their memory verses like down pat. They each week would remember they remembered whole books they had even these long tassels and the longer their tassel it meant the more that they could memorize and quote the Scriptures. So the war like it was this pride like can you imagine I know the the the Pauline letters and I have this little tassel and everyone around the street, oh wow, you know this, and Jesus confronts these people because he's saying, hey listen, I know you know the scriptures, man, you quote them, you teach them, but the revelation of what this old covenant is, the Old Testament, what was revealed in that law is standing in front of you this day. The Messiah has been delivered into the world is is bringing his justice and you do not recognize him. And so we we can't just overlook that even in our own lives we might know about God but we cannot see where he is working or how he is working. We become so familiar with Christianity without becoming like Christ. So for you and I we cannot become like someone we don't truly know, that we don't spend time with, that we don't want to infuse our lives with. It took Corinthians 3.12 which is our main text here today, a main scripture. It reads this, since we have such a hope, we are very bold, and I love that. Since you have such a hope, we should be living very boldly. Very boldly, no matter what you were facing, you can live very bold. Not like Moses who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardens to the people of Israel. their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, now written in that day, I'm telling you, to this day in 2026, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted. Because only through Christ, only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, avail lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Amen? And we all with the unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is spirit. Amen? As Paul is, just context say, Paul is drawing from Exodus 34 where he is talking about Moses went up on the mountain and he's speaking with God. He's speaking with him and all be it, he sees God and it's the back, it's the back of God that he gets to see. And guess what happens to his face? His face goes bing, it lights up. And as he's coming down, the people of Israel are afraid of him. They're like, oh my gosh, like the glory of God is shining out of this guy's face. Like, this is insane. So he places a veil over his face. In 34, 34, and this is really important. It says that every time he entered into the presence of God, If you didn't know at that time they had the ark, okay, and in the ark there was manor and there were these different things that they kept within this ark and every time I entered it, it housed the presence of God and there was the outer court, the inner court, and the holy of holies where the priest would walk in and commune one-on-one with God and Moses would go in there and it says when he entered to speak with God he pulled back the veil. And then when he came out and he delivered the words of the Lord to the people of Israel, he removed the veil. But all the other time he would cover his face. We should not be living as veiled Christians, lifting the veil when we come in a church and putting the veil down when we go out during our week. Lifting the veil when we're kind of speaking the Christian ways and then we live a veiled wife for the rest of the time. Not only that, but there is a belief that when I'm encountering this presence or I have this knowledge of the Word of God that that is the time that the veil is lifted and I'm connected with God. No, Christ died so that his spirit would be continually living within you. This is such a good thing because light shines brightest in the darkest places. And you and I are not called to live a sheltered life, a bubbled life as a Christian, but instead to walk into places because we are very bold. Why? Because we hold this hope. Jesus has defeated sin. He has liberated you and has given you a confidence to stand in this life. Amen? And so this old covenant, it came with glory, but appointed towards something greater. It was always pointing to something greater, and that was the promise of Jesus Christ. And so Paul declares, and we, we all, with an unveiled face, say this, I got no veil. Okay, that sucked. Let's go again. Say this, I got no veil. My face is unveiled. Not just Moses, not just the prophets. Okay, yeah, this is good. You keep going. It's not just reserved for Moses or the prophets or the preachers or this. No, it says we all with an unveiled face today. There is no reservation. There is no withholding. There is no inner circle. Every believer has been invited to behold the glory of God. Not reserved just for a Sunday service. Not reserved. I lift the veil at this point and I see God in this circumstance. No, he's saying you live with an unveiled face because you're always in the presence of me. you will always have access to my presence to behold my face. And it says we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. God's not just interested in forgiving your past. He is interested and I'll tell you thoroughly invested in seeing your life be continually transformed. So today I want to look at these three modes where we are beholding Christ, where we are beholding the glory of our Father in heaven. First, we behold Him in Christ Himself. The perfect revelation, then you want to know your Father, you want to know His character, look to Christ. Christ is the perfect revelation of the Father's heart and His character. Second, we behold Christ's work in ourselves. Recognizing the new creation He has made us into and the transformation His Spirit is continuing to accomplish in our lives. Third, we behold Christ's work in others, recognizing that the same spirit is at work forming our brothers and sisters into his likeness. And to be clear, I don't want you to misinterpret any of this, we are not talking about discovering some divine glory within ourselves. Christ is the center point of our worship, we are recognizing the glory of His transforming work in us and in the people around us. This produces such a beautiful progression within our lives. We behold who Christ is. We are transformed by His Spirit. We recognize His work in one another and we respond by living accordingly. Amen? Because when we truly behold Christ, we can no longer see ourselves or one another in the same way. And man, point number one, behold Christ, the glory of God revealed. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says this. And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord. The big question that we all have is, well, okay, how do we behold Christ? And the answer to that is really simple. It's not about staring into the sky and hoping something spiritual happens. There is an active participation in this, not just passive involvement. And I love, you know, sitting there and beholding God and being still. But there is also an active participation on our side. father has revealed himself in the sun. This is the revelation of beholding him. Hebrews 1-3, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the what exact imprint of his nature. In John 14-9 it says this, whoever has seen me, this is Jesus speaking, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. So if you want to know what the heart of the Father is, look at Jesus, look at how he treats the leper, his patience with the disciples, his authority over darkness, his righteousness when confronting hypocrisy, his tenderness towards the repentant, his obedience to the Father even unto his own death. Jesus Christ is the perfect revelation you and I can have of the Father's character. We don't have to invent an image, we don't have to make up something. You don't have to look to a crystal or to a card or burn sage or take an ayahuasca retreat with some shaman to try and find God. No, the perfect image and revelation of God is found in Jesus himself. Paul declares, it took Corinthians 4, 6, for God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In your face, that's what I should have called this, in your face. The glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. This is why we've got to become a people who are genuinely interested, who are generally responding to wanting to know Him. Oh, this invitation, like, I am inviting you with an unveiled face, like, instead of looking at the solar eclipse with these stupid sunglasses, I'm telling you that I am going to pull the glasses off so that you can see in all of its brilliance, that you won't be blinded by it, you will be invited into it, that it will not take from you, it will only pour into you. So how is it that we hold on to behold Him? And I kind of look at this as a couple of things. Behold to me is like I am going to be holding onto Christ. I'm going to everything else that is sending its invitation. There is one response I'm gonna have. And men, I repent from this all the time. I'm not perfect in this and I flounder in this, but man, I wanna turn my heart to say, I will be holding on to Christ in all circumstances. Oh man, the stress comes and I start grabbing on of that. The money issues come and the relational conflict comes and I start hanging on to that man. Behold Christ because there will be a way, a truth and a life that is presented to you. Not only that, but be held. Oh man, I wanna be held by Christ. Then I'm not just holding on to Him, but I'm allowing Him to hold my life up. I'm not gonna just lean on everything else that I think is strength and I think provides an identity. But instead, I am being held by Him. Reach for the one who transforms you. Behold Him, amen? How do we behold Him? We behold Him through His Word. Scriptures reveal his nature, his character, his promises, his commands and his redemptive work. This is why like even just listening to sermons is not enough for your soul. I love preaching like I love listening to it but you have to study the Scriptures yourself that he would reveal himself to you. You have an unveiled face. You have a vision into these scriptures where the spirit is at Work within them it's living and it's active not just when I speak it or your favorite preacher speaks it Or the preference of your life begins to unfold it. No, no, no It's with you in your house when you open up a scripture and you say this verse. I would dwell on I'm gonna meditate on this I'm gonna open it up in my life. Holy Spirit When you open don't just simply ask like what is the information I can learn Exegesis and commentaries and all of that, but before it all, just say God, what are you wanting to show me here and then wait. Think on the word. David reads Psalm 119 to understand the love of the Lord. The longest song in the Psalms is every verse about the Lord. every verse is about his word. And David only had five books for goodness sake. And I don't know if you've read those five books, but some of them are really hard to read. He's saying, I love your law and meditate on it day and night. Oh, I give myself to your law over and over again. In Psalm 27, he says, there's one thing I have asked of the Lord is that I will seek after to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, we behold him through prayer and fellowship. David's desire wasn't for what God could just give him. It was for God himself. Don't just live transactional with God. Live a transformational relationship with him. Yes, his promises are awesome. Yes, his promises are yes and amen in Christ but men love God for being God love him for being a good Lord over your life no matter what is going on no matter what comes in turn that you would say man I love God for himself prayer is more than presenting prayer requests it is communion communion dining with the living God, like, isn't that awesome? Of all the invitations we can thine with the living God, we behold Him through worship and obedience. We cannot separate and move apart, beholding Christ and submitting to Christ. In John 1421 it says whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he, it is, he loves me. True beholding is not passive admiration. It brings about action in our life. Actions of obedience have got really quiet in here. So what we behold will influence what you become. Your life is consumed with money, money will begin governing your decisions. If your life is consumed with influence and approval, the opinions of people will begin governing your identity. Your life is decided by comfort, obedience is going to be real difficult when Jesus asks you to surrender something. That's why Paul says in Colossians 3, 1, 2, seek the things that are above where Christ is. seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things that are above, set your minds, set them on the things that are above. How do I do that? I know his word. I need to worship. I need my brain to be washed with the blood of Christ. I need the renewing of my mind to be in continual motion. Here's one warning that we do see in the Bible and this is why so important that we behold Christ within our lives in our decisions, in our mornings, in our nights, in our text messages, in our emailing, in our thoughts where we are beholding Him. Solomon sets an example of of what a slow drift of beholding otherworldly things can produce within our life. Solomon, the wisest man in the world, men who opened up and he said, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. God's knowing his word and it's living that way and he became a glorious King, the richest King. He built this incredible temple. I've forgotten what it would actually cost something like a hundred and fifty six billion dollars is this temple that he built to God and at the same time the the modes of becoming a king was such influence who had foreign nations visiting him and bringing gifts and offering their daughters as wives and all of a sudden the the the commandments of God from all the way back in Deuteronomy where he's saying your kings shall not marry foreign women start to become negotiable and he's going oh man but you know me as a king I should create alliances with foreign nations I'm gonna need you know the the support of different armies and man that but you know I know that's what the law says but man she's really good-looking like I think I need her in my harem and and all of a sudden he starts making choices of what what I would think is the design of a worldly king and he starts saying yeah bring this person in and do you know what happened? It actually says in the Old Testament do not do that for they bring in their false idols into the temple do you know the guy who wrote the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord the reverence of the Lord the keeping of the Lord he married 700 wives he had 300 concubines or the other way around and and and all of a sudden all these idols that they were bringing and he began to build temples to these false gods. The man who had this gift of wisdom and it wasn't an overnight thing. It was it was a slow drift. It was this slow, unbehold the nature to the fear of God and say man I want him in my decisions. Not just the big ones man I want him in my little ones. I want him in my daily like the 8,000 million whatever that sounds like a number my daughter would come up with, 8 billion trillion quintuple decisions that I have to make. Man, I want him in every decision. I want him in it all so that I do not drift in my life. We don't have to make this big announcement that we're rejecting Jesus to begin not beholding Him in our life. All we have to do is just stop beholding Him, stop giving Him the reverence from this point on this decision, where am I looking? What's my answer? I should behold Christ first. What do you want in my life? I don't want us to spend our lives beholding everything the world offers and then wonder why our heart struggles to surrender to Christ. The whole Christ above all, not because He's some other thing competing for our attention, but because He is the Lord over our entire life, amen? Point number two, don't worry, we'll move fast. Behold the new creation, see yourself in Christ. 2 Corinthians 3, 18 it says this, beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image. Greek word, beholding. It means a mirror or reflecting what is seen. So as we behold the glory of Christ, we have been transformed to reflect His likeness. We reflected in our decisions, we reflected to our families, we reflected to our workplace, we reflected to our old life, that there is a new creation and I think the most important thing that we need to ask ourselves is what mirror am I looking into? The Word of God is called a mirror. James would lay that out that there is a mirror in the Word of God that we are looking at when it's spoken to us and we don't want to walk away and just forget what has shown to us but we want to change what's been shown or revealed to us in this mirror my question is what mirror are you looking into because if it's the mirror of maybe it's success or it's a mirror of the past and then I hear this all the time as a pastor people beating themselves up that we need to be reminded that the new mirror that you look in with an unveiled face is that you are a new creation and if you keep claiming over be your life that I am the old creation and all of this is why I suck and all of this is why I'll never be used I'm too uneducated I'm too old I've lost too much I gave too much of myself away then we are going to miss what God is doing within our life today because we're so consumed with the wrong mirror but when When we behold Christ, there is an image that is put before us that not only is one that challenges us, but it's one that invites us into transformation. I love, in Isaiah 6, it says this, man, this is like, oh, I regularly am thinking about this passage, this scripture, because it's so visceral, it's so vivid. He says, in the year the King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, and he was seated high and lifted up, and the train of his road filled the temple with glory, and he's seeing all these people who are worshiping him. The elders are standing around him, worshiping him, these creatures are standing there, worshiping it. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. His response in that circumstance is this, as he sees Jesus, he looks at the first thing that he says is not like, wow, what a great spiritual experience I just had, wow, and just let me finish on this. It's not, this is not a baseball bat to your confidence in Christ. But his response is, whoa is me for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell the midst of a people with unclean lips. For my eyes have what? Seeing the King. They have seen the Lord of hosts. It's a very different response to Moses. When Moses stood in the bush was burning, his complaint was, I am not eloquent in my speech. It was adequacy. I'm not adequate to fulfill this call when you behold the king in his fullness. The thing that can present to us is man, my sure coming in the whole issue. He was saying my lips are not pure to bring forth the truth. And there is a moment that the closer we get to Christ, the more he is revealing in us that needs to be transformed. The good news is the story didn't end there. Says this, then one of the serifents flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And what does he do, it says, and he touched my mouth and said this, behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away. in your sin atoned for. God then goes on and He says, I have this mission. Who can I send? And Isaiah responds and He says, send me, I will go. Some of the most famous ones, you heard that before, send me Lord I will go. When you behold Christ within your life, I believe we have another image here. There is revelation. Oh my gosh, I see the Lord seated on. Hi, there is repentance, which is not just this, this mode of man, I'm sorry, it's an actual turning like I need to turn to God. Why for the cleansing? He cleanses you, he loves you. And ultimately it leads us to where commission, that there is a commissioning in your life. That God is forming in you, amen? So my question is, for you yourself, what are you beholden to? A lot of the times we struggle. The things that we struggle with reveal what we're currently beholden to. I'll tell you there's someone who is beholden to approval. Their identity is tied to being admired, respected and accepted, and someone embarrasses their book, criticizes them, makes them look foolish, and suddenly forgiveness becomes impossible. Why? Because their reputation has become something that they worship. Their sense of worth has been governed by the opinions of people. And man, I want to tell you this, until Christ becomes greater, that you would behold Christ's greater than the pleasure of people, then pleasing man, and the approval of other people until I behold Christ, I'm going to be struggling in this area. it's that oh man I'm always so stressed out and I'm running around and I'm working so hard it's career career career because you are beholden to money and there is this drive within you and you put your children and your family and everything on the altar for money and it's and it's stressing you out and you can't sleep and you can't do this and I'm telling you until you stop beholding Christ more than money or career that this we're beholding power and influence and all of these things we will always be insecure because money is fragile. It burns and it withers but when your security is in Christ, when your trust is in Christ you actually surrender these things. Approval demands that you protect your image, money demands that you keep accumulating, comfort demands that you avoid, sacrifice, but Jesus calls us all into something greater for whole Christ above all. Let his approval become greater than the approval of people, let his kingdom become greater than your ambitions, let his promises become greater than your fears. Let his spirit transform what has been governing your heart, because the promise is this, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Not in becoming a better manager of your idols, but in surrendering your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, Amen? Freedom from the tyranny of human approval, to obey, freedom to love, freedom to become increasingly like Jesus. You are a new creation in Christ and His Spirit is still at work within you. Last point is behold Christ in one another. In 3-18, the end says, I've been transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, but this comes from the Lord who is Spirit. I love it because this actually stands in motion with the greatest commandment that Jesus gave you and I. He I said, love the Lord your God, with all your heart, body, soul, spirit and mind. So we behold God, man, love him. I surrender all of that. And then it goes on and it says, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. When you behold Christ, you actually develop a healthy self-love. There is a confidence because you stand in Christ. There is the image that has been born, it's been held up high because of this new creation that you were living in. And not only that, but it says, and when you love yourself and you love God, you begin to love yourself well, you begin to love others well. You know how the old saying goes, her people, her people? Unhealthy people make other people unhealthy. So when we receive this, and we are transformed on the inside, man, we begin loving the people around us well. And one of the greatest revelations that I have is because I can behold the work of Christ happening in their life. And here's the thing. This is the biggest part of this is because it will cause you to love them over A. Your preference, this preference, society that we live in, like this is not my preferred kind of relationship, this person is not, you know, my preference, we don't have the same similar likes, no you are both family in Christ. And so I get over my preference opinion, not only that, but when I experience the frustration, I will ultimately have with one of my brothers or sisters, because I'm telling you that if you are walking with Christ, you are going to find that there will be a fence. Jesus also tells us that we are to expect that a fence happening. means at one moment someone's going to offend you whether it's in this room or another brother or sister in Christ and that we have to behold that Christ is working in them. Does that mean overlook abusive relationships? No. Does that mean overlook these severely manipulative cases? No. Does it mean that we do not confront those those things? No, it doesn't mean that at all. You can still lovingly confront someone while still perceiving that God is working in their life while still honoring that God is in the midst of them and where that words has been transformed means that there is continuing there is a continuing nature to this transformation that is happening where does this come from that it comes from the Lord who is spirit thank goodness it comes from the the Lord who is spirit. You and I need your spirit in the midst of our life. He's the agent of change, the divine agent at work transforming our lives to behold the image of Christ and to call it out in other people. I know that some people might frustrate you. frustrate me too. I know that some people might cause you to doubt or even beat yourself up because I have those experiences too but my first call of action is that I behold Christ. I behold what Christ is doing in me and I behold Christ working in this person's life. And when we stand like that can you imagine the unity of God's army moving forward not biting and bickering over this thing and that thing causing us to wander in the wilderness for 40 years but instead standing in unity saying we behold Christ together, we behold Christ at work within us, we behold Christ in our brothers and sisters, amen. It's all stand up here today. I thank you Father that your work is happening within our lives. I thank you Jesus that we would not overlook that your spirit is at work in our brothers and sisters lives, and God, I pray that if there is any area of my own or any area of anyone in this room where we have forgotten how to behold Christ, we repent here today and we turn back to beholding you. I thank you, Lord, that your spirit would convict us of the right things. There is no condemnation in Christ, but I call forward a conviction within our hearts, a holy conviction, fanned into flame, any kind of spark that we would pursue our father with everything in our lives. For Jesus, you are the way, you are the truth, and you are the life. so Holy Spirit speak to us here today, speak to your people. If you wanna make a personal commitment, you might feel like, man, I stop beholding Christ. In my brothers and sisters, man, I've lost all of my patience or even in myself, I've just been beating myself up as the whole creation. And you wanna make a commitment today, man, I want to behold you first in all of my decisions. I want you just to raise your hands where you're at. Raise your hands up high, raise your hands up high. Come on, I raise my hand up every time. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. Dear God, I pray over every person with their hand lifted. God, oh God, let us not just leave a Sunday gathering just saying, I ticked my box. But God, that there is a conviction within our hearts. We don't just want the label of Christian over our life as some sort of tradition that we just tick off our religious duties. But God, we would be called disciples of the most high. The God, we come to behold you here today. So God, we repent, say this, I repent, Father, for putting other things above you today. I surrender to you all of those things that I can behold you. Today, I recognize that my face has been unveiled. Reveal your truth to me. Reveal your revelation to me. Let there be a harvest of fruit from your spirit in my life. Dear God, I lift up my brothers and sisters that I would encourage, remind, and show them that God isn't working their worlds. I speak to myself here today. The God, you are transforming my life. So I thank you, Jesus, that here today you are at work And where your spirit is, there is freedom. And in the mighty name of Jesus, we all said, amen.