Here is the link to the video and audio of this message. I hope you’re as blessed to listen to this message as I was to deliver it.
Fusion vs. Confusion – Influencers OC (subsplash.com)
Below are the notes that I prepared prior to speaking.
My prayer as always is that we together would live to the praise of the glory of God’s grace.
Your brother in Christ,
Michael Message for Influencers Fullerton and Irvine April 14 and 16, 2021
Confusion versus Fusion
Good Morning Y’all. Most of y’all know me. I’m the one who takes notes of Pete’s messages and then the media team publishes them in the Influencers OC app. Since I have the honor of speaking this morning, y’all will have to take your own notes.
In our prayer meetings we always read a passage from Psalms. One psalm came to mind. In Psalm 45, the psalmist says, “my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” The Bible is full of figurative language. Usually my I pad is the tongue of a ready speaker. Today, my tongue is the i pad of a ready note taker. So it’s a blessing to share with y’all this morning.
In our meetings sometimes Bill Kauble asks the simple question, “Why are you here?” I said to Bill there are two reasons, First I had a divine appointment. I heard the voice of God calling me but it sounded like Bill Kauble. Pete often says, you can fake caring, but you can’t fake showing up. If you want to be dis-appointed then diss God’s appointment. Every moment of every day is a divine appointment to abide with and within Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The second reason I’m here is a quote from an old Jack Nicholson movie, “As Good As It Gets”…. “I’m here because you’re here, you make me want to be a better man.” I’m honored to choke in your dust as together we choke in the dust of the rabbi, Jesus Christ.
Justin McDonald said in our last men’s retreat, “when I’m around you all I feel like a lion in the midst of Daniels.” That’s the way I feel around you all. I’m humbled and honored to be in your presence. I Thank God for reproof whenever I’m in your presence.
Today’s message is about Confusion versus Fusion
First let’s open with a word of Prayer…….
There is so much confusion in this world.
There’s a profusion of confusion…. The devil’s ploy is to divide and conquer. He pits competing factions against each other so people will split apart and fight each other. There is rich against poor, educated against uneducated, husbands against wives, parents against children, boomers against Millennials, men against women, democrats against republicans, liberals against conservatives, workers against management, Sunnis against Shiites, Catholics against Protestants, citizens against aliens, Trojans against Bruins, haves against the have-nots….. and the list goes on and on ad infinitum.
According to James 3:16,
For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
The word Confusion is the Greek Word Akatastasia. Which means instability, a state of disorder, chaos, and confusion. Confusion is the result of strife, contentions and competing factions.
The context of this verse is wisdom: the wisdom of this world versus the wisdom of God. The devil is the god of disorder, chaos, and confusion. On the other hand God is the god of order, peace, and unity.
According to John 10:10, the the devil’s purpose is to steal, to kill, and to destroy. He tears things apart: In stealing, he separates us from our rightful possessions, in killing he separates us from our physical life, in destroying, he explodes that which God unifies, he blows it to smitherines. When we fall into his temptation to sin, sin separates from our fellowship with God.
What’s the opposite of confusion? Confusion is kind of like the question Will Rogers asked: What’s the opposite of progress? The answer is congress. Con-fusion means without fusion so the opposite of confusion is fusion. Confusion tears things apart. Fission disintegrates whereas fusion integrates. Integrity is the result of fusion.
Nuclear Physics teaches that here’s a lot of destructive power in an explosive nuclear fission reaction. An atomic bomb releases its explosive energy by breaking the bonds between the protons and neutrons in nuclear fission. Fission is different than fusion. In nuclear fission elements such as uranium or plutonium atomize, they explode into smaller elements. A nuclear fission reaction produces a million times more energy than a chemical explosion in a conventional bomb.
However a nuclear fusion reaction produces four times more energy than a fission reaction. Fission is the power of con-fusion, of exploding of flying apart of disintegration. A fusion reaction is the power of implosion, of unity, of integration, of bringing together individual components into a unified whole. In a nuclear fusion reaction, two nuclei of hydrogen fuse together to form one atom of Helium. Nuclear fusion is the reaction that powers the sun and the stars. Nuclear fusion converts mass into energy according to Einstein’s famous equation E=MC2.
The lesson is that God’s power of unity, of bringing together is much greater than the devil’s power of confusion to separate and divide. Ephesians 4:3 says that we should endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
What is it that unifies and fuses us together within the church, the body of Christ, God’s dwelling place? Let’s read. Colossians 3:12-17.
12. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13. Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
15. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
17. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”
It is charity, the agape love of God that unifies us in the body of Christ. The peace of God is related to unity. Most people think that peace is the absence of war. However Jesus said peace is not the worldly kind of peace. You can’t have peace without the prince of peace. In John 14:27 Jesus said, “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
How do we get the peace of God so that our hearts can be joined together, integrated with God’s heart in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace?
Let’s turn to Ephesians 2.
13. But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
14. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
15. Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
16. And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
17. And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
We get the peace of God through Jesus Christ’s reconciling us through the sacrifice of his innocent blood on our behalf. Peace means the end of strife and contention between God and man. In order to reconcile our hearts with God and with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to meet each other at the foot of the cross. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
How did we get to the place where we needed to be fused, reconciled, made at peace with God?
The devil’s original “con-fusion” was when he tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. God gave Adam and Eve only one commandment: “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For on the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.”
In His temptation of Eve, The devil sowed seeds of doubt and confusion. First he questioned the love of God. Then he questioned the word of God. First he questioned God’s love. He implied, “God doesn’t really love you. He doesn’t want what’s best for you. He wants to keep you ignorant of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then he questioned the word of God…. “did God really say?….”. She knew exactly what God had said. However, when she considered the devil’s lies and questioned the word of God, then she was caught in devil’s devil’s strife, confusion, and contention against God. When you doubt the word of God and the love of God, you’ve taken the devil’s bait hook line and sinker. All he has to do is reel you in.
On the day that Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they died that very day. What died? Their spiritual connection with God.
Jesus Christ came to redeem us from The sin nature we inherited from Adam. Through his atoning sacrifice on our behalf, we were saved when we confessed Jesus as Lord and believed that God raised him from the dead.
Now that we have peace with God having been born again of God’s spirit, how do we manifest the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace?
We do this by keeping the two great commandments: to love God above all and your neighbor as yourself.
Not many people know, but the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai were not so that he could punish the children of Israel when they stepped out of line. This is what the world thinks. The Ten Commandments were actually God’s “terms of endearment” with Israel. They were God’s wedding vows with Israel. The first commandment covers all of the other commandments. The first commandment in the KJV says, “thou shalt have no other Gods before me.” However, the ancient Aramaic text says, “thou shalt have no other God’s between your face and my face.” Why? Because we’re attached face to face in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace and charity, the love of God is the bond that binds us together.
As Pastor Pete says, when you have your vertical relationship in tact, loving God above all, then all of your horizontal relationships will fall in line. If you keep the first commandment to love God above all then you don’t have to worry about the other nine “sins of commission.” You just have to worry about the one “sin of omission,” not loving God “with all thy heart, soul, mind, and strength.” This is the reason Peter said, “love covers a multitude of sins.”
There are two types of salvation and two types of repentance. One is the new birth when we’re made whole when we received the gift of God’s Holy Spirit according to Romans 10:9-10. The other is “working out your own salvation” , your own wholeness with fear and trembling…. with reverence awe, and respect. Phil 2:12.
Prayer is fusing our heart with God’s heart… so is studying and meditating on the word. To fuse our hearts with God’s heart means that we have a common standard for truth. That common standard is the Word of God and Jesus Christ, the word of God made flesh. If God is love and God is his word, then the word of God is the love of God.
How do you overcome con-fusion. You fuse your heart together with God’s heart with the love of God which is the bond of perfectness in the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
Then we can love our neighbors as ourselves. We can serve God by serving others for Jesus said, in that you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.
We are called to counter confusion with fusion in the unity of the spirit by bearing one anothers’ burdens…. by serving in the body of Christ.
We’re all individual components within the body of Christ.. he has fitted us each into the body with a particular function and purpose as he has seen fit. Ephesians 4:15-16 Says,
15. But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:
16. From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”
How do you counter confusion? To overcome confusion, fuse together by endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace by loving God above all and your neighbor as yourself.
How long shall we continue to battle against confusion? I’d encourage you to read all of Ephesians chapter 4. It’s in verse 13: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: at the return of Jesus Christ.
An old hymn of the faith says,
Blest be the tide that binds our hearts in Christian love,
The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.
Before our Maker’s throne we pour our ardent prayers;our fears, our hopes, our aims are one, our comforts and our cares.We share each other’s woes,each other’s burdens bear,and often for each other flows the sympathizing tear.When we asunder part, it gives us keenest pain,but we shall still be joined in heart, and hope to meet again.
The glorious hope revives our courage on the way:in perfect friendship we shall live in God’s eternal day.
Amen and Amen
Thank you and God bless you all!