Unchanging promise: We are God's Israel

Our focus today is The New Israel: Understanding Your Spiritual Identity and Unbreakable Blessing.

We’ll explore what it truly means to be defined not by natural lineage, but by faith in Jesus as the Messiah, stepping into your chosen, royal, holy identity, and deeply loved as the Bride of Christ. But we aren't just talking about a title; we are breaking down 'The Immutable Blessing' - a constant, non-seasonal state of favour that is anchored by a self sworn oath from God Himself. 

So open your heart, let’s anchor our identity in truth and let's get started.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we are diving deep into a profound shift in perspective regarding who you are and what you possess in the spirit. Our focus today is to new Israel, understanding your spiritual identity and unbreakable blessing. We'll explore what it truly means to be defined not by natural lineage, but by faith in Jesus as the Messiah, stepping into your chosen, royal, holy identity, and deeply loved as the bride of Christ. But we aren't just talking about a title. We are breaking down the immutable blessing, a constant, non-seasonal state of favor that is anchored by a self-sworn oath from God Himself. So open your heart. Let's anchor our identity in truth, and let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

We are diving into another sermon from Life International Church in Durban, South Africa, and this one is titled The Real Israel. The premise is, well, it's pretty radical. What if your security wasn't a streak, but a binding legal contract that is literally impossible to break?

SPEAKER_02 1:02

It is a fascinating argument. And to really get into this, our mission today is to unpack a very specific theological worldview. The speaker is tackling that huge question of identity. Exactly. And his answer is uh basically a complete overhaul of how many people read the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And a spoiler alert for you listening, if you are looking at a map of the Middle East to find God's chosen people, the speaker argues you might be looking in the wrong place entirely.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Aaron Powell Right. The core conviction here is that the church, and by that he means believers in Christ, has fundamentally replaced the traditional ethnic definition of Israel.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

And just to set the ground rules for our discussion, to really understand the logic, we have to step inside his worldview. So we're going to analyze this from the inside out using the we and us that the speaker uses.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

I like that. We're not just observing from a distance, we're kind of road testing the logic. So let's get into it. Section one, the identity shift. And he doesn't waste any time, does he?

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Not at all. He opens by picking a fight with a very, very popular viewpoint.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

He really does.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

He looks at the landscape of modern Christianity, especially Christian television, and sees this message everywhere. The Jews are the people of God, or we must support the nation of Israel. And he just says flatly, that is confusion.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

He's so blunt about it. Those are not the people of God. I mean, depending on your background, that might make you gasp a little.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

It's a bold rejection, for sure. But he's not just being a contrarian. He's building a case, a sort of legal case. His argument is that the title People of God isn't genetic anymore, it's spiritual. The true sons of God are exclusively those who have received Jesus Christ as Messiah.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

So he's saying the title deed to the name Israel has basically been transferred.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Aaron Powell That's a great way to put it. And he uses 1 Peter chapter 2 as his primary evidence.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Okay, I know this verse. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. I think a lot of people just assume that's poetry, or maybe about the Jewish people historically.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Aaron Powell That's the common assumption. But the speaker does a little uh forensic work on the text. He points out who Peter was writing to the pilgrims of the dispersion.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Right. Believers scattered all over the place. Pontus, Galatia.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Exactly. These aren't necessarily people in Jerusalem. They are people united by their faith, not by their geography.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

So his point is that when the Bible says holy nation, it's not talking about a country with borders and a flag. It's talking about us, the believers.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Precisely. He argues God isn't returning for a geopolitical entity, he's returning for the church. He says, We are the new Israel of God. And to explain this, he uses a really powerful character study, Jacob.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Oh, Jacob. Yeah, the classic anti-hero. His name literally means supplanter or deceiver, right?

SPEAKER_02 3:47

That's him, a supplanter. What a heavy name to carry around. It's like your name is Crook.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Hi, I'm the deceiver.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Right. But the speaker highlights that pivotal moment where Jacob wrestles with God. And God doesn't just forgive him, he renames him.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

He changes his name to Israel, Prince with God.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

And that's the aha moment. The speaker is saying that we, in this worldview, are in the exact same position as Jacob.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Okay. I see where this is going.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

We often define ourselves by our Jacob nature, our past mistakes, our crookedness, our failures. But he argues that when God looks at a believer, he doesn't see Jacob the crook. He sees Israel the prince.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Aaron Ross Powell It's a difference between who you are by nature versus who you are by by decree.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yes. Nature says you're a mess, God's decree says you're royalty, and if you're a prince, you have access to things a crook doesn't. But, and here's the tension, even if you have the title, do you feel secure in it?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Which leads us perfectly into the second part, which I found so relatable. He pivots from this high theology to a really human moment of panic. He's talking about walking in his blessing, feeling great, and then that thought hits him, what if I lose this?

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Waiting for the other shoe to drop syndrome. Yeah. He says, I've been feeling really blessed lately. But that good feeling actually triggered fear. Why? Because seasons change. Yeah. Summer turns to winter. If your blessing is just a season, then by definition, it has to end.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Aaron Powell That's a terrifying thought. If my security is seasonal, I can never really rest. I'm just racing for impact.

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Yeah, and that's where he introduces the theological antidote. He uses a very specific big word, immutability.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

It sounds like a legal term. What does it actually mean here?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

In theology, it means unchangeable, unalterable.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

And the argument is beautifully simple. If your blessing depends on you or the economy or your mood, it's mutable. It can change.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

But if your blessing depends on an immutable God, it becomes permanent.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Because God cannot change.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

And he uses the story of Abraham to illustrate this. I've heard this story a hundred times, but I miss this nuance he points out. The shift from Abram to Abraham.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

It's such a crucial detail. So you have Abram, the name means exalted father.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

But the guy has no kids. He's old, his wife is barren. It's almost a cruel joke.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

Yeah. It's like being named Speedy and having a broken leg.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Exactly. But then God shows up and changes his name to Abraham, meaning father of many nations. And here is the key point the speaker drives home. God changes the name before the child is born.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Wait, so he's walking around calling himself father of many nations while he's still childless.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

Yes. And the speaker argues this wasn't God predicting the future. This was God creating it. God made him a father. It was a creative act.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Like in Genesis, let there be light.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

Exactly. When God said Abraham, the man became a father, even if the biology hadn't caught up yet.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

That completely flips the script on earning it. Usually we think, I need to have the kid, then I'm a father, I need to get the results, then I get the title.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Correct. And he applies this directly to us. He says, just as God made Abraham, he has made us his special people. It wasn't because we were so great, it was an act of creation. And because God made us his people, we can't unmake it by having a bad day.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Okay, that's comforting. But let's play double's advocate. People break promises. Even binding contracts get broken. How do we know this one is actually unbreakable?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

That is the question, isn't it? And his answer takes us into what he calls the engine room of biblical covenants. He goes to Hebrews chapter 6 to explain the mechanics of an oath.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

This is where it gets a little technical, but it's the bedrock of his whole argument.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

It really is. He talks about how oaths worked back then. If I want to prove I'm telling the truth, I have to swear by something greater than myself.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Right, like I swear on my mother's grave, or so help me God. You need a guarantor, a cosigner with more authority.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

But here's the problem. Who does God swear by? If you're the creator of everything, there's no one higher up the food chain.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

You don't have a boss?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Exactly. It's a cosmic dilemma. God wanted to prove that this promise to Abraham and his seed, which the speaker says is us, the church, was unbreakable. But since he could find no one greater, Hebrews says he swore by himself.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

He put his own existence on the line.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

He did. He essentially pledged his own life and his reputation as the collateral. If he breaks this promise, he ceases to be God. And since God cannot cease to exist, the promise cannot be broken. Wow. It's a huge concept. And the speaker uses this fantastic visual analogy to explain it. He calls up a guy from the audience named Jerome and he hands him a bottle of water.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

I love this part. It makes it so concrete.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

So he hands Jerome the water. Now normally if I give you a drink, I hand it to you, you drink it, and I walk away. The transaction's over.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Here's your blessing. Good luck. Don't spill it.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Right. But the speaker describes God differently. He describes God standing over Jerome, watching him drink. He says, God isn't leaving. He's standing there saying, Keep drinking. I am staying right here to make sure the water never runs out.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

It changes it from a one-time transaction to continuous sustenance. The speaker is saying, as long as God is alive, Jerome must continue to be blessed.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

It ties your well-being directly to God's survival. He says, as long as God lives, the believer must remain blessed. It shifts the burden of security completely off of your shoulders. You just have to keep drinking.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

That is a massive shift in mindset because I'm usually looking at the water level in the bottle, panicking. But if I look at the provider instead of the provision, the panic goes away.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

You stop managing the resource and start trusting the source.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

But and there's always a but this theology has some very sharp practical edges. If we accept the church as the real Israel and has this unbreakable blessing, what does that mean for the actual nation of Israel today? He goes somewhere pretty controversial here.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

He does, and we have to report this accurately because it's a huge part of his message. He argues that because the church is the substance, we need to stop treating the physical land of Israel as if it's holier than Durban or New York or wherever we are.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

He was very specific. He said, Do not send money to Israel. Don't plant a tree there. Don't think going on a pilgrimage to the Jordan River makes you righteous.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

He calls it reorienting value. He thinks many Christians have a kind of poverty mentality where they see themselves as second class compared to the Jewish state. He wants to break that. He says God is not coming back for the Jews, he is coming back for the church.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

And he uses that Durban analogy since he's preaching there, he says, Imagine a man coming back to Durban to see his wife.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Right. The man isn't coming back for the city, he's not coming for the pavement, he's coming for the bride. The city is just the location.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

And in this metaphor, the church is the bride, and the physical land of Israel is just the pavement.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Essentially, yes. He's saying the land is the shadow, but the relationship to the church is the substance. His point is, why are you obsessed with the shadow when you are the one holding the hand of the groom?

SPEAKER_01 10:54

He even says something like, Go visit Israel for the history, go for the falafel, but don't go thinking you'll find Jesus on Golgotha any more than you'll find him in your own living room.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

It's a radical call to own your status. He challenges the listener. If natural Israel, the shadow, is blessed, how much more blessed should you be? You are the substance, you have the messiah. He's telling the audience to stop looking at the chosen people on TV and realize in his theology, you are the chosen people.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

He brings up that name Hepsibah, which is just a beautiful word.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

It is. It's a biblical term God uses for his people. Yeah. And it translates to my delight is in her. And that really sums up the emotional core of this. It's a complete identity overhaul.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

You go from being Jacob the supplanter, worried about your next paycheck, to Hepsibah, the one the creator of the universe delights in.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

And if God delights in you and he swore by himself to take care of you, then that lucky streak, it isn't luck at all.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

It's policy.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Exactly. It's fixed. And this is where he wants his listeners to land with a sense of not arrogance, but spiritual confidence. He says, do not feel inferior to natural Israel. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

It's interesting because usually humility is preached as I'm nothing, I'm dirt. But here he's saying true humility is accepting the high status God gave you. It's almost insulting God to act like a pauper when he made you a prince.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Aaron Powell That's a great way to put it. Denying your status isn't humility, it's unbelief. If God calls you Israel, who are you to keep calling yourself Jacob?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

So let's bring this all the way back to you, our listener, dealing with that Tuesday anxiety. What's the big takeaway? How do we apply this?

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Aaron Powell, I think the aha moment is about where you place your anchor. We usually anchor our security and our circumstances, our job, our health, our bank balance, and all those things are mutable. They change.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

So you're constantly drifting if you anchor to them.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Right. The speaker is inviting you to lift that anchor and drop it into something immutable, the oath of God. It's the realization that your identity isn't defined by your past failures or your current worries. It is defined by a contract that God signed with Himself.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

It means you can look at a bad day or even a bad season and say, this is temporary, but the blessing is permanent.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

It gives you permission to just exhale. You don't have to maintain your blessing by being perfect. You are being maintained by the one who swore the oath.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

That really does change how you sleep at night. It takes the frantic energy out of all the striving.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

It really does. And raises a final provocative question for everyone today. We spend so much energy trying to secure our own future, hoarding our blessings because we're scared they'll run out. But if you truly believed, I mean really internalized, that your well-being was backed by the unchangeable, immutable reputation of the God who created the stars.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

How would that change the way you approach your anxiety tomorrow morning? If the guarantor is standing right there watching you drink, maybe you can stop gripping the bottle so tightly.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

That's the thought. Yeah. The pressure is off you and it's on the oath.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

A powerful perspective shift. We hope this deep dive gave you something solid to stand on today.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

It's always a journey.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Until next time, goodbye and have a great week.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

As we wrap up today's episode, take a moment to carry this truth with you. Your blessing is not seasonal, and it fluctuates only when we live in ignorance of our true position. God's counsel is completely unalterable and steadfast. It cannot be lost to human failure because it was stealed by its own self-sworn oath. You are a part of his special people, a vessel meant to proclaim the messiah to the world around you. Walk out into your weeks with that confidence. Thank you so much for joining us. If this episode grounded your faith today, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to remember their unbreakable identity. Until next time, stay anchored. Remember who you are, and walk in his immutable favor.