Shabbat shalom kol beit Yis'ael and Mishpachah. In the words of Nehemiah, I would like to open this assembly by making this petition:

"O Yahweh, let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of this your servant and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering Your Name" (Neh 1:11, NIV).

I hope you were all blessed in some way by the Jericho March talks. For those of you who may have missed them and are not so keen on reading, they're now available on video as I have finally bitten the bullet and started recording these sermons. You can find them on Facebook for now and then eventually we shall publish them on DVDs. Hopefully this will now become a permanent feature of this ministry.

I don't you if you noticed but there was a recurrent theme in this year's Jericho Marches, something Yahweh has laid heavily on my heart, and the need for which I see ever more clearly from the conversations I have with you and the correspondence I receive from those who maintain an online fellowship with. I feel things are coming to a head for many of us as important life decisions have to be made, perhaps not as fast as any of us would like, and that because the human soul is enormously resistant to change. But change, as I have said so many times, is the constant companion of those who love and serve the Master. And whilst the changing isn't always fun, the end result is always satisfactory. We often look forwards with trepidation but I think you'll all agree that we all want to be able to look back with satisfaction that we made the right decisions.

By way of a clue for the direction I want to take us this morning, I'd like to give you an illustration. The story is told of Beethoven who, while out walking one day in Vienna, heard his Moonlight Sonata being pounded out on an old piano. I'm sure you all know the piece, loved by millions, serene and relaxing. It was his 14th piano sonata and was written in 1801 for his pupil, the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi whom, it is believed, he had deep affection for. This was, unlike most of his other music which was commissioned, but written out of love for someone, which is why, perhaps, it is one of the most popular pieces of classical music ever written. You may have heard me playing an improvised version of it on the piano over the years.

So Beethoven is out taking a stroll and he hears this composition of his being played, not very well and on a old piano that probably needed tuning. He looked through the open door and saw a blind girl trying to finger this wonderful melody. He tapped the door, walked in, and said: "Move up, let me have a go," and then he played as only he could his own composition.

"Marvellous!" said the enraptured girl, delighted to hear it played so much better than she could manage. "The master (maestro) himself could not have done better!" "I am the master (maestro)," said Beethoven, and quietly slid away.

We sometimes fumble our way in our endeavour to live the Besorah (Gospel) life, but more often than not, it just doesn't somehow sound right. What should be the melodious life just doesn't sound right.

A brother was seeking my counsel yesterday, desperate because he just could not stop his mind crowding with unclean images, and just did not know what to do. Yet that is so common. How do we deal with these things, especially as we are often unsure of the source? The flesh is always parading its wares before us. Sometimes it is the devil trying to get us to believe lies about ourselves and sometimes it is the Ruach (Spirit) warning us repent. So what is the solution, what shall we do? Struggle on, and hope for the best?

There is a better way - indeed, it is the only way, and it differs from all other religions in that respect. Paul said it straight out:

"It is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me" (Gal.2:20, NRSV).

Time and time again believers miss this core emet (truth). What human nature cannot produce, only the life of Messiah can. As Paul, who wrote these famous words, yielded himself by emunah (faith) to a living Master, the harmonies of spiritual life became possible.

I know, I know, this 'solution' seems so trite to us at times, so easy to speak and at times so hard to put into practice. It for sure angers the flesh which wants a performance-based salvation so that it has something to boast of. But that is not Christianity. It's not the Besorah (Gospel). Yet it enrages all self-based life.

The only way that the melody of the Master's chayim (life) can be played on the piano of your being is if you'll simply let Him take over. Yield the sovereignty of your life to Him. The 'musical score' of qadosh (holy, set-apart) living may seem difficult to interpret in the music of godly experience, but if we let the Master - the Heavenly Maestro - take over, it can be done.

When the apostle Paul appealed to the Corinthians to "be imitators" of himself (1 Cor.4:16, NRSV) he wasn't telling them to copy his habits and behaviour patterns as Orthodox Rabbinical Jewish teachers do of their pupils. When he admonished the same Corinthians to "maintain the traditions just as [he] handed them on" to the talmidim (disciples) (1 Cor.11:1, NRSV), he wasn't primarily telling them to imitate some set of doctrinal teachings which he had formulated. When he wrote to the Philippians, inviting them to "join in imitating me, and [to] observe those who live according to the example you have in us" (Phil.3:17, NRSV), he wasn't just talking about the cultivation of good habits and practical day-to-day Torah observance. The imitation he was calling for first and foremost was that of deying self in the same way that he himself had learned to do - by dying to self and fleshy passions. He knew from his own experience, that when you do that, all the qadosh (holy, set-apart) things that people struggle to attain naturally are then accomplished supernaturally. That is how the supernatural works in man, and in no other way. It is the divine transfer of the Image of the Most High.

Of course, the supernatural can, and does, work outside of man, as we have seen in our seven-part series on the Jericho March for this year. External miracles - those outside of ourselves - can hold us in awe for a while but then, like a candle burning out, the immediacy and impact of the miracle fades from our memory and we are left the same inside as we were before.

But see here, this is the main difference between the Old Covenant and the New. The New is all about the supernatural working its way from the inside outwards where it is supposed to have a permanent base of headquarters, but the flesh would have us switch to an Old Covenant mode by demanding signs first. The Old required a constant repetition of sacrifices and (on occasion) miracles, to be maintained through the temple system. The New requires but one sacrifice, that of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), requiring His incarnation, His death, and His resurrection to make this exchange of one life (ours) for His. Once He has been granted entrance to, and residence in, our hearts, the transaction is complete and the inner transformation can get underway.

The changes which we want - the desire for purity, cleanliness and holiness - only come about through the Divine Transaction. Yah'shua (Jesus) has to live within us. When that happens, the outer behaviour soon comes to match the inner reality, and the former struggles come to an end. The task before us - and ultimately the only task - is to surrender sufficiently by repenting comprehensively. By that means - and by that means alone - does the inward spirit of man acquire what it desires the most. Every other solution is but a delaying action, a 'manning of the guns', a 'holding our position' until the cavalry arrives. And the cavalry is Messiah within. Have a blessed Sabbath!