Well if Saul is the king of Israel, what is attached to the corner of his garment? Tassels: the word of God, the name of God, the ways of God, the grace of God, the nature of God. David cuts the tassels off. Saul finishes using the bathroom and he puts his garment back on and he walks out and he has no tassels. David is standing in the distance going hey man, umm - in other words I've got your anointing now. What you used to be called to do, I am called to do and there's nothing you can do about it. I've got your anointing - and so it had nothing to do with David could have killed him and just didn't. It had everything to do with the anointing, with how Saul was carrying God; that Saul was carrying the presence of God without the disposition of messiah, which was the compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness God, Exodus 34:6-7. The Lord, the Lord, He is the compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love God.
Now an interesting thing happened in regards to Jesus. There was a prophecy. All these prophecies were given about messiah, but one of the last prophecies - it probably is the last prophesy in the Old Testament - about who messiah would be, it says this. It's in Malachi 4:2 and you'll recognise it as soon as I start saying it. There will come from God a son of righteousness, with healing in his wings. The word is kanaf. There will come from God a son of righteousness, with healing in his kanaf. Now if the messiah is a Jewish messiah what would he have attached to his kanaf? Tassels, so whoever messiah is there'll be healing in his kanaf. There'll be healing in his wings. Now follow me here. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is not this way or that, or up or down, but the kingdom of God is actually within you. So you can look this way, you can look that, you can look up, you can look down and you'll never find the kingdom of God, because the kingdom of God is actually in the last place you'll look for it. It's actually within you.
A later writer said that Christ in me is the hope of glory, so where does Jesus live today? In us. He's in all of us. He's replicating Himself - we talked about that last night. He's replicating Himself to the world through us. So if there's healing in His tassels and He lives in us, then does it stand to reason that if we will commit to wrapping our lives in the tassels, there'll be healing in our hands as well? That the potential to be a minister of kingdom power comes only from a decision to have our life wrapped in the word of God, the name of God, the ways of God, the grace of God and the nature of God; to have our hands wrapped in the disposition of messiah, the compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiveness God. Does it stand to reason that if we have Jesus living inside of us and there's healing in His tassels, that a simple decision to have our life wrapped in the tassels, that the only thing that we have the authority to serve is the tassels. Everything else that we serve in our life is a result of us unwrapping God.
Let's get real practical here. Do you have a right to serve anger to someone who disappoints you? No, you've just unwrapped the tassels. Do you have a right to be judgemental and critical towards somebody? No, you've just unwrapped the tassels. Do you have a right to turn your back on the cry of the hungry? I'm talking about legitimate needy people who absolutely will not eat without your help. Do you have a right to turn your back on that if you have the means to do it? Absolutely not. You have to have your life wrapped in the tassels. Everything we do has to be wrapped in the tassels, so let's ask ourself a hard question tonight. Where in our lives have we rationalised unwrapping God? Where have we done that? Where have we - I don't know - bought into the yoke of our denomination? Where have we bought into the yoke of a certain belief system? Where have we bought into the yoke of our father, the yoke of our mother, the yoke of some binding and loosing that took place that doesn't fit with the tassels?