Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Grace Poured Out

Transcript

Grace Poured Out · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

0:08
SPEAKER_01: Such an honor to be with y'all this morning.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: When you travel around, you go to a lot of different churches and you meet a lot of different kinds of people, but what is so awesome about it is you're trading Jesus stories.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Y'all know Jesus like we know Jesus and we have stories to share and y'all have stories to share.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: And it really bonds us.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: And you you walk into a church and and you meet people you've never seen before, and you feel at home.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: And you feel the love and you feel like you can see the Lord on people, you know, and in people.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's such a uh it's such a neat experience that we get to uh we get to have as we travel.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm Judy Manis and this is my wonderful husband Rick.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm just gonna greet you quickly and then Rick is gonna bring the word.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: But um I grew up in a religious home and I believed that God hated me.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: I really thought he was against me, and I was suicidal from the age of 12 to 24, um attempting multiple suicide attempts.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: I had been sexually abused, I had been emotionally abused, and I had trained myself to be abusive to myself.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: So I had that self-loathing and I had that self-uh deprecation and just the negative uh almost training of my mind.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: And somehow, somehow, Jesus broke through that tape and he began to speak words of love.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, at first I couldn't really receive it.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would hear the words, God loves you, and I think, so what?
2:02
SPEAKER_01: Like my world is falling apart, and I can't exist in this world, and it's too painful for me.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Seems like everybody else is doing good, but for me it was too painful.
2:13
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord broke through that in a way that only the Lord can.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, he speaks to you specifically in a way that you can hear.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: And as we were worshiping this morning, the Lord brought to mind this letter I had written to the Lord when I was newly saved.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: And I was sort of desperate, you know, and and pleading with the Lord and saying, Lord, please help me to be the woman you created me to be.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't feel like I was that.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: You know, I felt so far from that.
2:46
SPEAKER_01: And um, in that letter I wrote to the Lord, I felt that he wrote me back.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: And you know what he said to me?
2:54
SPEAKER_01: He said, geez, Judy, you already are the woman I created you to be.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: And at that time, I don't think I could receive it be fully because I saw so many flaws in me, I saw so many things that I was doing wrong.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: But I feel like what the Lord was saying, it's okay.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: In all your flaws, in all your mishaps and weaknesses, I'm gonna take your hand and I'll be your strength.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do that.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: The one that's gonna walk you through the hard times and the you know, questions and the you know, relapses and and you know, those things.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna walk with you, you know, and he really is in us, not just with us.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: But I think that picture really helped me to see that I was not alone and it wasn't all on me.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, that feeling of pressure when you feel like it's all on you.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to carry that.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jesus.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, um we just got to meet Lynn and Shirley last night, and I want to say we probably spent three hours with them, and it was like instant friends.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: But the Lord just put on my heart how much Lynn loves Shirley.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: I really saw it as we ate last night.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but when a man listens to his wife, when he lets her speak, I it does something to me.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: I just think it's so beautiful.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: And he was so respectful to her and helped her with her coat.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: And and in the Bible it says for for the man to love his wife as Christ loves the church.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: And as Lynn was just being deferential to Shirley, and it was a reminder of how Jesus loves us with this graciousness and this kindness.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: And I really, really enjoyed it and it it blessed me.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: So I just wanted to say y'all have a great couple of pastors here, and we're lucky to be here as well.
5:09
SPEAKER_01: We feel lucky.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: So I want to introduce the best pastor in the world.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: At least he's my favorite.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Um Rick Manis knows the love of God, he's he has it in him, and um, it's always a blessing to me to hear whatever he has to share.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: So I know you're in for a treat.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: I love him, and here he is, Rick Manis.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: Best in the world, no pressure at all, right?
5:43
SPEAKER_00: I love that word.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: God loves you just the way you are.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Really.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and we we hear that, but but understand, and we're gonna look at some things.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna, Father, let's do it this way.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for this opportunity to behold you.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Show us your glory, your goodness, full of grace and full of truth.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we've gathered here to behold you, to see something that we maybe we hadn't seen so clearly before, to hear something as a certain sound that maybe we hadn't heard uh so clearly before.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: But something that you have designed to be imparted to everyone here that puts a greater spring in their step, a new song in their heart, a better smile on their face, and your glory upon their life and upon their head, Father.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the liberty and the freedom, the peace and the joy and absolute life that's manifested in every person that's here in Jesus' name.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Remember Judy one time um uh uh asked when we were uh we were newly married, she said, Um, is there anything that I could do to be a better wife to you?
6:54
SPEAKER_00: And I said, uh, some people the ladies always laugh.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: They're like, I would never ask that.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: But she but but I said uh what came to my mind immediately was I said, just keep breathing.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: Just keep breathing.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: That'll keep me happy.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: I said, because I really love you now.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't marry you, I don't love, I'm not in love with a a future version of you.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm not in love with a better version of Judy.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: I didn't marry you just for your potential.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: I love who you are now with what we would call flaws and all, but we love the whole person now.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about that a little bit this morning.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about shame, I want to talk about flaws, I want to talk about perfection.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: Um because there's an idea that that that's easy to carry in our lives about this flaw, this business of being flawed and trying to get better, and and we're always on the road to something, we're always going somewhere, we're always going to get better, we're always we're always trying to get more favor, more blessing, more more anointing, more power, more more love, more peace, more joy, always on the way to getting somewhere.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And my testimony basically is that that even after 20 years of a Christian, I was on that road.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: And and it and the and the picture I get is that God was sitting on his his mountaintop and he was he was encouraged me and he was rooting me on, but he wasn't moving a bit.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: I was the one trying to do all the moving.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: And I remember praying things like, you know, Lord, I I just I want to love you.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: I I would see like David pursuing God's heart and and how he would cry out, and I and I would do those things.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: I would spend much hours in prayer, and I and I would and I would say, God, I just I want to love you completely.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I want to love you like no one's ever loved you.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: And I pursued that, and and I cried over it and prayed and groaned.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And and uh one day, as I laid on the floor, I got a revelation.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Just a revelation.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Like you heard a while ago, the information's for your head, revelations for your heart.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I got something for my heart, and and it was like the heavens opened up, and I just knew, I just saw it.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Finally, I just was aware that God really loved this boy.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Not only did he love me, he liked me.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: He liked me, and he wasn't demanding a thing from me.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: And I laid there and I could feel him ministering to me and speaking to me, said, son, I was never I was never asking for you to be strong.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: I want to be your strength.
9:42
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even demand that you love me.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: I know who you are, I know what you can do.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: I just came to love you.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And I found out that he really loved me.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And since that time, I have never, ever once even thought of praying for God to help me love him more.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot help it.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: And when you know what I'm talking about, I know that that we're in love this morning.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: But I lived a life of um, I I lived a life carrying a shame that I didn't, I wasn't aware that I was uh that I was carrying for a long time.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk a little bit about that.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh let me give you a definition of shame.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: This is something that's big time, this is something that Jesus dealt with.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: This is something that was God's intention to deal with from the very beginning.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Jesus not only He bore our shame, but let's talk about that.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Shame is the intensely painful feeling of believing that we are flawed.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, because we are flawed, we are unworthy of love or unworthy of belonging.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: This is part of the reason people fight so hard to try to be in God's presence, because they feel like they don't belong.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So they have to do something, they have to fight, they have to push, they have to crawl, they have to climb, they have to get cleaner, get something.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Because they have this intense feeling of shame that where they feel like they they don't belong.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: In a lot of uh in in religion and even so much in Christian religion, there's there's always this more.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: It's what we've heard in churches for so long.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: And I've I've preached, I'm not mad at anybody, I've preached it as much as anybody else, probably more than some, honestly.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Um, but but um you know, but preach about you know what we ought to be doing, what God expects of us, what you should be doing for God, what the church should be doing now.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: We need to be doing this.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: God deserves this.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: We'd give, we'd have I remember prophecies where God was crying out, you know, what says, I've given you everything, why don't you give me all of you?
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And all and and and all those things, yeah, right?
11:51
SPEAKER_00: And and and and you know, we we it's things that we're feeling that we're putting on God, and feeling like, and and and and feeling like there's always something, something more that's demanded because we're flawed and we're trying to get better, and we're trying to get cleaner.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: I remember people would talk about holy, holiness, and basically their idea of holiness was was you know that you're you're not clean enough yet, you're gonna have to try to keep getting more cleaner.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And really, it was more it was all about what we're supposed to do rather than what God has done.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And we would read the Bible and we would make ourselves the central character instead of making God the central character, Jesus and the gospel, instead of what he has done, and we've somehow read it to where what we're supposed to do.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: We read it as a demand upon us rather than a gift from him.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And and and let me let me give you just a little picture here of this fantasy, this myth of human perfection.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: And how it is, and how there is a perfection.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: The Bible talks about perfect and be and perfection.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: There is a true perfection, but it's not what humans think at all.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Because humans think that perfection is the absence of flaws.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Perfection is not the absence of flaws, perfection is God's love in the midst of flaws, and we have it here.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a picture of it.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Um look at how many of you like nature and you think it's beautiful?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: We're from the south.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: We don't get change of color.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: We're from Florida, actually.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Very far south.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're not even really considered being in the south.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: We're farther south than the south.
13:44
unknown: The south 2.0.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: The south 2.0.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: But we don't get the change of colors.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Here, I mean, we're we're just marveling at what you guys, which what you guys have.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Look at the reds, look at the maples, look, even the oaks are prettier, they're prettier than than, you know.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: And uh and and and and we we love what God created because God made all this good.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: I just I love nature.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Judy and I both, we just marvel.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: We're like, love did that.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Love did that.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Love did that.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: He could have given us a planet that looked you know more like the moon, I guess, and given us what it takes to survive, but he gets it, gives us all this beauty and all this life springing up, and love did that, and we love it.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: We love the trees and the mountains and the valleys and the rivers and all this stuff.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
14:30
SPEAKER_00: If you look at things, there is not a perfect tree out there.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: I've heard it, I've heard it said, and I haven't found it yet, that that that there are no right angles in nature.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: We use right angles all for everything almost.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: There are no right angles.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: If we were going to create mountains, and I guess we do, uh, downtown skylines, you know, uh they're they're they're they're they're they're symmetrical, they have square corners, they they have right angles.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: God creates mountains, they're craggy, they're asymmetrical, they're all of this.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: There's no perfection in it according to human ideas.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: God hasn't made a straight river in his life.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Men do.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: I've seen men made rivers.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: They're not pretty, they're very straight.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Look at a tree.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: There's no perfect tree there, not according to man's definition.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: They're flawed.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: They're not they're not perfectly symmetrical.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're gnarly, they're craggy, they're I've seen a perfect tree.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: I think we still got one in our attic.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: We used to put it up, we we started getting real ones, right?
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Every Christmas.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: We got we have a perfect tree in our attic.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Every branch is perfectly sized, and it doesn't look as pretty as the ones that you have to turn it to hide the bald spot.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: Right?
15:52
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't look as pretty.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, why does that stuff look prettier than the ones that are perfect by human definition that don't have flaws in them?
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, Colossians gives us a clue there.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: And in one translation, it says it something like this, where it says that all things are held together by God's love.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: What makes crooked rivers so pretty?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: What makes these craggy mountains, asymmetrical mountains, and these trees and these gnarly trees and all that and the valley, what makes it all so pretty is that the love of God's all over it.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: Because perfection is not the absence of flaws.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Look at how God does things.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Perfection is not the absence of flaws, perfection is his love in the flaws.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes nature so beautiful, and that's what makes you so beautiful.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: If you wonder how could God love someone like me because his love is in the midst of you and all your beautiful mess and your stupidity and all your mistakes and all your disobedience and everything else, there is a love.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we see with the gospel, right?
17:04
SPEAKER_00: That he wasn't calling us up to him, but he wanted to be with us so much, and this is what I see.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: I see this when I when I remember his death, too, when we when we we do things like we partake of communion, and I and I think he came, wanted to be with us, he was a man in love, if you will.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: In love.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: See, I remember I know what it's like to be in love.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: When I first met Judy, if now, so you understand our story, I I was married for almost 34 years, and my first wife died.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: And so God has done a wonderful thing and brought somebody that's perfect for me for the rest of the way.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: But when I first met her, and not really when I first met her almost, it I I I fell in love.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: We had this quick courtship and we just talked to each other all night long all the time and on the phone, and and then and then you know I flew down and I met her, and we and I just I just knew that I just wanted to be with her.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: I told her, I said, I just all I know is I don't know where it what this means, but I don't I know that I don't want to be apart from you.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: Think about Jesus, think about the Lord.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: I just don't want to be apart from you.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And so I hustled and I sold my house and I'm in there and and and moved down to be close to her.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: I came into her world, adopted all her friends and everything.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be close to her.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was in love for God so loved.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: He was in love with this mess, these people whose thoughts were on evil continually, who were disobedient, even rebellious, even anti, even all everything wrong you could think of, and he says, Boy, I want to be with them.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: That's love.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And it confounds natural human love and natural logic because it's so much bigger than all of that, but it's that kind of love without any demands, any caveats, any condition, anything.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: It's perfect love, loving all of this.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Wow, thank you, Jesus.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted to be with the so much that he says, I'm gonna go into your world.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: You're there in death, ugliness, and sin.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: If that's what it takes to be with you, then I'm there.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's do this.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: To be united with you, since you're in sin and you're in death, and if that's what it takes to be one with you, then I'll partake of sin and death too, just like you.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll die too.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: I'll feel the hopelessness and the lost condition of sin just like you do.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: I'll come into your world, and my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
19:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll feel that.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Because I want to be with you.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: What a love story.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Perfect love.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: That's a perfect love.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: The rest of the story was that we were united with him in death, but we stayed united with him in resurrection, and we stayed united with him in ascension to the right hand of the Father.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: He took a bride with him.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Um so how many know what this means?
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Why why how do we even know this?
20:29
SPEAKER_00: How did that even get to be that shame?
20:32
SPEAKER_00: I got it all the time.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: My dad had a big finger.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Shame on you.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I'd be ashamed if I were you.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: Shame.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: One time I was we were talking, and I I I was a mess as a kid.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I mean, I when I look back at it, I think I drove my my parents nuts a lot of times.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: So I don't blame them for the stress and anxiety that I call caused in their life.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: But I but I was in trouble a lot, just mischievous, just disobedient, come home, you know, come home at a certain time, but for some reason I wouldn't couldn't do it.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: But I remember one time dad was getting on to me about something, and we were sitting in the backyard, and and I said, Dad, do I ever I'm about 12 years old.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: I said, Dad, do I ever do anything good?
21:17
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Sure you do.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, how come I never hear that?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: How come you're always telling me the things that I'm not doing right?
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And here's what my my dad said.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: He said, Because, he says, those are the things that matter.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying this is I'm not preaching gospel right now.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: This is what my dad said.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: He said, those are the things that matter.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: He said, and I was he says, he says, like like I think like that hole in your jeans.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And I was sitting there and I had a hole in my jeans.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: He says, it's like that hole right there.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, um, he says, uh, that ruins the whole the whole thing.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: The rest of it, there's no holes in it, but that one flaw, it ruins the whole thing.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: He says, you couldn't take that and go wear it to some nice place, you couldn't wear Church, you know.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: That was back then.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Now you can.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Now you now you pay extra, right, to get that.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: But but but that was his his way of seeing it was that we've got to get rid of, if we can get rid of the flaws, then you'll be good.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's a very common idea.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's also a very common idea in church.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: That's why they're always trying to get the sin out of you.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: That's why in church they're always trying to get you to fix what's wrong with you.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Stop doing something, whatever.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not doing anything bad, then it's then it then we go to, well, you need to do more of something else, do more of the good.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, I mean this goes on and on.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to do anything for God.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I need whatever it was people told me, I was, I would, I would do it.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Somebody said, You need to you need to pray an hour a day.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: All right, no, I would do it first thing in the morning.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing my hour.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Then somebody else came along through the church one time and says, We got to get with it.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Church says, one hour don't cut it.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: If you're praying one, pray too.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'm praying too.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Somebody else came through and said, you know what?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: We need to tithe our time to God in prayer.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That's 2.4 hours.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll pray 2.4 hours.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: And somebody else said seven times a day.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, then then somebody else says, Well, the secret to prayer is that is early morning prayer because Jesus prayed early in the morning, and I'm like, uh, I'm doing it the wrong time of day.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: No wonder it's not working.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: And you're just, you're, there's always something else, always something more.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: With the giving, it was like first it was it was tithes, and so all right, I'll step into that.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: I'll do the tithes.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Then it's then it's like, no, there's tithes and offerings.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Okay, tithes and something else on top of it.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: And then they kept adding more.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: Then there was first fruits and this, and that, and there's all these different, and I never could give enough.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: There were times I would literally empty my bank account, and good things would happen.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying that it didn't, but it was just never enough.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Praying, so nothing, uh just so much, so much seeking and trying to get rid of that hole in my genes.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And this all started, excuse me, way back at the very beginning, and I love the book of Genesis.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: I love I I probably never speak without referring to it because that's where everything went south, right there, when we made the choice of the knowledge of good and evil is what we chose to be led by, what we chose to live by instead of life when God was the life.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: That was just the real choice.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: You can let me be everything, Adam, or you can you can do everything.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And we chose to put it on ourselves.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Just give us the knowledge of good and evil.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: We'll figure this out.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: And what it did, which when we see the story, what do we see right off the bat?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: First thing they do is they they're naked, they notice they're naked and they're ashamed.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: They're ashamed and they hide from God because that the shame has brought fear.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Not only were they afraid, but we see we see we see Adam blaming his wife.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: See, the story went like this.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: But so Adam's hiding because he's because he's ashamed.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: God says, Where are you, Adam?
25:09
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, we we hid ourselves because we were afraid, because we were naked, and we were ashamed.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Who told you that?
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Who told you that you were naked?
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm I'm embellishing here, but it but the conversation goes kind of like this.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, Adam, who told you that?
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell you that.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: You've been naked all this time.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: I never brought it up, I didn't care.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter to me, it didn't matter to you.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: So somebody told you something.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Who told you that you were naked?
25:42
SPEAKER_00: And who did tell them that?
25:43
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't the snake, the snake said something else.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: Got them to that tree.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Who told them they were naked?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: It was the knowledge of good and evil.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: When they got that knowledge, then they noticed their their nakedness and they judged it.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Because now they got this knowledge that they can judge with.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: Good and evil.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Evil.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Bad wrong.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: What's that nakedness signify?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's their weakness, it's their insufficiency.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: It's their they see that and they're ashamed of being that weak, of being uncovered, of not being enough, not having enough, not being good enough.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: They hear the sound of God, they hide because shame is this intensely horrible sense of being unloved and not be not uh not belonging.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: They didn't belong with him in their feelings.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Religion has always we make up all these things.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: God cannot stand in the presence of sin, he does it all the time.
26:51
SPEAKER_00: He had to, he came and partook of it.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
26:58
SPEAKER_00: God cannot look on it.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: Look at it this way: if his eyes are too holy to look at sin, maybe he's not looking at it.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: You don't get that tomorrow.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: But they had the shame, they had the fear, simply because that knowledge and that knowledge made us judges.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: Instead of giving us life, it made us judges.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing we judged was ourselves.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm ashamed, I'm insufficient, I don't belong.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: I need to cover up, I need to get better.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: So they tried, sewed fig leaves together, made a fig tree clothing.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: But it didn't work, did it?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Because they still had to go hide in the trees.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: They still felt naked.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't what they could do.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: They could never fix it.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: They're never going to be able to fix themselves.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: So they still hide, they still still felt feel the separation.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: And understand the separation was felt on man's part, not on God's part.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Because the whole part, why did God create man in the first place?
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Why did he make us and put us in that garden?
28:02
SPEAKER_00: Why did God do that?
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Was he sitting up in his heaven and he says, Well, here I am, all alone, just me, the Son, Holy Spirit, and all these angels, and I've got all these great rules and nobody to keep them.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: So I'll create these little flesh creatures, and they'll be too weak to keep them all, and but I'll give them all these rules, and then I can burn them all up.
28:26
unknown: Sounds like religion.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: Sounds a whole lot like religion, doesn't it?
28:30
SPEAKER_00: But why did God create us in the first place?
28:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the big mystery that was there.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Not a mystery to me at all.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: God is love.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And what does love, by its very nature, want?
28:38
SPEAKER_00: He wants something to give it to, wants an outlet.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: So he creates man, he makes you and me, and he says, You're my outlet.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: You are the object of my love.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: I you are the one.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Now I can give my love, my goodness, my abundance.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, love loves that.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: He's got somebody to give it to.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: He says, so here it is.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: Man, woman, Adam, let me be all that for you.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: Adam says, you know, he makes the choice.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And it what was promised, that knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil, that makes us able to judge, with that knowledge of good and evil, promised that it would make us more godly.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: We would be like God, it says.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Promised to make us wise, but professing to be wise, we became as fools.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Promises things, but it didn't deliver.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: All it delivered was bad fruit, shame, fear.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Here, he's Adam's here, he says, Did you eat of that tree?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And Adam's like, uh, the woman.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute, Adam.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Just a few verses ago, you saw her and you said, Ah, this is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: We are one.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: But now that the shame and the fear has come, uh-uh.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't me, it was her.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Now we're separate, see, because that knowledge of good and evil always divides and it separates.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: It divides and separates man from God.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge does that.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Not just that he did an act when God said don't do it, it's what came from that act.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge of good and evil does that.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: It works in your brain and it works in you where it's just like there's something in there that just I deal with it all the time.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: People say, Rick, I believe what you preach.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: I've read the scriptures, I acknowledge them.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: I know the Bible says God loves me.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: Why don't I feel it?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Because you're still carrying a sense of shame.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: You don't know yet.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: But you will.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: All I can do is tell people just keep looking at it.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: You will.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: I love the picture of the plant growing.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: That's something that's just being nurtured.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: You're see, nobody's pulling on your leaves and saying, Come on, get better, grow up.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: You don't make grass grow like that, do you?
31:07
SPEAKER_00: How do you make it grow?
31:08
SPEAKER_00: You nurture it, you water it, you love it, you be good to it.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: You don't trample it and say, What's wrong with you?
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Grow up.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: But it has brought that disconnect, and that was my problem for so long because I didn't know what it was.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Why do I still feel not good enough?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm I believe the Bible with everything in me, but why don't I believe I'm good enough for God?
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Now my mouth would say it.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: My mouth said all the right things because I wanted that.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to feel like that.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: I knew what the Bible said.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: But secretly inside, I still was feeling a disconnect, a shame, a fear.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Because there's two ways, and and here's what here's something I want us to see is that I want us this morning to have the complete freedom, the liberty, the license to absolutely embrace that God digs you like you are.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: But what about the changes I need to make?
32:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you'll be amazed at how you grow once you get this.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: You'll be amazed at what changes after that.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: But until you do, the change you're you're you're trying to make changes and you're finding it hard.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: That's why so many people have been Christians for decades and still can't quit their addictions, and they're that they're you know, they're still struggling with so many things and struggling with even love still, you know.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And and and bless our hearts, you know.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: God understands all of that.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: And he's speaking.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: And we're in a beautiful place and a beautiful time where we can hear that now.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: We're hearing that sound, we're hearing that voice.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: God is speaking.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: You are mine.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Before I formed you, I knew you.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: I know your frame.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: I know that you're but dust.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't hold your sins and your iniquities against you.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Come to me and learn.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm meek and humble in heart.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Come to me, and you'll find rest for your soul.
33:14
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: But the way that man chose was the was the way of the flesh.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: The way that God offered was the life of the spirit.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says in Galatians that the flesh and the spirit lust against each other.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: They're not working in combination to make us better.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: Judy and I got into one of these discussions one time, not a biblical discussion, one of those kind of discussions where she's got to go get out in the car and get away from me.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: Those kind of discussions.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: And she came back a little while later and you know, and God spoke to her.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: But she preferred she talked to God.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: She says, God, I know Rick, he does not receive condemnation.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And I know there's no condemnation in you, but might I suggest that you give let him have just a little bit of condemnation?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: I think he needs a little condemnation so he can change something.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: Because isn't it funny how it's so easy for the flesh to trust in the power of condemnation, the power of shame to put change upon us is why so much preaching uh even has has been given to put shame upon us.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: And I was I was good at it.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Boy, I could make you cry.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: I would.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was good.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: I called it, I thought it was revival.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: I'd get the whole church, been saved for years, thought they loved God.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: I can convince them they didn't.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm barely exaggerating that, but but but they they they would come some would literally come crawling to the front, crying, feeling so bad about how they treated God.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: Feeling so unworthy.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Because I thought that the pressure of shame was the power that would bring about change.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And I could put it upon myself for decades, certain things wanting to change, and they just didn't didn't change.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: So I think, well, maybe I need more shame, maybe I just need to try harder.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: We do those things.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: But once I got the revelation, the truth will make you free.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: What the Holy Spirit did to me that day, I was laying right there on the floor, was just what Jesus said he would do.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: He said, He will take of mine and he will show it to you, and he sure did.
35:52
unknown: Woo!
35:53
SPEAKER_00: And my Jesus, who I thought was this big, was that big.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I couldn't measure him to this day.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Uh an uh a priest who's now deceased named Andre Newen, who's really good with grace things, but he says, he said, as long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, as if we are what we have, as if we are what other people think about us, then we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place, including ourselves.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: And when we do it to ourselves, if we're receiving shame and condemnation, then that's what we have to give because freely we receive and freely we give.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: And when I hear people that are just giving shame and condemnation, it doesn't make me mad at them.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: I feel sorry for them because I know it's happening to them.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: I know they're feeling it themselves.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: But if we receive love and grace, we've got love and grace to give.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Somebody says, Well, I'm that grace stuff scares me.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm afraid that it just leaves too much room for sin.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: You better hope it does.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: It absolutely does.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: It leaves lots of room, but it's powerful.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Because what happened to me when I knew, finally knew that I was liked and loved by God, my heart got full.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: And because now my heart had found that one thing that I was looking for and wasn't even sure that's what it was I was looking for, but my heart found it, and it finally found the fulfillment that this that had been I've been looking for for 40 years.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: All my life, as a childhood, as a child, I would very much remember the sense of inferiority and feeling like I was a mistake and having all that, and still fighting with that as a as an adult and as a minister.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: And after 40 years, I found what I was looking for, and it was right there under my nose the whole time.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And because my heart got full, I didn't need anymore.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Not like I did.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: I didn't need people's approval of me.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: I approved of them.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: I didn't need them to believe in me anymore because I believed in you.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: If they didn't love me, I still could love them because my heart was full to give it.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: That's what I had to give.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the selfishness.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: The selfishness wasn't necessary.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: The selfishness feels necessary because you feel like under that tree of knowledge of good and evil, you've got to protect you, you've got to take care of you, you've got to defend you.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: And when you're full, when you're when you receive that love, Ephesians 3.19 calls it the fullness of God.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: You have you lose the need for that selfishness.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: And then the manifestations of the sons of God begin.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And creation doesn't have to keep groaning because they will know we are his because of our love.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: And we only re we have it flowing from us is because we have received it.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: All right, push this along.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Here's an example.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: I was in that age, about 12 years old again.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: I was a pitcher in baseball.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: And um I was one of the better ones at that age.
39:32
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I got older, I wasn't because I just didn't develop, but but that but I was I was uh uh one of the better pitchers in the league, and I was having a bad game.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh the umpire, I was just I was getting frustrated and I was getting mad the more I was playing because I wasn't getting the close calls, and the umpire was calling calling balls when I thought they should have been strikes, and I was getting so frustrated, and the more frustrated I got, the worse my game was.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: So the coach finally pulled me out.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: He never had to do that before.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: He pulled me off the mound and put somebody else in.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: And I'm mad, and I'm throwing my glove down, and I'm I'm I was I was a hothead anyway.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: I was an angry, frustrated kid back then.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Um I had a reputation.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just it was ugly.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: But I was in the in the in the dugout and I was hollering things and I was cussing and I was saying things about the umpire, and the coach would tell me to be quiet, and I would for about five seconds, and I'd start again, and I'm just going off on that.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of that that inning, um, we're coming up to bat, so the coach sent me over to to coach third base for our for our team.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: So I I ran out there and put on a helmet, and I'm standing there by third base, and the other team's warming up.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: And while they were doing that, the umpire pulls off his mask and starts walking down the line towards me.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: And I see this guy, and he's no longer just hidden by he's not just the umpire, he's a full-grown man, and I'm just a kid.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: And he's coming to me, and I know that he's he's gonna lay me out.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: He is going, I mean, and I and I and I I really knew.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh, I have messed up.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I thought he was coming to chew me out or put me in my right place or correct me or something.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: And probably everybody most of the parents watching in the stands probably would have clapped if he would have done it the way I was acting.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And I was starting to feel very ashamed and scared and small.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, here comes this grown-up man.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: And uh he came and he walked up to him to me, and he says, he says, Rick, don't be upset with me.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm doing the best I can here.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: He says, I know I'm not very good at this.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: He says, but you are.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: And he says, he says, and I know that you're gonna be in that all-star game, and I'm gonna be right there rooting for you because I believe in you.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: I started crying.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm trying not to let anybody see me cry, but I it broke, it melted my heart.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: It just touched my heart.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: I had never heard any words like that from anybody.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: And here's somebody that had every right to put me in my place.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: There's somebody that just his presence already made me feel shame.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: Anything he would have said, and most people would have said rightfully so, because I was totally wrong.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing right about what I was doing.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: But the things that he said touched my heart.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: And that man who I didn't even know, but I hated that umpire.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: I thought he hated me, I thought he was cheating on purpose, I thought he was against me.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: And he comes up and says those words, and he just starts walking back to home plate, and I felt such love for that guy.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: I just thought, how could I have said those things about him?
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Because, like the Bible says, a gentle answer turns away wrath, and I was no longer angry about a thing.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: I felt connected to the guy.
42:59
SPEAKER_00: The guy loved me, the guy believed in me, the guy encouraged me.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: He did the opposite of what everybody thought he should, he should have put shame on me.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Teach me a lesson, teach me to ever act like that out on the field again.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: He could have done that.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: But he gave me grace, he gave me love and understanding, and that's what changed me.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: Because honestly, if he would have chewed me out, it would have embarrassed me, it would have shamed me, but it wouldn't have changed that snotty kid.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would have even hated him more.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:37
SPEAKER_00: I want to finish up with this.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for giving me time this morning.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: But this verse of Ezekiel 16, verse 8 sort of gives us the picture and think here you are, with what humans would perceive as flaws, what maybe you have perceived as flaws.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: And you picture yourself and you've got this tattered, filthy garment on.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: And here and it says in Ezekiel 16 8, the Lord speaking, when I talk Passed by again, I saw that you were old enough for love, so I wrapped my cloak around you to cover your nakedness and declared my marriage vows, and I made a covenant with you, says the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: I found you in that condition.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not about we're not the central character in this book.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Him and that love that can change this world.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: The gospel of God's goodness, his love, and his grace, as demonstrated through the whole work of Jesus, is the most relevant message for this world right now.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: You don't like what's going on.
44:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't like a lot of it either.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: You don't like all this stuff, and you're angry about this and that and the other.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: There's hope, there's help.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Because there's another option between all these choices that people say we have to make.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: There's the third option, there's the kingdom of heaven, there is the love of God.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: A gentle answer that turns away the wrath of man, the grace of God in the midst of all this understanding rather than hate and war and fight.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is the friend of sinners, then we are the best friend that any sinners of this world have.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: We are not at war with them that way.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, do we?
45:24
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 19:8.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Speaking of you and I, the bride says, To her, it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine white linen.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: In Ezekiel, he says, I put took my garment and I covered you.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: You were a mess.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: Flawed, broken, bloody, polluted.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: I covered you with my garment.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: And here's our final picture that He has given us fine linen, clean and white.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: You see flaws, I see fine linen.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: And we're not, and and this is what you know, Paul says, Well, I'll just I'll I'll glory in my weaknesses then.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you want to see, yeah, I'm stupid, I make all kinds of mistakes, I do all right, you know.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: But God sure digs me.
46:16
unknown: Woo!
46:17
SPEAKER_00: And that took away all the condemnation.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: Once I got that revelation and I heard the voice of the accuser say, Well, Rick, you don't do this and that.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: I said, I know it.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm and I'm and I'm gonna get better, but in the meantime, God really likes me.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: And Mr.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Devil, you can do everything right from now on, but you still lose.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: For the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand up if you if you if if you want, you can stand up, fluff your pillows a little bit.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: I've no, I've had you seated for a little bit.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: I'll lay it right there.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Some a wise man once told me, This is when the says that when the butt goes numb, the ears go dumb and they can't hear you anymore.
46:55
SPEAKER_00: So right now, where you're standing right now, I want you to just if maybe just close your eyes right now.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to stand right where you're at, and right where you're at, I want you to just just let the heart open up and just say, I have I'm receiving it all.
47:06
SPEAKER_00: You just receive all that.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: Just be loved right now.
47:09
SPEAKER_00: Please, please just be loved right now.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: Just be loved just as you are.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Let the love of God just flood and fill you.
47:16
SPEAKER_00: Let all the shame just run out right now.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: Let everything, let it all be about Jesus right now.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: Everything's about him.
47:24
SPEAKER_00: God digs you.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: God likes you.
47:27
SPEAKER_00: God has very valid reasons for loving you.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: He has chosen you.
47:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're weak and you're foolish and all of that stuff.
47:35
SPEAKER_00: What's that got to do with the price of tea in China?
47:38
SPEAKER_00: God loves you.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: Amen.