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Transcript

Mission Impossible · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: So I've come up with a very clever, clever title, right?
0:04
SPEAKER_02: Mission Impossible.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: I thought of all kinds of clever things I could do to go along with that, but I don't know if we could get the bungee or the what's that thing called?
0:13
SPEAKER_02: The repel thing or whatever to come down right now.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't trust them anyway.
0:17
SPEAKER_02: Uh we did do some cliff jumping and stuff like that this week, and I'm very proud of that.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
0:24
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, but that wasn't the impossible mission.
0:29
SPEAKER_02: So this is called Mission Impossible, your mission, should you choose to accept it.
0:33
SPEAKER_02: And it comes from this verse right here.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: The most something so hard that we we kind of like looking at it, but we kind of just don't know what to do with it, I think, for the most part.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: But it's in Matthew chapter 5, verse 43, the words of Jesus.
0:54
SPEAKER_02: He gives us a mission impossible.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: He gives us something that that is is it's impossible.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: But Jesus says to do it.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: But it's so impossible, it's so hard that we we don't know what to do.
1:08
SPEAKER_02: But he says this um he says, You've heard that it was said that you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: But I say to you, love your enemies.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: That's a list of things.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: How many have got lost on the very first one?
1:29
SPEAKER_02: You already lost it.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Love your enemy.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Don't read it again.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Love your enemies.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that right there, he didn't even have to say anything else.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: Love your enemies.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: We're still trying to get love your neighbor.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: We're trying to get to that level as yourself.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we can love our neighbors, but as ourselves.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: You know, I think it's most of us we're we're good at loving those that either they're our family or they're of some benefit to us in some way.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: We're good at loving those.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: And not to say we're not learning uh the uh the love of our father, but um still trying to get get that one.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: Um and he says, Love your enemies, bless the ones who curse you.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: And to really do this well, maybe you can even think of somebody in your mind and and and that this might apply to.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: Bless those who curse you, do good to those that hate you, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father in heaven, because he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: This is what Jesus tells us to do.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: So just go do it, okay?
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Just go love your enemies and bless bless those now.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: And and I'm, you know, I'm I'm I'm the reason I'm chuckling is because this isn't easy.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: But it's right there in red in your Bible, Jesus says, do this.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: So what do we do with it?
2:58
SPEAKER_02: We smile and we like, yeah, that'd be good.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: The world would be a wonderful place.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: I I'll I'll say this that I I have a vision for this.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Um I believe it's working.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: I believe it's working, the kingdom is working in us.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: But it's so hard, this mission is so hard that that what we what we religion will do, what we will do in our religion, is we will forego that for some other thing.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: We'll trade it for some other things that might show our holiness or our purity or our Christ-likeness.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: And so we hear things, and I've got a little list here that I've just of things that I jotted down that I have heard people uh that people are important to people to as a Christian, as Christians.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, I have heard people uh that talk about um, and these are real things, and I've talked, sat down and talked with people, and many of them are pastors.
4:01
SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking of one conversation that we had where where the pastors were very concerned that they uh saw pictures on social media of some pastors sitting around a table and they had beer on their table.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: And they were that's they just they don't get it.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: They're just like, what's what's the world coming to?
4:20
SPEAKER_02: What are we doing now?
4:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, where's our standard of holiness?
4:22
SPEAKER_02: And they're concerned about the alcohol.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: I've heard another one that that was saying, you know, I'm just I'm just you know really concerned that it seems like it's okay for some of these ministers that they would that they would drink wine.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: So he was really concerned about that.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: Um, some of them are concerned about, I just don't understand how why, you know, what what it is with Christians nowadays with all these piercings and these tattoos, and they're they're all concerned about that.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: And then I've run into many that are very concerned about holidays, especially a particular holiday in Ricktober, at the end of Rictober.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: Not my birthday.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm talking about the one at the end of the end of the month, and they're very concerned, and you should have zero to do with it, and and just close your eyes and act like it's not there and don't acknowledge it, because if you do, they've got all kinds of imagined things that can happen to you if you if you do.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: And it's not just that holiday.
5:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, some of them will go uh, and maybe some of you here are like that.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but some of them uh will go into I mean, even Easter, don't even touch that, don't have anything to do with that or Christmas, and because they, you know, they they're concerned about the those are important things and and they hold them very high of some some people that I know.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Um politics, enough said.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: I don't even have to go into that.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: But that one's way up there for the with some people, right?
5:42
SPEAKER_02: In fact, the greatest commandment is not love your enemies, the greatest commandment is don't allow abortion and don't allow gay people to get married.
5:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that they put those way up there.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: Um the way Christians dress is another concern.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: There's a standard that we should that we should uphold.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: The way the way they talk these days, some of the things that are allowed now in church, not this church, of course, but in and entertainment, the thing, the I remember putting on social media years ago, you know, I'm a I'm I'm an old guy.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm actually older than I look and much older than I act.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: But I I I put it out that I was going to a rock concert from an old rock band from back in the day.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: And they were still still going, and they were very old, but they were still going, and it might be my last chance to see them, so I was gonna do them, gonna go see them, and I was excited, and they were from my old days, you know.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: They I wasn't saved back then, and I was, you know, drug, sex, rock and roll, and I I know what all that was about, but it was nostalgic, and I was gonna see it.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: Boy, I never should have put it on social media.
7:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm telling you, I was I was no longer saved.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: People would no longer listen to me speak.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: I was, I mean, that was important, uh, the entertainment.
7:08
SPEAKER_02: So what we do is we take a lot of other things and we we we we put them in the middle of our focus and we make them, we make them um, we make those the things that that that define our purity, our righteousness, holiness, our standard, our Christ-likeness, maybe.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: And because you know what?
7:27
SPEAKER_02: In reality, those things are much easier than what Jesus said.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: It's much easier to just say, no, I'm not gonna get a piercing or a tattoo, or easier to say, no, I'm not gonna listen to that music, or no, I'm not going to wear that clothing.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: It's much easier to do that than to do what Jesus said, right?
7:46
SPEAKER_02: It's a mission impossible.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: Now, as I get into this, I have to tell you right now, in case anybody gets nervous, my message is not going to not going to be, now you got to get out there and do this.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: What's wrong with you?
7:56
SPEAKER_02: How come you're not doing it?
7:58
SPEAKER_02: Let's get with it, church.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: Let's start doing what Jesus said.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: That's not my message today, because it is impossible.
8:03
SPEAKER_02: In fact, you know, there was an another time when uh a rich young ruler came to speak with Jesus.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
8:11
SPEAKER_02: He says, Well, you know, the commandments, what's it say?
8:13
SPEAKER_02: And he says, Well, it's this and that.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: He says, you know, honor your mother and father, love the Lord your God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: And he says, Okay, well, do that.
8:22
SPEAKER_02: And he says, Well, I've been doing it.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: I've been doing all that.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: So what am I still lacking?
8:27
SPEAKER_02: And then Jesus flips it and he says, Oh, well, if you want to be perfect, you want to do that perfectly, since you think you're doing it.
8:36
SPEAKER_02: There are there are depths of this we can get into.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: If you want to love God with all your heart, you want to love your neighbor as yourself, then sell all you have and give it to them, give it to the poor.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: And then take up your cross and follow me if you love the Lord with all your heart.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: And it was too much.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: It was a mission that was impossible.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: It was too much.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said it's hard.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: And and the disciples said, Well, then they're looking watching this, and they say, Who can be saved?
9:04
SPEAKER_02: What's Jesus say?
9:05
SPEAKER_02: You can't.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: It's impossible.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: With man, but with God.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: All things are possible.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: But this love thing.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: I also want to say right here early on that it's not just something that we feel for people.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: It's more than that.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: It's not just something that we do.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: We gotta really I hope that I can uproot that one.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: It's not something that we do because when you see a command, if it's a command is to love, the command never empowers us on its own.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: A law or a command doesn't empower us to do it, it just puts pressure on us to do it.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: But it's love that edifies.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: It's God, it's Him that empowers.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's the approval of the Father that empowers the children.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: It's the love of the Father that casts out fear.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: It's the love of the Father that does everything.
9:58
SPEAKER_02: I want to talk about that love and talk about it as our source of all of this stuff, and not not and not talk about God as someone who's commanding or demanding that we live up to a standard that's really, really hard to live up to.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: But there is an empowerment.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: There is there is love.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: I want to talk about uh agape or agape, however we say it.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: And for many years I wanted to love like God did.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: I saw it all over the Bible.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: I'd pray, God help me to love people, help me to see what you see, help me to help me to, you know, and help me to love you.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: That's the other, that's the first one.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: Love God first.
10:40
SPEAKER_02: You try to love people, and I can remember when I was an associate pastor in a church, and you know, if things just over time had been building, and these little offenses and things that people were doing and offending me, and and finally I walk I walk in one time and somebody said something to me, and I just like, that's it.
11:03
SPEAKER_02: And I turned around and I left.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: Walked out first.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: I went I went I went to the to the to the back of the behind the church.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: They had a playground and everything there, and I went all the way back there and I climbed a tree, just like I did when I was 10 years old.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: I went back here and I climbed a tree and I sat there and I cried to God like I did back in those days, and and I just I hatched a plan.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: And so I didn't, I turned around, I went home.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And I told my wife that I'm done with people.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: And I was praying to God and I was saying, God, I am done with people, and I said, and here's my plan.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: I said, God, I just want to go to the mountains.
11:43
SPEAKER_02: I want to pack up, I want to leave here.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: I want, I want me and my family to go as far as deep into the mountains as we can where nobody can find us.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: And I said, And God, I just want it to be me and you.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: I will just love you, I will just worship you.
11:55
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be me and you, God, none of this crap, you know?
11:59
SPEAKER_02: With all these humans.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: And uh I really felt like I heard God say, Well, if you don't love people, you don't love me.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: And I said, No, I think I can.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: I think I can do that.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: And then he does, he talks to you and ministers to you, and you and it gets it gets better.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: And there was another time when I was I was a senior pastor in a church, and uh I guess similar a similar thing had happened.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: Things had been building up, and finally there was just a last straw had happened in the in the church, and I was just like, I'm done.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: And I that when I did call my wife on the phone, I said, you know, I had I had sat there in my office and I had hatched another plan, and I had this fantasy.
12:44
SPEAKER_02: I thought, I thought, I am done with this ministry business.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't I don't like it.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't like all this bad stuff that goes with it.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: People, people, people.
12:55
SPEAKER_02: And uh and I thought, okay, going to the mountains, and I've tried that one, that one doesn't work.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: But I had this fantasy, this paradisical idea that I could just not do this and just go make money and go to church and love Jesus and sit on the back row and try not to meet too many people and give your tithe.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: And that would, to me, that was paradise.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, that's the best Christian life that you can have.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: So this love thing is hard.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: I I I I know it.
13:28
SPEAKER_02: And I used to pray, God, help me, help me to love you for one thing.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I really wanted to, um, because I always had from the first day I got into this, I always had zeal.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: I always had passion.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be the best Christian I could be.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be, I wanted to be good and gooder, and I wanted to love God more and help me God, and I felt like I wasn't loving him more.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: I felt like I was always choosing other things.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: I felt like I was uh I was so condemned that I just felt like I was so falling short of loving God.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: And then I share how something began to change in a season in my life when I became aware.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: And and and things like this are hard to explain or define unless you you you have had it happen to you or something similar and you know it.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: But I just began to get a realization, an awakening, a a knowing, a revelation that God loved me just the way I was, and he wasn't demanding that I love him more.
14:39
SPEAKER_02: He wanted me to know the more that he loved me.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't demanding that I be strong, he wanted to be my strength, and that he was all of those things, and everything that I was trying to get in life, and trying to gain by groaning and moaning and intercession and prayer and prophecy and all the things and uh the work that I was doing that I already had in him, and it was not something that I attained to, it w it was something that was there all the time, and I began to be aware of it, and I began to feel loved.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: And I say for the first time in my life is when that awareness started.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: It was when I actually felt like I could I could be loved.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: And God didn't come to me with the demand that you need to do a better job of loving.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: I was already putting that pressure on me.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: But he took that away and I guess he helped, he revealed to me, helped me to see his love, and I'm forever thankful for that revelation.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: And with all the things I've been through, and and I gave you two examples.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: I've quit, I've quit ministry lots of times.
15:58
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it was for five minutes, but some but but I but but I like I quit.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: It never stuck.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: But I I believe that I'm I'm here now, that I can do what I do now because of a of an awareness of something that has been there all this time.
16:14
SPEAKER_02: That I was always loved.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: And believe it or not, I was always lovable.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Even at my ugliest and yuckiest and doing the worst that I could do, I was always lovable.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: I know that now.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: I'm convinced of that somehow.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: And that love does something.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Um the word grace is associated with that.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: And um as that grace permeates your your heart and you you begin to see it, become aware, it does something, it does something to you because I'm I'm I really believe that that's the what people call the God-shaped whole is everybody wants to be loved unconditionally.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: You want to be loved just because you're you with all your dirt, with all your flesh, with all of your so-called flaws, and and so on.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: You you want to be safe as you are, and I began to feel safe.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: And I began to feel I began to fall in love with me in a way that was so different.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm not talking about the pretend thing, like, oh, I'm fabulous.
17:31
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, you better respect me.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I'm all that.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm it wasn't that.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: But I loved the one who was hurting.
17:43
SPEAKER_02: I loved the one who was broken that I had in my religion was trying to push away because it was flawed, and Jesus didn't like those flaws, and he wanted me to get rid of those flaws, and he wanted me to become better, and I was on this road of always trying to get better and getting better, and because if I got better, then I'd get more favor.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: If I got better, my faith would get stronger and I could get more stuff.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: If I got if I got uh better at being good, I'll have more anointing.
18:13
SPEAKER_02: If I got better, I'll have more and more and more.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: But until then, God's not given it to me until I do things.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: And to be better, I felt like I had to get rid of a lot of Rick.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, I found out that God never had stopped loving Rick.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: When Rick was ugly, when Rick was weak, when Rick was making horrible choices.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm convinced today that he always loved Rick.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: And I thought he hated Rick.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: I thought he liked the future version of Rick.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: God, just don't I would say, God, don't give up on me.
18:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna get there.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: I promise, I'm gonna climb this hill.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna be proud.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna like it.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: I can do this.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna love like you, I'm gonna walk like you, talk like you, I'm gonna, you know.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: All of that.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: I would look at these scriptures.
19:22
SPEAKER_02: Love your neighbor, love your enemy, love people, love God with all your heart.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know what that meant.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: So I tried.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: I'm watching TV and I thought, oh, I'm not loving God right now.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: I'm watching TV.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Click, turn the TV off.
19:39
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm gonna love God.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: How do you love God?
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm gonna pray.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna worship, I'm gonna do some kind of service to God, and that will be love to God.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: After I found out God loved me, I quit doing so much of that kind of stuff.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: And I have not asked God to help me love him in decades.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: Because when I found out he loved me, I just loved him.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: And it was undeniable and it was unquestionable.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: I just loved God, and I'm here because I love God.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm I love you guys, and you guys don't make me want to quit because God loved me first, and I love him for that, and that same love that has been received is a love that I carry more of that, it seems.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: And it's a beautiful thing to watch happen to yourself, and all the fruit of the spirit are with that.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: It's there is peace, there is gentleness, there's goodness, there's kindness, it all that comes, and it didn't come from me climbing that mountain.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: It came because of an awareness.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: You see, when people talk of love, there's a Greek word called called Eugenio, E-U-G-E-N-I-O.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: And that basically means being nice, being respectful, being kind.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: And and and most of us we're we're that way.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: We'll open doors for people at the grocery store.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: We'll we're we're we're we're we're kind, we're nice, we're respectful.
21:29
SPEAKER_02: And people will say, yeah, well, you know, I'm uh you know, they'll they'll be talking about someone that's hurt them, someone they're angry with, and all that.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: And you might say, Yeah, you know, but God still loves them and and and we're called to love them too.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: And and and we go into defense mode.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, I love them.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: Don't get me wrong.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: No, I love them.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: You know.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: I don't want a bomb to blow up their house or anything.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: I love them.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: You know, I don't want anything bad to happen to them.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's eugenio.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: That's that's that's you know, you you're you're you're still respectful.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: You're still kind and all that.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: And then there's another kind of love that we're very familiar with.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: And the Greek word is phileo.
22:07
SPEAKER_02: And that's feeling, right?
22:08
SPEAKER_02: That's an emotional, that's an that's an emotional feeling of love, an emotional affection that we have.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: And that's very good.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's very real.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: I have a very strong emotional affection for my wife.
22:19
SPEAKER_02: I also have an emotional affection for many of you that I know because I like being around you.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: I like being talking with you.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: I like things about you.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
22:28
SPEAKER_02: That can change.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: I quit ministry a number of times because my feelings changed about people.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: But it's good when it's good.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: It's good when it feels good.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: But that's that's an emotional thing that we have.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Um and then there's one we talk about a lot, and it's agape, is how I say it.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: And this is not something we do, and this is what I want us to see um uh today that makes it really nice and really beautiful and really, really easy, honestly, is that agape is God, for God is agape, 1 John 4, 8.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: And that's something you could really stew in.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: Because if you do it long enough, and if you really are willing to accept that God is agape, that kind of love, whatever you know about it, then it removes the picture of the old man with the gray beard, the big guy upstairs, the man in the clouds, the sky god, the one that's doing stuff to people or for people.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: You're getting into something bigger than that, someone bigger than all of that.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: And I love the song, especially that first song we sang this morning about how he came, how he he he went to such lengths to show his love for us.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Do you know Jesus was the correction of everything wrong about God, everything wrong that was thought about God?
24:00
SPEAKER_02: He's the correction.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: All these things with all the religion and all this all the thoughts that people had and still permeates today.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: Jesus is the correction of that.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: The father is love, and it goes beyond religion.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: How many know Jesus didn't come to start a religion?
24:18
SPEAKER_02: And he did not start a religion.
24:20
SPEAKER_02: Men did.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: Men did.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: We call it Christianity.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: And I go ahead and wear the label because of lack of, you know, because people understand, understand that more.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: But but he started, men started that the religion.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: Jesus didn't.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: Jesus came to come declaring the father to us all.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: He came revealing the father to us all, revealing a father to mankind that did not know, did not have that revelation of the father, that he was a father for one thing, that he is our source of life.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: He is agape, he is love.
24:50
SPEAKER_02: He's always been, always will be, and always remains.
24:53
SPEAKER_02: And that is a fact.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: And no matter where it is, that's why you know David would say things, no matter where I go, you're there.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: I make my bed in hell, you're there.
25:02
SPEAKER_02: Agape.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: God is there.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: God is agape.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: He is love, capital L love.
25:07
SPEAKER_02: You can call it the God kind of love, unconditional love.
25:11
SPEAKER_02: Those all fit into that.
25:13
SPEAKER_02: It's it's God.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: It's agape, an only agape, that kind of love that could bring forth life that you see all over the place.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: Not a God who's just a judge, not a God who's watching, and not a God who's making a list and checking it twice.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: That's Santa Claus.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not a God that's that's that's easily angered or any of those things.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Agape is not easily angered, the Bible says.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: Agape is God.
25:48
SPEAKER_00: Love.
25:50
SPEAKER_02: It makes grass grow, it makes trees grow, makes the earth beautiful, makes this rock out here in space as beautiful as an agape did that.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: It brought you forth into the world.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: And you're the Bible says that you're wonderfully, awesomely made.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Only Agape, Agape could bring forth something as beautiful and complex and amazing, so that you're able to like carry this whole universe of your whole, you carry this whole thing inside you that most people don't even can't even comprehend, but you carry it with you.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: And God's there.
26:40
SPEAKER_02: And you're loved.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus went to all these lengths to talk about you being the pearl of great price and worth everything.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: And you're the though you're a sheep that's lost, you're valuable, and the shepherd will do whatever to bring the sheep back.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: You're the coin that was so valuable that that he was not willing that any of any would be lost, but that all would be saved or would be found and made whole in love in Agape.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: See, if I had I wish I had a penny, I'd show you something.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: But if I had a penny in my pocket, which I don't, I could throw this penny over there somewhere and lose it.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: Now, I might, after I'm done, I might walk by there later on and look down and see if I can see it and see if I can find it.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: Because if I do, I'll pick it up.
27:32
SPEAKER_02: But if I don't, if I don't see it, it's not a lot of skin off my nose.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm willing to lose it.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to lose a penny.
27:41
SPEAKER_02: I don't wake up saying I hope I lose a penny.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: But if I do lose a penny, I'm willing to lose it.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes I'll drop one in the parking lot.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: I'll hear it ding and I'll look, and even if it's a penny and I see it, I'll bend down and pick it up because I don't want to lose a penny.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: But if I don't see it, and it's not, I don't I don't want to spend a whole lot of time with it.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm willing to lose it.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: You see that?
28:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to lose it, but I'm willing to lose it.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Now there's a scripture that says God's not willing that any should perish, but that all have life.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: And so some will say, well, see, so God's will is that everybody gets it.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: That God loves everybody, he includes everybody.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And others say, no, no, no.
28:31
SPEAKER_02: It just means he wants everybody, but he can't have everybody.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, the difference is he's not willing to lose any of you.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: In other words, of course he doesn't want to, but he's not willing either.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: And that's what Jesus represents to us.
28:59
SPEAKER_02: That's what he speaks to us.
29:01
SPEAKER_02: He is that expression of God going to all these lengths, even the lengths of the cross, to show your value and your importance, your preciousness, your beauty, and that you're loved.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: In spite of all the things you see going on around you, you can know inside you.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: Listen, horrible things have happened to me in my life.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the answers for everything clearly enough that I can articulate and teach why.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: But with agape, with love speaking to your heart, showing himself to your heart, you can have love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, kindness, faith, faith, self-control, all of these things become evident as the fruit of his spirit.
30:12
SPEAKER_02: Because what you're doing to wrap this up, with all this good news that you're hearing, you're not hearing all these things just so you can be those weird Christians out there that everybody talks about.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: You're becoming more aware of a love that was always there and was always will be there.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Now see if I lost a penny, I'd be willing to lose it.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: But if somebody would throw me their diamond ring, I'll show you.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: I'll show you something I'm not willing to lose.
30:51
SPEAKER_02: If I threw your diamond ring out there, I'm not just gonna look for a few seconds.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: I'll be here all day or longer.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: Because I'm not willing to lose it.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: Because it's precious.
31:06
SPEAKER_02: Jesus reveals the preciousness of mankind.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: So what's happening is this.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: We're not being thrown more New Testament commands, we're becoming aware of the reality of God, who is love.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: And I would suggest that let his love for you be paramount in all things.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: Even when it gets hard.
31:43
SPEAKER_02: Even when people are doing things that are not good.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: Let the love speak.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: Let love happen to you.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: Be loved.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: Just be loved because you deserve to be loved because you were created for that love.
32:08
SPEAKER_02: And like God said in the the shack, I think of this a whole lot, but you were created to be loved just like a bird was created to fly.
32:15
SPEAKER_02: And when we live without that love, it's like our wings have been clipped and we're trying.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh, are we trying?
32:24
SPEAKER_00: But you can clip those wings and they eventually grow.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And they can fly.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And you're here to live loved.
32:39
SPEAKER_02: And as you live loved, you find yourself at peace with yourself.
32:45
SPEAKER_02: You can love your what you thought were your most unlovely parts.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: And you become at peace with you.
32:54
SPEAKER_02: And that's a beautiful love story when you can embrace you and say, Yes, I'm a weak and foolish vessel.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: But what a treasure is in this earthen vessel.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm loved.
33:10
SPEAKER_02: And you'll love God for it.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: And nobody will have to tell you love God more, and you won't have to feel like you're supposed to be loving God more.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: You will.
33:22
SPEAKER_02: You'll do the greatest commandment.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: You will love God.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: Just because you're loved.
33:29
SPEAKER_02: Because you will love somebody that you believe loves you unconditionally, just because you're you and knows everything about you and loves you.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: And that agape, that kind of love that you become aware of, we start looking around at people and it does get better.
33:49
SPEAKER_02: We start having more compassion, more empathy, more understanding, more patience, more sense of safety, faith, and trust in God.
34:02
SPEAKER_02: God, I've been playing a short game and you're playing a long game.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: I can trust you in this.
34:10
SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, creation is looking for the children of God who know that love and looking for that manifestation of God's children who have come to that awareness that love is here.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm baptized in that love, thoroughly loved.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And as we're continuing to be baptized in that love, we see our love extended to our neighbor more than enemies.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: You know, God has no enemies.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: Yet has he reconciled?
35:08
SPEAKER_02: So if he yet he still loved us.
35:11
SPEAKER_02: So if he still loved us, how to can it use the word enemies?
35:14
SPEAKER_02: It must have been one-sided.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: But it was never on God's side.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: God is Agape.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: While we were yet sinners.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: That kind of love is poured into our hearts.
35:44
SPEAKER_02: And it's bringing us into peace and patience and love.
35:48
SPEAKER_02: Do we do this mission impossible perfectly?
35:51
SPEAKER_02: No.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: But God is bringing us into an awareness.
35:55
SPEAKER_02: Would you all stand up?
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for giving me your time this morning.
36:04
SPEAKER_02: God's vision in Habakkuk chapter 2, he says, write the vision, make it plain, so that everybody that sees it can run with it.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: And then he goes down on down there.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: He gives that vision.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: For all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: That's God.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: That's his heart.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: That's his vision.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: And he said, and it'll come to pass.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: You won't have to teach your neighbor, know the Lord, know the Lord.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: They're all going to know me.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: They're all going to know me.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: Not because we made religious converts out of more people.
36:51
SPEAKER_02: They're all going to know me because I'll be good to them.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: I'll be merciful to them in their transgression and their sins and iniquities won't be remembered.
37:02
SPEAKER_02: It won't be about that.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: It won't be about sin, iniquity.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: It won't be about who's doing wrong, who's ungodly, who's godly.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: It'll be who's loved.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: It won't be, well, do they know the Lord?
37:15
SPEAKER_00: It'll be, does the Lord know them?
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Does the Lord know you?
37:25
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: Father, the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: And I thank you, Father, for the ministry of your spirit.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Especially to those who have said, I've seen it, I've read it.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: How do I know the love?
37:46
SPEAKER_02: I thank you, Father, that it flows like a river.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: I thank you that it's tasted and it's seen.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: I thank you, Father, that the hearts are opened up like double barn doors and and and love is being is happening.
38:02
SPEAKER_02: That in the mornings that we wake up, love is all around.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: That when we go to bed, there's the smile of love upon us.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: And let every heart be well and let every heart be at rest.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: That every one of us, we are cared for, we are loved.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: We're highly valued.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: I thank you for this in Jesus' name.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: And I would like to say this for all we're all standing here right now.
38:39
SPEAKER_02: Would you do this?
38:40
SPEAKER_02: Would you lift your hands if you if you would, if you would.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's just a symbol of surrender, of it is of worship, but it's also of receiving.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: And I say, let love happen.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Let it happen especially to you.
38:55
SPEAKER_02: And let you be the receptacle of that love.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: And then and then watch as you not only are you the receptacle, but you are the dispenser of that love to a world that is so hurting, that is so misunderstood.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: And that love is shining to you, through you, and from you.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh, and that love is making you hull from the inside out, and it's healing the hurts, and it's healing the anxieties, and it's healing the stresses and the pains and the things that cause the tears at night.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: Agape is with you.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: Agape is all through you.
39:37
SPEAKER_02: God's love for you.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: It floods your heart, it floods your home.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: You're absolutely lucky, and when you blow it and when you fail, and when you fall on your face, Agape is all over you as you're being loved and you're being understood.
39:58
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing that shall separate us from that agape.
40:04
SPEAKER_02: Nothing, not height, depth, principality, power, things present, things to come, famine, peril, nakedness, sword, nothing, not even death, will separate us from Agape.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: He's always here in joy.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: I love you guys.
40:18
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your time today.
40:19
SPEAKER_02: Have a wonderful day.
40:21
SPEAKER_02: God bless you.