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It Pleased The Father · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Grace Church.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody here and those watching online.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful, beautiful day today.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, no, you're laughing.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think I mean I prefer sunshine, but along with the sunshine, there's gotta be a little rain sometime.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the older people chuckled at uh because they knew that I dropped a lyric just then.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's so funny.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: I seem like for so long in church people would, you know, people in church would refer to me and my peers and they would talk about how good it is to see you young people in church and all that.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was for so long, I was like the young people.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like you wake up one day and it's it's not, but it's fun.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it's it's fun.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the name of the game.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: You want to get older and older, right?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right, today.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Judy said on the last song, she looked over at me.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: She said, You're just smiling so big while you're you know, you're getting ready to get up there and speak.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm listening to that last song about the goodness of the father.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and um, and I, you know, honestly, I I I really love the opportunity to just say good things about our father.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's like it's like my favorite thing to do.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: How about you?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And Judy and I spent a lot of time doing this during the week, just talking about the goodness of the father.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like we're in this journey and we're we're walking together and we're walking with each other.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we're pointing out things.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did you see this?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Look how good that is, look how beautiful that is, and it's very, it's very very powerful too.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm talking about the heart of the father, and that's really very, very important because because uh it's all about the unveiling, it's all about revelation, it's all about us seeing what is true, because the truth makes us free.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just I'm excited that what a lot of people in the world are learning, when I say the world, I mean in the church.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mean in the church and I mean everywhere.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um learning things about their father that are changing things.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'm just gonna jump into this and and start reading in Colossians chapter one, and I've titled this It Pleased the Father, and the only reason I titled it that is because the first four words of this verse say that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased the father.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's talking about the father's heart and what pleased him.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was pleased to do what he did.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was pleased with with the work on the cross because of what it says to us, what it reveals to us.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it pleases him.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain things that please him, and one of those things that we read about right here is that his heart is into reconciliation, his heart is into a restoration or a bringing into a oneness.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the word reconcile means to set at one.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so he says here in Colossians 1 verse 19, for it pleased the Father that in him, in Christ, he's talking about, in Christ, all fullness should dwell in him.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not in you, not in what we do, not in our organization, not in our morality code, not in whatever anything else might be, that the fullness of God himself would dwell in in him, verse 20, and by him, Christ, to reconcile all things to himself.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever let your let your mind just just just wonder what really does that entail?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that sounds big to me.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds beautiful to me because it gives me a great hope.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: A great hope where I can look past all of the ugly things that that people are doing in this earth, and all the negative noise that you hear, and you just can't help but hear it because it's coming at you and invading you, and even when you even sometimes you tell some people, please don't tell me that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: They will anyway.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But looking past all of that to see that it pleased the father that in Christ, he did do something, that in Christ to reconcile all things to himself.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We see something about the heart of the Father looking at his creation, and his purpose was with the with what we call the fall of man and all the wickedness and the evil and everything that people can do, he it pleased him that in Christ he would reconcile all things to himself by Christ, whether things on earth or things in heaven, and having made peace through the blood of his cross.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, and you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big one right there, isn't it?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Enemies and alienated in your mind by wicked works, or because of wicked works, yet now he is reconciled.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I always like to make that point there, that that's a really big statement there, and it explains a lot of things because I'm realizing that it was by my in the ignorance and the darkness and deception that I was in that I lived an existence by and large, where you know, for all practical purposes anyway, even though God was always with me, but for all practical purposes, I was void of godly influence in my heart and in my mind.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I paid for that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was in deep sorrow, I was in oppression, I was, you know, and it just caused so many negative and bad things simply out of darkness.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and God says in Isaiah 9, he said, My people are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge, out of ignorance.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Jesus said the truth will make you free, and I just didn't know the truth.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know the truth about God, I didn't know the truth about myself, and I didn't know the truth about the kingdom of God or the purpose of God.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm a happy, happy man now because I'm finding out these things and it's bringing joy.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is the fruit of the spirit.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: The truth really brings freedom, doesn't it?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: He said, but now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody say holy.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: We like to say God is holy, and that's great, and God's at the same time saying, and you're holy.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're holy, blameless, and above reproach in his sight.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to move this right along, I want to read this again, but I want to read it from another translation, the passion, and and I want to just read it because the language is so beautiful and it seems to say so much.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 says, For God is satisfied to have all of his fullness dwelling in Christ.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's just, in other words, that's good enough for him.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than enough for him.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when it says he's satisfied, or it pleased him, like there's no other demands from the Father.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased him, this is how much he loved you and me.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased him to let it all be done in Christ.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and stated through that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, and by the blood of his cross, everything in heaven and earth is brought back to himself.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody felt like I do just now.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I heard that little whoop.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that think about that.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: With all the negatives that you can that that's going on, you look past that and you see great hope because God had a purpose and he's already has worked that purpose.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's a matter of time for things actually work out and fall in line with what God has already established in Christ, just like it was a matter of time before my life began to fall into line with what he had already established for me in Christ.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the whole time it was done.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: The whole time I thought God hated me, or at the very least, he had to be disappointed in me.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It alienated me in my mind, and the whole time God was loving me.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that truth that's making me free.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I gotta read that again.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: By the blood of his cross, everything in heaven and earth is brought back to himself, back to its original intent.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Restored to innocence again, even though you were once distant from him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, he reconnected you back to himself.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: He released his supernatural peace to me and you.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is our true identity.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is the truth of the universe.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is the truth of God.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the truth of all things.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: In this reconciliation, this reconciling heart of our beautiful Father, we see his intent and how it's always been beautiful and it's always been good that he would bring us home to him, even though we were alienated in our minds and our thoughts because of wickedness and actions and all these things that are going on.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And while the world still has all these things that can cloud the picture of God, religion certainly has it, even Christian religion has a lot of it that can still cloud that picture of God.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it amazing that the revealer of truth living in us is cutting through all that stuff and somehow we're seeing something?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing because some of us, some of you might be as dumb as me.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you can still see these things because God is loving you and he's showing you something here.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in this, he's showing us the truth about him and he's showing us about you.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's taking it in this restoration, he shows us and brings us to our true self, our true identity, who we really are, who we really are at our core, who we really are in eternity.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in the Old Testament, he said, talking about the new covenant days, he would say, he said, I'm gonna take away that stony heart and put in a fleshly heart.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or in other words, I'm gonna take away that hard heart and put in a soft heart.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to, in other, really, I'm gonna restore the true heart.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Take away that hardness.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: You see the picture, you know, in Jesus' uh day when he was walking on the earth and in his body, we see him dealing with people like the Pharisees a whole lot.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And when we read that, we see there's a hardness there, isn't there?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: They meant well, but we see a hardness there.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And their intentions were, I believe their intentions were the best, but there was a hardness there that comes out of that ignorance, and God saying, I'm gonna restore your true heart as a child of God.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth about that is gonna make you free.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's uh three little points that I've that I wrote down here that operate to bring us into that truth and into that reality.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is that we have to be recognized.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody's got to recognize who we really are, because we didn't know who we were.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We thought we were what our actions said about us or what our circumstances said about us.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth that makes us free is Holy Spirit revelation, which is eternal truth that God knows about you, and what God knows is truth.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he and so what we find out about God is he knew who you were the whole time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Before he formed you in the womb, he knew you.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I had some preachers tell me that I was a dirty dog and you know, and that I'm a sinner, and and we're trying to, you know, we're trying to not be sinners, and and and you know, all those identities are going on, but God knew who you were, and he's always recognized you, and that's why he loved the world so much that he gave his son because he recognizes who we are.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be recognized.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And in that recognition, if somebody knows who you are, then you have to be loved in order to experience the freedom and that goodness.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and talk about I'm married to a wonderful woman.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I know who she is.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I see her.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the more I see, the more there is to love.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in our flesh there's many imperfections, and we can judge by that, but thank God.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Bible says that when Christ would come, the Messiah would come.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he will not judge according to what he sees with his eyes.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: He would know the truth, he would speak, speak to us like with a truth.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So he goes to his disciples who are, talks to his disciples who are getting it all wrong and misunderstanding everything, it seems like that he's saying, but in spite of that, Jesus kept saying, Your father.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do we talk to him?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do we pray?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Call him your daddy.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody does that.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's blasphemous.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Your father cares, your father loves you, your father, your father, your father, your father.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: What's he doing?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's saying, I recognize you as his sons and daughters.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, which one of us the greatest?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Oh.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're the children of the most high.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need any aspirations.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're already who you are, if you know who who you are.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you but you have to be recognized, you have to be loved.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then that third part where we experience ourselves is when we actually acknowledge that approval.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why, that's why we don't shut up about talking about God's love, his grace, his goodness.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because what we're speaking, I know it's it seems like a simplistic message to many, and people say, I've heard it a thousand times.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I've heard it more, and it comes out of my own mouth, I hear it.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can get tired of hearing a doctrine, but if it's truth, if you're hearing the Spirit talk to you in your inner man, you'll never get tired of this because all you're doing is seeing more and more of your father, and it's causing changes and it's causing great joy and peace to rise in you.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm where to where it's like if you ain't talking about the love of God in some way, I, you know, I you know, whatever.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's that truth that allows you to acknowledge your approval of God.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta know that truth.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says it's a good thing to be established in grace.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I love what we're about here, and I really think that that Matt did a great job of laying out why we do what we do here.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what we do, it's very simple.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're defining grace.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: What does the grace of our father mean?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: What is that father's heart?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: What does that speak to us really?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems to that it keeps speaking something bigger than I ever thought it did.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Even what I'm reading now, I have a sense inside of me that I don't have a clue really of how big this really is.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, right now my mind is going, wow, this is big.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: But in my spirit, I have a sense that, oh, Rick, you barely know the beginning of this.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know that he's infinitely good.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: What we're doing is we're acknowledging that approval of our Father.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's causing us to walk and experience the joy and the bigness of our true identity.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give you some uh examples of this to illustrate it a little bit better.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Give you a few movie references here.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's there's a variety here, so um it should catch everybody, or I think.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But so I don't Judy and I, we don't normally, you know, we don't have kids in the house, and we so we we like to watch movies and things sometimes, but we don't normally gravitate to the latest Disney animation thing.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's in my mind it's a cartoon.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I happen to have seen many of them because a lot of times we'll be in a house where there are kids and they're watching this stuff, and what what happens almost invariably is me and Judy, we find a message in it, and we're like, wow, this is good.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the kids have left the room and we're like, no, leave it on.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's always these great messages.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those, in fact, somebody said you gotta go see Moana when when that came out.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Moana, you know, it's another Disney thing, and they're always great and everything, but I'm not in, you know, I'm not shopping for another Disney animated movie.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Oh, you'll get messages out of it.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now we're gonna go see.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: But in Moana, the whole the point I want to get to is that if does anybody know what I'm know about Moana, the the movie?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, some of you do.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so there was one part here, and this is what stands out to me, these moments in these movies.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they let's see if I can try to describe it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to get to this place and they and to to to to do what they're trying to do, they they've got to find Tefidi, who is this goddess of creation and nature and beautiful, excuse me, but she has lost her heart.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody has stolen her heart.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So they're trying to restore that to her.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But to get to her, there's a barrier because there's this evil, this evil god of fire and lava and uh uh named uh Tekah, I think is how how it's pronounced, but it's man keeps opposing them, and they can't get past this this evil uh god, if you will, this monstrous being.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they can't get past it, and they're fighting, they're fighting, and finally Moana says, Oh, I know who you are.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Moana takes that heart and gives it to this monster.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it turned out that the monster was actually Tafiti the whole time, but had lost her heart.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when her heart was restored, she was acting looking and acting beautiful, like who she was.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a exact, a beautiful picture, I think, of what uh happens to me and you when we find out the truth.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, I'm going to restore your heart.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take away that hard heart and I'm going to put in the soft heart.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to restore you to who you really are.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that the heart of the Father is beating inside of me and you, and we're feeling that, and we're being we're being moved by the impulses of that, and it's changing things, and it's giving us different vision.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: We are in a place of great changes taking place, individually and in the body of Christ, and then consequently the world.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because this this this move, if you will, of of announcing the goodness and the grace and the love of God, it is happening all over the world.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the majority by any means yet.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's happening, and it is slowly snowballing, and it's not decreasing, it's catching on.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and and people's eyes are opening up to the goodness of the Father, and as they're seeing the goodness of the Father, they're being restored to their real identity.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And they're and and not just in doctrine, but in experience.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're living and feeling like a child of God, and they're falling in love with their daddy because now it's very relational.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now they're in love because they are loved, and they know, they know it in the core of their being that somebody sees them, and that's their father, and their father sees them just like the woman at the well said, Come see a man that told me everything I've done, and still wants to hang around with me, still likes me.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Tefit, and and and and when she became her true self, she made this statement.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am Tefiti.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: She was recognized, loved, and acknowledged.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: That identity.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there are many.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: But how about Star Wars?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Anakin?
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Anakin?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Darth Vader?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Darth Vader, the bad guy, and the whole, the villain of the whole, the whole thing.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: But we find out that that initially his true identity is Anakin, and he was a good guy.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to do good things.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: But he grew up with fear because of things that happened in his life.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And like Yoda said, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he grew up with that and he became this monstrous thing, and it was a false identity.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was really anakin.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a point there where uh at that at the at the at the pinnacle of the whole thing.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: This was the whole the whole seminal moment of the movie where Luke can kill Darth Vader, and if you're watching it, you think, yeah, finally get rid of that nemesis once and for all.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And while he's while he's while he's he's he's got Darth Vader in that position, then um Palpatine the Emperor is like, yeah, Luke, do it.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let the hate flow, let the aggression come.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he's all excited and happy because he knows that if he could get Luke to operate in that hate, that he's no longer really a Jedi, that he has entered to the dark side and he's become just like Darth Vader, even though he was fighting for the good thing.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: But he listens to the force, he stops, and that's the Holy Spirit.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he remembers because the Holy Spirit will remind you.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he looks at Darth Vader, evil Darth Vader, and he throws down his lightsaber and essentially says, I know you.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I see the good in you.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: He loved him.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I know you won't kill me.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it looks like just like Jesus hanging vulnerable on the cross, it looks like he's done the worst thing that he Luke steps into who he really is.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he operates out of love.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he has this great peace about him, and he knows.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: He knows the truth.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Darth Vader is no longer Darth Vader, he's Anakin now, and he's loving his son, Luke.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he dies to save Luke's life instead of destroying Luke.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: He saves his life.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And there again, that whole point is somebody recognized Anakin while he was looking and acting like Darth Vader.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you realize what's going on in this world?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that we can make a mistake by judging the world according to their flesh?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And all this is going on here, but there's something different about having the Father's eyes where you can see through all that and you can tell anybody in the world, I know you.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when it becomes, see, I I you know, there was there was some there was some pushback when I when I was when you talk about, isn't it funny how when you talk about the goodness of God and the love of the Father, you get pushback in the church?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: It just, I mean, it riles something up in people.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what it riles up?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: It riles up a fear.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're scared of people like you and me because what what they're afraid of is that we're Christianity's gonna lose if you preach goodness and grace and love.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're afraid that everybody's gonna be these horrible, monstrous sinners because you're not fighting the evil.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not in combat, because you're not taking a stand, because you're not shouting against it, because you're not doing all these things to try to push it all back.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and and we don't understand that what you're doing is you're operating by that same, that that same spirit.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're not operating by the spirit of revelation, by the father's heart, who can look at a world that that that's that's that's goading you into a fight.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you can look at them instead and say, I know who you are.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because what's going what's going to save this world is not Christians defeating the sinners in this world.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even, we it's ridiculous that we would even think in those terms.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: That we would draw a line somewhere when the father's heart sees it all different.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh no, I see, listen, it pleased me that in Christ I would reconcile all of this.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're getting is that same reconciling heart that says, I know who you are.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I love you.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Rick.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta love them enough to slam them and tell them the truth.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what love is.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: You hear it a lot, I used to say that.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: But we're getting the father's heart, and it's powerful.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was powerful enough to change this man in ignorance, and all the other stuff that I'm hearing people still trying, that I tried for many years, none of that was powerful enough to change even me, let alone those who I was talking about.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: It just didn't.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I struggled so much.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just like Paul said in Romans 7.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You know what, I I went that way, I kept that.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and you know what?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I still couldn't find the power to do what I wanted to do, and I couldn't find the power to stop doing what I didn't want to do.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we struggle and we promise God we're gonna do better, and we we confess our sins and we rep, we quote, repent, not even knowing what repent means, but we're doing all that stuff.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to deal with these issues that weren't even issues to our Father, who was trying to tell us, child, I know who you are, and I love you, I like you.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if we're receiving, still receiving guilt and condemnation, do you know that then that's what we're going to be given to people?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if we receive grace, we're gonna give grace.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: If we receive holiness, if we can stand here and say, because of the that it pleased the Father that in Christ all the fullness of God would dwell, that in Christ, that you can stand here and say, you know what?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I am absolutely holy, I am complete, I am fulfilled in Him.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it is finished, and the Lord is my shepherd, and I shall not want fullness.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Creation longing for the manifestation of the children of God, because the children of God will walk around with full hearts, not needing something, not needing something from you.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need you to change, I don't need you to get rid of this, I don't need you to stop doing that, I don't need, I don't need any of that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know who you are.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know who you are.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And just the feeling of being able to look at look at you and anybody else and say, and no matter what they're doing, no matter what they're doing, and just say, I know who you are, what a power of that uh of liberty that can bring.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: If they can hear it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then we had Rick had to be, I had to be loved just like I was.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I never changed, if I never got any better, I still I needed to find out something God wanted me to know.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted me to know that that Rick, I love you now.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't love your potential, I don't love a future version of you.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love you a little, but I'm really gonna love you when you take care of this, that, and that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I found out he loved me now, I got my heart.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I accepted my heart and I began to change my talk and my walk.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I began to acknowledge my approval.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I am Tefiti.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I am Rick Manis, child of God.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um Lord of the Rings, Gollum, mean, ugly, violent, selfish little creature, and then we find out he's not even really Gollum.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: He is his name is Smeagol, and somebody recognized him.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when somebody recognized him and treated him like he was valuable and treated him lovingly and gently, he was back to who he truly was and who he was born to be in the beginning.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Simba.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: When guilt and condemnation was put up on him by that mean ol uncle of his, he's out there living some other identity.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when the prophet, the truth, came to him and and and reminded him of who he was and who his father really was, he came into who he had always been the whole time.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: He he see all these characters, they are were not bad guys trying to become something better.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were always good in the beginning, but had become a disfigurement, a wrong identity.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: The truth would make them free, and it always does, and that's what's happening to us.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: First John chapter 4.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how this applies to you.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, biblically, it's um I mean let me go ahead and biblically it's um Jacob, this cheater.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, you're no longer gonna be called a cheater.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're Israel.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Israel, a prince of God.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Prophetically in Numbers, the Bible says a star would rise up out of Jacob.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Who was that star?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was the true identity, that was Israel.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: First Peter says, we pay heed to the prophetic word until that day star rises in our hearts.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Holy Spirit taking the ascendancy and telling us the truth and convicting us, convincing us of that righteousness.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the fearful and unbelieving.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a good one.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can read about this one in Revelation, and the fearful and unbelieving will have their part in the lake of fire.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Read that whole thing.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful picture of restoration.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know what that means?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: That lake of fire consumes it all.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was Rick afraid, in doubt and unbelief, living my life, lived for years in that.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where is that guy?
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: He got gone.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: He got gone.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: He got disappeared, consumed.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was annihilated, faded away.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even me.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the fire will only burn away the fake, not the gold of who you really are.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: What it is is those of us who thought we were dirty dog sinners that God was not pleased with, or else we were religious legalists or half-legalists or something, what we find out is Christ in you.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: The hope of glory is your secret and your true identity.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: First John 4, there is no fear in love.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect love casts out fear because fear involves a torment.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased the Father that in him the fullness of God dwell.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: You see the Father's heart.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Any fear of torment fades.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's happening.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful, it's powerful, and it, that truth of God's heart, brings the fruit of the Spirit to manifestation in your life.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Love, joy, peace.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 5, verse 4 says, Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith, our trust in a wonderful Father.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Who is he that overcomes the world?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to, I'm trying, I'm landing this plane right now, but there's this point, a couple of points I gotta make.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Think about this one.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just throw this out there to you.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of us in a Christian religion mindset, we take this thing about believing in Jesus or believing that Jesus is the Son of God, is that there's this particular line in prayer that you pray.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've done that, then you get the badge and you're in the club.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: It almost don't matter how you act, like, did you do this?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're in the club.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: In the writing here, here was this man Jesus, who is the Christ.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Dies on a cross, teaches what he teaches, does what he does.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that cross speaks everything to us.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't believe that he was the one, then you're just believing something else.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: But nothing else in these days, nothing else was telling them the things that we're saying today.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he said, No man comes to the Father but by me.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is showing you these things.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you believe me, those that did, what did they find out?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: The things we're talking about today.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: I believed in Jesus as the Savior.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't believe the stuff that his cross was really telling me about complete annihilation of the whole sin issue.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: Of a God who would rather die himself than torment me over it.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Over a God who said, look, you see this.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's peace between us.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's true.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it's one thing to be saying, yep, I believe Jesus is the Savior, therefore I go to heaven.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's another to believe Him.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what He says about you and the Father.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, 1 John chapter 2.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the good news.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's happening to us.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the world, which is the cosmos, the order, the arrangement of this world that has deceived and distracted.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: The world is passing away.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And all the lust that comes with it, all the neediness, all the always just never good enough, never enough, all that is passing away.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because in him is fullness, and it pleased the Father that in him all fullness would dwell.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Would you stand up with me?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased the Father that you would know his heart.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he loved you so much that so that you could enjoy the faith, the trust, the power that comes with knowing your daddy and knowing what that means about you.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: He loved you so much that he wanted you to be empowered with all the kingdom of heaven has to offer the righteousness, the rightness, the right standing, right, being right with God.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: The righteousness, peace, and the joy that's in his spirit.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is a sense of fullness in him.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is a reality of being complete in him.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: There is a reality of being holy today.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I know who you are.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thou art holy.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: O children of God.