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Jesus and the Scapegoat · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many's team is the Bucks?
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mine's mine's the Buccaneers.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're pretty good, need to get better, right?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: We had a quarterback not long ago that many people have called the GOAT.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know what the goat means, right?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: What it stands for, the greatest of all time.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I choked on saying that.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that Jesus is the greatest of all time.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The God man, the God in man, the Son in God.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the goat.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to look at something this morning that actually shows where Jesus biblically is likened to the goat.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I guess a goat is more is likened to Jesus or symbolic of Jesus.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And let's get right into it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's found in Leviticus chapter 16.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I think of a reference in Hebrews where it talks about the blood of bulls and goats.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in my mind, I always think of the lamb because he is called the lamb of God.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that that there's a Passover sacrifice that's a that's a lamb, and that's uh for for certain things.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But then I would wonder why did why did it say the blood of bulls and goats?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I always just thought about the lamb uh that was sacrificed.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we knew there were lots of different sacrifices.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what that reference was was to the day of atonement, or they call it Yom Kippur, which uh which was uh really the day of atonement for sins uh for all the people of of the nation that uh for that year.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and really it was bulls and goats that were that were offered.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: The bull, a bull was offered for the high priest, uh, who, first of all, was Aaron when it was given, but the bull was offered for the sins of the high priest, so the priest could do his thing without, actually without dying, it said.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that's a whole other thing I'd like to talk about sometime.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But uh but once the priest was uh sanctified, then there were there was a goat.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there were two goats.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it speaks about it here in Leviticus chapter 6, and I'm gonna jump in beginning in verse 7.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, now the high priest shall take the two goats.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: So they bring two goats, two goats, and present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's kind of like rolling dice, and one lot for the Lord, and the other uh lot for the scapegoat.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So we see these two goats, and one goat was the goat for the Lord, and this is the one that represents Jesus.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then there was that other goat, the scapegoat.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it said, and Aaron shall bring the goat on which the Lord's lot fell, and offer it as a sin offering.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why that goat is a type of Jesus.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was offered as the sin offering for the nation of Israel, for the people of the of the nation of Israel.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually that goat on the Day of Atonement.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that goat represents Jesus, and Jesus is symbolically that goat or the greatest of all time.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 10, though, it says, But the goat on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement upon it, and let it go as a scapegoat into the wilderness.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing about the Bible is you can take it, take, take a passage, and you can see different things and teach different things.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna take it a certain way uh this morning from what I see.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it's pretty blatant and uh uh clear to me.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But this to me represents two different ways of dealing with sin.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they were both both in operation on this day of atonement for the for the people, and it was required there, but it speaks something to us uh later on in the light of Jesus.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is the sin offering.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: How many know that?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the sin offering.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, you have made his soul an offering for sin.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the sin offering, that's the goat, but then there's a scapegoat, and they don't kill him.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't shed his blood like the other one, that's a type of Jesus who did shed his blood.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a scapegoat.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: They don't slaughter him, they don't shed his blood, they don't take his blood and sanctify the temple, everything like they do, the goat that's a sin offering that represents Jesus.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: This other goat, what they do, and I for time's sake I didn't read the whole passage, but if you do, you'll see that the high priest is to take his hands and put it on the head of the scapegoat and symbolically transfer the sin and the effects of it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about uh today.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: The sin, the guilt, the shame, all of that, is transferred onto that goat, and then the goat is sent away off into the wilderness.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I've done studies where it said there's actually, there's a, they actually have a man stationed to take that goat and make sure he goes into the wilderness and doesn't just turn around and come back like a cat or something.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he and uh and and they take him out, and then later on uh they uh I read that they would actually make sure that he went off a cliff, uh, that the goat would go off a cliff.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: They would either run it off the cliff or throw it off the cliff or something, but he wasn't uh slaughtered and his blood not was not shed uh on an altar and sacrifice like the sin offering, which speaks of Jesus.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is one way of dealing with the sin and the guilt and shame that comes from it, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've I I refer to it a whole lot and I won't be able to get away from it again today, but but when we see uh what we call original sin, when we see the dirty deed done in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we see the immediate effects of that, and that is what?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is the the the the fear and the shame.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: The shame is what really stands out.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: That their eyes were open and they knew, they had a consciousness and awareness that they were naked, which speaks of their vulnerability, their weakness, their insufficiency, and they were ashamed and they covered themselves, but it didn't deal with the shame, so then they go hide in the bushes, and that doesn't deal with it, and they they're carrying that, and mankind has been carrying this effect of sin, of missing the mark, and the common issue that mankind has been dealing with, deep, deep down, that has caused so many of the troubles and the bad things, and some some some in some cases even evil things uh that man can perpetrate can be traced to that sense of nakedness and shame that man deals with.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I have some personal um experience with how Jesus deals with the shame because I know what it's like to carry that.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know what it's like to grow up and have experiences and hear words thrown at me again and again from a young age that caught that continually reinforced a sense of shame.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm flawed.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Something is wrong with me.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Something is, and then I get into church and I become, and life becomes better, and but now I it, you know, to me, uh what I realized uh happened in a lot of it was that it became my vehicle for becoming good instead of being this bad being that I was.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's become a vehicle for me to be to become good, and so I'm thinking that by being good I can still deal with this sense of shame that is still lingering.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't at that time really have a revelation of the absolute grace of God through Jesus Christ.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a revelation of that kind of love that was unconditional and undemanding.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was a love, but I still felt like it was that God loves us but.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: But he still demands this.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: But there's still a standard to live up to.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we we try to reach that standard and try to maintain it.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: If we ever feel like we can get there.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if we if if we feel like we can get there, then we're just feeling like it because we're not really there according to the law.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if if we thought we were fulfilling a law, then Jesus could could come to you and say, talk to you like he could to the rich young ruler and just add something else and say, Well, if you want to be perfect, why don't you just sell all you have and give it to the poor and come and follow me?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And most people might respond like the rich young ruler did.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Jesus, have you ever notice that?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus could always take it higher.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: When people thought that they were good enough or they were being righteous or they were fulfilling the standards, he could always take it higher and they say, Well, you know what?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't really murdered anybody.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Have you hated somebody?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Have you wanted to?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, but mankind deals with that, with that, that, but that shame.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus deals with that by giving us that that kind of love that the heart has been looking for, and I know this experientially, that that's what my heart was looking for.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be loved unconditionally just because I'm here.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I found that through Jesus.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: That is the way to deal with that original shame that mankind's been carrying all the time.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the way.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many agree?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's another way when we don't have revelation of that, we've still got this sense of shame, and we gotta try to deal with it some way.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is what we're calling today scapegoating.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's a that's that's a broad term that would include a lot of things.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it means that something else or somebody else is our problem, and we see this pattern all through history, beginning with Adam and Eve.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: First, let me give you a very simple definition of shame.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: The common issue that mankind has been dealing with.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Shame is the painful belief that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of grace, Christ in you, He's here to teach you and show you his ways.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And lead us and guide us into all truth.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's the teacher.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're being moved by him, his impulses, and and and feeling his nudges and hearing his words and things that are that are being revealed to you, what you find is you you keep coming deeper and deeper into a father whose love is really unconditional.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's so unconditional, it'll start messing with your religion, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: It'll mess with some doctrines that maybe you've held on to for a while because it's just it's because our doctrines allow for a God to be this good.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you hear so much so often when you talk about God's love, yes, God is love, but.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, God loves us, but.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you continue to let the Spirit of grace reveal Himself to you, your butt keeps getting moved back.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Upon absolutely intended, right?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But we have that sense of being flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is exactly how I felt for so long.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: For so, so long.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we see this in the beginning with Adam.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about this.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here, I don't know if people have ever really looked at it and thought about it, but but here's Adam, and he's called out of the out of the bushes, you know.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Adam, where you know, why are you hiding?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Adam says, Because I was afraid, because I was naked.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was ashamed.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, Who told you you were naked?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: I like to point out that they were naked the whole time, and God never said anything.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't care.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he made them that way, he knew about it.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Who told you you were naked?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't tell you that.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I never told you that.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: The only way you could feel like that is that you chose that knowledge of good and evil.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Did you eat of that tree?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And now here's Adam.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's got this shame, this sense of being flawed, this sense of not being good enough, this sense that something is wrong with him, and the reason he pulled away and goes and hides from God is because he feels unworthy of God.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard things in the church such as God is too holy to look upon sin?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we feel like we've got to scrub and get right so that God can be with us?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Even as a Christian, I've heard it.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: In Christianity, I've heard it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I heard somebody teach one time that said, God is so holy, he cannot embrace fully his children because his holiness would consume us because we are so dirty and sinful.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is Christianity can really get really blow it when it gets on these tangents like that, because what that statement does, it negates completely the central truth of the blood of Jesus.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Cleanses us from all sin.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's so many scriptures about that.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: But here's Adam, but he's got this he's got the painful feeling of being flawed and as if something is wrong, and therefore he's unworthy of love and belonging with God.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he's got this shame, he's feeling the pain of that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Something's wrong with me.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Has anybody ever lived like that?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where, I mean, everybody carries it to some degree.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's an underlying thing, but to where I was aware of it, that I felt so isolated, even in a crowd, sense of just not belonging here.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're I'm different than them, they're better than me.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Adam's got this this shame that caused him to do these things that he's already been doing.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is, did you eat of that tree?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what does he do with this shame?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what, well, we don't see the goat, we don't see a revelation of that here at first, but what he does have is a scapegoat.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: So what did Adam say?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: The woman.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: He transfers his guilt and shame, right?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And sort of like, kind of like, yeah, I did, but at least I didn't start it.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: She started it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did, but it's because of her.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, at least I'm not, at least I didn't do what she did.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: She she picked it first.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I heard a guy talking one time, and he says, he was talking about a man that that speaks in his church, and he was saying, he was talking about, he was saying all these negative things about him, everything that he could think of that he does wrong in his life.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't like some big immoral, you know, big big deal.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was just things that just maybe you wouldn't like about a person.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he had lots of them.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was going and going, and then his wife says, Well, you do the same thing.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he did, because I know them both.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yeah, but at least I don't get up there and preach.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So at least we do the same thing, so we're pretty equal, but at least I don't get up there and preach, so I'm a little bit better.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, me and Eve both partook of it, but she did it first.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the woman that you gave me, so you know, you guys both so he blames somebody else and tries to even put it on God.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't matter who it is, the point is, is he has this shame and he's and he doesn't know what to do with it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's he just feels like he's he's gonna do whatever he can.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so he tries to transfer it to a scapegoat.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my fault to somebody else.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: I remember a long time ago, before I ever came to the Lord, uh uh a preacher had come over to the house where I was visiting, and um, and he asked the question uh to me and another guy sitting on the couch.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, If you died tonight, do you know where you would go?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you would you go to heaven?
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know this how it all worked.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I also and I knew that I was a bad guy, and I knew I didn't fit what Christians said that you're supposed to be like, and I didn't, and so I never had this idea that, oh, I'm living good, I'm surely going to heaven.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I never had that thought.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: But when he asked me, I didn't, I what I said was, I don't know, but I think I might have a pretty good chance because I'm not as bad as some people.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: As bad as I was, and I really did some ugly, ugly things, and and that's a whole other message, but it's it it stemmed from the shame that I felt, is why those things were acted out.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I did a lot of ugly things, you can always find an Eve.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can always find somebody that did a little worse than you.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if God grades like that, I might have a chance.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, Eve blames the devil, and then it goes on and on.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then we got Cain and Abel.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Cain's got a problem, and he's dealing with the shame because it seems like he's not favored.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Seems like little brothers favored over him because of how God saw his sacrifice, and Cain's got a problem, and it hurts.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can tell his countenance has fallen.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: This thing is on him, and it's this pain that something must be wrong with me.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got a problem, and my problem is that little brother of mine, and if and I don't like this feeling of my of being under my brother, my brother having more favor in him being approved, and and da-da-da-da-da.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so my only way that I can think of is to get rid of little brother, then I'm not on the bottom anymore.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of thing that shame does.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this comes down to the very reason that people will gossip, and they're the kind, you know, you run into people that they're the kind that just speaks negatively of other people, and and you're aware of what's going on.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to feel better, they're trying to elevate themselves, like they can point out people that are less than them.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is humankind's common way of just they're just dealing with the shame.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not condemning anybody for doing it, I understand it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not bringing an indictment, it's just an understanding.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not uh it's it's not an excuse, but it is a reason.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And people, people uh uh do these things, it's a common thing with mankind.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so when there's no revelation of what we're talking about when we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, this is kind of the stuff that we can come up with.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is kind of the stuff we do.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there has to be an enemy, there has to be a bad guy.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's what this whole binary kind of thought that people have out here, where it's like like we're good and they're bad, and there's this good, this, this, this cosmic battle between good and evil, and of course we're on the good.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now you go to the other camp and talk to them, they say we're on the good.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever it is, we're good and you're bad.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny, whatever side you're on, whatever thing you you believe, yours is right and theirs is wrong.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Many times we love a feeling of unity because of a common enemy.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: The whole scapegoating thing, the one of the bad things about it that it produces is it it can it fosters more of this divine this division.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's the us versus them.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I had time this morning, but to get into more of how Jesus erases those lines because he doesn't have those lines, he doesn't see them.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: We create them ourselves, not by the greatest of all time, Jesus, because all you gotta do is look at his life, read the gospels, he does away with all the barriers, all the lines.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're all they're all one in him.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Paul got the revelation.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, who was a great divider, later on gets a revelation by the greatest of all time, Jesus.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know what?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, there's no Jew nor Greek, not even not male or female, bond or free.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're all one in Jesus.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whether that goes against your religion or not, please try to at least admit that's a beautiful thought.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that beautiful thought didn't come from the scapegoat, I guarantee you, the beautiful thought comes from the greatest of all time.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: They say in sociology and psychology, some of the people will teach this, that families have um, they believe that every family um has dysfunction in them because of the shame that people that people are trying to deal with.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: The dysfunction, the sense of being flawed.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so they say in families, people will play one of five roles.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: One is the hero, one is the uh mascot, which is the entertainer of the family, one is the scapegoat, uh, one is the lost child, who I guess is like kind of the invisible one or feels invisible, and the other is the uh enabler.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when I grew up, there were, I grew up with it with two other siblings, so there were three of us growing up together in the house.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that that my sister would probably more fit the hero.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: She was the she was just good.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: She was a good, conscientious person, helpful around the house.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: She was she was a kind that that you know, we're in the living room, and then pretty soon she comes in and she says, Hey, mom and dad, I saw that you had just done the laundry, so I folded all the clothes and I put them all up.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's how my sister was.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they would just, ooh, ah, wonderful.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're the you're the goat, you're the greatest of all time, you know.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that would just chap my hide.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I would just because I was so not like that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it I felt and I I have to do something about this shame.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I would say, Well, what do you want?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: A medal or a trophy, you know?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Do gooder.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I would do with that shame?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I would I would torment her.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I would ridicule her, I would call her all kinds of names, I would just do all I could to deal with this shame I'm dealing with.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like, that's all I could do to kind of feel a little better about me by making her feel a little worse about her.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: The hero.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: My brother was the mascot.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was the youngest, he was cute, and he was funny.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's me.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: This mischievous, left-handed, right-brain thinking that couldn't, I wasn't very ever good with rules, and my house loved rules, and I didn't fit in a house with rules like that.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I was just a mess.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was always in trouble.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was always causing trouble.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was always the problem.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody knew it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so much of it was directed at me.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you, I did a lot of things that deserved that kind of attention.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it increased more and more because I'm acting out this flawed person and I'm believing it and I'm carrying this shame.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a lot of self-destructive things that will happen in a lot of cases.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh living from that pain of shame.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I could tell you stories about how that manifested in my life over and over.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'd find groups of friends and different things, and I would end up somehow always taking on that role of the scapegoat.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was like I was the problem, I was the blame.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then many times scapegoats have to feel like they have to leave.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Jews were the scapegoats for Germany at one time, right?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: They believed that they were the reason for the German decline back in the day.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you rally it up and you get people all pointed at this one thing, and then we're greater and we're better than them.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Salem witch trials, the Puritans and the and you know, there were no real witches, but they were they were, you know, if they could make some people into being witches.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's dealing with shame, is what's going on.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: But scapegoat, when we say when we scapegoat, it's because we we want to have the moral high ground.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we and we will even make ourselves believe we have the moral high ground.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees did that.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: In Christianity, it's very easy to do that.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the us versus them.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're the in, they're the down, we're the up, we're the down, we're the good, they're the bad.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: When we do that, got to go back to reading Jesus, go back to the gospels, go back to who he's really all about, and please listen to the spirit that's talking inside of you.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because he says, I'm not about any of that.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's you guys.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's the goat, there's the greatest, and then there's the ways that we come up with.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Just doing our best.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: To deal with this, we think there has to be a less than.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: We think there's got to be somebody worse than us.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I might make it because I'm not as bad as that one.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: We watched the movie Wicked Not Long Ago.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: There was a quote from the from the wizard who said the best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: How true that can be.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: We need a scapegoat.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do, we need something.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do something with our shame so we do these things.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be it can be chasing to be good, it can be chasing for success, it can be becoming a people pleaser, it can just just destroy myself, it can be all these kinds of things.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: It can be put everybody else down, it can be put a put a put a division between the us and them.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to do something about this shame.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's motivating humankind.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to uh look at the a uh a story in the Bible about a man of Gedera, a demoniac, legion, you know the story.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus goes all the way across the sea to go and see this one man.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's Jesus, that's the greatest right there.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he goes to see this man of Gidera.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've heard a lot of people say, oh, I relate to Peter, I even relate to the adulteress, I relate to the thief, I relate to this and that and the other.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've never heard anybody say, I relate to the demoniac of Gadera.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, meet meet the guy that relates to him.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And not because I had a thousand demons that needed to be cast out of me, um, but I do relate, and I say as I go down through this, I think you'll you'll see this.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, and I'm just gonna push this along here.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I got a little bit of a mouthful to say.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, number one, it says that Jesus went there, and first it's because it didn't say that he was legion, he it said he was a man with an unclean spirit.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was unclean.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: That word is akathartos, which means not ritually cleansed or not ritually pure.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's not good enough for ceremony.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's unclean, he's flawed, he's less than, he's just not good enough, not clean enough.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Many years as a Christian I kept feeling not clean enough.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I believed I was saved, believed I was going to heaven, but I just didn't believe I was clean enough.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just, I was still carrying a sense of shame because I didn't know I didn't know grace.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know grace.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's important.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says he was naked among the tombs.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was naked.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: What's that speak of?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Shame.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Living in that shame.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: He lived in a very extreme way, didn't he?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says he cried out and he would cut himself.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: He would cry out and cut himself.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: That word is autolapsis, cutting himself.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's the word autolapsis, it means self-stoning.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: He saw himself as worthy of just being destroyed.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is that somebody that's feeling shame?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's somebody that's feeling less than?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now we know in the story this man actually had demons.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: But what was going on in his life?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: What had happened to him?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: What has he experienced that brought him to this condition?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: When he saw Jesus coming, he thought that Jesus came to torture him.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what he's worthy of.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Don't torment me.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before I knew the Lord, I was so scared of Jesus.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: When people would preach to me way back in those days, mostly what they preached was that he's coming soon.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you better be ready.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would have nightmares about Jesus.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a Christian, not a true believer, but I would dream about Jesus, and they were horrible dreams.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was about the coming of the Lord.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I dream about the coming of the Lord, it wasn't going to turn out good for someone like me.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he was coming to torment or to torture or punish me.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is what I thought about my Jesus.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this man was thinking.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: I relate to the man.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why would Jesus, why would he think because people told him that people that that the Lord would torment someone as bad as him.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's a bad guy, an ugly guy.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not good enough.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not good enough for Jesus.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when he sees Jesus coming he says, Don't torment me.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, What's your name?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Legion.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: He had much upon him.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Much shame, much blame.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus cast the demons out.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Don't throw us into the, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't make us go into the abyss.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like the wilderness, don't go us into the wilderness.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus puts him in these pigs, and what do the pigs do?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: They run down a cliff just like the scapegoat.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this man was a scapegoat in the village.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know that because when Jesus cleansed this man, made him clean, made him innocent.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: It messed up everything around there.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Bible says they wanted Jesus out of here.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because he took their scapegoat.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because as long as this man's around, all these guys who got their own issues, at least they're not him.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus makes him innocent.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know why?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because Romans tells us that God justifies the ungodly.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: If I can see you as ungodly, oh, I'm always better than you.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: If I can see you as ungodly, I'm always on the good side.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you're always on the bad side.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: If I can see you as ungodly, at least I got a chance because I'm not as bad as you.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if God justifies the ungodly, that takes away my scapegoat.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's all back on me, and there's only one answer, and that's this beautiful, unconditional love and amazing grace of God that we have heard and received and believe in and we rejoice in.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we live in it naked and unashamed.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Becoming comfortable in our own skin, weak and foolish vessels, but absolutely perfectly loved by our Father.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted Jesus to leave.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the scapegoat said, Yeah, and I'll go with you.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, No, you stay here.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: You stay here and show them how good I've been to you.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Show them what mercy has been bestowed upon you.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Stay here and don't be the scapegoat.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Be the one who's been justified.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: The worst of the worst of the worst.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Go and show them that their old scapegoat is innocent.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: For God justifies the ungodly.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's Romans 4, 5.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when God justifies the ungodly, which Jesus, the goat, the greatest of all time, came to do, he justifies the ungodly.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many know he he told Peter, don't call uncommon or unclean that which I have cleansed?
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that that that takes away that us verses then.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, there again, I said, I know this pushes against a lot of religious ideas we have, but you have to agree, isn't it a beautiful thought?
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it fit the heart of your daddy?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: For God so loved the world.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 5.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to finish with this.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 16 says, and it's talking about Adam and it's talking about Jesus, you know.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Says, and the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, Adam.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because the judgment, the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the free gift came from, or because of the many offenses, and it resulted in justification.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus said he came to do righteous judgment.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because of our shame and our blindness and ignorance and darkness and seeing through a veil darkly.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have remained judges ever since the Garden of Eden.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: When we took that knowledge of good and evil, we took on the job as the judges.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: The problem was, and there wouldn't be anything necessarily with us being judges, except that we judged unrighteously.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because we judged without the tree of life.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: We judged without love.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: See, the Bible says God also has the knowledge of good and evil.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said, The man's become like one of us to know good and evil.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: God knows good and evil, but God is love.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So he can see that there are some things that are bad, some things are horrible, some things, some actions are evil actually.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some are very harmful, horribly harmful, horribly harmful.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: But God also is love.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer, his antidote is not to just bring unrighteous judgment on all of them, and unrighteous judgment is how man sees it, and man, an eye for an eye, fits man's idea really, really well.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Except the problem with that is that if we turned it around to us, we would be guilty too.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see Jesus always dealing with that.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: You want to judge this woman with adultery?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Okay, throw the stones.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you've got no sin, throw it first.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he put it back on them, and they're like, So they were better than her at first.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: But then when Jesus, what Jesus did was He overthrows the scapegoat system, and they realize, oh, we sin too.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the righteous judgment looks at her, and it's totally different than man's unrighteous judgment and says, I do not condemn you.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now that pushes against their religion, doesn't it?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Might push against some of ours.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: But what's right is right, Rick.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, don't we have to know?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can know right from wrong, we can know good from evil, but we judge righteously with love, grace, and mercy.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's restorative judgment, not destroying, destroying judgment.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why it says that the gift that came through Jesus resulted in justification for all of us.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the offense that came from the man brought a judgment also, but it was a different kind of judgment, and it resulted in what?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Condemnation.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we carry this guilt and shame.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do with it?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stand it.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: It hurts, it keeps me up.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: I cry at night over my condition.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wretched man that I am, who's gonna deliver me from this?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Paul found the goat, he found the greatest of all time.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord, so that in Christ there is therefore no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to deal with it anymore.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: But without that revelation, who's gonna deliver me from this?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to get rid of this.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm better than you.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: For by one man's offense, if by one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody say abundance.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Don't tell me that you can have too much grace.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Abundance of grace, then the gift of righteousness will reign in life through one Jesus Christ.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, as through one man's offense, judgment came to all men.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Already came.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Already came.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: What was that judgment?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Resulting in condemnation.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And religion plays right into that perfectly.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what you're obligated to do.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: You should do this, you should do that, you should do that.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: We bawl and we squall and we cry, God, I promise I'll do better.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's guilt, that's shame, that's condemnation.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Even so, through one man, Jesus, the goat, the greatest of all time, through his righteous act, isn't this our gospel?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: The free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: He dealt with the shame because he justified the ungodly.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Would you stand up?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to pray.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love his amazing grace.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love that kind of love that I'm just starting to learn something about and it's wonderful, it's beautiful.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Stick with the greatest.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Come to me, learn about me, learn my ways.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm meek and I'm humble, I'm gentle and warm, and you'll find rest for your souls.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: That shame and guilt and of sin and error and judgment, condemnation.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you rest.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find rest for your souls.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: I get up and do what I do for one reason.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just get up and I'm a happy guy because of it.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because the man that carried shame from a child and did all kinds of ugly things just trying to cope with the pain of shame and guilt and condemnation.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: I found rest.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm totally captivated by this love.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And to have a soul finally found rest, I relate to the man of Gedera who obviously had no rest day or night.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: But the greatest of all time showed up.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought he came to torment him, but he came to put him at rest.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't ask him what he had done to get so many demons.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't ask him to go back and undo all these things.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't preach no condemnation at all.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing zero that the man had to do.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: He just gave him rest because that's what the greatest will do.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what makes him the greatest of all time.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you for your goodness and I thank you for your love and such an amazing grace.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And let the may your spirit continue to reveal to us in ever-increasing measure the glories of your grace and the unlimited boundaries of your love.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I thank you, Father, that with a great sense of adventure we would just go into it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: That we would move forward and say, I'm going to look at this thing, this thing that continues to burn and is not consumed.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to continue to go toward the center of the universe, to the heart of my Father Himself, and I will know his heart and I'll know his ways.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they shall become one with me.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I will rejoice and enjoy that liberty and freedom.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: For in Christ my soul is set free.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: We give you praise in Jesus' name, Father.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you guys.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful out there today.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.