Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / No Shame

Transcript

No Shame · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: So knowing that he is he he's for us and not against us, it it changes everything.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's what um uh the revelation that God is giving to his church is actually doing with people, it's opening their hearts to relate to him in a much deeper, clearer, closer, better, more powerful way.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I was a youngster, I was um pitching in a uh a baseball game, and I wasn't having my best game, and uh I was missing the corners or getting pretty close, but I wasn't getting the benefit of the doubt, benefit of the calls, and and I was getting frustrated because the umpire, everything that was close to that to the edge, it was uh he would call it a ball, and and I would swear it was a strike, and I'd be I was getting more and more upset.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh you know pretty soon I started I'd say something about it every time and I'd get mad at mad at the umpire, and I'd I'd I'd do as come as close to cussing as I felt like I could get away with without making him too mad and without maybe getting kicked out of the game.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was getting so frustrated.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and this is pertinent because what we're gonna look at today has to do with with how I felt about myself.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was convinced that this this man was was against me.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure why, but for some reason he didn't like me and he was against me.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was I I I've I've mentioned sometimes before how growing up and up into my uh young adult life, I lived very, I was I was very easily angered and frustrated a whole lot.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um felt horribly about myself, but the way I responded was in a lot of times with with with with with anger.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: The way I dealt with that a lot of times with with anger.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I felt like the whole world was against me.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And really, uh a big part of that was I was I was really living in in a sense of of shame.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And of course we want to talk about that today.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um But my uh my upbringing was uh uh really based on that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And my dad was not an ogre.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was to me, he was like a normal person.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think it happens a whole lot, but he believed that his way of making me better was to point out my my faults.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh turned out that his oldest child just seemed to have so many, so many flaws.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember one, you know, even when we would play baseball, I would, you know, I remember one time he didn't come to my games a whole lot, but one time he did.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and afterwards we were driving, he was driving me home, and I said, I said, Well, how'd you like that ball that I that I knocked off the fence uh today?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: He says, he says, Well, yeah, but don't forget you struck out by chasing a bad ball.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know, it just like killed my my moment of glory right there.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like that way, trying to uh perfect me or make me better that way.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: One time we were sitting in the backyard and he was and he was talking to me about he was kind of chewing me out, but he would just tell me, basically, I felt like he was telling me all these things that that were that I was doing wrong.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, and I and I said, Is is is everything I do wrong, don't I do some good things?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Well, sure.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, how come you never tell me about those things?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And his answer was, he says, because that wouldn't help you.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: He said, It's like your pants.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a hole in my in the knee of my jeans, and uh he says, he says, that ruins the whole thing.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You couldn't wear that to church, you know, and uh, of course it's different now, you pay extra to get stuff like that in your in your in your jeans.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: But but that was a thing it is, like that one thing ruined the whole ruined the in the entire thing.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so um, and I don't blame it on him, it's a human condition, but he fed into that being a part of the system that feeds into that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um somebody gave the definition that shame is the intensely painful feeling of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love or belonging.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: So this pitcher, now I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm pitching, and this umpire, I'm uh I'm horribly upset at him, and I'm just I'm I'm I'm I'm kind of making smart out remarks, and I'm just I'm getting more frustrated, and my game keeps getting worse and worse.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Finally, the coach has to pull me out.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm all frustrated, you know how we always do when that happens.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: We throw our glove against the wall, and and I'm uh and I'm I'm just now I'm being very vocal.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm already out of the game, so I'm saying all kinds of stuff about the umpire real loud and and saying as much as I can get away with it.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: My coach would tell me to shut down and uh sit down and be quiet, and I would for a little while, but then I wouldn't.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh finally, then when we come back up to bat, the coach sends me across the field to go coach third base.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I go over there and put a helmet on, and I'm standing there, and by the third, other teams warming up, the umpire behind the plate pulls his mask off and he starts walking down the third baseline towards me.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm mad, now I'm scared, actually.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's not the umpire with the mask on.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's not some now, he's a man.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's like now there's uh it's it's reality.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's a man and a child, and he's coming down here, and I'm sure of what's gonna happen, what probably what should happen, what I would expect any, I know what my dad would do, and what I expect any grown-up, any human to do.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have I have been horrible.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've said all kinds of things about this guy, and he hasn't said anything back, and he's just put up with it, and now I'm out there by myself, and he's standing, he's he's walking towards me, and I know that he's gonna give me what I deserve.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I and all of a sudden I felt horribly when you're a you look down.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't even look at him.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh, I'm about to get it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right here in front of everybody.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and he walked up to me while they were throwing the ball around.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: He walked right close to me and he looked down at me and he says, he says, Rick, don't be upset with me.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I may not be doing the best job, but I'm doing the best that I can.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm not against you.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Um, he said, uh, I really think you're the best player out there.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't, but he said that.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I wasn't by by any long shot.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I think you're the best player out here.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, he says, and I want to see you play on that all-star team.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do, or he says, yeah, I said, I want to see you play on the all-star team.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: He says, when you're there, he says, I'll be the one cheering you on.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be cheering you on.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then he he walks back, and my heart broke.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in a beautiful way, it it melted.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I started crying.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Here I was, this hothead and hard-nosed kid that nobody, you know, and and I'm there, and I don't want anybody else to see me crying because my face is just, I'm just I'm just boo-hoo.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because nobody had ever touched my heart like that before.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody had ever responded to me that way.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I thought he was going to respond to me like everybody else always did when I acted like that.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he totally did something unbelievable, something different, something I'd never seen before.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the man's walking back, and the first thing I felt was I was so sorry that I had talked to him that way.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't as kind of a sorry, I mean, it was I felt bad about it, but I felt a sweetness too.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I felt connected to him.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I watched him walk away, and I just felt like I really like this guy.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, ten seconds ago, he was the worst human I'd ever seen.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: He had no business being out here.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was against me, he didn't like me for some reason.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: We were on opposite sides in my mind.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: He was playing for the other team.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: I was saying all those things, and I didn't know him.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when he came and told me what was in his heart, I knew him better.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: And knowing him better, I liked him.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I liked that guy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't know what what he was doing behind.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had never seen that umpire before.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if they just pulled somebody out of the bleachers because of the umpire didn't show up or whatever.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, but and I never saw him again after that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, maybe it's because after me he didn't want to do it again.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: But he but but I never I never saw him again.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, somebody like I was telling somebody the other night, and they said, well, maybe that was an angel.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: I said, could have been, you know.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody else had ever acted like that to me before.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: But but then I thought, well, an angel with bad eyes?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but it it was totally a different way, a total different kingdom, if you will.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he expertly, just like you said, he expertly diffused my anger.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: It went away, boom.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it was replaced by affection.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And everything, I knew what I deserved from him.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: He could have chewed me out, he would have had every right to chew me right out there, right there.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the way I was acting, half the people in the bleachers probably would have applauded and said, Yeah, give it to him.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: But he totally used power that the world thinks is weakness, a gentle answer.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: He could have overpowered me.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: He was big, I mean, by overpowered, he could have he could have raised his voice and said, What for you little snotty kid?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: What you ought to be, you know, don't you ever talk to an umpire like that?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't have a good mind to do it.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he could have chewed me out, he could have thrown me out of the game, he could have filed action, disciplinary, you know, action only where I don't play the rest of the he could have done all kinds of things.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the expected thing, honestly.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I was expecting to get something horrible.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And the soft answer, when he did, instead of using his strength, he had all the power.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not only was he a grown-up and I was a child, he was the umpire.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: He had all the power, but he used a different power.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And like Geneva said, he used the soft answer, and the soft answer turned away my wrath.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And rather than do, man's justice would have said he should have and could have taken the normal way.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: But God is different, isn't he?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I was in that condition, and I lived that way, and I have never heard anybody tell me that they believed in me.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of the things that melted my heart.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: It touched me.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: I thought somebody believed in me.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: He said he was for me.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm not against you.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to see you on that all-star two, and I'll be cheering you on.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I've been talking to this guy, I've been treating him like this, trying my best to embarrass him and making a mockery of him, and all this time he was feeling the total opposite about me.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's got to be divine.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: How do you feel that way about some ratty kid treating you that way?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to be on another level.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: He, I believe, he wasn't carrying the same shame that most of us might carry, but certainly the shame I was carrying, because if he did, then the things that I was doing, the things that I was saying, it would have set him off.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: It would have caused him, because shame makes you defend you, doesn't it?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he could have defended himself so easily.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: He went another way.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Shame is the intensely painful feeling of believing that we are flawed.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: I lived painfully, actually, and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Of course I believed he was against me.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody was in my mind.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I believed that I was flawed.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've mentioned it before how even as I got older, I never really belonged, even though I had groups that I might run around with, I was like, I felt in myself that I was like on the bottom of the tribal list, you know.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: If they had a vote, I'd be the first one voted out.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: I felt, I didn't ever feel a sense of belonging.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was flawed.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Adam and Eve, you know the story, they felt flawed.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't know God was for them, they didn't know the umpire was for them, so they pulled away from it.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't feel like they belonged with him.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: When they heard God in the cool of the day, they didn't feel they belonged there with him, so they pulled away and they did.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Their shame did that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: They were looked, they looked at themselves and they saw their shame.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we look at, so we have a I I just I just found this when I was just looking at things last night.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have a list of flaws.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a comprehensive list, it can go on and on.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit, I mean, and everybody can fall into this situation, this cat into these categories, and or you can um certainly know other people that are that way.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because one thing about this this shame with Adam and Eve, um not only did they feel it upon themselves, not only did they judge themselves as flawed, but they here's my Garden of Eden clothing.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm not gonna do the naked thing, but I'll do it like this.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my flawed clothing.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at myself and I see flaws.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I see stains, if you will.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And when you live like that, we look what Adam, what Adam and Eve do.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're not only not only do they not belong with God, but they don't even belong with the, they're not even one anymore.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: Adam's no longer saying, Your flesh and my flesh, bone and my bone.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: He says, God, the woman, she's the one that caused all the problem here.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because shame always puts blame.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Put it all, it'll put it both on you.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: But what the way that humans try to survive this thing is we blame other things or blame people, something else is always our problem.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: The woman that you gave me.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: What did the woman say?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: The devil made me do it.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's never us.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: And we know deep down, it it it is, but we just can't handle that the pain of seeing the flaws.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know about that.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're loved, we don't know that we're forgiven, so we feel like we're all alone in this, and we've got to take care of us, we've got to defend us.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: We see all these claws, so they felt shame, they felt fear, they felt, here's God, here's perfect holy God.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: We've heard so much of this even in churches, or I have anyway, where people were saying, like, a holy God cannot put up with your sin.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's too holy.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: He can't look at this.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: He looked at he looked at the at Adam's nakedness and he didn't care.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Later on, it's called the shame of your nakedness.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he looks at this, you know.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: We've heard I heard somebody teaching one time, and everybody oooed and awed, and she says, this this lady says, she says, God is just so holy, says, his heart breaks because he's so holy and we're not, and he'd love to hug his children, but he can't because our sin would cause us to be to be consumed.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh see, where do we get those ideas?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: That that's that comes from shame.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that whole word was meant to try to inspire us to not be sinful.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Get rid of these spots.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Religion has done it.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: All kinds every kind of religion has done it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about getting rid of your spots.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do how do you deal with this?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Adam and Eve dealt with it, didn't they?
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: They pulled out their handy pack and they said, Well, I don't like that.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna get fig leaves, and we're gonna cover it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: How's that?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's better.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: How do I look, Eve?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: You look like a bush.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: What do you?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you of course, and then and then we you know the story.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: We know that they didn't, that that even though they're now covered with leaves, covering all these spots, um, they hear God and they still go and hide.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they know this ain't doing it.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: They still have a consciousness, the Bible in Hebrews talks about.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: They still, even with the, even with the when they had later on the sacrifices of the blood, the bulls and goats, it says, but it still did not purge their consciousness of sin.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: What did those atonements do?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: They covered the sin.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: He said the sin would be covered for a year.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we have that.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: When we look at the story of the of the umpire, when we really see how God is, and remember that choice, it was either we could let God love us, or we could go try to earn it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: We could let God be our perfection and let him be our holiness, let him just be for us, no matter what, or else we could take the knowledge of good and evil and we would become judges, and we would judge ourselves, and we would judge you, and we would judge everything that's going on in the world.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Two different ways here, and Galatians chapter 5, of course, mentioned it, mentions it, and this is what we're talking about.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: There are two different ways.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Please understand this.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: They do not mix.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: They are two totally different things.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: Look at two trees.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's the knowledge of good and evil, there's a tree of life.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: One's way over there, another one's way over there.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: They don't, they're not helping each other.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit of condemnation is not helping us get life.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: A little bit of pressure is not helping us get life, a little bit of sin consciousness is not helping us, helping us walk in life.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing that does it is the purity, the perfection of God, him, who he is, his love.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: If Adam and Eve in the story, if they would have known, known how that God was for them, they would have never pulled away from it.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: They would have never felt the fear and the shame that they did, and mankind, of course, has been feeling it ever since.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's a quote by a man named Henry Nowin that says, as long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Always trying to fix everything.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's a problem.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Everything we're making judgments, we got opinions, evaluations, condemnings, we're condemning this person, that person, these people, that nation, that group, this, that, and the other.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: All of that comes from one kingdom, from one tree, and it's not our kingdom.
• 19:31
  unknown: That's right.
• 19:32
  unknown: That's right.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: All it's doing when we blame somebody else is we're just putting on a fig leaf and say, there, that makes me look better, doesn't it?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: The old saying is and it rings true, is that we put other others down to try to make ourselves feel higher, and it does, it just doesn't work.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's why people keep doing it again and again and again and again.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: As long as we have that, as long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, what other people think about us, because what that continues to perpetuate is a feeling of shame.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we do all kinds of things to try to try to deal with it, and none of it works.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Some people will just get, we'll just we'll just go into a depression over it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just draw the pullback, just draw away, I don't want anything to do with anything.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: But others will use another kind of fig leaf and just say, Well, I love me.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm fabulous.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: You got to respect me, I'm important, I'm good, and all that, but the whole time they still have the same consciousness.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's why they continue to fight it.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if you touch them wrong, if you push against the wrong button there, they will come after you because that's what that kingdom does.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times we lash out in anger because you know people are exposing your flaws, your nakedness.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's mankind.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: We know that.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: We know that we know that they we needed salvation, redemption.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: We needed, God said, I will take away your stony heart and I'll put in a soft heart.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Man, that umpire had a soft heart, and it softened my hard heart.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: What are we gonna do about this?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Proverbs chapter 10, verse 12 says hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than these fig leaves, I need something that God, only God can do, and only God has that perfect love.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: This will look better, I think.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel chapter 16, verse 8 says, When I passed by you again, I saw that you were old enough for love.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: You could receive it, in other words.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's happened in the fullness of time with Jesus.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You were old enough for love, so I wrapped my cloak around you to cover your nakedness and declare my marriage vows.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I made a covenant with you, says the sovereign Lord, and you became mine.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Also in Revelation chapter 19.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 8, it says, And to her it was granted that she would be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: For this fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now that we have that, who needs these stupid things?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're ridiculous.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to defend myself.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to try to make me look good.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to try to feel like I'm something I'm not.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to try to become something.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to be a workaholic.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need addictions.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need anything else.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Don't need to be blaming anybody else for anything because I got it all in Jesus right now.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm covered.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm loved.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm righteous, perfect, holy, entire.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: If God be for me, who can be against me?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what is there to be ashamed of now?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how did you get your shirt so white?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I used uh Clorox.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get your shirt so so white?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: This was this what this was white when I got it.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was given to me.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I love that it says that.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, the previous verse says, Behold the lamb's what behold the marriage supper of the lamb for the for his wife, his bride has made herself ready.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now we used to focus on that and say, we've got to start making ourselves ready.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: We want to be a bride without spot or blemish, so what do we do?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: We got some Washington iron.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to get these spots out.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so we do all that we can.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And we and what do we do?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: We use the same thing that caused it to be to we use the antidote for uh excuse me, the cause for the cure.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so we we we try pressuring people, we try condemning, we try shame.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: We think if we pressure people that they'll they'll they'll do something about their spots.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: We think we make them feel bad enough.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: I would hear it in church and say, when you feel bad enough, that's when you'll stop it.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I feel horribly bad.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how I can feel worse, and why is it not stopping?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: Because it has no power to do it, it hasn't had power for thousands of years.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: So she has made herself ready.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how did we make ourselves ready?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get rid of the rid of the spots?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: We made ourselves ready by that next verse.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: It says, it says, it was given to her.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you get ready for somebody to give you something?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: You receive it.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: You get ready to receive it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: She made herself ready by saying, I'll take what you've got, I'll take your love, I'll take your holiness, I'll take your righteousness, I'll take your word, I'll declare your word, I will acknowledge every good thing that's in.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: I will believe.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I will live according to you, I will be filled with all the fullness of God now, because you are not afraid to give it to me.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: It was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, because that linen is my righteousness.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: We tried scrubbing that old garment, didn't we?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, that righteousness is like filthy rack.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: We tried covering it up.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: We covered it up with so many things that we mentioned.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: The list could go on and on and on, but we've done it by religion, that whole, all that, that whole thing of the covering with the sacrifices and doing all these things and killing people that sin, trying to deal with the trying to get rid of these spots and these blemishes.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing does it except the gift, the gift of righteousness.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: If God be for us, who can be against us?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big one.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Please, I get that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: Please understand that God is for us.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: When God's for us, the shame disappears.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I finally, when I saw that that umpire was not against me, but he was for me, my heart changed.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: The power of this thing.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: To take away the bitterness of my shame, to take away the blame game out of my mouth.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was black, you know what the truth is?
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I was not pitching a very good game.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I was saying it's all his fault because shame.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was ashamed of that.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was frustrated by it.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: So rather than just say, Coach, I'm just not at my best tonight, it's that up.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because shame always has problems with the other people.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: And secretly we have it with ourselves.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: But God removes the shame.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: If we really look at this, you know, we've made this beautiful kingdom down to nothing but, you know, where you go when you die.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And nothing for this life except try not to sin.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Get the spots gone.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you get all the spots gone, there are religions that actually actually teach it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you can get all the spots gone, then you're worthy.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then you'll make it.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: So all of our life is all about scrubbing or covering.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: We can't scrub, so what do we do?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Then we try to act.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why that's why for so many years people were afraid to admit to things that they were dealing with in the church of all places where there should have been such freedom and no condemnation at all, but they would feel the condemnation and they were afraid to uncover their fig leaves because they didn't think they would be accepted.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: Even in this modern day, I've run into to so many people.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: One reason that they're not in places like this this morning is they tell me, says they do not belong here.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: What they do makes them not belong here with you guys.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in general, not this particular place.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: They feel they feel like they don't belong here.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like that.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: People would invite me, and I'd just say, no, I still like to do all this stuff.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not like you.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: You guys like living that kind of a life.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't feel like I belonged.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Smoke, drink, and cuss too much.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't belong.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we can accept.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's a power.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: See, I wanted to tell the umpire story because I wanted to just I wanted us to remember.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: There is a power that goes along with this, with this kind of acceptance and love by God.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: There is a heart clarity that comes.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole thing about God is really when we come when we read the scriptures like we did last week about don't judge, don't judge, it's not because it just makes me mad when you do that, says the Lord.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than go out and try not to judge, the real answer would be let God give you his goodness and his love.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And let's see if we feel like judging everything and evaluating everybody and condemning everybody else.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Once the shame of our nakedness is gone, the blame game stops.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: The insecurities start to go away.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: That perfect love everything really cast out.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Romans 15, we'll finish with this.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the first one from the Passion Translation.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, those who are mature in their faith can easily be recognized because they don't live to please themselves, but they've learned to patiently embrace others in their immaturity.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: God has embraced us that way.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And as our heart softens when it gets changed, we're okay with others in their immaturity.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Very quickly, uh a story that I tell sometimes comes to mind, but I remember being in a meeting and I was, I couldn't stop judging the woman that was speaking.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: She was just, I thought, she is so self-centered.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's about I, I, I, everything's just her, and she's she she she loves, it's almost like she's showing off in front of people, and and and and I'm like, she just loves the praise of men, and and I like, and I'm thinking these things, and then afterwards I felt so bad, and I went back to I went to my hotel room and I thought, Lord, I I didn't I didn't enjoy that service.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: The whole time I was thinking nothing but these bad thoughts about it.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I said, but but I really think she's that way.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think my discernment was right, and it bothered me.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, and I said, Father, I don't want to see anything about anybody's intentions or motives anymore.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he spoke to my heart so clearly, and he said, Son, he said, you're gonna grow to where the things that the the where the flaws that you see in other people will not affect your soul in a negative way.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he didn't fix it that night or the next day.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: But over the years I look back and I think, I'm not so much like that anymore.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: We grow, we get better, we become more and more like him in our heart, and it manifests.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: It can be recognized.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what who that umpire is.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: But we all recognize something very easily about him that he was different.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Those who are mature in faith can easily be recognized because they don't live to please themselves, but they've learned to patiently embrace others that are in their immaturity.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our goal must be to empower others to do what is right and good for them and to bring them into spiritual maturity.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: There again, I can't think of the umpire.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: He could have just he could he could have justified himself, he had every claim to it.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: But what he did instead was empowered me.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: He built me up.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: He built me up when I had done no good thing the whole evening.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: He built me up, he empowered me, and by doing that, he did what was really right and good for them.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: With the mind of man, natural man, you know what they say?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: They say he needs to be shown, he needs to be pointed out, he needs to be be, he needs to be ashamed of how he acted.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: That would help him to do the right and good thing from now on.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the knowledge of good and evil of the natural man would have thought.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I expected.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: But he empowered me by doing it the way that God does with us.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: God is so good.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: If God be for us, who can be against us?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And to bring them to spiritual maturity.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now may God, the source of great endurance and comfort, grace you with unity among yourselves, which flows from your relationship with Jesus, the anointed one.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know where that unity comes from?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: It comes from love and understanding.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Not that we don't see, see, see, see, we have we still have that knowledge of good and evil, but we're not led by it anymore.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: We see the flaws, we see it, we see it in ourselves.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: But isn't it great that with this righteousness, those flaws do not make us feel condemned and inferior anymore?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're flaws.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to keep them, we want to do better, but we don't have the guilt and the and the condemnation that that that gives us an identity that says, oh, we're just, I guess I'm still not there.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: I guess, I guess I'm still doing things that aren't pleasing.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I'm I guess I don't have what it takes.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna I'm gonna get there someday.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'll keep chasing that carrot.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And all that kind of talk is a feeling, is a sense of not being complete and whole and accepted just the way that you are.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Then with a unanimous rush of passion, we will all with one voice glorify God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can would you all stand up?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: I have a vision.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Martin Luther Kings Jr.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: said, I have a dream.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have a vision, I see this.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: I see the whole world standing on a hill drinking a coke.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I see love spreading.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: I see the world just like Linda was saying this morning.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: People, if they knew, if they really knew, just like if Adam would have known, he would have ran to them instead of way.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: If they knew who God was, Lima Jean was talking about, you find out who he really is.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: If they knew, they would be flooding into them.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've got good news.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible says it will happen.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because darkness and gross darkness is on the people.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: We see it.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: We don't call it good, it's not.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: We don't call what's evil good.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, God hates hypocrisy, but he loves hypocrites.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: He hates people judging and condemning, but he loves the judges and the condemners.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've caught a bit, I feel like I've caught God's vision.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: That darkness and gross darkness will be upon the people.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: But we arise and shine because our light is here.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is him.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're not looking for another.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's him.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's here.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Kings and nations will come to the brightness of your rising or the manifestation of what we're talking about here.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's happening because we're not ashamed anymore.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And with the shame, not only do we see ourselves differently, but we see the umpire differently.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: And we see all those others that oppose us differently than how the knowledge of good and evil ceased.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: But what about condoning faith?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus, look at how he did it.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: He never condoned sin, nor did he condemn the sinner.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: He never said, Is that a case?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go to your house because I want you to steal more money than ever.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: He never said, adulterous woman, I don't condemn you.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't condone it, but he didn't condemn any of it.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because he didn't come to condemn, which is how we've been doing for thousands of years.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: He came to give life.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the other tree that we've come home to.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: Father, I love you.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: What can we say?
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You're wonderful, you're good.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your unspeakable gift.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: We will rejoice and be glad in this day.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.