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The Intercessor - Part 2 · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I love Via.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: I totally love the scripture that Lauren um shared.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: That for Judy and I, we that's that's our keynote scripture.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: That to that's I I I put that in so many things.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: But that you would know the height, breadth, width, and depth of the love of Christ so that you can be filled with all the fullness of God.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, do you know what your what your greatest desire is?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Your greatest desire really, I mean, you know, when somebody says that you can think of things that maybe you need to happen or would like to happen, but overall, your greatest desire really is to stop desiring.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: To have an existence where there was no more need for desire.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's called fullness.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there's only one thing that fills, all in all, and that's him, his great love.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we find out.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some for some reason, while we were singing, my mind went to I was thinking of all kinds of people that can be changed by the love of God.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: Someone like me, someone like you.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think of Zacchaeus, who was a tax collector, who was changed by that.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I also was thinking, you know, Matthew the disciple was that same kind of guy.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: He also was a tax collector, seen as a traitor to his people, outcast because of it, um, uh being actually motivated by selfishness to take on a job like that.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and all that that accompanies with it, which for most of them it seems there was thievery, stealing involved in it also.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they follow follow Jesus, and something happens to them because of who he is, what he says, and uh they made their connection with God with God because of Jesus, who is the intercessor, the mediator, the connector.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the way he does it is is so amazing.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I can remember many years ago when I first started um speaking from the pulpit, my pastor would let me speak every once in a while.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and it was a gracious type of message that he had in those days.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I remember being a little frustrated because I would I was looking around and I thought, okay, we're talking about the finished work and we're talking about grace, and we're um, but you know, there's there's a lot of people here, they're not straightening up their lives as they're listening to this stuff.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought they needed something extra.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the times that I got to speak, I I gave a message that was directed at these things and sort of like, come on, people, get with it and straighten up, and you know.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And my pastor was so gracious to me, he I I was in his office on the I think the following Monday.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Rick, he said, you know, I understand how it's that it's very tempting to trust in the ministry of condemnation to change things and to change people.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: But the real power of God is the good news of Jesus Christ, and that's what we want to trust in.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I've had to be reminded of that by the Lord uh uh many times since then.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's times, there's times that you start to see things that are going on, and then you want to put your energies there.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we see there's a lot of things in the world that we don't like that are going on.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: We can preach sermons about that stuff.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I remember a time uh a few years ago, there were I was seeing things in the body of Christ that people were doing in the name of grace, and and they did not seem to be doctrinally accurate, and it seemed like it was bearing bad fruit, and so I started talking a lot about that, and and then I find myself getting tangled up in it, and I'm frustrated, and I'm getting pretty angry now, and uh, and and all of a sudden, and the Lord redirected me back to the good news and said, just preach this beautiful gospel.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's what I do.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that's that's God's direction to me.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and and this message that of the intercessor is is it's all about that.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is that uh we find that that the good news is the power of God.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of things that that need to be changed, a lot of things we want to change, but let's remember where the power of it is, that the power to change things begins in the hearts of people.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we see that Jesus did not condemn Zacchaeus, but he changed his heart.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: He did not condemn Matthew, but he Matthew's heart was changed.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Jesus does this by revealing to us and to the world the goodness, the glory of the Father.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I love what John 1 says that no man had seen God or perceived God at any time, but the Son who's in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him to us.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Job chapter 33, I want to read this.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was a verse that I read last last week, but it sort of um highlights the topic here of the intercessor.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: But verse 23 says, if there is a messenger for him, for man, a mediator, or an intercessor, we could say, a connector, one among a thousand to show man his uprightness.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that something that the gospel does too?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: When you see who God is, you see who you are, and when you see him as your father, and you see him as beautiful and loving and gracious, and somehow in this revelation of the Father, there's a revelation of you.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and Colossians 3 says that, that when he's revealed, then we also are revealed.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a revelation of us because we see him as this as this loving father, and we start to see ourselves as loved sons, and then that continues to go on to where you start to see how connected you really are with God, and how one you are with God, and how beloved you really are.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that begins to be your fulfillment because now you've got identity.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now you know who you are, you know your you start to know your purpose here.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts with the very fact that you're here as God's child to be loved by God, to be, to be filled with his love, to be filled with his goodness, to be filled with all of his abundance.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we are.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I heard somebody say one time that we were created to be loved, and and when we when we're not experiencing that love, it's like you know, a bird is created to fly, but a bird with no wings does not get to live like a bird.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: It should.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of like that.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: We were created for that, and that's why there's so much desire, and people try to fulfill desire because they they're they're trying to fulfill desire because they want to stop desiring.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he is the end of all desire because he's absolutely good, and I will not be able to do him anywhere near justice today.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I will not be able to tell you how wonderful he is, because he goes far beyond that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot tell you how good he is.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can, I will do my best.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: But as I say often, whatever I say, he's so much better than that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And what does that even mean to us?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a messenger for man to show God his, to show man his uprightness, then he is gracious to him.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Deliver the man from going down to the pit or to death.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have found a ransom.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: In Matthew chapter 4, verse 17, the first message that Jesus preached, and it seems like he was preaching it over and over at the beginning, was repent or change your mind or think again, because the kingdom of heaven is at hand to change your mind.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I said last week that God did, or excuse me, Jesus did not change the Father's mind about you.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's changed your mind and is changing your mind about the Father, and He's doing that for me.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so there I was with my, you know, I people would preach to me a lot.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: I put it off.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I pushed it off, and I didn't want to hear it because I was afraid of this angry God, this vengeful God, this God with very, very high demands that I would never ever be able to come close to at all.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't want to deal with them, didn't want to hear about it, uh, just didn't just had all these ideas and thoughts about that.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: How why do I sound like I do today?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: What happened?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: What happened to you?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: It it it it we started at one place, and somewhere along the line, the intercessor, the connector, was revealing the Father to us and has shown us some things, and he has changed my mind.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the God that I once was afraid of is the God that I become in love with.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: What happened?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: I got new information.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: I began to see things differently, and this happened by the Spirit.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said it would happen.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: He says, When the Holy Spirit comes, the revealer of truth, he will take my glory and he'll show it to you, and that's what he does.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, I hate to repeat it again, but because I say it so much, but I did have a moment when I laid on the floor after trying to serve this God that I never could do enough and never could be enough and never could get enough.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I laid on the floor and said, God, that's it, I'm done.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Good, are you done now?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And as I laid on that floor, the Holy Spirit did just what Jesus said he would do.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: He began to cause me to see that his grace was sufficient, that he didn't need anything from me because he was so much more than enough.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he wasn't demanding from me, he was wanting to give to me.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it opened my eyes to something, and it changed my mind.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I repented that day, and it had nothing to do with my sins or my actions or my shortcomings, had absolutely zero to do with any of that.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: That repentance did.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: That repentance, which isn't it's a word we shouldn't even use, it shouldn't even be in the Bible because it has to do with something else.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Penance.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the change, the changing of the mind.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: I rethought everything.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm back, I'm at ground zero now, and it's like I feel like I know nothing.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like all these, so many, so much of these things that I was saying that I thought were so, just it there, it's just not so.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, a part of your mind will give you a problem with that, and like, well, how do you know now that you that well, the fruit of it has how it began to fill my heart and began to fill me with the fruit of the Spirit and the love and the joy and the peace.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, well, even if this is wrong, I'm gonna take it because this is wonderful here.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus brings new information to us, everything that He reveals to us, the revelation of the Father.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed it's always beautiful?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's always more beautiful than you thought before, it's always more wonderful than you thought before.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um talking with um Brett Bickel over here the other night, and and and and he brought up how, isn't it interesting that when you start talking about how wonderful God is, so much of the time the human response is trying to discount that somehow, trying to fight against that.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but he's got to do this too.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but he doesn't condone that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you have to do this.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but at the end of all things, yeah, but you know, and they can find verses and things from things from the Bible, but isn't it interesting?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You ever think of it?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't it interesting?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: What is that?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: When you want to talk about how wonderful God is, and when you've tasted and seen, you know that he's good.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know this.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you can't explain everything to everybody about every question they have, but you know that he's good.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: But what is it that wants to push against it?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that maybe be in your own mind that sometimes will fight that and try to push against it, like he can't be that good?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure exactly how to define that.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I know whatever it does, whatever it's that thing is trying to lead you to is not life.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know that.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: That any of that belief, all it does is take you back into a place where you're not good enough and you're not enough, and God's demanding more, and then you can't connect with God with a God like that because in order to enjoy your connection with God and enjoy this love and this relationship that you have, you've got to believe that he's good.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to know that he's wonderful.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus could call, could, could change all kinds of people, and he has, and he did.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Biblically, we see him changing the mentally tormented, adulterers, thieves, good people, leaders, paupers, businessmen, servants, sick people, strong, healthy people.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: None of it mattered because it was the one God for all that they could connect with.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: When we look at the purpose, the main purpose of Jesus coming, the intercessor, think of this.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: He comes into the earth in the way that he does.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: To a creation, a humankind, that has all of these thoughts about God, and no man had perceived God.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're saying lots of things about God, they're thinking lots of thoughts about God, they're doing all kinds of things, trying to have some semblance of connection or some way to relate to God in some way.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: But none, none knew.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: None were perceiving him correctly, none were knowing.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Even in the Jewish religion, which is what part of the earth he came into, doing all these things and not perceiving.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he comes, and we really need to look at this, because this is really revolutionary.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it was then and it still is now to our lives that he came showing us a father.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what if this intercessor came to reveal this a misunderstood, unknown father to mankind who'd been struggling in their own filth and their own strength and abilities and inabilities?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he came to reveal this misunderstood father, this unknown father, and he came to reveal him to us, and he did it by his teaching and his actions, and by his death on the cross, and then by the revealing power of the Holy Spirit in our life, ever going on to show us this goodness of this father.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I just go, how good are you really?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And do you let yourself really have a goodness of a father that's with you right now, is right in the middle of where you're at and causing you to be in the safest place that you are.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you're eternally safe and secure with him.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And rather than be distracted by all the situations that come and go, and some of them go are good and some of them are bad, and looking at all that and needing things fixed and all that, but settling into a reality that your father is with you, and your father loves you, and your father cares, and it does something to us, and here we are, these creations that we that we call humans, but we are the children of God, and we find our home connection with Him, and we find that's what fulfills us, and that's what changes everything.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what if Jesus was revealing a father that ultimately could change the whole planet earth and ultimately could be the fix for everything that ails mankind, not from the outside, but from the inside, to where hearts would come to know this father who wanted to be known so badly that he would become a sacrifice for us, that he would die, that he would do all those things, that he would suffer for us, that he would be patient and good and gracious to us, and wanted to be known so badly, I would say, that he did all that to reveal himself to you.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: The intercessor came because the connection was needed, and that connection is made full in Jesus.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: What if we would allow our mind to drop all the masks that we put on God, all the yabuts, and let ourselves be loved completely by this Father who's wonderful and good, has no darkness in him at all, and no shadow of turning.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And we let all the masks drop and all the yah buts and all the ideas that he's still demanding something from us.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: If we can get down to the simplicity of somebody that's in love with me, someone that's in love with you, and get down to that, to where here you are, this person in a flesh body, and you never feel alone again, because you and Daddy are one.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And when I when I when what I found was after getting off of the floor, I began to believe in a love that had nothing to do with my abilities or my shortcomings, and began to believe, because of the work of the intercessor, that this one who seemed to be so unlovable, I seem so unlovable to myself, actually could be lovable by this holy, perfect, wonderful, all-knowing, all-powerful being who created all things.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: How did this little Rick creature, how could you I can get that?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: How could I believe that?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: How could I have any understanding of that?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I even conceive of something so far out?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it became real.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And how amazing is that that it be it can be that real that this invisible God, while we're living in this physical world, but this invisible God becomes so real to you because something happens to you, because you saw something with the eyes of your spirit and you believed it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And your heart opened up and you received it.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: You let yourself be loved with an amazing grace that was unmerited.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: You you didn't deserve it according to anything you did on the outside, and this love was received, and you tasted and saw that he was good.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: You felt it in your heart, and there was just like the Bible says, a fulfilling, a fullness that started to happen.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you started to feel like you were whole.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: You started to feel complete, even though you can look around and see, uh, I'm still goofy, I'm dumb, I still mess up this, I still do this wrong, I still don't understand this, I don't know, I'm all this stuff.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're still you and this flesh being here.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you have this knowing that bring that the work of righteousness would bring peace and assurance and confidence all the time, and you have this assurance that God is well with you, and you are well with God, and you and God are tight and right, and you're all right, and you're one and you're together, and God is very pleased with you because he just digs you very, very much.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, what's that do to your soul?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: What does that do inside of you?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: It changes everything.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: You wake up differently, you see things differently, you see people differently, you can't help but be endeared to them, you can't help but love them, can't help but care for them, even though you can see the flaws on the outside because your heart has been fulfilled, so you don't need them to change for you.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because your heart's already full.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Before I knew anything about the fullness of God, I could get up here and demand that you change for me.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was desiring that.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now you look at it, you see it, you acknowledge it, you know things, there's a there's a mess going on out there, you know.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: People are struggling in their lives with things, but you see it with a full heart now.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've been connected in your heart, your mind, and your soul because of the work of Jesus.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: An intercessor came.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: An intercessor came to make it right, a mediator came to make it right, a connector, somebody came to make all this right and had to give us new information and had to show us the Father, and had to reveal his amazing grace to us.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so amazing that it can still give your mind some problems where you just go, Wow, really?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I look at it and I say, How deep does this rabbit hole go?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because I keep walking into this and it gets better and better and better.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: But but but now I'm in a place where nobody's preached these things to me before.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: How good are you?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the masks, the veils, if you will, that we were looking at God through are dropping, and we're like, oh my goodness, you're wonderful.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's bringing your heart closer to heaven.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And it's bringing your heart closer to a place where you feel like you're home.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it is well with your soul.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've been connected, and we are not the people, not the generation, or not the individuals that do not perceive God, do not see God, do not know God.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: We wake up aware of God because the revelation of the Father has brought a fullness to our lives.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And there's only one cure for the desire that you want to end.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because what you really desire is to stop desiring.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't stop desiring just by willing it to stop.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: You see, lust is lust.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's it's not just a sexual thing, lust is lust.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a desire of passion because you have a perceived lack of something, a perceived need of something.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you can't stop desiring just by saying, I'm gonna stop desiring, I'm gonna stop lusting.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: The only cure for that is fullness.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's when our perception of lack leaves.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because now you know the difference.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now you know that you're full.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now you know nobody can condemn you.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Not even your own heart can contemn you after a while.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: You don't take it, you acknowledge it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: And see, and here's the beauty of this.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And people that are scared of grace, you know what the old thing is.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're scared that you're gonna you're gonna run amok and you're gonna go try to find all the sin that you can do.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're forgiven, and and you don't have to worry about any kind of punishment, you don't have to worry about any kind of anything, and you're gonna, and so so that's gonna make all of us, all of us here this morning, because you're hearing too much about grace, you're hearing hyper grace, too much grace.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna cause all of us to go out there and let's find out how much sin that we can be, how ugly and how horrible we can live.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't that sound ridiculous to you?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're here on a Sunday morning, you can be sleeping, you can be on the lake, you can be at the beach, you can be anywhere you want, you can be at Disney.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're going after church, but we but here, we're here now.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you're here because you've fallen in love.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're here because you've tasted the goodness of God, you're here because you're sensing fullness happening in your heart.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're here because you've tasted something that was the best thing that your life has ever known, and you want to taste it more, you want to hear more, you want to see more, you want to talk about it more.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Your prayers are saying, God, just show me more of this.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or help me see it more, because you've tasted and seen the goodness of God.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And what if this goodness is better than any of us have ever preached, it's better than any of us have ever dreamed.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: What if God is so good to you that you really don't ever have to worry about anything else again?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: In spite of the tribulations of this present life that we live, but you don't have to worry about it because God is with you and He says there's tribulation in the world, but in me there's peace.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And be of good cheer, because that's how I've overcome this world.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: By filling your heart when the world is going cadewampus all around you, you're full.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the kingdom of God that He came to bring us.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the intercessor did.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: What if we just came home once and for all to a complete and a pure love and dropped all of our fighting against it?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And dropped all of our, yeah, but what about in the Old Testament it says?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: The Jews had the Old Testament, and people like Paul would come along later and say, and and would use that to show these Jews who believed in what the law and the prophets said, and he would go back to that and he would point out, you see what this means?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: This is a type of the lamb who was slain.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: See this prophecy?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Look at what happened.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: This is fulfilled in him.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he used that in all that.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was never about, let's get new Christians now and let's take them to Genesis and to the throughout all the Old Testament and Leviticus and all these, and let's look, let's let's teach them all these things.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: He he he he didn't do that.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: He goes to the Gentiles, he goes to Athens, Greece, where all the philosophers are.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes there and he's up there on Mars Hill, and they've they've heard him preaching about Jesus and the resurrection, and so they gather their smart people of the city, and they said, We want you to, we want you to tell them about us.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're interested, because they like that stuff.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: See, they weren't like a lot of people that don't you can't talk to because they don't listen to each other.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, we want to hear this stuff.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: They love just gathering and talking about the latest philosophy, the latest spiritual thing, the latest anything.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: And here they hear Paul talking about something they never heard of, and he said, Tell us about that.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, you know, when I came into your town, I saw that you guys are pretty extravagant about your about your worship.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I see all these statues and all these things.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I even saw an altar that said to the unknown God.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: He said, That's the one I want to introduce you to.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: The one that you you though you worship him, you don't know him at all.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let me introduce you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: He says, He's the one that made every living thing.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one that gave breath to us.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one that in him we live and move and have our very being.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's the one that that's that spread the men out across the earth and set the borders so that men would seek him and grow and look for him, he says, because he's the God that's easy to find.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: See, he gave them, he didn't say, well, let's go back and if you do what the Old Testament says and do all these rules and all that stuff, and that's how he went straight to the revelation of the Father that the intercessor was bringing to us.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Straight to the goodness of the Father, straight to the reality of the Father.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he goes on, he says, In him when we move and have our being, and he says, and our lineage, he's telling these people in Athens, Greece, these philosophers, and all he says, our lineage, it comes from him.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's your father.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the call is to come home.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not about, yeah, let's go back and do all these things.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: See, this goes past, this will take you past all your questions.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because we still have some, because we love, we, we, we, we believe in the Bible, we read the word.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes you'll run across a verse somewhere that it kind of makes you stumble and go, oh, that don't sound like a gracious God at all.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so people start quick, well, maybe that means God, this, that, and the other.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know what you find out with the revelation of the fullness of God?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Is that sometimes you'll run into something that doesn't jive with how you know God.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And what I have found out, invariably, is that at that moment I'm looking at that verse in a way that it doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's not jiving with the goodness of God, so I am misinterpreting it somehow with my mind.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times I'll just say, okay, God will show me that.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: And some, and I can be satisfied with saying, I don't know what that is actually saying, but I do know it's not telling me that God is not as gracious as I know he is.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: I do know it's not telling me that God is that God is um you know legalistic or demanding of me, because I know he's not.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got a whole lot more scripture to back me up on that than these little ones you might find somewhere here and there.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then as you as as I've as I've gone, when I when clarity to those scriptures would come around, it was always God would reveal to me the context of this thing, and I would say, oh, that's what Paul was talking about.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's what Peter meant.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't trying to tell us God still means.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they come clear.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't have to throw any scriptures out, you don't have to throw any of the Bible out, you just have to know what it's what it's context and what it's saying, because in your heart is where you know God.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the scriptures will back you up on this, but it's in your heart that you know God.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's in your heart, this is where you tasted and saw that He's good, right?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes when people try to say, well, you know, He the Bible says this and this and that and the other.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you can't debate very well with, maybe you don't understand that, think that too much either, but you've tasted too much.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: Something real has happened to you that goes beyond somebody's book learning or somebody's philosophy or somebody's theology.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that something real is what Jesus came for was to connect us with the real and take us beyond a philosophy and a theology.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: I want to finish with 1 Timothy chapter 2.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we see the heart of God in this.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Don't y'all love God?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, are any of you like, were any of you like I was at a time in my life, for a time in my Christian law, I would pray.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: I would beg God to help me love him more.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know I'm supposed to.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: The great commandment is love God with all your heart, with all your mind and your soul.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: God, I want to.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, I don't, because even though I'm trying to love you, I'm if I loved you, I wouldn't have done that yesterday.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: If I loved you, I'd be praying all the time.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: If I loved you, I'd be on the street preaching all the time.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be if I loved you, I would do this, that, the other.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Help me to love you more.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't feeling it, wanted it.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was devout, working hard for him, but wasn't feeling the connection, and that's why I was always hungering, desiring a connection.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: In whatever form.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Bring it in a revival, a visitation, a touch, bring it in something.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Bring it to me in my prayer closet.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Bring me, I'm looking for this connection, and if I maybe if I would stop doing this and start doing that, that would, you know, you do all those things, and I'm trying to fulfill the commandment.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord God with your whole heart.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: After I tasted the goodness of God in a big way, and it had this effect that starts taking over your life.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say it's been well over 20 years since I've prayed the prayer, God help me to love you more.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: How many know what I'm talking about?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can't help it now.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: You just you're in love.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: You just love God because nobody has ever loved you this way before.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has ever lavished you with such an extravagant love before.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and what do you there's you can't resist it.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: You'll fall in love with him accidentally.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because that love is what fulfills your heart, and that's what the intercessor came for, was to fill your heart with the fullness of God.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Rick, aren't there other things to preach besides grace and love?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Not for me, I don't know, honey.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because what we're doing is we're we're declaring our Father, the glory of our Father, the reality, the goodness, the heart, the character of our Father.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: 1 Timothy 2, 4 says, God desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's what a heart.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted you.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted you to know him.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: He desired that you would come to know.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Come, learn about me.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not what you thought I was gonna be.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm meek and I'm humble.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you rest for your soul.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's your real earthly heaven right there.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: He desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: All men.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have a vision for the world.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can see this spreading so easily.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: I can see people falling so in love with God that they start spreading, spreading a message of a good God, and it don't matter if they're thieves or if they're honest men or if they're rich or if they're poor or if they're sick or if they're well or if they're adulterers or if they're faithful.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter who they are, it's the one same message.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't have a message.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have two separate messages, one for the thief and one for the honest person.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have two separate messages, one for the one that lives morally acceptable, and one for the one that lives totally the opposite.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have two separate messages.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's one answer for both.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because they both need that con that connection.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I have so much confidence in the gospel.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Just like Paul said, he said it's the power of God unto salvation, wholeness, and deliverance.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: The good news, the good news, the good news, the good news.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: For there is one God and one mediator, one intercessor between God and man, and that's the man Jesus Christ.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: When he said, No man comes to the Father but by me, he was saying, Nobody else is showing you these things.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're not going to get it by following this one or believing that one.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, if you want to know the Father, believe it in me, believe what I'm saying.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm the one that'll reveal to you the heart of your father like you never dreamed before.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like nobody could ever conceive, no philosopher, no theologian, no nothing could ever, ever conceive, could never, their brain is not big enough to come up with a God this good.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: So they put parameters around him.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking around today at the goodness of God, and I see no boundaries.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: And that gives me a lot of room to run.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: He gave himself a ransom for us all to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm speaking the truth in Christ and I'm not lying.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: The teachers of the Gentile in faith and truth.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: I desire therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath or doubting.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Would you all stand up?
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: I want to pray over you.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because of this, I would like people, he says, I would like people to lift up holy hands.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like people to worship without without any sense of wrath.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's no yah but.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, God's got to be getting fed up with this and that and the other.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand everything, nor do you, but what I'm have found is that God does not think like a man.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: And God the reason that God is not confused about the power of his connecting with mankind also being the answer for all of mankind and planet earth.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: As for me and my house, we'll declare the good news.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: As for me and my house, we'll keep our eye on the goodness of our Father.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: As for me and my house, we'll worship without any wrath, without any doubt.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: All I want is not for you to quit living like that and you to stop doing that.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what I want.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to know.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to taste what I've tasted.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to feel what I feel.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to experience what I experience because this is real.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is not another, these are not more sermons I've come up with after 40 years of preaching.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: These are not more ideas about God.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is what is so real that you've got nothing else virtually to give.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_01: Except this love with no conditions, without any demands, without any boundaries.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: That you take off all the masks and veils and say, Lord, how good are you?
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it'll bring you at perfect peace in the middle of a dark and perverse world.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer for that world is the same answer as it is for me.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: I have a vision, and I think we're moving that direction.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I totally believe we are as a body of Christ.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a snowball effect happening, it might be slow right now, it might be gradual, it might be here a little, there a little, but it's moving that direction.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: That there is an unfolding, a progressive revelation of the goodness and the love of the Father that keeps spreading into the church world.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And this treasure that we have.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's with all the world doing all their things to try to fulfill and try to find and try to fulfill desire and thinking that they just want to get what they want.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: This group fighting against that one, and just trying to get what they want, that we're carrying in this treasure, this vessel, and this wonderful treasure of this connection that we have found.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that becomes all we want for mankind.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you've tasted and seen God this good, you've come home, haven't you?
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I say to you, welcome home, church.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Daddy's house.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to an unbounded love.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to an amazing grace.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to freedom.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: To be free, to be you, to be flawed, but to be really, really, really loved.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the kingdom of heaven, children of God, your home.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the kingdom of heaven, your home.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, your loved.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: Father, we give you thanks in Jesus' name.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.