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When The Table Gets Messy - Judi Manis · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I love this topic.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're doing a series on Table Talk, and the subtitle is Learning to Be Graceful in Community.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And how many of you know that this is not the easiest thing to learn is how to be graceful in community.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: We all know community is wonderful.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you find your friends and the people who support you and are there for you when you're speaking on a Sunday morning and want to support you.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovely.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: But these are also oftentimes in your community the people that irritate you the most and get on your nerves and hurt your feelings and do things without you and it hurts your feelings, you know.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this double-edged sword to community.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we're a church that really focuses on the, let's say, the theology of grace, but we know that the theology of your of grace can only take you so far.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's where the rubber meets the road, is how you are in community, in your relationships, and it's challenging.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I am excited to talk about this this morning.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: The table talk number four, learning to be graceful in community.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna jump right in.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at Matthew 4, 17.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is a scripture that you've heard many, many times if you're uh part of this church.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is a uh this happened during the time Jesus had gotten baptized by John the Baptist.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit had come down and had identified this is the one.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he, after he gets baptized, he goes out into the desert, he's tempted, and um and when he comes back, he starts his professional career as a rabbi.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's got his followers, he's teaching them, and basically what he's teaching him is this from that time, Jesus began to preach and to say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: When I first heard this scripture, let's say reading with my flesh, it was a very kind of scary type of scripture.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: You better get your stuff together, you better change your ways, and you better be good because the end of the world is coming, and you've gotta get ready because things, bad things are gonna happen if you don't.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw that as a very kind of scripture, like, oh my gosh.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: As I've grown in the grace and the love of God, I see the scripture a little differently.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that that word repent, um, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, is a is a Greek word metanoia, and it just means to change your mind, think again.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So here's Jesus.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's coming into a Jewish culture, and he's, I mean, they know God, they're all behaving pretty well compared to other people, and he's saying to them, change your mind, think again.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, heaven in the Greek just means the skies.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It means think higher, higher than what you're thinking.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So he's going to these very godly people, and he's saying, think again, change your mind, because the kingdom, a higher way is here, and I've come to show you that way.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now think of Jesus.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's one of the Trinity.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they're one.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: He comes down into an earth body, and he's talking to these earth people, and he's trying to explain to them very complex, highly spiritual ideas, and he's trying to say, let me try and explain this to you.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you hear you have all the parables that say the kingdom of heaven is like a pearl, uh, the kingdom of heaven is uh like a sheep that's lost.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have all these different stories that Jesus is trying to convey a different idea.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you this: the Jewish culture is, I think, was the best flesh system that you could come up with.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the best Ten Commandments, the best ways, it's the best that your flesh can do.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it and there's a lot of good in it.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus comes, he's asking us to go a little bit beyond that.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's asking us to think differently.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's something even better than what your flesh has been able to come up with.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so a little while later, in where I'm looking at Luke 17, 20 to 21, the Pharisees are like, okay, the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God is at hand.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: When's it gonna get here?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just let us know when it's gonna come?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Pharisees, the kingdom of Israel was here, and now the kingdom of Rome is on top of them, and they don't like it, and they're wanting the kingdom of heaven to come so they can topple the kingdom of Rome.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is saying to them, it doesn't come like that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll read the scripture.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God does not come with observation, it doesn't come through your physical senses.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: That you're not gonna say, see here, there it is, see there, there it is.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: For indeed the kingdom of God is within you.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, this to me is very, very important.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's an internal work, it's an internal experience, it's an internal place.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then later in Paul in Romans 14, 17, he says, and he's talking about the kingdom of God, and he says it's not about eating or drinking what you do or don't do.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this is an internal thing.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So no matter what's happening in this flesh world, do you have a sense of righteousness?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you're right with God?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that God delights in you?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: He smiles when he sees you.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you're right with him?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks you're awesome, and you really like him too.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have this connection with God, you have his righteousness in you.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And peace, whatever's happening, the storms in life.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a sense of peace in your heart?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Does joy bubble up from inside you automatically?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: That is the kingdom of heaven.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a much more gracious, much more beautiful truth that um explains what the kingdom of heaven is.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to just take a moment.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know that most of you know me as Rick's wife, and I love being Rick's wife.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted just to tell you a little bit about myself.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I grew up on a very small farm in Pennsylvania.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I put myself through school.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I graduated with a degree in theater.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: I worked professionally and full-time for nearly a decade as an actress.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I worked as a teacher.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: I taught high school theater at one point.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: I lived in Zambia, Africa as a missionary for several years teaching there.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I worked in business administration.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: I met and married this wonderful man, Rick Manis.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we travel across the country, we go into different communities.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have about seven regular communities that we speak in every month.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're invited to sit at seven different types of tables with seven different types of cultures, if you would, of people that we love and we're in relationship with, and we're honored that we get to be included in their lives.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: We get to hear what's yucky in their lives, we get to hear what's great in their lives, and we get to just be beside them in that.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some other things, um, I think.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me just tap turn here.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here and I'm nervous.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: My friend Jan, she told me one time, she goes, I've never seen you shake so hard when you speak.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some other things I want you to know about me.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I experienced quite a bit of trauma growing up.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: From the age of four to 16, I was sexually abused.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was abusive towards others.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: At the age of 12, I had my first suicide attempt among many.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want to tell you about that is the my experience of life was so painful that I just wanted out of it.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to hurt anyone, I didn't want to hurt my family, I just didn't want to feel that pain.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I would look around and I would see happy people, I would see people joking and having a good time, and it was like I couldn't compute.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: All I could think of was God had his favorite people, and I was not one of them.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't ask to be here, I didn't want to be here.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can I just get out?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up in a psychiatric ward, full-blown psychotic break.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Baker acted, in the hospital for several months.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: The doctor said I would be in and out of institutions for the rest of my life.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, shortly after that, I went into treatment, outpatient treatment.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was in treatment for six years, really kind of learning how to walk with uh because after the suicide uh attempts didn't work, I did turn to drugs, I turned to alcohol, I turned to food, I turned to promiscuity, whatever I could to mitigate the pain that I was feeling.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I went into treatment for addictions, for uh sexual abuse, for um just unhealthy behaviors.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to really learn how to be with people.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was very self-protective and very um very sensitive and very hurt, um, easily hurt.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh eventually through that treatment, I began to think, rethink my concept of God and rethink what is it that I really believe about God, because maybe I'm not his torture victim, you know.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe maybe he is nice, you know.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I I did have a born-again salvation experience.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: The pastor I was under was not preaching law, he was preaching grace, but in my best ability, I was reading the scriptures with my legalistic mind.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when you come out of addiction like that, you're so happy to be free.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd do anything for God.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be the best Christian, I wanted to read the Bible the most, I wanted to do everything the best so I could thank him for rescuing me from a life of institutionalization, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So there are still lingering effects from that trauma.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still kind of oversensitive, I still get my feelings hurt, I get paranoid sometimes.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: But this is where grace comes in because I love the grace, because I'm beginning to learn grace for me.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Grace that God understands why I am like I am, and He's gonna walk me through it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: When I still hated those parts of myself that I could kind of still see in there, uh I can't grow from that hard place.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that makes sense to you, but you can't grow without some vulnerability.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, in the vulnerability of saying, all right, Lord, I was just, you know, let's say mean to my husband.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't mean to be that way, but it was like a compulsion.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I did that.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be like that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: When I start allowing grace into those places, this is where growth happens.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I am so much better than I used to be.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in an institution, but uh that's better.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I still have I still have more growth, I still have more opportunities to grow.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, some of us we come into these, our first communities are really our families.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we come into these families where we get a lot of love and a lot of goodness, but some of us get really hurt in that community.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so interesting to me that we get hurt in community, but we heal in community, and we need each other in order to walk through the healing of it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to speak a moment on trauma.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a really important topic.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the word trauma in the Greek, it just means wound.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you know it can be a physical wound, but it also can be a psychological wound, something that we've experienced.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the woo and the trauma isn't so much the thing that happened to us, it's actually what we do on the inside to accommodate for that trauma.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're accommodating it sometimes totally subconsciously.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: When you're a little girl and someone takes over your body, like you don't think in your mind, oh, that guy's a bad guy.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You think in your mind, I'm a bad girl, like there's something wrong with me that I'm being having these experiences.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And my little personality, as it's developing, adjusts itself to allow for this to happen so that I can get my needs met.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I need shelter, I need food, I need my parents.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm just gonna adjust to that.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And let me say this everyone in this room has experienced trauma at some point.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you can say, like, oh, my trauma is not as bad as you, Judy.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, really.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: A trauma can be being belittled by someone, bullied by someone, um, rejected, not being loved unless you stood up to this certain standard.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: That all produces trauma.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And whether it's a trauma that, you know, really affects you or just slightly affects you, it depends on a lot of things.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: How young you are, how sensitive you are as a person, how you know a strong-willed person and a sensitive person might experience the same trauma and have very different effects from it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: But everyone experiences it.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what's so um beautiful about knowing about your own trauma and grieving your own trauma and having the Lord witness your own trauma and say, yeah, Judy, that was really bad.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I can see why you get self-protective, I can see why with your friends, why you have this wall up when you really want to just connect with them, and yet you almost automatically put up the very thing that keeps you from connecting with the people you want.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and the Lord saying, I see you, I see that, and I love that part of you, and I'm there for that part of you, and let's walk together out of this.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you've been hurt in relationship, the last thing you want to do is be in relationship with people who can hurt you again.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it's uh it's healthy and it's good for you.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know um sometimes I've said to Rick, I have a group of girls, we've been in a Bible study for many years, and I remember I would say to him periodically, are you sure this is healthy for me?
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have all these feelings, I'm very hurt, very, you know, frustrated.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure this is healthy?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe, I think maybe if I don't have friends, that might be more healthy.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, Rick loves my friends, and he is very um level-headed as far as um seeing them and seeing me.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very helpful to me navigating sort of the uh crazies of being in community and in relationship.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about how grace impacts trauma.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to go to the scripture that um, you know, when Jesus first started preaching, he's going around doing his rabbi stuff, and he goes to his hometown.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in his hometown, he speaks in the synagogue, and they give him a scripture and he reads it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you can find it in Luke 17, 21, but he's reading from the book of Isaiah, and basically what he's saying is the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: He sent, he sent me, Jesus, to heal this broken heart, to heal all of our broken hearts, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Those of us who can't see, you know, sometimes you talk about free choice.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you just choose better.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an addict, just choose better.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have learned instinctively to protect ourselves or to numb the pain.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a choice, it's an instinct, it's a survival instinct.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, I'm gonna give recovery of sight to the blind.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna help them to see it, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this part.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then he sat, he closed the book and he gave it back to the attendant, and he sat down, and the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him, and he began to say to them, Today the scripture, this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we all have the spirit of Christ in us.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I say that is Jesus' mission statement.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: That in encapsules his mission here on earth.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And us with our, you know, with the Holy Spirit embedded in us, that's our mission statement too.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: As we're healed, we heal other people.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I meet a lot and I speak a lot to girls who are in recovery, who are um, you know, uh dealing with the effects of abuse or the effects of addiction.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know I do not have the the um you know the code for them to completely become freed, but I can stand beside them and I really believe that as I stand beside them, as I talk with them, God heals, God transfers, God does his thing with them, and I don't have to worry about like figuring out the solution for each of them because Jesus has it for all of us.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wanted to say uh a few weeks ago Rick had been talking about the word salvation, and the Greek word for that is soteria, and it means restoring to wholeness.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And with trauma, there is a disconnection from your authentic self.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you've been traumatized, when you've had trauma, you disconnect from who you really are, and really you kind of disconnect, you can disconnect from God, but when you have healing, what's restored to you is who you really are.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's one with God, it's connected with God.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So healing, becoming whole, is integrating all these parts of yourself, all these aspects of yourself that maybe you've loathed or hated and rejected or tried to run away.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's all coming back to your authentic self and really connecting with God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um we talk about salvation or soteria in the Greek.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are some of the words that describe soteria.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Deliverance, healing, safety, restoration.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: If we look at the word grace, the Greek word is charis.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Here's some words.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sweetness.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Delight.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pleasure.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Undeserved favor.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is all included in a grace walk.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about restoring.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about sweetness.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about his delight in you.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: All the ugly parts of you.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: He has room for it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: He wants all of you.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want you to reject the bad parts of yourself and only try to present because you know what?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: You need him.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to take all of it and say, I see all of you and I want you all.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And trust me, this is faith.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me that I'm enough for the healing to happen.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of times for me, I just didn't trust him.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't trust love was strong enough.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I had to have something to, you know, get rid of, something to work on, something to push myself for.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Love couldn't possibly be enough.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: But as Brett said last week, love is everything.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's the gasoline.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the, you know, it's the comfort.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just look a little bit at the woman at the well.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's found in John 4, 4 through 42.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just look at how Jesus dealt with people's trauma in community.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the woman at the well, we know she has been rejected not once, not twice.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: She'd been rejected five times by men.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Five times.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: She was a Samaritan, which was known as a half-breed.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So very culturally less than, I guess.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: We know she went to the well at noon because she didn't want to put up with all the gossip about her.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: She was avoiding people.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: She was trying to get her job done without having to deal with people.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes and it says in the Bible, I think this is so beautiful.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: It says Jesus had to go there.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had to go to that well.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: He had to meet that one person.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you notice, Jesus is always going for the one.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's not going for the group think, for the group of people who all think perfect.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's going for the one, the one, the one, the one.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's going for the one.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you think about it, in the Old Testament, what happened at a well?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: What often happened at a well?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: A man finds his bride at a well.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham's son finds his bride.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they find their brides at the well.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus meets this one woman, Samaritan, rejected, not loved, not superior, not somebody everybody looks up to.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't dress the best, she doesn't have the most money.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: He comes for the one, and he's he's the first person that he reveals himself to as the Messiah.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this woman, after one interaction with Jesus, with that beautiful grace, do you know what she does?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: She hightails it right back to those people who abused her, who uh ousted her, rejected her.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: She goes right back to them and tells them about Jesus.
• 26:04
  unknown: What?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: All the confidence, all the strength that she needed was found in the love that Jesus showed her.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And she went and she told them all about him.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: She was not self-conscious, not she just wanted to love them.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're traumatized, you want to love people, but you feel like you can't.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like it's just not in you.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: But with Jesus, it's in you, and you can go and do exploits.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Another one, I really love this story, is the demoniac.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it in Matthew 8, Mark 5, Luke 8.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this story, Jesus brings his disciples into a region that no good Jew would ever be found in.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this demoniac, this man, he's been cutting himself.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Cutting himself.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's been tied up, he's been violent.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: He has um, you know, he's he's basically the scapegoat for that whole community there.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever been in a family system where you're the scapegoat, you know that because you have the problem, you're the scapegoat of the family, nobody else has to look at their stuff because you're the issue.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that community kept him alive.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: They never, you know, hurt him or killed him or did anything to him.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: They kept him alive because as long as he's there, there's our demoniac, there's our demon-possessed man, there's the weirdo, and we don't, you know, have to worry about it.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes, one interaction with him, and the demons flee, and he's put into his right mind.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's a miracle.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the people in the community are so uncomfortable that this one, their scapegoat, has changed and he's healthy and he's in his right mind.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's so in his right mind that he wants to go with Jesus.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, No, no, no.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to stay.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to talk to your people about what happened to you.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's uh it's amazing.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus saw trauma and he looked past the behavior of a traumatic person.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like usually you want to just like step away, like they're a little too much.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've had people do that to me.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: She's a little too much for me.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'll just step myself back.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, Jesus and us with Jesus in us, we can see beyond that.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: You see the protection, you see the behaviors, but behind that behavior is this beautiful loved creature of God.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's who I'm speaking to.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna speak to that person.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: That person may be trying to punch me in the face, they might be trying to scratch me, but I can see they're hurting.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's a there's a uh a protection there.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna look beyond that and I'm gonna speak to that person because everybody has that, and everybody has something that gets on their uh under their skin.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you an example of a wound.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say someone walks by me and they lightly brush me on the shoulder.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: No big deal.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say I have a wound there, it's let's say a third-degree burn, but my shirt's over it, so you don't know.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, they just lightly touched me, and I have a very strong reaction.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that person just triggered my wound.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they don't know it, so they're like, man, what's wrong with her?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's stick away from her.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, the wound needs healing.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the wound doesn't get healed if we all just back away and like stare.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that happens with the wound is it will develop a scar.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: So a scar has no sensitivity in it, has no nerve endings.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: So someone comes along and they're trying to get my attention, they're tapping me on the shoulder, and I pay them no mind.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that they're tapping, and they're thinking, what's wrong with her?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: She has no her problem.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's just it's the scar.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the person trying to be a jerk, it's the person trying to either protect themselves or instinctually uh keep themselves safe.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the woman with the issue of blood.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm talking really fast, but I want to get this all out.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um, the woman with the issue of blood.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: This woman, uh this story can be found in Matthew 9, Mark 5, or Luke 8.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in this story, um, this woman had 12 years of bleeding.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: She ran out of doctors, doctors couldn't heal her, she ran out of money.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she was now bleeding so much, she was unclean, no one could be around her, and she was desperate.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes along, and I love this woman.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I love this woman.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: She was so daring.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you're raised like a good little girl, I'm obeying all the Pharisees' rules, right?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, I'm not supposed to be around people, I'm not being around people.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: This woman was like, I think if I touch the hem of his robe, I can just get in, get out, I'm healed, nobody needs to know.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus turns around and says, Who touched me?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And like, he wasn't doing it to like embarrass her.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was doing it to restore her to the community.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Who touched me?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now he looks around to the community that has ousted her and said she's not worthy to be touched or to be uh included.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, look at her.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: She's healed and she is good.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: She had faith.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: She trusted.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: She dared jump outside the system.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus said these words.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I love these words.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says to the Pharisees, your traditions are making the word of God of no effect.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Your traditions are making the word of God of no effect.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's so awesome.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: She dared to go outside the system.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us here, we're learning to jump outside the system to really think and really rethink things and to explore things, and it's safe and it's good, and it's, I think, what God always intended for us.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Brett last week said, you know, you have to, when you're in grace, you have to start thinking about these things.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: If Jesus came to set us free, how free did he come?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the barrier?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the leaning?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is it in the legalistic ways of reading the word?
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is it in the flesh ways of reading the word?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or is there another way that maybe the Lord is trying to teach me?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I kind of like this woman with the issue of blood because she did that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: She dared to.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And people could criticize her for that, but she got a healing.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the woman who was bent over, this woman had a, they call it a spirit of infirmity, means she was very, very sick, sickly person.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Someone that maybe people would be like, uh, she's a lot.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: But she was in the temple, and I think this is so beautiful.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in the temple preaching, and the synagogue is divided into these sections.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you have the men's section where Jesus is teaching, then you have the women's section, and then you have the gentile section.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you have these levels of how good you are.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is speaking to the men, and he calls this woman over from this other section, this less than section, brings her over and he heals her.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it enraged the Pharisees, the group thinkers, the ones who have to have it be legally right.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, if the Messiah was coming, he would never break the traditions of men, you know.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, he did.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: He called her out of that section, he heals her in front of all of them, and he pretty much destroys the divisions.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this, my friends, is why I love the grace of God so much, because I'm no longer trying to build myself up to be part of like an exclusive club.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I can go anywhere.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can talk to the homeless, the people on the street, I can go to high-end parties and talk to women there or men there.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: I can go anywhere because the Spirit of God doesn't have divisions.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, it's not about how pretty you are, how how skinny you are, or, you know, all these things that our culture or our society tries to make us believe.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, I'm gonna talk about Zacchaeus.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Rick always talks about this, but what I want to point out about Zacchaeus is he was a morally corrupt human being.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you for a second to think of the most morally corrupt person you know.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Who is that morally corrupt person?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to imagine Jesus sitting and having dinner with him.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Does it kind of like make you feel uncomfortable?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, ooh, have you ever had a friend that you've had an issue with, and then another friend still hangs out with them, and you're like, oh, how come you don't hate them as much as I hate them?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: They did this to me, and you're being friends with them.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Ooh, it's like it stretches your heart, it stretches your mind, like, oh, you're having dinner with them?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've been hurt, but you're having dinner with them.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: This man had been stealing from all of them.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus goes and has dinner with them.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: What the what?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is crazy.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is saying, I mean, this guy's a tax collector.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: He works for the oppressive government, he steals from his own people.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is a yuck, yuck, yuck person.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus goes and hangs out with him.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's up with that?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know why?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus wants to heal him.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to leave him a morally corrupt person.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want to leave him that way.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: So all these people, the people in my own life, in my own community, my girlfriends who stick with me through thick and thin, I'm so thankful for them.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've not been the best friend.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I they they have made room for me.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: They've been made room for my idiosyncrasies and things.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make room for others.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna close with this scripture from 1 Peter 5.10.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is Peter speaking to the young church, you know, the believers, um, people who'd been persecuted and who were being ousted from their own families, who were being talked about, lies told about them.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: That means that God himself will restore the things that trauma in life in general have taken from you.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: He will himself restore it.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna confirm that you are precious, that you are valuable, that you are wanted by him.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to strengthen you, not in your own strength, but in his strength.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to establish you on your path forward in whatever community you find yourself in.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: How can I bring life?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: How can I bring love?
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: How can I bring healing in whatever community we're in?
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with us.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had to receive it for ourselves.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't receive it for ourselves, we don't have a whole bunch for others.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: But what we have been given, the love that we've received, we can also heal the world.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what we're gonna end with.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're so good to us.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: You love us so, so much.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: And sitting here, standing here right now, I'm receiving your love.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm receiving your grace.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm receiving your wisdom, your life.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: And all of us here, Lord, we have a place in our heart that needs you.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: Place in our heart that needs to be restored, needs healing, needs life.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we're receiving it, and we're thanking you for it, and we're praying in Jesus' precious name.
• 40:40
  unknown: Amen.