Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Purity and Holiness

Transcript

Purity and Holiness · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, today, uh I don't know if any of you are aware, and it's not most of us don't make a big deal out of it, but but uh today is uh what's known as Pentecost Sunday.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it it commemorates this time of the year where uh Pentecost happened in Acts chapter 2, and we celebrate that.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And some will be preaching how it's the birthday of the church, you know, some will be preaching power, some will be preaching Pentecostal experience, and there's a lot of a lot of things that you can talk about.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: But what I was saying this week as I was getting ready to prepare what I would bring this morning, the thought of putting Pentecost in my mind and what happened then.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I look at the goodness of God and I see, you know, something happened.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we received the Spirit of God.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's when man received, that's when the promise was fulfilled that he would pour it out on all flesh.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe he did.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody knows, not everybody has received, not everybody is connected in their awareness and their consciousness, but but but he poured it out.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you see the very nature of God.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I believe that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You two?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's biblical, right?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, you know, before before Jesus came, before God gave his son, he already loved, didn't he?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So he didn't start loving after, he loved before.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look through the Bible, you see, you see that God was always trying to connect, he was always trying to give himself away to us.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even in the Garden of Eden, he said, look, here is the tree of life.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't choose that one.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Choose life.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: He said later in Deuteronomy, they're they're still here.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said before you death and life and cursing and blessing.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, He says, Choose life that you'll live.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I'm that life.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here I am.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we see him talking about how how good it's gonna get.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And even though his goodness has been running after mankind, it was going to catch us.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like he was always trying to give himself away, and he and he, you know, he would talk about it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: He said, the day's gonna come, Jeremiah 31.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm gonna be in them.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: My laws and my my ways are gonna be inside of them, and they'll be my people, and and we'll be together that way.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and they won't even have to teach each other to know me, because they're all gonna know me.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because of my goodness.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be good to them, I'll be merciful to their transgressions, their sins, iniquities.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I won't even think about it, I won't even remember it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's his goodness.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: In Acts chapter 15, it quotes uh the promise from Amos chapter 9, where God promised, he said, In that day I'm gonna raise up the tabernacle of David.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And essentially what that was was the tabernacle of David, where's where it made the presence of God public.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'll raise up the tabernacle of David so that the rest of mankind can all come and seek the Lord.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Give himself away.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, but what was different about the day of Pentecost there?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why was it received then?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: I believe very strongly that there was preparation for that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: That what Jesus did prepped the way for that, of course, right?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but in in all that Jesus did, what do we see in that?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: We see in all of his teaching, in all of his actions, we see by the his death and his resurrection through the whole cross thing, we see everything about it is pointing to the goodness of God.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that in my life, I found a true, living, real, intimate connection when I found out that he was good.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he loved me, even if I never changed or got any better.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when I met a God that was that good, my father that was that good, I fell in love.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I and somebody said, I don't uh remember at this moment where the quote came from.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But somebody said something like only those who have fallen in love can interpret the scriptures correctly.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And by that what we're saying is that without knowing that God is good, without having fallen in love with him, and you will once you see he's good, is that you'll see the scriptures in a different way.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that we so we know that people do that.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: We know that there's that's why there's a lot of differences in the way people see things.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like people have different filters in the way they see it, but but when we see his goodness, we we can receive, we connect with him.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: God's able to give himself away to us, so to speak.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where our connection is.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning I want to talk about that connection.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about the connection we have, and that connection is because of God's goodness, his character.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, for certain purposes, I'm gonna call it his holiness because I want to clarify some things about that.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I, you know, I have to give a title, and I call this one, I call I said, well, this one will be about purity and holiness.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I know it's sad it doesn't sound like anything you want to listen to, but it I'm the worst at getting titles.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't, I want to, I'm trying.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I want to think of something catchy, something that's got a hook that'll grab and get your interest.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, it purity and holiness, you know, that's that's what it's about.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: But but I uh I want to start in 1 John chapter 3 because I want to use this, because it's a verse that uses the word purity and pure.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And biblical purity, when we look at it, is is is is is good.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is holiness, and it's it's that holiness of God.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just throw this out there, and then you can follow me in it this morning.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: That it's God's holiness that really makes that connection with us.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's his the way he is, it's his character.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible talks about purity, but we also know that in the religious world, purity can have a whole different idea and a whole different meaning.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: So part of what we'll do is we're gonna clarify those things.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: But in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1 is a beautiful, beautiful passage of Scripture.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Behold, verse 1 says, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now it's really good to deliberate a little bit and stop and pause and really look at this, because many of us know this verse, this passage uh really well, and it's very beautiful, it's poetic, and we love it, and we know it speaks a beautiful thing.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you stop and look at that, and he says, Look at this.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Behold, stop and look.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: He says, pay attention to what kind of love this is.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of love this is.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't just love.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of love is this?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: He says, that he has bestowed upon us that we would be called his very children.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's a connection right there.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, or that's why the world doesn't know us because it didn't know him, beloved, now are we the children of God.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it hasn't yet been revealed what we will be, but we know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, because we will see him as he is.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about his goodness this morning.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing God as he is.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just talk, you know, when you're just talking to people around here, I love this.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're hanging around before and after church.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this common thing that so many of us have is that at some point in our lives we saw goodness.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: We found grace in the eyes of God.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: We looked at God and we saw something so pure and beautiful in his goodness and his love and his grace and graciousness toward us that we fell in love and it changed our lives.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It changed how we relate to God.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: We really felt connected.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and you can never feel disconnected after that.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, basically, I think what that verse right there is saying is that we are the children of God, but what's that gonna look like in the days ahead, who knows?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever it is, it'll be like him.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because we'll see him the way he is.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then that next part's where I want to get to.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, he says, and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I thought this meant for a long time, that what it meant was that if I have this truth, if I know this thing, then what I will do is I will purify myself.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: That in other words, I'm gonna make myself, I guess, perfect in some way, or I'm gonna, whatever, you know, use my willpower to try to be more Jesus-like in some way, you know.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've shared my story, and some of you have shared yours with me, but boy, we some of us we've we've tried a lot of things and tried real hard to be, have that to become this idea of pure, whatever that is.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And usually what men think, what people think in their minds, is not what the Bible is talking about.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: We have this weird idea of what is pure.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have a definition.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the biblical definition.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Greek word for that word purify is the word hognizo, and it means to make clean, uh, or literally to remove ceremonial disqualifications.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, biblical purity, which is right, which is good, simply means that that anything that would disqualify you, let's say that you're a priest doing things in the temple or whatever, and there's something about you that that uh renders you disqualified because of uncleanness, what this means is that you're purified, that you have no uncleanness, that you are qualified for the ritual, whatever.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, what it really means is that the purification removes any disqualifications.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, what this verse would say is that if you know you're a child of God, this reality that you're a child of God, then what what you see then is the removal of any disqualifications.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: You see purity, and it's that truth that does that.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm gonna give you some examples of how it's used wrongly.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I um I'm thinking of a a pastor friend of mine, this was some years ago, and um we had a common friend, and this friend was a uh a lady who was a really good minister of grace, actually.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she had been a blessing uh in my life and in my congregation, and had been a blessing to this pastor in their life, and it so happened that uh is that she had uh gone through a divorce.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was talking to this pastor on the phone, and he was telling me that did you hear that so-and-so uh you know has gotten a divorce?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and he said, Well, I don't know how you feel, he says, but I just don't think that I'm gonna have her in my church anymore.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because I want to keep my pulpit pure, he said.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Want to keep my pulpit pure.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So this woman, having gone through this divorce, somehow makes her impure now.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he can't have her in his church because he's got to keep his blessed sweet pulpit pure.
• 11:36
  unknown: Wow.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, my first thought, even back then, my first thought was like, but it's pure while you're in it?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I because I was because I know the guy.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, well, I can think of some things if you want to go about qualifications and disqualifications.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, how pure are you, really?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: But as long as you're in it, it's pure, but she's but you know, whatever, you know.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh my point of this is that what it did was it it severed that relationship because of this horrible thing that she'd been through.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: That she wasn't praying it'll happen.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: She wasn't like, you know, nobody says, I want to get married so I can get a divorce.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this wasn't, you know, anyway.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, it brings a separation, this idea of purity that way, it never, it never engages, it never connects, it always seems to be used to separate in some way.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It caught it it makes some in somebody's idea um us and them.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It um insiders and outsiders.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's always used as separation.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you remember there was a group of people in the Bible that were sort of like the villains in Jesus' day, and when you read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you know, there was while Jesus was going along doing his thing, there were always this certain group of people that would approach Jesus and confront them about something, and you know, you know who those people were?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Boo, Pharisees.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I wonder when I talk to people around the country, you know, when they're when they're booing the Pharisees, I'm like, I wonder how much like the Pharisees some of us are, really.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: But but the word Pharisee literally means um separated or set apart.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it in their mindset.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was about separating, set apart.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is that these people are not clean, these people are not holy, these people are not worthy.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow we are.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a separation.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um remember the people that um first came to what now we call New England, Plymouth Rock and all that, and Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were they those people were called Puritans.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Pure, Puritans.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some of them were actually called separatists because they were the more extreme Puritists, Puritans.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the Puritans, they were, they started, they were part of the Church of England there, but they they thought the Church of England was still too much Catholic, and so they called them, they were called Puritans because they wanted to purify that church and get rid of some of the things that they thought they needed to get rid of.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because they were vocal about it, they suffered persecution and they didn't like it, so a lot of them would go up to the Netherlands.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and uh the separatists that just they just they couldn't live with them.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So they just they they left and they they went to the like the pilgrims, they went to the they went to the Netherlands and and uh you know and they and they did get um uh freedom of religion there.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: They were there, they were totally free to worship the way they did, and nobody persecuted them like the Church of England did.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: But that wasn't good enough because they didn't like their kids being influenced by the Dutch kids, and so they, you know, they like, we've got to keep ourselves pure.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: We can't be Dutch.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got to keep ourselves pure, so then they come over to America to do something, but then but then even after they got over here, if you know history really, because they were separatist in their mind, there were a lot of religious troubles that went on.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime people disagreed, I mean, some there were some that actually uh were were killed from the in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were hung because of these were they hung Christians, people that loved God.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them, they just they'd send them back to England or exiled them, or some of them had to run away and go start something somewhere else.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh anyway, this the the the the this idea of purity or being a separatist always separates, separates, separates, and it doesn't, it it excludes and it and it and it not only does it separate people from each other, but in the mentality, you're never quite really truly connected with God.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: You're always trying, you're always trying to be more pure, you're always trying to get closer, you're always on this journey to try to get try to get past the golden altar and to the, you know, whatever, all that, you know, on this journey up the holy hill, you're you're you're there's always there's always a disconnect or a sense of disconnection, even though they'll say a whole lot of the right words, unless you know how good and loving God is and what the nature of his spirit is, unless you have at least begun to find that out, you can't truly fall in love with God.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you don't know he's good, you can't really connect.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how hard you'll try, through every rite and ritual and all your willpower and everything else, it just will never satisfy you in any way.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to connect is to know his true nature, his true heart.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you see his true heart, you will love him.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll never have to pray, God help me to love you more.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: You will love him.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I love talking about the day I began to fall in love with God, whereas I had prayed so often before that, God help me to love you, help me to love you, help me to love you.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Believing in this kind of purity that I just described, which is a false purity, thinking of God as being so pure.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever hear?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us have been around some things.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember a teaching that I that that I heard way back in the day where uh it kind of went around a little bit, where God was so holy that it just breaks his heart that he cannot truly embrace you and I because, see, we're so unclean and so unholy, because if he did, it would just consume us and we would become nothing.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and as a young Christian, I remember, I thought, wow, that's right, isn't it?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: God is holy, he's so pure and he's so holy, and we're so not.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: What is that?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Disconnected.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not joined together, that's not unionized, that's not made one with him.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like the Bible shows us, that's showing two totally, completely different things.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says, no, we are like him.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: As he is, so are we.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: When he is revealed, we also are revealed with them in glory.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Colossians 3 tells us that when he's revealed, we're also revealed with them in glory.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we see ourselves sitting in him, and as he is, so are we.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And all this, I'm so glad the Bible reveals all those things to us because we are we are made one with him.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And as God was always trying to give himself away and always wanting that connection with man, and it's his heart, he's always loved us.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Christ came, and one of the big things that we see there is Christ revealed his goodness.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: He revealed a good father, he revealed someone that doesn't condemn the sinner that's caught in adultery, doesn't condemn the thief sitting up in the tree, doesn't condemn the the demon-possessed man or not.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: He revealed a God that all that went after the one and was willing to leave the 99.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: He revealed a God whose heart was always for you, just like we heard this morning that yes, for to us it's all about him because of his goodness, and we are in love with him, but on his end, it's all about you because he loves you.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when you know that, then you can just you can truly just receive him just like you receive the air in your lungs.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what Jesus meant when he told them and he when he said he just breathed on him.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, receive the Holy Spirit.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's just like that, it's right there.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go work for it, you don't have to climb no holy hill, you don't have to use your willpower to become better, you don't have to try to attain some false sense of purity to be approved.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Receive it.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's as close as your breath.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's right here.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: We say in the book of Revelation, Jesus said, Now tell everybody, if they're thirsty, come.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Come and drink.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: No qualifications because there are no disqualifications.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: No disconnecting because there because there there aren't any.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Did any of you ever think those things?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I thought, oh gosh.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love I love God.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that He changed my mind about Him.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I used to think that I used to hear it, so I thought it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: That if I sinned, did something bad, it broke fellowship.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they would, you know, they would bring in a little thing.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now it doesn't break your relationship.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're still related.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it breaks your fellowship.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, until you make it right, the father.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I would hear scriptures where they would say, and they would quote the verse where it said something like his eyes are too pure to behold sin.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: He can't look at me.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hideous.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: His eyes are too holy to behold sin.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And see, and so of course, when you've got a separatist mind, a carnal mind that sees purity in the way that I've been describing it there, of course, you're going to look at that verse and you're going to say, Ah, so when you sin, he's got to turn his back on you.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: He can't look at you.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't say he can't look at you.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: It says he's too pure to look at sin.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's the Bible say about you and your sin in this new covenant?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'll remember it no more.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: He will not regard.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Our iniquities nor punish us according to our sins.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: He beholds you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: He sees the preciousness of you.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: He looks upon your heart and says, I love this.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're accepted to me.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he's too pure to behold sin.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not looking at you and just looking at sin.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because his holiness doesn't do that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: His character, his heart, his nature doesn't do that.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just like if I love you and I know that you've got foibles and flaws and faults and whatever, and you've messed up some way this week, I'm not beholding that and identifying you as that.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Father.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: The whole idea of a separating type of purity.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: It creates insiders and outsiders.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's us and them.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're the good ones, and they're the less than good ones.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's even in subtle mindsets in Christianity.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It creates pride and or despair.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do anything good.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to go to the book of Acts, chapter 10, and there's a wonderful story I think that illustrates this real well.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see is the heart of the Father in this.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And really, if we look at this, there's really more to see here, if you can, than just that God is good.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the gold right there.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: But how many believe that God is big and he's eternal?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And he's better than we thought he was.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've taken that as an adventure in my life, in my existence.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to be like that for eternity.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I've taken that as an adventure because I've looked into his goodness.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've sort of taken the brakes off of it.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, let's go.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: How good are you?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And see, when you do that, I mean, now you can receive goodness.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can see things.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this thing, it'll mess with your head.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: All these ideas of purity that I just described, I had those.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: How come I don't think like that anymore?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I wasn't going, I wasn't begging God to change my mind about it.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't saying, God, change my mind about purity, change my mind about holiness, change my mind about what's right and what's wrong.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't asking for that.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I already had what was right.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then how did it change?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody was good to me.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: His goodness was running after me.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow in that goodness, and it's happened to you too, somehow in that goodness, he started changing our minds about him.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because in this covenant, with what Jesus did, he would put that his ways, his law in our hearts and in our minds.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in spite of our religion and in spite of our harshness and in spite of our misinterpretations of all these things, greater is he that's in us and he that's in the world.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to know, if you want to know, he'll cause that to happen.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Long as I dug my heels in, I was determined to stay in a certain place and I fought for what I thought was right.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: But somehow, in all of that weakness of mine, God has been good.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And when we sing that song about how all my life he's been faithful, and all my life he's been so good, there's just so much in that those words, right?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get here from where we were?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it's the same way we're gonna continue on into the goodness of God.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's he's been pretty good so far.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And wow, what's it gonna be in the days and the millennia ahead?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm seeing in this, in the holiness of God, the heart, the true character of God.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I like it.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: You get this?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do you ever notice you get this good feeling when you something starts changing in the way you see things?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that's changed and is changing in me is I would say I saw these lines of separation.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're fading.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, where are those barriers?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Where are those lines going?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I made those.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing things the way he does, and it's nothing to fear, it's only something to enjoy.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a story about Peter in Acts chapter 10, and I want to read verse 13.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Start there.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: 13, 14, and 15.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now, just to if you in case you don't know, Peter was he was staying at somebody's house over there by the over there by the ocean, and he was up there uh praying on top of the roof, and in praying, he he fell asleep or fell into a trance or something, but he has a dream or a vision, and and in that vision, most of you might know that you know there was a sheet that came down, and all these these creatures, animals and things that were actually unclean, according to Jewish custom and law, were there, and God says, Prepare them and eat them.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, a voice said to Peter, Peter, go and prepare them to be eaten.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 14.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Peter replied, Well, there's no way I could do that, Lord, because I've never eaten anything forbidden or impure according to our Jewish laws.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: The voice spoke again.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is unclean if God declares it to be clean.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: So then, as the story goes, meanwhile, there's a man named Cornelius.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's a Roman guy, Roman soldier, Roman captain.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: An angel tells him, There's a guy named Simon over here, a guy named Peter.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I want you to go send for him because he's going to show you some things.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Cornelius sends for him, and Peter's had this vision.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the guy comes and finds Peter and brings him back to Cornelius' house and down there in verse 28, Peter walks into the house and he says, Peter said to them, Okay, you all know that it's against the Jewish laws for me to associate with or even visit the home of one who's not a Jew.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yet God has shown me that I should never view anyone as inferior or ritually unclean.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yet God has shown me.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I thought this, yet God has shown me.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I thought God had called me out to not be like you guys, but God has shown me.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I used to use that terminology about holiness, about being called out.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now I like to look at it as being called to.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Being called to him.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: One.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what God was doing with Cornelius at this time.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted him.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: His goodness was running after him.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Yet God has shown me that I should never view anyone as inferior or ritually unclean.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Does this stuff ever hit your?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you read this stuff, I should never view anyone.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, but what if they're this?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: What if they do that?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: What if their lifestyle is this?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: What if they're a Republican or the other party?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: What about that, Rick?
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know, you know, what's it?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yet God has shown me.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is heaven.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is the kingdom of heaven.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you start to hear that little whoop I just did, this is Pentecost Sunday, isn't it?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 29, so when you sent for me, I came without objection.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, can I ask why you sent for me?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So Cornelius tells him what the angel told him.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Go get Peter.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 34.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter said, Now I know for certain that God, holy God, holy, pure, perfect, wonderful, loving, good, good God, doesn't show favoritism with people, but he treats everybody on the same basis.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: You see, holiness connects people with God, not separates them.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: It connected Jesus with so-called unclean people like lepers, sinners, adulterers, adulteresses, bleeding women, bleeders, Samaritans, thieves, sex workers.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: What did Jesus do with every one of them?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Connected, not disconnected.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were all people that felt disconnected because man had disconnected them.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: But God's different.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not a man.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Once we see his goodness, we can begin to learn the ways of something we have not known anything about before.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think of that woman who walked into that Pharisee named Simon's house, and Jesus was there, and she heard that he was there, and she brought that bottle of oil, right?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: That flask of oil.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: She knows what they're saying, they know what they think of her, and she hears the whispers and all that, but she comes in and she goes right to Jesus because she can connect with him because he's not like them.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's not like the separatist Pharisees.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's a connecting Jesus.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And as she washed his feet and wiped him with her hair, any feeling of being separated from God is alleviated.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: She's home because she met the one that is good.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: Would y'all stand up?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't God good?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: God is holy.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And in his holiness, he's more beautiful and he's better and has more goodness than anything we've ever imagined.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'd like to do for just a moment.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: You could close your natural eyes and let your spiritual eyes be wide open.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, I want you to be aware of the beauty of holiness all around you.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the beauty of a loving, wonderful God that has totally embraced you and has nothing to do with our outward actions, has everything to do about Him.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to be aware that His goodness is all in you and about you and all around you.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And just like there's natural physical air around us, so God is everywhere.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: With you, in you, before you, behind you, all about you.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: God is with you.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Inside and out.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to be loved right now, and I want you to be embraced, and I want you to be pure right now, and I want you to be holy as He is holy.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know that right here in the kingdom of God, all is well.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because you haven't come to Mount Sinai, that thing that was a separating type of thing where they're like, no, we can't go up.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you've come to Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks love and mercy and grace.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: And right now you're in the best place you can be because you're in you're in him.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, welcome home.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're not on a journey, you're not climbing a hill, you're not trying to get more pure, you're not trying to get more purified, you're not even trying to get more godly.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are home with him, and you belong because you are his child.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome home, people of God.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome home, for you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Have a wonderful day today.