Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / The Gifts Within The Gifts

Transcript

The Gifts Within The Gifts · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I I just want to say I've I'm one of those people that I really dig Christmas.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am very childlike when it comes to Christmas.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking this week how I could be judged very, very carnally when it comes to Christmas.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I like it all.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I like the lights, I like the presents, I like giving them, I like getting them, I like um I like the songs, I like the spiritual songs, and I like the non-spiritual songs, I like Rudolph and Jingle Bells, and I and I even like seeing Santa Claus and uh you know in the parades and all of that stuff.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, in the whole thing, it's a celebration.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's good to celebrate things.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, especially something as big as what we're uh talking about right now, what we're hearing and what we're we're we're made aware of.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing I like about Christmas is that on all the Christmas cards we get, in all the Christmas carols that we hear, the message is so beautiful.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about what God did for you, for us.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not one Christmas card will tell you what you're supposed to do for God, what you owe God, what God's expecting from you.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about what he wanted to do for us.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every song about it is not is not singing about what we're trying to do for God or what God's wanting us to do for him, it's all for you.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say that you are his reason for the season.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very, very true.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes from our perspective, he's the reason.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: But let's not forget from his perspective, you're the reason for this whole thing.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: For God so loved you.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: He so loved you.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So today I'm I'm gonna uh get into something I'm calling the gifts within the gift.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And all it is really is I'm I've got three points that I want to bring out.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you you could you the list could go longer than this for sure.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it it really uh can tag on to what Matt has been speaking the last couple of weeks about the gift exchange.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because all of it's a gift.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everything we're receiving from him, we're we're actually giving up something else when we do that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But um I want to talk about three things, and they are they're they're about the gifts of sinlessness and identity and um and the the regeneration or the change that goes on.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this these are three things.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are more that we could talk about, but they are three big things that we get with the gift of Jesus that was given to us.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to start um by reading from 1 John chapter 4, verses 9 and 10.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is from uh the Passion.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Love the language in this particular verse.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It says that the light of God's love shined within us when he sent his matchless son into the world so that we might live through him.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is love.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: He loved us long before we loved him.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was his love, not ours.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: He proved it by sending his son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some Bibles will say the propitiation for our sins, or the atonement for our sins.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: But he came to take away sin.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to, I use this particular translation because of the language.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love how it's how it how it says it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: But then that last word where it says sins, I do have a little bit of an issue with it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about a little bit, because Jesus came, and we know that in that gift of Jesus, what we have is sinlessness.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a gift, it's not something we worked for or earned.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I hope we all know that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it actually is a gift that has been given to us.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we talk about sin, I want to clarify something this morning.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this will bless you.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: If it hasn't been made clear yet, this is this is one of the biggest blessings you can get when we're talking about this topic of sin.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that um the word here for sin is is uh is is a noun that's hamartia.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also a a verb form of it, which is hamartano, and that's where maybe where you've heard the the definition is to to err or to miss the mark, and that's the verb form of it.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you hamartano, you you err or you miss the mark.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the but the noun is hamartia, which is the error.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and if you look it up, you might find the definition that it's a fatal flaw or a tragic flaw.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a singular word.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's very important because a lot of times we think of it in terms of sins as this long list of things rather than this this one thing that I want to want to talk about here.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we when we have it, when we think of it as sins, that Jesus came for our sins, then well, what you have is you think of this list, and you might think of all the things that you do.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And let me let me give you my own example.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first came to the Lord back in the day, I really I was one of those that I really believed and received and felt like all of my sins that I had ever done up to that point were completely washed away.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I had a blank slate and I felt so good and I felt so clean, but then I quickly realized that as I, you know, went from day to day, probably before that first day was over, I realized, oh, I'm still capable of sinning.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm trying to maintain myself.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't sure what to do about these sins after.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really believed it was that I was that I was that I was forgiven and I was wiped clean from all of those, but I was bothered for a long time about what happened after that.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would read verses where Paul said things like, the things I did before, I uh you know, they're uh they're forgiven because I did them in ignorance.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, ooh, what about these things after?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I don't want to be a sinner, now that I'm, you know, what what do I do with these?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we would come up with things, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we would um try to try to try to keep them all confessed.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: We try to keep up with them and maintain that way, like we ever made a mistake, ever ever committed a sin, then we would try to confess it and think that that's how you kept it clean.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'd go to bed at night and I would say, God forgive me for doing this and that and that and that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if I did anything else, uh forgive that too.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then you just hope that that covers it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: You hope that that's good enough so if you die in your sleep, that you'll still go to heaven.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was that thing because I'm dealing with this long list of sins, of errors that I keep making, one after another.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to keep up with these things.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and so there's a there's a there's a there's a flaw in that mentality, and that really gets down to what we're talking about here.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you think of it in terms of singular sin, rather than a list of things that you have done wrong, you you you'll you'll get a better picture.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let me I want to say another thing about the about the list of sins.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: When we have the a list of sins, I think we've got a graphic.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can um if you if you can see that very well, but if you've got on the right side, you have sins plural, and so there's sin, sin, sin, sin, sin.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've got all these different sins.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: When you have a list of sins like that, when you are thinking of it in terms of many, there's there's a tendency to have a sin consciousness.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not like the one, see, really the one sin was taken care of.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: We had a fatal flaw.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: We had a fatal error that Jesus came to take care of.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not in all the things that we had done wrong.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: See, I thought that my problem was when I first got saved, I thought that my my big problem was my smoking, my drinking, my cussing.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: That basically was it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Get rid of those three, I'm okay.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, those habits left me pretty quick, and now I'm finding out there's a whole lot more wrong with me.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I keep building this list of sin.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: The more I'm a Christian, my sin keeps getting longer.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: My list of sin keeps getting longer.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm having a sin consciousness.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, I carried an unending guilt, a sense that I wasn't good enough, and that's why Christians are always trying to get good enough.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that it brings is comparisons.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know I had a list of wrongs that I that I carried, but at least at least my sins weren't the sins that you were doing.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And where, you know, we are the sins that we have, that the the sins that we do here, they seem to be like they're not so bad.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're dealing with them, we're trying to deal with them, but they're not so, they're not as bad as those people out there.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: See, we compare because we're looking at the at our our at sins as our actions.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: See, smoking, drinking, and cussing was not my problem.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I had a bigger problem, I had a had a had a deeper problem.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I had a fatal flaw.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't all the bad things that I had done or the bad habits I had, it wasn't just those things that that brought death into my life.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Those were more manifestations of a death that I was living in.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: But but so you see, when you have all these lists of sins, there's comparisons, and we rank.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have rankings.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are more righteous than others.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: People saying, Oh, I wish I could be like Reverend Wonderful over there, or Sister Holiness over there.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: God help me to be more like them.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have all these things because we're comparing, we're ranking, we're we're carrying guilt, and excuse me, because of that guilt, the flesh operates, and so we compare, and at least I'm not as bad as that guy, like the like the guy Jesus talked about, like Lord, you know, I thank you that I'm not as bad as this guy.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: When two people went to pray.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look at the side on the left there, I've got this one singular sin.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's this one collective sin.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: For all had this had had missed the mark, or all had this fatal error.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that word uh, um, it's a Greek word, of course, it was used uh uh a lot, very commonly and understood in um Greek theater, Greek tragedies, where oftentimes the hero would have a hamartia or a fatal flaw.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Shakespeare followed that in his tragedies, if you know anything about that.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Macbeth had a fatal flaw, his was ambition.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Othello's was jealousy.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hamlet's was indecisiveness.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: There was always something about the hero that had this fatal flaw that would bring them down, carrying this one thing.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they called it the Hamartea.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so when Jesus came to take care of the sin, take away the sin, he came to take away not just all these actions and habits and all that.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: That gets dealt with too.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: We will look at that, but but there was, we all carried this fatal flaw ever since Adam.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was this one collective condition that mankind was in, one collective sin, one error that resulted in many transgressions and many actions.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But and and since there's, and good news is, is if there's one sin, one condition, one condition of sin.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when we say sin, remember we're talking about a fatal flaw or a fatal, fatal error.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Really, we're talking about the lifestyle or the mindset or the existence that we see in Adam.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why the Bible refers back to him so much.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus came to take care of that fatal flaw, and in doing so, taking care of that one collective sin, he made a collective salvation for whosoever.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't have one salvation for the drug addict and another one for the adulterer or the fornicator.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was one collective, it was one collective sin, one collective salvation for all.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the fatal error, briefly, I talk about it a lot actually, the knowledge of good and evil is what we went after.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We all lived in this fatal error.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: When Adam did what he did, what do we see?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The shame, we see the fear, living in it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Fatal error, right off the bat, what's he believed?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't belong in the presence of God.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Hides himself from God.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a fatal error.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: What he thinks about God, what he thinks about himself, this sin consciousness that he carries.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, and the blood of Jesus, I love what the Bible says about the blood of Jesus, says even though the old days, when they would make atonement and they would make sacrifices of animals and shed the blood of animals, so that blood of bulls and goats could never purge their conscience of that sin.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: But what Jesus did does that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Still to this day, but somehow my conscience is so crystal clear, clean.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that I am righteous.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that I'm that I'm that I'm holy.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't come overnight.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had to look at it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I had to look at this thing instead of looking at my sin and looking at all the things that I did wrong and all the things you do wrong and and be all sin conscious.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I had to look at the truth.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And something about the power of that life that's in that truth does something to you that's very, very powerful.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's real.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I see when we're dealing with all of our outward, our sins, this long list, we're always trying to fix us and clean us up.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not a gift, it's us working, is what's going on.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll beg God to deal with it, beg God to help you with it and all that.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you, sometimes you're, I mean, I've talked to people that are frustrated and they say, I have begged God to take this from me, and he won't do it, so I'm just giving up.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: See, and they're still trying to fix themselves and don't know how to receive the gift.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: The fatal flaw.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can see it in my life.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: I can see me carrying this thing, this idea of me being this sinful sot.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what that means.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: I heard it on the Grinch.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're a sinful sot.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I was that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: My brain was full of spiders, there was garlic in my soul, all that stuff.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I was a I was carrying that and aware of that, and I'm living this and I'm trying to relate to God, but I've got this fatal flaw that that's my downfall.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: It keeps harming me, it keeps producing death in my existence.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm aware of it, I'm afraid of it, I'm fighting it, I'm trying to deal with it, with all these things.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: But we have the gift where Jesus takes care of the fatal flaw.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he does it in so many ways.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: One, he comes and he reveals the Father in his life and in his teachings.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And just that, in that gift of him coming to us in that way, man, when you read the Gospels, what a new thing for Jesus to come in and say, now, here's what the Father really looks like.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: You've been carrying this fatal flaw, you have missed the mark, you have been made an error all this time.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're searching the scriptures, thinking that you're going to find eternal life.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Look at me.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the gift.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Receive me, believe in me.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing all these things, and he says, but you're not entering in the kingdom of God, and you're not leading anybody else in there either.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're carrying a fatal flaw.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're all missing it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're all missing the mark.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he came talking about a father that loves you, a father who would give to you, a father who cared.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just calling him father was a big deal.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus brought in something whole new.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: He look at, I mean, look what he did.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: He changed B C to A D.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Changed history.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look at these things, we're seeing, we're seeing a reality of the Father that we can live with, that we can, that we can walk with, we can talk with, we can enjoy and have this wonderful togetherness relationship, just like it was intended in the beginning in the Garden of Eden.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: When God made man and put us in the garden.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we took this fatal flaw.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't know who he was, we didn't know who we were.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Religion doesn't get it, the world doesn't get it, and the religion is just part of the world, and it's all carrying the same.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some are trying to be very good, like the Pharisees were.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Some have just given up and went off into riotous living like the prodigal son.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: But they're both carrying the same fatal flaw.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know who God is.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know Daddy or how he is.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Think that it's hard to prepare yourself to be in his presence.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Think that it's the fatal flaw, all those things.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is why this is why I tell people this a lot.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Until you can look full face into God's love, his grace, by grace, his graciousness, his goodness.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you look full face into that, then you're seeing God and not an image of God.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And your heart, your soul, your mentality meld into oneness with him.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the most beautiful, satisfying, abundant thing that there is because of that is what true existence life is all about.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: He gave us sinlessness.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: He took care of the one fatal flaw from Adam.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: We don't carry a sinful nature.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We don't carry the burden of original sin by one sacrifice.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: The sin, the hemarchia, our fatal flaw, was taken care of.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Rick's fatal flaw has been taken care of.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I still make mistakes.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I still fall on my face.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't carry the fatal flaw.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when you don't carry the fatal flaw, you can get back up with joy and say, Daddy, I fail.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of run from them and hide from them and feel ashamed and feel guilty.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can run to Daddy and say, Daddy, I fail.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's sinless.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: He gave us that as a gift, and he took care of it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: You see the difference there?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a flaw in the whole list of sins thing, because it it drives us to try to take care of it.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: But he took care of the sin.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: He took care of that which brought death to us.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And by doing that, he gave us the gift of life.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 5, verse 16 says it this way.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love Romans 5.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It says, and the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, Adam.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say something about this just for a moment.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just throw this out there.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: The judgment which came from one offense, which was the choice of choosing the knowledge of good and evil.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: The judgment that came from one offense resulted in condemnation.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love going back to that story.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you know I do it every time.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I can ever preach without going back to Genesis 3, but seeing that whole thing, that condemnation that was there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because Adam made that choice.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Chose the knowledge of good and evil.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: There was condemnation there.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: He hid himself, he was ashamed, he was afraid.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all what happens.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: All that's what happens.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you feel condemned.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: A judgment.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: The judgment came.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't see it coming from God.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I see it coming from Adam.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's the fatal flaw.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: He looks at himself, judges himself unworthy to be with God, and goes and hides from God.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Who judged him?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Adam did.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why'd you hide, Adam?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was afraid because I was naked and ashamed.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Who told you you were naked?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't judge you for that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't condemn you for that.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do that.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: There is no condemnation in me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: See, and if that hits your head funny, it's because you still got too much memory of a fatal flaw.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all it is.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have that nature.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: But you but I tell people we don't have the old carnal nature, but we can think carnally.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Who told you you were naked?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell you that.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You've been naked the whole time.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't care.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a judgment that came.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And where does the judgment come?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from us.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why does it come from us?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because we got the knowledge of good and evil.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Of course we can judge.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: We know.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so we judge ourselves.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we compare and we judge others.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was a judgment that came and it resulted in what?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Condemnation.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone ever carry condemnation in your mind?
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the gift.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: How many have ever carried have what it's like to carry a heavy burden of condemnation in your life?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling of guilt, not measuring up, and then watch it being removed.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have that burden lifted from you.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Any of you know what I'm talking about?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: What a gift! What a gift.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: How can you not fall in love?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: What a gift.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about peace, you talk about rest in your soul.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we do it because we're beholding the Lamb.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking at the gift and not of our not at ourselves, because it is the gift of God and that not of ourselves.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And because if we look at ourselves, we're going to see human frailty.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to see all of our shortcomings.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to judge it that way.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus came, and not only did he do it by expressing the Father in his life and teaching, but he became a sacrifice in that sense.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: He poured out his blood to show us because they knew about animal sacrifice.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, the blood of bulls and goats you didn't want, but a body you prepared me.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so he shed his blood.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do we see in that act of death on the cross?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: We see the last sacrifice.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: What a gift.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, because the judgment that came from one offense resulted in condemnation.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: But the free gift, which came from many offenses, resulted in justification.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Justified.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: The judge of the universe, our father, hits the gavel and says, case closed, clean, holy, justified.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I like the definition that I've, you know, that I've heard many times to be justified.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's like justified, never ever sinned.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's a gift.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sinlessness, resulting in no condemnation, no guilt, no sense of not measuring up, not being good enough, not quite being there, still trying, climbing the holy hills, all that stuff, it leaves because of this gift.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Isaiah was talking about when he talked about this righteousness, this work of righteousness that would come through this gift of the Son, that the work of righteousness would be peace, and the effect of righteousness would be confidence and assurance forever, always, every single day.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Jesus, for the gift.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can handle the gift, I can receive the gift.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: The other stuff, working good enough, it's too much.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we are innocent and pure.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are without the fatal flaw of original sin or the sinful nature that stems from the knowledge of good and evil.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing is what it leads us to something else now.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: It flows right into the second point I want to make, and that's identity.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: He gave us a gift of a real, true identity.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: 1 John chapter 3, verse 1.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Says it this way.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we should be called the children of God.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, what manner of love.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of love is this?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: That He has given, bestowed upon us, that we should be called His very children.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still being more and more amazed by this one.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: The more I look at it, the more I think about it, the more I'm become aware of it.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what growing is as we're becoming aware of that which is real and true and already there.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that He would call us the children of God, that we are the children of God.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: That means who are we?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: If we are the children of God, what does that really mean about us?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is it just some legal paperwork that was done in the courts of heaven somewhere?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or who are we?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Are we our daddy's child?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is it true that everything produces after its own kind?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, what does that really mean?
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's something to grow into and learn about.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a revelation of the Father, and from what I've seen, even in the Word and from experience, that as the Father is revealed, as He is revealed to you, you're also revealed to you.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's Colossians 3.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: It says, when he is revealed, you also will be revealed.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when Peter said, Jesus said, Who am I?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter said, You said, You're the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, That's a good one, Simon.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: You got it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: So now on your Peter.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: He gets revealed.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: When Jacob wrestles God, uh meets God at the brook Jabbok, says, What is your name?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: He revealed that Jacob was really Israel.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when he's revealed, we're revealed.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: It means that God is our Father.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're seeing the reality of this, this is something powerful for you.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that's eternally powerful.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is who you are, who you're always going to be, when all these ups and downs of this life and all the comings and goings and all the trials and all the joys and the highs and the lows, all this temporary stuff is gone.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: You are God's child.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we marvel at Jesus, the Son of God, who died and did what he did so that he wouldn't just be the one Son of God, but that the Father could bring many children, many sons into glory.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because he said, if I don't die, then I abide alone.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if the seed dies, it brings forth much fruit.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: What is our nature?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Who are we really?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and in our growth and awareness of this, this is this is it'll lead us into point three here, but it brings us into the change here because as he is, so are we now in this world.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: All those truths start to come together, and and and it results in a sense, a reality of identity that you have.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in this thing, there's there's there are points in your life to where it gets off just the theological page into your experience.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Where you know and you feel it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: That you're you're daddy's boy or daddy's girl, whatever the case is, that you are one with him.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus would say, I and the Father are one.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: You feel like you could say the same thing.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: You lose that sense of separation, that separation mentality, which is still just part of that old failed flaw that we used to carry.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, verse 15 says this.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you did not receive the spirit of religious duty that leads you back into the fear of never being good enough.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: But you have received the spirit of full acceptance that enfolds you into the family of God.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll never feel orphaned.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: For as he rises up within us, our spirits join with him in saying the words of tender affection, beloved father, or father, my father, or daddy, my father.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I call this the cry of the spirit or the cry of discovery.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where your spirit joins and your heart joins with him, and you and it's like you've like the prodigal son and the daddy running together.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's a joining there that takes place there, that you know that you're one with him, and you're enjoying that dance, if you will.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're enjoying that oneness, that reality.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you're aware of it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a funny thing, isn't it?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because we still we're doing life and we're very aware of our human and fleshly things and all of that, but there's this gift that's been given to us where we know, we realize, and becoming more aware of our identity with him, that we absolutely belong together with him, and we feel it and we know it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: He says, He rises up within us, our spirits join in join him in saying the words of tender affection, beloved father.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: For the Holy Spirit makes fatherhood real to us, makes God's fatherhood real to us, as he whispers into our innermost being, you are God's beloved child.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Someone said that you are God's beloved child.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is your true identity, and any other identity is a falsehood.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: At the core of everything else, when you get past what you do, what your occupation is, all these other things, at the very core of it, this is who you are, who you have been, and who you will always, always be.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you're having fun right now discovering that.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your spirit's hearing that, your spirit is is receiving from the Father, and you're knowing you're knowing your sonship, your identity.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned, I mentioned sometimes about how when Jesus came out of the Jordan River and the voice of the Father said, This is my son, and Him I'm well pleased.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the approval.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's voice.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's I mean, that voice came for us.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am pleased.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're sinless, you're holy, you're acceptable.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know when I'm talking about holiness?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being in a service, an outdoor service, and they were singing about how God is holy, and it was just a beautiful time of worship, and they were all into it, and it was the song was crescendoing, and it was beautiful, and you could feel it, and God was holy and holy and holy, and right in the middle of that, because I'm getting ready to step up and speak in a moment, and I'm right in the middle of that I hear God say, Tell them that they're holy.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because in that moment we were all in awe of God's holiness.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that meant, we were in awe of it, we were aware of it.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Now tell them that they're that.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, what a gift! Man, somebody, if uh church people start thinking they're holy, might start acting different.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what's it mean?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: It means that you're that that you're his, you're set apart, that you're that you're like him.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and that here's the truth about our identity.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are much more like him than we know.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's that that's the that spirit within us that's talking to us, teaching us, revealing to us who he is and who we are.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And as he does that, we're seeing the the um the remains of the of that fatal flaw in our brain being removed.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, the third point is this gift is a renewal.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: By that I mean it's the changes that take place.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: People often say, well, Rick, I like I like that.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're innocent, I know we're holy, I see all that, but but I still want to do better.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Got good news for you.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a gift.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a gift for doing better.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Renewal.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we think and act differently.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: Titus chapter 3.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, verse 3.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: But now, what do we see here?
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's stating a former condition or a starting place.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Remember?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, things have changed, haven't they?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Remember these things that you once could identify in yourself or in your life or in your actions or your thoughts?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Remember how that was?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's different now, isn't it?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Where did that come from?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: I found that it's a gift from the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gift that brings renewal and change in us.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as you get into the flow of this with the goodness and the grace of God and enjoy these things that we're talking about here, you will find more growth and more change accidentally than you than, or at least I know I have, more growth and more change accidentally than I ever did.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Spending hours groaning and moaning about it and promising and vowing and exercising things and doing all that, doing all that.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because this gift of life that we have is a gift.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he's with us.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the change that's happening is really mind renewal, isn't it?
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but when the kindness and the love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared, there it is again.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when you saw his kindness, I talk about how for many years I didn't know how kind he was at all, it was a there was a lot of struggle in it.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: But when the kindness of God appeared, when the kindness and the love of God appeared, why do we want to talk about anything else?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: When the kindness and love of God, our Savior toward man, appeared, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's the renewer.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he's bringing changes into your thoughts, into your life, and your actions, and your ways.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's beautiful to see, isn't it?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love it?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it because he's so good.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's powerful enough and he's clear enough, and he's so good at being able to change my mind.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And don't you I don't you love it when your mind gets changed?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do, because it means I'm seeing something I haven't seen before.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's changed me.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so another part of this good news is you're going to keep conforming more and more to who you are, which is the image of his son.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to keep conforming more to that because there's a lot of renewing that is alive in you and it's taking place.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to find, look, I say, look at him, look at him as offers.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: As he's showing you things, and as he's as he's revealing things to you, he's being so good and so kind.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Accept them.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Accept them because what's happening is you're waking up to who you are.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And this excites me because my Bible says that creation is waiting and longing, looking to see us look like who we are manifest.