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Love Without Limit: Righteous Judgement · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I usually feel probably always I feel like it's hard for words to do justice, right?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because in our spirit, in our heart, we we know that it's bigger, it's more beautiful than or at least I do, than than anything I can verbalize.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we try, we do our best, and that's you know, that's what we do, that's what we're doing here.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're we're doing our best, but um we're talking about we're talking about things that really we can only know by that wonderful Spirit of God that's that that's been given to us.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trusting in that today to reveal something.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um Judy and I talk a lot about this, and it's you know, it's we know that we're there's so much that we don't know because his love is limitless.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Limitless.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm beginning to see that and believe that more and more.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I also know that I've just scratched the surface of his love.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I really believe that.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But but it's okay because that little bit that I have tasted and seen, it has it has changed everything for me.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: How about you?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's brought you peace and joy, hasn't it?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Brought love into your heart like you like you like you never known.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a keynote verse.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, my what I'm talking about today, we're talking about love without limit, and I've got a topic that I've call I'm calling uh righteous judgment.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, when you j when you hear that title, you think, where in the world is he going?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: He could go anywhere or nowhere with that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but we'll get into this and we'll see that what what really what we're gonna look at is the difference between how God thinks and how man thinks.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there are verses of scripture where Jesus talks about that.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: He uses that terminology, righteous judgment.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a keynote verse that I have, and I use it a lot, and this is Ephesians 3, 18 and 19, where Paul is praying, and he says, I pray that you would be able to comprehend what is the height and the breadth and the width and the depth of the love of God.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what that song was just singing to us just now.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: That you would know the height, the breadth, the width, and the depth of the love of God so that you can be filled with the fullness of God.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Think of that.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: That if we know that, to me, there is no better topic than this.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: If we know the depth of God's love, the more we know the depth of God's love, the more we live filled with the fullness of God in all of our thinking, and all of our mind, and in all of our emotions, and all of our actions.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's nothing better than that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you found that out?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing better than the love of God, it fixes so many things.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a there is a problem with human minds knowing this.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um there are hindrances to it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I jotted down three of them that came to my mind.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's more, but one of them is uh when it comes to uh spirituality or religion, um, our morality codes can get in the way of knowing the love of God.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because we'll use that as a substitute.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of us we call that religion.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we uh many of us know that religion has gotten in our way of knowing God.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: What was the definition that you gave for religion today, Jesus?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you gave uh oh, like it's kind of like a uh a scaffolding, yeah, that you build and you think that that scaffolding is what's gonna hold you up, but it really doesn't.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you're losing your religion, your scaffolding is coming down, but it's a beautiful destruction because you're finding out, like, oh, I'm not falling, I'm actually living, I'm still here, and but now I'm flowing, and now I'm I'm almost flying, and and it's organic and it's beautiful.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But we but morality codes can get in the way if they're done in the wrong spirit, if they're done without love, actually.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing is this myth, this fable of human perfectionism, or at least humans' idea of perfectionism, where we think that that we're to attain some kind of status without flaws, whatever we deem that flaws might be.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that gets in the way.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so people think that God is demanding that in some way.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They think that he's setting a standard for us to try to attain to.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when you have that mindset, it's hard to comprehend or even really believe in the love of God the way we're talking about it.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the third one, and this is what I want to get into today, is that we think that God is like a man, that he thinks like a man, that he sees things like a man, and that he judges things like a man does, like a man would.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we we do it a lot, and I hear people talking like that a lot, where we'll say, where we'll put things on God because it's what we would want.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, James and John wanted to call fire down on some Samaritans because that's what they wanted to do, and they thought maybe that's what Jesus would want to do.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, you don't know what spirit you're of.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing this after man's judgment or man's thinking.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: God said, My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to, you know, have that established all the time, that God doesn't think like normal people do.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: That he thinks differently.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And how many of you found out that the more you know about this kingdom of God that you're living in, that it's really, in a lot of ways, it's very backwards from from what from what the kingdom of humanity is.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and this righteous judgment is a judgment that's very, very different than what man sees.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and what what man does, man has this idea of balancing scales perfectly.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: That this action deserves this response.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: An eye for an eye makes very much sense to mankind.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll look at God and we'll see that He just he blows that whole thing away.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: But there's the but there's there's a lot of sense to it, you'll see.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: It really makes good sense, but it makes heavenly sense, and hopefully we can see that uh this morning.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I want to throw this out to you.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you believe that God forgives sin?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We totally believe that.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We do we know we've experienced it, we know it's in the Bible, it's even in the Old Testament, it's there.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly in the New, the cross of Christ, everything about it speaks and shouts forgiveness to us.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Everything about it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Think of this.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: The very fact that God forgives sin means something.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It means something about him.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It means that he must care more about you than he does his rules.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: If he forgave you of a sin, then he must think you're more important than the rule that you broke.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if he didn't, he would say, No, I can't do that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: My rule is too important.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here you are, and here's my rule, and you broke this rule, and I can't compromise this rule.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what he does is he puts you first, he puts people above, and so you can break break a rule, and there will be for there's forgiveness for that, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Through Christ.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's forgiveness, and so that means he's put you above that.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Pharisees didn't do that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: We think of the woman caught in adultery, right?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: They throw her at Jesus' feet and says, the word says, Moses says, the Bible says, that she should be killed with rocks.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus, Jesus did another kind of judgment.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, one of the verses that we'll we'll look at, he talked about why he did that certain kind of judgment.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm just doing what I hear my father say.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying what I hear my father say.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's dealing with this woman caught in adultery, and what were his words?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I do not condemn you.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where did he get that?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm just saying what I hear my father say.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So here he is, they're waiting for his judgment upon that.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: They've got their judgment.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: She did something, she deserves this.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: For a number of reasons.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: For one thing, we can't be having sinners doing this stuff and getting away with it.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of message does that send?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: She's a, she's a, she's a she's a blot, she's a spot, she's a stain upon our upon our people here.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: She's got to be done away with.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were just, they just assumed she's be dead right now.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: They're ready to kill her.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: So she's not very important to them, right?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is important to them?
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: That rule.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus flips that whole thing.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: He has a whole different kind of judgment.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No, she's more important to me than that rule.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and and his judgment is righteous because when he looks at her, he doesn't see the same thing they do.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: They see somebody that broke a rule.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: They see somebody that did a bad thing.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And she did.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: They see something ugly, something horrible, something that deserves to die.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus looks past the outward, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he sees somebody still precious, somebody still beautiful, somebody that God loved, created, and put into this earth and said, Here, have this journey.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: He sees past that.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: See, if if if Jesus didn't judge, excuse me, if Jesus didn't judge the way that he did in situations like that, then he would be guilty of judging outwardly, wouldn't he?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: He would have been guilty of just judging her according to what she did, her action.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't do that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: He looks at the heart, he knows you, he loves you.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's why, you know, it's wonderful when you finally get it, like, hey, God really digs me.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: He really likes me.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he he must have his reasons for liking me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that we don't deserve it based on performance of keeping the law.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: We all failed miserably on that.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean we're not worthy of his love.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that he can't love us.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: He always puts people higher than the rules.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: He did it with a Samaritan woman.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: He did it with Zacchaeus up in that tree.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people he could have honored that day, but he honored him.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: There again.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mention him all the time.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know, but I love that little guy.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I love him that he I love that he was a thief and he was a traitor and he was selfish and he was all that stuff.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus looks past all of that and judges him differently.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sees something in him, sees something about him, because he sees the preciousness and the beauty of this human that God had created.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Born into the world, if you will, in that respect, and looks at that and says, Zacchaeus, I want, I desire, I want to be with you tonight.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now you don't get that by doing, by judging outwardly, do you?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's what unrighteous judgment is, very simply.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Unrighteous judgment judges by what man says and does, goes by the outward activity rather than seeing what God sees.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a righteous judgment and there's an unrighteous judgment.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Righteous judgment does not judge superficially.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: John chapter 7, I want to look at this.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: John chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus said this himself.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: He tells us to do that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Passion Translation says it this way: John 7, 24.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Stop judging based on the superficial.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: First, you must embrace the standards of mercy and truth.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to read it in two different versions here because one of them uses that term righteous judgment.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The other says, embrace the standards of mercy and truth.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of gives us the definition, if you will, of that righteous judgment.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: One, it allows for God's mercy.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It incorporates God's mercy into all of this.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because God's merciful.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, it incorporates his heart into all of this, the heart of God.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not just what balances out, not just not just a matter of right versus wrong, and this deserves that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: It goes way beyond that.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It incorporates the heart and the nature of God Himself into this.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: It brings in mercy and it brings in truth.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And what is truth?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I just jotted down three things that came to my mind when I when as soon as I read this.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, God cares about you very, very much.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have a place with him throughout all of eternity and in eternity.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: God cares about you.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is truth.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: You did a bad thing, said a bad thing, acted wrong, broke a rule, broke a law, did something the Bible says not to do.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't change the fact that the truth, the truth about, if we're going to judge according to truth, God still cares about you very, very much.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And see, as we grow, we find, we, I'll tell you, see, I like that I'm growing.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm getting stuff all the time, I'm seeing things all the time.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: More and more, I'm seeing more of these things of God, and I'm looking at it, and sometimes it takes me a little bit to look at it and like, wow, is this what I'm seeing here?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm see- I'm I'm seeing that that God brings in his nature into this, and it takes us looking beyond the outward, and we and we, and as we grow, we quit putting the thoughts of man onto God.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hearing people talking about sometimes, well, here, you know, God's getting fed up with this, and he's gonna he's about to do this in this world and do that and all the other.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and some of these things I'm thinking in my mind, I'm like, I think that's more what you want to do.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It could be more what we want to do.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we make assumptions and we put it on God because it's something that something that we want.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we're doing today is we're dividing these two, the light from the darkness, dividing righteous judgment from unrighteous judgment, and it's basically the heart of God versus the ideas of man.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, truth, God cares about you very much.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, mercy is his nature.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, people are his greatest treasure.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: The most important thing to God is you, me, people.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: People, people, people, people far and away more important than anything else.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: He cares, he loves people.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: All people.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The little drummer boy says, I hate people, all people.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But God says, I love people.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have done that because that's a private joke between us two.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's an obscure reference.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have no idea what I'm talking about.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: They teach us in Bible school do not make obscure references from the pulpit.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when Jesus tells us to forgive, there are the the the uh there also, it's really an invitation to be like God because he's inviting us to see things the way that he sees.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: The old adage that says, you know, to err is human, but to forgive is divine seems to hold very, very true.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in this a long time.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It still it falls right in with what I know about God.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 1 John 4.8 tells us about love, says he that doesn't love has not he that does not love has yet to know God because God is love.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: We just sang that that that word, how God is love and nothing can sum him up, and how deep is it, and how wide is it, and and he's just love, love, love, and he's not human love, and so that has that gives us a problem too, because we're trying to define God's love and trying to imagine God's love, and and and so often the best thing we have is a human love and we put it on him, but it really just doesn't fit because that love is so small compared to whatever how big he is, and we can't see the end of it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like Clark was talking about.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: That it's the unconditional love.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's it's it's it's it's bigger than all of this.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: When we don't love our brother, and we don't have that thing that he's inviting us into, what do we do instead to our brother?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: We'll judge them.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And how will we judge them?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll judge them, we'll we'll judge them because of what they've done, because of what they're saying, because of what they're doing.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just what happens.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, man became judges way back in the beginning when we when we chose the knowledge of good and evil, we chose that judgeship.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it comes so easy to us.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't even have to think about it, we just do it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there is a judgment, there is a righteous judgment, but man mostly goes about in an unrighteous judgment, and that's one reason for all the hell and the suffering and all the hate and anger and all the stuff that's going on, because every everybody's a judge.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and I can have this thought and you can have that thought over there, but we are both judging.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm judging you wrong, and you're judging me wrong, and all this judging is going on, and and and and and the reason that that happened from the beginning was because we chose the knowledge of good and evil, but did not, but did not choose that tree of life, which is God, which is him, his nature, his it's love, is what it is, it's life.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for us to judge without that heart, without that love, makes it an unrighteous judgment.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even Romans, we know Romans 5 talks about that, but that there's there's that righteous judgment, and what did it do?
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It it brought us justification of life.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: For by if by one man's offense, judgment came upon all, resulting in condemnation.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So by Jesus, one man's righteous act, then judgment or justification came, a justification of life for us.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, there again, that's that righteous judgment.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why does that work?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why can God do that and it be right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why, why, how does that satisfy the eternal justice of the cosmos?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get into that.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Peter chapter 2, verse 23.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there again, Jesus, or excuse me, the word says that when Jesus was verbally abused, he did not return with insult.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: When he suffered, he would not threaten retaliation.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus faithfully entrusted himself into the hands of God who judges righteously.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Righteous judgment there again.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember, he's hanging on the cross, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: You remember the story?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember in one part where it says that they they they were mocking him and they challenged him?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: They said, if you're really the Son of God, or if God's really with you, come down off that cross.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Come on down.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Prove it, Jesus.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's up there hanging on that cross and they're saying, prove it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: If God's for you, if God's with you, if you're really of God, prove it by coming down off the cross.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we also know the Bible says he could have done it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: It says there were a legion of angels waiting for the call.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, then maybe they're like, Yeah, Jesus, come on, show them, here it is, it's our time.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Your Savior hanging there on that cross and they're mocking him, saying, Jesus, come on down if God's with you.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what if he would have?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: What if he would but boom, you want some of me?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Here I am.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he he didn't do it.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: He committed himself to the Father who judges righteously.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some human minds might say, judges righteously.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Jesus, that means you can just hang on that cross.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay because God's gonna pay all those people back.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: That would be right judgment in a lot of the minds of men, humans.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: That because they did this horrible thing to Jesus, then God is going to avenge Jesus by doing something horrible to the people that put him on the cross.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that that didn't happen either.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, instead of coming down off the cross to prove that he was the son of God, he stayed on the cross.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what did he say?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Father, forgive them.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because they don't know what they did.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he died.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that even a Roman soldier said, Truly, this man was the Son of God.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if you saw one of the old Jesus movies from back in the 60s, it was the voice of John Wayne that said, Truly, this man was the son of God.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was my interpretation.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'm doing it again.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: But think of that.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Prove you're the son of God by doing that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't do it.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: He hung there on the cross and said, Father, forgive them, and that proved they saw truly this man is the son of God.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was totally different.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: If he would have come down off the cross, he might have shown that there was power, but he would have been in his heart, he would have been just like everybody else.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Wanting respect, wanting to prove himself, wanting glory, wanting to show himself out to everybody right there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: But he wasn't that way.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: He was totally different.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's God.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: God is love.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to keep giving, he's going to keep loving, he's going to keep offering forgiveness.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's just, that's just love.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there is no limit.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: It just keeps flowing and keeps going.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus again speaking of this righteous judgment, he says, I can of uh John 5.30, I can of myself do nothing.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't seek my own will, but I'm seeking the will of the Father who sent me.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing this for me.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is why my judgment is righteous.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeking the will of him who sent me.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: In another place, they said, How do you how are you doing this?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: In John, in the book of John, they said, they said, by what authority are you doing these things?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I can't do it.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm only saying what I hear my father say, and I'm doing what I see my father do.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's happening to us.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: These are the changes that are happening to us.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're operating in a way in different ways because we're hearing things and seeing things, and it's bringing changes to us, and we're realizing, at least I am, and I believe that all of us that are hearing and growing with this, that there's changes going on because we keep seeing his ways more, and we haven't found the end of it because it's a love without limit.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you uh probably the best example of righteous judgment.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's there's a couple of of passages here.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is in uh Matthew chapter 20, where Jesus was talking about uh people worked one hour and got a full day's pay.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Other people said that's not fair.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: See, man's judgment.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not right.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: My brain kind of sides with that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, wait, one hour and they get a full day's pay, and other people worked all day.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: See, most of us, if we're honest, our brains would say that's not fair.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: According to my judgment, you don't get a full day's pay for working an hour.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: The guys that worked longer get more than you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's just right.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's just fair.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's man's judgment, and it's and it makes sense.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: In a certain way, doesn't it?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so they complained, and and really he's just he's talking about God, his father.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: They complained to God, if you will.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord, and they said, This isn't fair.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what the Lord says He says, Isn't it right that I be good to them if I choose to?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Can't I be good to them if I want to be good?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it in my power to be good to whoever I want to be good to?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's righteous judgment.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it right?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think it's right for God to be good to you if he chooses to be good to you?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: It might not be fair according to man's judgment at all.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: But if he wants to be good to you, he says it's right.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's righteous.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm making a right decision here.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: A right judgment, if you will.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: What about Jonah?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember Jonah?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah didn't want to go talk to those Ninevehes because he didn't like them.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't he like them?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because he'd already judged them unworthy of his love.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were doing bad things, and they were.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jonah knew what they were doing.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't like those people.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: They meant nothing to him.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to go.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to go talk, go give them a message from God.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he ran, and then he went in the fish's belly and got spit up, and then he finally grudgingly went ahead and he said, All right, here's what God said.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they received it.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: They received it, and they changed their heart and their minds, and great joy was was happening, and and and there was, you know, God was blessing, and and and Jonah's like, see, God, I told you, this is why I didn't want to go.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: He said, because I knew you would be merciful to them.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in Jonah's mind, that's not right.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's not fair.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Here, I've been working hard for you, serving you all this time, and here they've been acting like that, and it's not right, and it's not fair, and I didn't want to go do it.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's man's judgment.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not right, it's not fair.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: They deserve this.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Scale's balance that way, God.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is how it should work.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Jonah, isn't it right that I should be merciful to these people who don't know their right hand from their left?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it right?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: See?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: God says it's that it's righteous.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's merciful, because he's good, because he's loving, and his love has no limit.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can be a Ninevite, you can be an adulterous woman, you can be Zacchaeus, a thief, you can be all these things.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And his love knows no limit.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And his righteous judgment is in operation all the time.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: That means all the time, 24-7, the righteous judgment of God is working in your life and it's blessing and goodness and mercy all the days, all the days, all the days of your life.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: See, we see inside.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: We see, we're seeing.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: See, this righteous judgment, you know, it's those three things.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: When we start to see how God thinks, how he is, how he feels, what he says, we're learning his heart.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it changes our judgment of him.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you used to think some things of God that you don't think of, think that way anymore?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: It changed.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: You repented because you saw and heard truth about God.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: His spirit revealed those things to you, and you took that judgment.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: You took those things that it looked like it looked right to you.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, God must be doing this because this happened.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: The volcano went off on the island, therefore, God is angry at us.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds primitive, but that's man's judgment there.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then we come to know God more ourselves.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: We start to experience and taste and see that he's good.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we change our mind towards him.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: The way we esteem or judge him is different.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happens?
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: We we look at ourselves differently, don't we?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we somehow can start to believe and conceive that we really are precious to him, and this real we enter into a relationship that's real, and now it's this loving thing that nobody can take away because it's so real.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he talks to you and he walks with you, and you talk with him, and you're safe with him, and you can be vulnerable with him, and you and he knows everything about you, and that makes it even more cool because he knows everything the good, the bad, the ugly, but he loves you in all of that because his love was without no limit.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in all of these things, you're blessed with such a righteous judgment from a loving, merciful, good, good, good, eternally good father.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: There was tell you a uh a story here.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you know who Governor George Wallace was?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Where were we at recently, and most of them didn't raise their hand, and I thought, dear God, I've got I've become one of the old ones.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But he was.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: What do you know of what do you think of when you think of Governor George Wallace?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Most people think of racism segregation, um, very known as a very racist man in the in the in the in the 60s, ran for president on the platform of segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever, and that was his famous, famous line.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was known for it after he won the governorship in uh 1962.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um he won it on a very, very, very racist platform, winning the trying to win the southern, you know, the state of Alabama in that time.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: He had tried in 58 and he lost because he wasn't racist enough, honestly.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and he actually used a slur.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: He swe he got beat by somebody who was very racist and very open about it, and so George Wallace said, I will never be out n-worded again.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he became even uh you know more ugly about it.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it worked.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: In 62, he became governor.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: In 63, he was the guy that stood on the steps of the University of Alabama when a couple of black students were uh tried to enroll and he defied them.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Supreme Court said they could, but he said, heck with the Supreme Court, I'm not letting them.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was, you know, these were the things that he did.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: In 65, he was the one that sent the state troopers to go and beat on Martin Luther King Jr.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: and his guys when they were walking across the bridge here in Selma, Alabama.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: He was known as that that the most famous racist of all, really, at that time.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: In 1972, he was running for president and he was uh shot and he was paralyzed from the waist down.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: When he was in the hospital, there was a woman named Shirley Chisholm, who was the first black woman ever elected to Congress, and she also was running for president of the Democrat Party at that time, like Wallace was.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And she told her staff that she was going to go visit George Wallace.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: They said, You shouldn't do that.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: You should not give him any credence, you shouldn't give him any kind of that publicity.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna make it look like you approve of that kind of a person.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And she said he's he's he's he's human just like you, like you and me, and says, in inside of him, inside of him is the blood that that that's the same color as ours.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, inside of him is a precious person, and said, I wouldn't want what happened to him to happen to me, you, or anybody.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to go see this man, like Jesus saying, Zacchaeus, I want to be at your house.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: She goes into his hospital room, he's he's very surprised.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um she sits down and talks with him, and they start to have a conversation.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: They share each other's lives and they find out how human each one is.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Something starts happening inside of George Wallace because of the way that this woman is seeing him.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: When he's expecting that she would see him in a way that so many others do, but she saw past everything that he had done and saw the preciousness of this man who had done these horrible things.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: She talked with him, sat by his bed, and held him by the hand.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Wallace said when she left his room, he didn't want to let go of her hand.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Something had happened with the righteous judgment, just like it changed Zacchaeus, just like the adulterous woman, and I know it did, just like the Samaritan woman, just like all these people that Jesus encountered with the way that he is, not the way that man is.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: And something happened to him, and a change happened at George Wallace.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is as Paul Harvey says, there I am with those old references.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, this guy used to be on TV.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, here's the rest of the story.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the one a lot of people don't know because it doesn't make headlines.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the rest of the story was that that not long after that, George Wallace became a born-again Christian.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: He had been raised a Methodist, but he hadn't given God or faith any kind of thought in a long, long time, not seriously, but now he'd given his heart to the Lord.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he changed.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because somebody planted a beautiful seed of righteous judgment in it.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he he made his way to a Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama, where Dr.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther King Jr.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: had once pastored years before, but he made his way into that church and he was wheeled up to the front and he said, I want I have something I want to say.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I understand and I know the pain that you feel in this country, and I also know that I have caused a lot of that pain myself, and I'm sorry, and I hope you'll forgive me.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they did.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful time.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: They was hugging, they was crying as he wheeled out the out the down the aisle.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: The chorus, the church broke out into a chorus of amazing grace, and it was a a beautiful time of healing that went on.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and the word got out.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: George Wallace ran for governor again the next term, and he won with 90% of the black vote in the state of Alabama back in that day.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Over 90%.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: He appointed over 160 black folks into government uh jobs during his term as governor.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: The man was changed.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is what didn't make the headlines.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is what righteous judgment can do to me and to you and to any, any, any, anybody.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: He also crowned himself the first black homecoming queen at the University of Alabama, the same college where he once stood on the steps and said, No, you'll never enter these doors.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: The man was changed.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: What does what thank God for this righteous judgment that God has brought into the earth through Jesus Christ because it has brought us home?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked beyond our fault and he saw our preciousness, and he sees it in you every single day, brother and sister.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that righteous judgment that's exuding love and mercy and telling you how much you're worth to him is changing you because what we find out it's not the scaffolding of morality codes and religion that really hold us up and make us better and change us, but it's the approval of daddy is what empowers the children.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we have from his righteous judgment.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to close with this.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a quote that I found from an old Dutch priest named Henry Nowen.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, as long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, as if we are what we have, and as if we are what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their right place.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Humans seem to have this addiction to an unrighteous judgment that looks so right because there's a way that seems right to a man.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what do we see?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: The end thereof is death.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Always has been, always has been.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus came and gave life.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Righteous judgment has come to us, and now it's coming through to our ears and to our hearts, and it's coming into our eyes and from our mouth.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we like to shout about God's grace, his goodness, and his love is because that's what the gospel is.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And as Paul said, that's the power of God.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the power is.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not in a structure of religion or a morality code that'll promise to keep you straight, walking tight, talking right, and spitting white.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work, it doesn't happen, and it doesn't empower.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Something bigger than all of that, something that we cannot see the ends of, something we cannot quantify is a love without limit, his mercy, his goodness.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5, 13 in the message Bible says this.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why you're here.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: I read this verse a lot.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus talking.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why you're here.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Think of this church.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Here he is.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's given us this righteous judgment.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's all over us.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why you're here.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're here to be the salt seasoning that brings out the God flavors of this earth.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when when Jesus showed that righteous judgment, when God brought it to us and revealed it to us, it, you know what it gave us?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: When you tasted grace and true love from God for the that that you knew that you knew it, you tasted something that doesn't taste like anything else except God Himself.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's nothing else that tastes them.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's like salt.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you taste food and you know it's got salt in it, you know it does.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't have it, you know it doesn't have it because it's got that certain something.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a certain something about God that doesn't taste like anything else.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't taste like religion, it doesn't taste like morality code, it doesn't taste like man's judgment at all.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's the sweetest, most beautiful, most powerful, powerful, powerful thing you've ever had in your mouth.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Because if we lose that saltiness, though, how will people taste it?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Righteous judgment has come to us, it's going through us.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And at the bottom of the passage it says this.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I've put you on a light stand on a hilltop, shine.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Keep open house and be generous with your lives, because by opening up to others, you'll prompt others to open up to God, who is this generous father in heaven.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all stand up?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't he beautiful?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't he lovely?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can't sing about it enough, I can't talk about it enough.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: I will.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: If I were a preacher, that's all I would preach, I think.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Father, you said to Abraham, How far can you see?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're all looking out into the vastness of your love.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: We none of us can see the end of it.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: But we thank you for what we see.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the reality of that and the changes that it's brought to our hearts and our lives.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that everyone within the sound of my voice would have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing you in this way.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: That even those, if somebody's here and says it's just, it's just it's just hard for me to comprehend.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: I see it in the Bible, but how can I really know that by your spirit they know?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is well with their soul.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: That all is well, yes, you truly can be this good.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you truly are.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: For you, O God, O Heavenly Father, you are love.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're our Father.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you're what we had been looking for, and you're the fullness that fills everything and every one of us.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you in the name of Jesus.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.