Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / God in a Box

Transcript

God in a Box · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well I have a question this morning uh to ask everybody.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to know when is the last time that you have been astonished by God.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Astonished.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now we all know he's good day by day, but but I'm talking about a uh the word astonished.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And let me let me give you the definition of it so we know what we're really we're talking about.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I look up the word astonished and just googled it, you know, and just I just wrote down the first few things that that pop up.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh number one is astonished means to greatly surprise or greatly impress.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: So when I talk about being astonished, I'm talking about being greatly surprised.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh of course it means to amaze.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's a synonym that means the exact same thing.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: To amaze is to astonish.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: It means to impress in an unexpected way.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're getting a little bit more difficult here.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: To impress you, when has God impressed you in a way that you did not expect?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I want to I want us to direct our attention today, anyway.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about something he did, even though I'm sure God has astonished you with something he did, how he's come through for you, some kind of miraculous thing that he's done in your life.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Probably you you've you many of you have had it uh quite a number of times.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he does that.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm talking about when was the last time he astonished you uh by who he was?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: When you and when you discovered something about him that greatly surprised you in a way that you did not expect.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, you thought God was this, and then somehow you saw, you knew, you realized that he was that.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: He was different.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: He impressed you, it was good, he impressed you in a way that was unexpected.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: It also means to surprise so greatly that it seems not credible.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the kind that will actually change your your your doctrine a little bit, to say the least, right?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone ever had that to where where you saw something about God and it surprised you so greatly that when you first saw it, you thought that can't be right.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Anybody had that?
• 2:39
  unknown: Okay.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're at Grace Church, you probably have.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's why you're here.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I, you know, when we talk to people to each other around here, we uh a lot of us have have that story.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: We like to share how uh oftentimes our story is that very thing.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: We thought God was this and something happened, or we saw something, or somehow we were made to know.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And the stories are are are they they vary, and that's really cool too.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and and but somehow we saw something and it changed the way we saw God.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: It changed how we related to God, it changed what we thought about God, and it, you know, it it can change a lot of things.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I you know I I share I share a story where I had a grace awakening.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I share that a lot, because that's very important to me.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: But since then, I have continued to be astonished uh over and over and over again.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: How about you?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, just when I thought I figured out that, oh, he's not that, he's this, and this is really impressive and it's good.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: But as a little, as some time goes on, he just keeps impressing you.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, when that happens, you know that you're you're on a path of knowing the holy, you're knowing God.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, because you're because you're continually being impressed.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And aren't you impressed that everything that, every new thing or surprising thing about God that you see, it never takes you back into where he's like, oh, okay, sorry, God.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I I was going too far.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I thought you were good, but now you're showing me that you're not quite that good.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: It that never happens.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's always impressive, it's always gooder and gooder, I like to say.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason that sounds better, it sounds more descriptive of God than better and better, but but it it gets gooder if I can say that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so in my life, it looks like when I look back over time, there was a good deal of time when I had what it the way I I can I feel like describing it is I had my God box.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um very educated, been in the Bible a whole lot.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, like like people that study, I mean, walls of books and reference materials, and just digging and just hungering to know and understand God and understand the Bible, went to Bible college and and uh, you know, just gaining knowledge.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the Bible talks about ever learning but not coming to a knowledge of the truth or him who is truth.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: But I had a box built, and my box was created with a lot of knowledge, but with that knowledge there comes pride with it too, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 1 and 2 say this.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: We know that we all have knowledge.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies, or knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: But for some reason, I kind of disregarded that because I had my God box, and I have to say that when I look back at that, there was a lot of puffing up there because I was smart and I figured this out, and I wasn't a dummy.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't just, you know, not look it up when people told me stuff.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was one of those that if you were preaching, you know, and you referred to a verse, I don't just look at that verse.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've done this for as long as I can remember.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: I read a few verses before and after.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I want to know what it's really saying there.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was serious about that, and I feel like I'm smart, and I feel like I'm probably smarter than you.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I got my God box, and you've got your God box too, but I'm smarter than you, so my God box is a correct one.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if I heard you tell me something about God that was outside of this God box that I had built with all the knowledge I had accumulated, you for one thing, I just knew you were wrong.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you went wrong, but somewhere you went wrong and you missed it because what you said does not fit in here.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I promise you this is solid, this is sound.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I found.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: And not only did I think you were wrong, but sometimes you would scare me, it would spook me.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because things that were in this box, I was very secure in, and they felt secure and they felt snug.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I carried that box around, and if and if you wanted to talk God, I got my box, let's talk God.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you said something that was outside of my box, I'm like, uh-uh.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I start reaching to my box and I say, No, that's wrong, because look at look here, looky there, looky there, look at this in my box.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: All of this knowledge about God that I that I gave, really knowledge of the scriptures.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: And here's this other person, and sometimes I was surprised that they seem to have studied at least as much as me, and maybe more.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But how could they be so wrong?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because what they're saying is not in this box.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it also would scare me sometimes because it would, it what it would, what I mean by scared is that I would feel in danger if I listened to those people.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: They would say something not in my box, and it would be danger, danger, Will Robinson.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the how many know what I'm referring to when I say that?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: The and I learned a long time ago that a religious spirit, or let me say, what's what we used to call it, a religious mindset, was a mindset that was largely based on fear.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that a lot of what we, our minds, want to do is that we want to feel very safe and secure, and we want to feel very safe and secure about our God, so we can often build a God box of knowledge that we have accumulated, and we want to know, we want to know that we have figured God out.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in my personal uh situation, my uh in my life, I had gathered teaching and that that would fit in this really good box, and it seemed solid, and it seemed sound, and thought I knew how God worked, and this is how he is, and this is what he's not, and this is what he likes, and this is what he doesn't like, and this is what he allows, and this is what he does not allow, and he wants us to do this, and he doesn't want us to do that, and I've got it all in my box, and I'm carrying it in my box, but then when when I had a beginning of a grace awakening, it was also like, let me let me give it to you like this.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was also like I had built this Jenga tower, and I've got all this information about God, and here it is.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And when I had a grace awakening, it was like it wasn't like pulling one off the top.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'd had some of those.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was willing to make a change here and there as I went along, but it was like pulling one from the bottom.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, I'm in kindergarten.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm starting at square one.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you, God?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And not that, and it came to me in my personal experience, and I think people come to it different ways.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, it was I saw something so beautiful that I was impressed so greatly, God broke my box by astonishing me with this simple thing that we talk about so much around here, named the church after it, grace.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: A word that I'd thrown around probably every day of my Christian life.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I saw grace in a way that astonished me.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was a grace that was bigger than the grace that was in my box.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And the grace that I saw scared me a little bit because it didn't fit in this box, and it seemed, it was so impressive and so good that it seemed not credible.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: God cannot be that way.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, it says right here, this is what he will do, this is what he won't do, and if you know, and here's what he does to those people, and and all I had it all figured out.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, Job made a statement, he said, I've heard of you at the hearing of my ears, but now I see you and I repent.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so astonishment began.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I've been on the road of astonishment or amazement because I keep getting surprised and I keep getting impressed.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And what I what I realize is I don't have a God box.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: People ask me often, what's your doctrine on this and that?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's like what I can often say is, well, here's where I'm at now on it.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I no longer say this is the definitive, this is the way it must be, the way the way it is.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is where I am, this is what I see, this is what I think, this is what I've learned.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: But can I define someone that's so big and beautiful and eternal as God?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Can I put parameters on him?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that kind of what God was talking about with Job?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever read the book of Job, and and and he was like, you know, tell me, you that know, where were you when I did this and I I measured the universe in a span of my hand, and I I I set the oceans and the beasts of the and I did all these wonderful things that are way bigger than you.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, Job, if you understand all of that.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Job had no answers at that time.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's when he said, Yeah, okay.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get it.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I've heard about you with the hearing of my ears, but now I see you.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's changing everything.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So what I'm talking about today is a mystery.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Is that God really is a mystery, and that doesn't have to be a scary thing or a thing that makes you feel not secure.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can feel very, very in fact more so, I believe, secure in the mystery of it of God who's eternal, and don't we suspect that he's so eternal that we will be learning his goodness and being impressed by it forever and ever and ever?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's even hard for this to comprehend.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: We can't we get we we can grasp an idea of that, but really?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's the case, then why would we have any affinity for our God box at all?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because God is mysterious to us simply because he's so big and he's so grand, and he's more beautiful than what our mind has allowed us to conceive before.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he's more gracious and he's more loving than anything that we have have thought of, and so we cannot compare to anything that we've experienced, no matter how much love that we know that we have had in our life.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: That he's so much bigger than that, then there must be things about this that we do not know or understand yet, but that excites me to live in the house of the Lord forever and inquire daily, inquire of the glory of the Lord.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there was a man in the Bible that I think is one of the best examples of this.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he was a man from Tarsus in the New Testament, and his name was Saul, and he had a box, and he was so sure of this box, and he had studied, and he was so sure of this box that anybody out, anything outside of that box not only was just wrong, but in the case of these people that were believing in this Jesus as Messiah, they were actually dangerous and they probably needed to be wiped off the earth.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: They were a cancer around here, and they're that wrong because Paul was no dummy.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're impressed by his letters today because he was no dummy.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we see how smart he is, and and we see how eloquent he is, and we see how he's able to not only get this revelation, but put it together and put it down in words like he has, and it's still blessing us and opening things up to us to this day.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he had that same kind of brain, that same smarts, and that same zeal and passion for his box that he once had.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: And because just from reading his writings, I bet you while he had his box, if you argued with him about the box, he probably won a lot of arguments.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I guess we all do, at least in our own mind, right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: We win a lot of arguments when it comes to doctrine.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: But he had a box, and in Philippians chapter 3, he describes it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we get a good picture of it if we read this in Philippians 3, beginning in verse 5.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Paul was talking about himself, and he says, I was born a true believer of the heritage of Israel, as the son of a Jewish man from the tribe of Benjamin.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So this were things, these were things that seem to have been tried and tested, and they've been passed down.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's traditional, it's gone from generation to generation.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't, I'm not into some new kind of fad that's going on here.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'm trained in the heritage and traditions.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was circumcised eight days after my birth, and I was raised in the strict tradition of Orthodox Judaism, and I lived a separate and devout life as a Pharisee.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And concerning the righteousness of the Torah, no one surpassed me.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was without a peer.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Furthermore, as a fiery defender of the truth, I persecuted the messianic believers with religious zeal.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So he had his box.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: But yet, all the accomplishments that I once took credit for, I've now forsaken them, and I regard it all as nothing compared to the delight of experiencing Jesus Christ my Lord.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: So here's Paul with his box, too.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: He's got his beliefs.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's no dummy.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: He has studied and studied and studied and studied and studied and debated and debated and debated, and this is what they like to do.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they are in it to understand and to know and to here's this smart man with this box that he is so sure is right, and then one day he gets astonished.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: He sees something bigger than his box, someone bigger than his box.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus broke his box.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Has he ever broken the box that you've carried?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus has broken my box.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I got no box now.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: If I do, I'm not aware of it.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a I'm aware that I've got pieces of of a box laying on the ground, but I I'm beholding a uh God, a Father, Creator, Jesus, I'm creating I'm beholding him who I absolutely am aware of that he's bigger than all of this.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And if he's bigger than all of this, doesn't that can't that give us a security instead of being afraid that maybe I'm believing wrong?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe God doesn't like me thinking this?
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I shouldn't think that.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I get questions a lot.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: People people ask me a lot, well, I heard somebody say this.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I never heard that before.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Should I even listen to that?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right, Rick?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to I don't want to believe wrong, you know, and we don't.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems to me in my observation that God is big enough to embrace a whole lot of people in a whole lot of places on this road to learning the mystery of God.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I look back at me carrying my box, I don't see a God who was mad at me for having the box.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, when I look back at me in my box, there was a lot of God doing a lot of good things.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't mean my box was the perfect box, just meant there's a perfect God that can come into my box and can be with me on my road no matter what it is.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: And to this day, I know I'm 100% sure that whatever it is I believe about him today, he doesn't agree with all of it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm secure in that.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because at a time I felt like I had to know, I had to believe right.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: I had to, and I, and for, and it's weird now to even look back at it, but I felt like me and God agree.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because I read it.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Read it in the Bible, and then I'd run into somebody else that read the Bible.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: You've seen this.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: How is it that so many people can be smart and and put a lot of energy into reading and studying and knowing this Bible and have completely different things that they believe?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're all creating boxes.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul says, Yet all of those things that I thought were something that I once took credit for, I've now forsaken, and I regard it all as nothing compared to the delight of experiencing Jesus Christ my Lord.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus broke his box.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: The thing that he thought made him something, the thing that made him right, the thing that showed how smart he was, the thing that put him at the top.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: He was beyond all of his peers in this.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: You got a question?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Ask Saul of Tarsus.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: He's beyond all of us.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: You want to know what it is?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the answer, but I'll go ask Saul of Tarsus.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: He'll know.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because his box is solid.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Saul of Tarsus became Paul.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul looked back and he said, And the things that I thought were something, I count them as nothing now compared to the excellence of knowing him.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because though I had a really strong box here, it did nothing compared to knowing him.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you see how crazy Paul was about this, about this Jesus and about grace after Jesus broke out.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was uh he he he he still had that same zeal, didn't he?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: He'd say things like if somebody comes around here and they're preaching you anything different than what this is, anything that's contrary to this gospel of grace that I'm giving you, he's no good.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: He said, if I do it, if a letter comes from me that's that's that's going contrary to this message of grace, count it accursed.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I don't care if an angel from heaven poof manifests right here and says something different.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because now I see.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say different, I don't mean something that that we haven't seen or known before, but something contrary to grace.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's how real this thing was, and it had astonished Paul.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't a one-time astonishment.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 8, he says, to truly know him meant letting go of everything from my past and throwing all of my boasting in the garbage heap.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's nothing.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: See, this has sort of been my path, that my path too.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: I never, I don't think I, and people can come to this with different in different ways.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're all so individual and God is with us.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: But with me, I never set out to say, hmm, I don't really like my doctrine that much.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna try to just tear it all up and go believe nothing.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because I liked my box.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I just kept seeing something better.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: I kept being surprised that God was that good.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: I kept be, I was surprised that He could love me the way that I was.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was surprised me.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: That did not fit my box.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: It surprised me that the blessing of God was without any merit, without any demands, so it didn't demand the things that I had in my box to be blessed and favored by God.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all those things.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: These things that I had stacked up in my Jenga tower, that this you do this, and God will do that, and here's how you get this, and here's how you get that, and God requires this of you, and if you'll do this, and if you can do this real good, and if you can pray real good and worship real good, and all these things, and all these things, and then I realize it's all just him, it's none of me, and the Jenga tower comes down, and now it's just me and Jesus.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I say, I'm in kindergarten here.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Show me your ways.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I continue to be astonished, and there's such a joy in astonishment.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: When is the last time you were astonished by how good his character, his heart is?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: When was the last time you were so surprised when you embraced something or saw something that was so surprising about God where it seemed not credible at first?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it can't be that good.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be that easy, it can't be that free.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 8, to truly know him meant letting go of everything from my past and throwing it all the boasting on the garbage heap.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's all like a pile of manure to me now, so that I may be enriched in the reality of knowing Jesus Christ and embrace him as Lord in all of his greatness.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, my passion is to be consumed with him and not cling to my own righteousness based on keeping the written law, which was my box.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: My only righteousness will be his, based on the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, the very righteousness that comes from God.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I continually long to know the wonders of Jesus and to experience the overflowing power of the resurrection working in me.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Pause for a moment.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Here's Saul of Tarsus carrying his box.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to know something, ask Saul.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has done it as much as Saul.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Contrast that with I'm continually longing to know the wonders of Jesus.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: What do you know now, Paul?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: He's good.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: I will be one with him in his sufferings and become like him in his death.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he wrote so much about that work on the cross, identifying with him and what he's did, dead with him, buried with him, risen with him in his resurrection.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 11.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Only then will I be able to experience complete oneness with him in his resurrection from the realm of death.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: So here's a man who has had his box broken.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: He has been astonished by Jesus in a way where he'll never be the same.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: But as he's writing this, he's saying, I haven't seen it all.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I continue to see more, more of the wonders.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that I have not attained yet.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I have so much more.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know there is so much more for me.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I continue to behold the beauty of the Lord and to be surprised at how good He is again and again and again.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, it does change the things that we say and think about God.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I've noticed certainly what you say and think about you as the beloved of God.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then what we say and think about the world around us as also the beloved of God.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: That was something that seemed so surprising that it seemed not credible.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, I'm not going that far, uh uh.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go this far.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: I like this astonishment here.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Don't build another box around that astonishment because Paul says there's more.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I see it.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: But that sounds like some of that other stuff.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be called that.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: But wow.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: What if it's credible?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: What if God is that real?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: What if he's that big?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: What if he's that good?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: What if he's more beautiful than I have given him credit for?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of questions that the astonishment will bring in your life.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it's happening.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 12.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Paul says, I admit that I have not yet acquired the absolute fullness that I'm pursuing.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Paul writing the Bible, beholding Jesus brighter than the noonday sun, evangelizing the world.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't yet acquired that absolute fullness that I'm pursuing, but I run with passion into his abundance so that I can reach the purpose for which Christ Jesus laid hold of me to make me his own.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I run, do you see that?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I run with passion into his abundance, into his bigness, into his eternity, into his greatness, into his goodness, into his grace, into his love that's so eternal and so beautiful.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I've tasted and seen it, so I know it's so good.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: But how good I'm still finding out.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, he wrote Ephesians chapter 3, verse 19.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: Saul of Tarsus carrying his box.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Having some Christians committed to death.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Death.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: You deserve to die because you think Jesus is it.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is not in my box.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Love is kind.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Love.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Love takes care of all of that.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't see.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I run with passion into that, forsaking all that I had before.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've been astonished.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he says in Ephesians 3 19, how deeply intimate and far reaching is his love.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's not in my box.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: How enduring, how inclusive it is, endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding, transcends our understanding.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: There's a mystery to it still.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: There are depths of the mystery to it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: This extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: And just when you feel like you're full, God says you want to see something else, and he surprises you again, and you're like, oh no.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: That seems not credible.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: See, it is a mystery.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: We know very little of this big, beautiful, wonderful father of ours compared to how big he is.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not a closed mystery.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a God saying, No, I'm not going to show you.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, you're not, you don't get to know.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: I like being mysterious.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: I will cover myself in darkness and I'll just show you a little bit whenever I feel like it.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a closed mystery, it's an open mystery.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the Old Testament gives us a picture of a closed mystery.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: The cherubs covered his glory.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: The veil covered his glory.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was about covering his glory, and Jesus rips the veil, declaring the glory of the Father, full of grace and full of truth.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: So the mystery's been boom, busted wide open in Jesus, for he is the unveiling, the revelation of the Father, your creator, your source of life, your lover of your soul.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it's an open mystery, and by that I mean the invitation is to come and see, come and learn of me, come and dine.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Just be prepared to enter a very big room, because there's a this is big.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of goodness here, and there's more love than your mind can comprehend.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you will take it little by little.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_01: You will get astonished here and astonished there, and astonished, and astonished, and astonished.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's infinitely bigger.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's why Paul says, you know, it's interesting.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I'll quote, you know, the traditional versions.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: I pray that you know the height, width, depth, and breadth of the love of Christ, though you can never really understand it fully.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: But as you know, you're filled with the fullness of God.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter 11 is where I want to wrap this up.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the invitation that Jesus Himself makes.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: The open mystery.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's not closed.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a God hiding.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a God that delights in you not knowing.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: You say, well, why is it so slow?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: Most of the slow I believe is us.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: I believe our trition, our traditions make it make us go slow.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think the weight of our box, sometimes the love of that box.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not just saying, oh, the box is evil and this is good.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying we just keep getting surprised, and what that means is whatever that means in your life.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: But Matthew 11, verse 27, Jesus is talking and he says, you know what?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: He says, No one fully and intimately knows the Father except the Son, but the Son is able to unveil the Father to anyone he chooses.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: There again, see, a carnal mind that doesn't hasn't tasted a certain degree of the goodness of Father thinks they think of those kind of verses as a disqualifying verse somehow.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe he hasn't chosen that one, maybe he hasn't chosen me.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Look at the cross.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: He chose everybody on the cross.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: That should say something to us.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's like he said, Yeah, I can show the Father to whoever I choose.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I choose all of you.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Are you weary?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Carrying a heavy burden?
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_01: Come to me.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll refresh your life because I'm your oasis.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Simply join your life with mine.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: Learn my ways.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll discover, you'll be astonished, at how gentle I am, how humble I am.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Humble.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: The one who created all things, commands the winds and the waves, walks on water, raises the dead, could have overthrown all kingdoms, if he felt like it.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: The greatest that we sing about how great thou art, and it's wonderful to declare and to behold that, but is also humble.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm coming on a cross, and I'm not going to take myself down.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's easy to please.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that was a big astonishment to me.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: I that surprised me.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: I said, it can't be that easy.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot be that gracious to me, not when I'm like this.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: He astonishes you.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll find refreshment and rest in me.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the astonishment will do too.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: When's the last time you've been astonished?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's an open invitation to come and see, come and dine, come and behold the beauty.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: And as you taste and see that the Lord is good, you'll find yourself becoming more and more secure.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Not in a box where you understand it all, but in a mystery that you get to discover it forever.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Would you all stand?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know sometimes I share when I guess one of the first huge, huge tragedies.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I thought I'd had some before, but this was a big one.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: When I lost my first wife that I had been married to over 30 years.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: The love of my life at the time.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I thought we had it figured out.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: We had faith.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Serving God together, ministry together, we're protected.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: She died.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: She died of something that I have prayed for others and they lived.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: You think there's confusion there?
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: You think there's I don't get it, I don't understand, because my box had guaranteed me some things.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's what I was looking for.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: We look for the guarantees of a life that has mystery also.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't understand.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm confused.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it doesn't make sense.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: This should not, it could not have happened.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Look! Here's my box.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: I did this, this, this, this, this.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: That equals this.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where's this?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't happen.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: Heartbroken, confused, no feeling of I don't know what's what.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Except, except one thing I knew when nothing else made sense.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank God I had found this out.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had tasted and seen that God was good, and when nothing looked good, what the hell, God?
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: I knew, in spite of all the thoughts, I knew he was good.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how do you explain, isn't that?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even tell you.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I know someone that's real.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Someone that was with me, and he was good to my heart.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the best way I can say it.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can understand that, but to be in a, if you've ever been in a place like that, and somehow you get that comfort, you get that solidness, you get that I'm safe.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it is well with my soul.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I can wash my face and get up in the morning.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: What's my future gonna be?
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I can trust a God who is good with a future I know nothing about.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's a mystery, and he's a mystery to me right now.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I know he's good.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I embraced him who was good, and I've talked to him who is good, and I let him be my comfort, and I let him be my counsel.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: And he was, and he'll do it for you, because he loves being that for you.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he walked me right out in a way of faith where I had confidence and I had trust in him, still not understanding so much.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I just walked into my future, knowing that goodness awaited me because God was good.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: Had no idea that part of that goodness was I would meet someone to be a perfect partner for me to walk with me the rest of the way, and that's Judy.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: She's not here.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I forgot her this morning.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you ever get that feeling when you leave the house like something?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, she's actually ministering right now this morning at a weekend that she does every week, and I I love her gift.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, she'll be speaking this this weekend in Indiana.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: They invited her to come and she had to beg to let me come along.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, I don't want to go without my husband.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: Can you find something for him to do?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: They said, Okay, well, he can preach to the church on Sunday, you know.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, God is good.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm happier now than I've ever been in my life.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because God can keep astonishing you with his goodness.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the fact that it'll never end.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Father, thank you for who you are.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: What can we say about these things?
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: But we celebrate you today, we celebrate your goodness and your bigness, and I thank you for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing you and knowing how great thou art.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: That we can trust you and be secure even in the things we don't understand.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: For you are good.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for this day, thank you for this morning and this time that we can all be together.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: We love you.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.