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His Name Is Love · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

0:01
SPEAKER_00: I want to look at Matthew eleven this morning.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: After I moved back to Florida a number a few years ago, I uh I began to attend a Bible study.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And um it was it was local and and uh it was a a group of Christians that um um they were all about Jesus and loved the Bible and would meet every week for Bible study.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: So I began to attend and and and and they weren't they weren't their background wasn't the same background as mine.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Um a lot of our peripheral deep uh beliefs were were very different.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Um they were very um had very conservative beliefs, but they believed in Jesus and were devoted to him and and and uh we had so many of those common things.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: I've just I just wanted to to fellowship with them.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: I got that they were very nice people, good people.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: I I I enjoyed coming.
1:24
SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed the fellowship uh after I'd moved down there.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed the friendship and I I enjoyed coming and partaking, and I had no agenda, and and and their their spirituality wasn't anything, wasn't very close to what I had was used to in all my years.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I felt like there were many things that I could have encouraged or taught or helped with, but that wasn't my agenda.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: I was just there to be with them.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: I was just there to fellowship and enjoy that and get to know them and enjoy my Christian brothers and sisters.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, one of the people there was very leery of me, I suppose.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: So they were doing background, uh he was doing a background check on me.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, went to my website and uh he didn't do social media, but somebody else did and befriended me, and then he was able to get into all the all the stuff I'd ever posted and and uh found out that I was some crazy charismatic faith, believed in healing and miracles and all this stuff and the glory, you know, all these these things out there.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And uh because of that, it wasn't long before in a conversation uh I was kind of surprised to find out that I really um was not real welcome there.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: And uh and it's not because of anything I had personally said or done with them.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking we were getting along great.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: But behind the scenes in his mind, I was uh I just wasn't good for them.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: And I was actually not even almost not a not a believer.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, he used the term unequally yoked as if I had an inferior type of belief.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, uh that and that that hurt because I thought, oh, I you know, I've I've been coming here.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I said, you could have just gotten to know me and not just read about me.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And I said, because the things that you were bothered by, if you got to know me, you wouldn't have been bothered by them at all.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: Even if you didn't agree.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't my my agenda, it was not to make anybody agree with all the things that I believe about the Lord.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: My agenda was just, I just wanted to be with them.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to be their friend, I wanted to fellowship, I wanted to be good.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: If I could offer encouragement, if there was a place for it, I would be there for that.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: But but but that wasn't known.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: And and the guy, you know, he said, Well, I'll say this for you.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, you have you have exercised great restraint because I guess he felt like I would be like he would have been in that situation.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I guess he felt like I was sitting there climbing the walls, you know, and just like, oh, I can't stand with these guys.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like that.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: We had so many other things in common.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: We loved, we loved Jesus, we believed in Jesus.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: We we believed in the virgin birth, the death, the burial, the resurrection, the new life in Christ, and all the and and we talked about those things, and it was so good.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: But but he didn't know me.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And and he thought he knew me because of things that he'd read about me, or even things that I had written, or things that I had said.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times people think think that they're they're knowing God only because of the things that he's done or the things that he's said or the things that have been written, but you they don't really know God because they don't know the person.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And all this person had to do was get to know me, talk to me, fellowship with me, converse with me, get around me, watch me, and get to know me.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: And then if you don't if you don't like me, it's because you know me and you found good reason to not like me.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: But if he would have gotten to know me, even the things that we that he misunderstood and even didn't agree with, um, he would have at least known where I was coming from and understood that it was coming from a good place.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And uh instead of a demonic place.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: And uh and in a way, I use that example because in a way that's that's how people do with God.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Is they this whole thing is about knowing Him.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And I I see so many Christians struggle with so many things that they wouldn't struggle with if they simply knew God.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Just knew I'm talking about the person of God, who, as we already heard this morning, loves you infinitely, is good to you always and completely, who loved you so much while you were dead in sins, while we were yet enemies, he still loved you so much that while you were dead, like the whole Adam and Eve story, he just said, I would rather join you in death than be apart from you.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Think of that.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: I've looked at that story of Adam and Eve.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Very, very, very possible that Adam went into this eyes wide open, saw his wife ate of the fruit, and died, and saw that she has now changed and it's not good.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And he went ahead and ate some too because he said, I'd rather be with you.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tasted death for you, for every man.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: I saw a movie one time where in the story a woman had committed suicide and had gone to this movie's version of hell, which was horrible.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: And the husband also had died previously and found out that his wife had died and she was in a horrible place.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So he makes this voyage to where she was and sees her, and she is so lost she doesn't even know who he is.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Because in the movie, in that place, you don't know anything, you're totally not even sane.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And he says, anyway, the people that took him there said, You can't stay very long because you'll start getting like that too.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: You have to come out.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: So after he talks with her and he tries to convince her who he is, she just can't see him, she doesn't know him, she's just totally gone, she's totally lost.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: And so he comes, he comes back out of where she was, the cave where she was, and they said, They said, Oh, there you are.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Hurry, come on.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, I'm not going.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm staying.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: And so he looks back at his wife and he says, It won't be long where I won't even recognize you either.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: It won't be long, I won't know anything.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: It won't be long when I will be in the same condition as you.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to live apart from you.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: I want to be with you.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Think of that death, think of that of Jesus.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the thing about Jesus is he's eternal, so he rose from the dead.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: The grave could hold him, therefore it couldn't hold us.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: So there's a whole better story.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: But the love there.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: When you think about God, that he just wanted to be with us.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: That's what he said.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: He said, so that where I am, you can be also.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: We think his agenda is to get all the sin out of your life.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: But we but but we see it so so much in the word as we hear this and teach this, that his agenda is not to get the sin out of his life, his agenda, this whole death, burial, resurrection, this whole coming to be with us, this whole coming to die and let us be dead with us and raised with us.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: This whole thing was that we can be together.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: He wanted a bride.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been in love where you don't want anything but that person?
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Nothing else matters.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not together, all you want to do is just be there.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: And you don't care what it would take, and you don't care what their condition is.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: You don't care, even if they're mad at you, you just want to be with them.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: If you're in love.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: So God's not trying to control you, he's in love.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Love is not a controller, fear is a controller.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: When people say God is in control, I always think of that now.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, he's not in control, he's in love.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: But people don't know him.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: They know all kinds of things about him.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said the Israelites, they they saw what he did, they saw his work, they knew what God did, they knew what God could do, they knew how powerful he was.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: He said, but they didn't know me.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: They didn't know my ways.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: How do you how are we ever going to do that?
11:07
SPEAKER_00: By reading about him only?
11:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not denigrating the Bible, you need to know what this book says.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: I have read this thing cover to cover, I don't know how many times.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Not from Genesis to Revelation only, even though I've done that, but just chapters and books and over the years, just reading this thing, reading this thing.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: I have read every word of this book over and over, and I adjure everyone to get to know this book.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, you while you're learning the stuff, you're you get so easily deceived because people don't know the book.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: But knowing the book is not knowing God either.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Knowing the book is knowing about God.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: It will talk to you like we're going to do today from this book about what knowing God really is.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: But like that one person could not know me just because of things that he read about me, or even by reading things that I had written.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: The only way that he could really know and and enjoy me was to get to know me.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: By reading some things about me, he couldn't enjoy me.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: He didn't understand me.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: He thought he did.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: He thought he knew me because of what he read, but he never got to know the person.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all hearing me?
12:18
SPEAKER_00: They thought they knew they knew what he could do.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: They knew his power.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: They saw what he could do, he said, but they never knew my ways.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: They never learned of me, of me.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: They learned what I could do, but they didn't learn me.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: Didn't know me.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: There are many names for God.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: I've taught them all in various times.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Look all through the Old Testament.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: You ever wonder why he's called so many different things?
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Because they're all attributes of him.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: They're all things that he does, or ways that he is.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Adonai means Lord, master.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's called that.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: El Shaddai, God Almighty.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: It declares how he is or what he is, but that's not his name.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: In fact, God is not his name.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: God is a title.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: He is the one true God.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: Now, even the uh the the name Yahweh has a has has a meaning, and it's and it's really, you know, there's a history of that tetragrammaton, uh, and we begin to pronounce it Yahweh or Yehovah, Jehovah, we say.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: But uh, but that simply means I am, the one who is present, the one who is.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: There's Jehovah Jira, your provider.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: That's a name for God that's in the Bible, but it's it's depicting what he does.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not exactly a proper name.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's not it's not really who he is, it's one thing that he does.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: He is a provider, but that's not all he is, it's something he does.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: He's Jehovah Rapha, he's your healer, he heals.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: He is the God who heals you, not the God who makes you sick.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: But he's not just a healer, it's something he does.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So he is the healer, but he's more than the healer.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: The healer would be one part of him, it'd be like describing his hand or something, but it's not him.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Jehovah Nisa, your banner, Jehovah Chidkunu, your righteousness.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: This is something that he does.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: He gives righteousness, he is the he is those things, but the whole person of God can only be described really by one name that no very people call him by.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And people don't associate that much with him.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: They associate it as an act, but not a name necessarily.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: That actually, as all biblical names would do, really would would would would cover the character, the whole scope of the person himself.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: So we'll look at it today.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 11.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Um fact, back up, excuse me, verse 27.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 27.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: He says, All things have been delivered to me by my Father, Jesus speaking.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: And nobody knows the Son except the Father.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, here are these people that have been walking around with him, seeing all the things that he does, hearing what he says.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: He says, Nobody really knows me except my daddy.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: He knows me as a person, knows my heart, knows what's going on with me, knows my motivations, knows my stuff, knows me as a person.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: You guys hear what I'm saying, he says.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: You guys have heard my teachings, you've seen what I've done, but nobody knows me except him, my father.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: He says, Nor does anybody know the father, except the son.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Now, the Jews, the religious, and the leaders of them, they they knew all kinds of things about him.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: They knew all this Old Testament book.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: They knew all the things that he'd done.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: They knew all the names.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they would they they get into deep teaching about these things.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: But he says, but nobody knows my father except me.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: Because me and him are one, we're united.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: He says, These are the only ones that are in relationship.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Here.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: He says, Nobody knows the father except the son, and the one, and the one.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Watch this, nobody knows the father except the son.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: And the one, or except the ones who the son wills to reveal him to.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: So I kind of like that, but then I'd read that and I'd think, those that he will?
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Does he just will to reveal the father to some and not to others?
16:50
SPEAKER_00: But look at his very next words.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Come to me.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: All you all of you who labor and you're heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Take my yoke on you and learn of me.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: Learn of me.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: Now you've heard what I've said for three years.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: You've seen my works for these three years, while we've lived together.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: We've slept together.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: In fact, you know, they say the one way to really get to know somebody is to live with them.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of truth to that.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: A lot of truth.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And here they are, been with him constantly.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: And he says, but now learn of me.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Learn of me.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: Because they're still, you know, Paul even said it later.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: He says, We once knew him after the flesh.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: But from now on, we don't know him that way anymore.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Why were people, when he went to his own hometown, why did they not, were they not able to receive anything from him?
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Because they they they said, isn't this just the carpenter's son?
17:58
SPEAKER_00: I built houses with his daddy.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: This is him?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: This is what you guys are calling the Messiah.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: I changed his diapers, I wiped his nose.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: They knew him after the flesh.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: He says, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Watch this, because I'm gentle, I'm humble, I'm lowly in heart, I'm meek, I'm humble, I'm gentle, I'm humble.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: I could have said to that guy who who thought he didn't like me, I thought, learn about me, get to know me.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Um you'll find out that I'm very gentle, I'm very humble.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: But people have trouble in relating to God.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: There is so in some, it seems like most Christianity, there's this this blockage where it seems like he's hard to know.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: People are saying, why is it hard to hear him?
18:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, it's what Nevaji was saying.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Listen.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Just listen, he's here, he's there.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: But if you think he's a God far off, like that person thought there was that we there was a separation between us.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: He thought that we couldn't fellowship for whatever reasons, and people think that about God for different reasons, but they think that about God.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: It's like, we can't be that that close, we can't get to know each other that well.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Just hearing this love song, I mean, just it just made me cry because I thought, oh, I'm so I am so in love with God.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Not because I was able to muster it up, but when I saw how much he loved me, when I got to know him, that's when it I fell in love.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And you you only get to know him by knowing his goodness and his love.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if you'll look at the book of Hebrews, chapter 8, we see that very clear.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, a name is revealed that covers all of God.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: It's in 1 John 2.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: God is love.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: If you know love, you know God because that's who he is.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: We could say that's his name.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: Love lifted me.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: God lifted me.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: God is a title.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Who is he really?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: When you when you when you when you get to know him, when you get to know him, you find out, oh my goodness.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: They were telling me that I should make you Lord and master.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Your love.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I can show ver I can show a place in the Old Testament where God says, you will no longer call me master and lord.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Ba'ali.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: You will call me your husband.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, people make him, they they make him Savior, but they don't make him make him Lord of their life.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And and while that sounds so good and the intentions are really good, it's not, you don't, you get you can't know him by him being Lord and you being servant.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said it.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: He said, because the servant doesn't know what his master does.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: That's not knowing somebody.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: Did you hear that?
21:23
SPEAKER_00: That's worth your admission right there, that word.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: You can't know God just by thinking of him as your Lord.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, for the servant does not know what his master does.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: He wanted a bride.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: The whole revelation of Jesus Christ.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Read what John wrote.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: The one who saw it, John got it clearer than Paul did.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: Paul got the revelation of grace.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: But as far as who God really is, when you get down to the core of this whole thing, who is he?
21:59
SPEAKER_00: What's he?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Y'all about what is it that that that that we're talking about here when we talk about God?
22:04
SPEAKER_00: He said it.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, God is love.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: And when he wrote the book of Revelation, what he saw, here was his revelation to us.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: There was a bride.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: There was a groom.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: What did Paul say?
22:17
SPEAKER_00: He says, I have espoused you to Christ.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: I have espoused you to a husband that I can present you as a chaste virgin unto him, spotless, humble, without blemish, equally yoked with the one who loves you.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have to be because, oh, so we're equally yoked.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: So I'm awesome.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm something.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm really great.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And you don't you don't even care.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: You don't think about it.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: You just think I'm loved.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: And I belong with him because he loves me.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't become about, do you deserve it anymore?
22:53
SPEAKER_00: It's just you're just you're just basking in the love.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: You're enjoying the love and you're just glad about the love.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: And because of the love, you're just in love.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's just a mutual thing.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's the equality that happens.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: Not the equality in performance, not the equality in good deeds, not the equality in whatever else, magic tricks or anything else.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: It's the equality.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: The mutual love.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: And that love that we begin to that you naturally respond with.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: You can't make yourself love God.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: You won't, you'll never will.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: But you'll find you can't help it if you know him.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: When I found out, I didn't, I used to, you know, I used to make images of God by reading some things here because I just didn't understand him.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know him.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: And when you know him, then the scriptures start to come into focus here.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Because until you know him, all you got is this.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: All you got is trying to figure him out.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: I hear it all the time.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, in today's political and social and world affairs and all these things, well, God would want this.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: Here's what God would say, here's what God would do.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think none of you guys know anything.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: You guys are all reading something, and you're all using that same book to debate each other.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, God would say this, and they throw scriptures back and forth at each other, and I'm like, get to know him.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Get to know him, and the debate is lost.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: You're just in him.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: This is the creation.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: This is the sons of God that creation is looking to see this manifestation.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: This manifestation of what we heard.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh, people, that was so good what we heard just a few moments ago.
24:40
SPEAKER_00: This manifestation of these weak and foolish vessels, not noble, not wise, that tried to love God, but found out he just kept loving them.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And we responded with a song.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 8, verse 10.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I love this passage.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: I quote it a lot.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: For this is a covenant that I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: And I will be their God, and they'll be my people.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: None of them will teach.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: This is so interesting.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: None of them will teach his neighbor, and none of them his brother saying, Know the Lord.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what the Jews were doing with teaching, all this stuff.
25:37
SPEAKER_00: None of them will teach his brother, and none will teach his neighbor saying, Know the Lord.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Because they'll all know me.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Because they'll all know me.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: They won't have to read the Ten Commandments on the wall to try to figure me out, to try to do what they think I want them to do, to try to make things the way they think I want it to be made.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: They won't even have to try to take stands for me, like they've been doing.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: They'll know me.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: And because they'll know me, they'll be that manifestation of me.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: But he says, none of them will teach his brother, say, No, Lord, because they're all going to know me.
26:20
SPEAKER_00: They'll all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them, because I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds will I remember no more.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Why will they know me?
26:36
SPEAKER_00: He could have said, they will all know me because they are going to memorize this book back and forth.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: They will all know me because they're going to start doing all these good deeds, and then they're going to get to know me.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: They'll all know me because they're because they're diligent in keeping all the commands, and then they'll get that's how they'll get to know me.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: They'll all know me because they never miss a day of church in 20 years, and that's how they'll know me.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, they'll know me because I'll be good to them.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: I'll be merciful.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: I'll be forgiving.
27:09
SPEAKER_00: They're going to find that out.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: They think they know about me now, but they only know about me.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: He said, But they're going to find out.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: They're going to know.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: They're going to know me.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: They're going to find out that I'm merciful.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm loving.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm with them.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm for them.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm not far off.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm not hard to understand.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Get to know me.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: He's not a God who's closed up in his heart.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: He's a God who reached far and wide, who went as far as he could, bent over backwards, came as low as he can, bent, did the everything.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He's not a God that's all shut up in himself and saying, you know, if you work hard at it, you can get to know me.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've come to you.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Get to know me.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Like I did.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: I came to their house.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: I came to their Bible study.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Here I am.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: Get to know me.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: I didn't sit in my house and say, Well, you guys, if you want to know me, you'll come here.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: You don't do that.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't do that anyway.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: He came to your house.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Come, let's sit together.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's reason together, says the Lord.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: Look at, of course, the book of 1 John.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6 says, We are of God.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: He that knows God hears us.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: We heard this morning, you know.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: Someone says, I don't understand why people don't have this emotion about them, why they don't worship.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: He that knows God knows what we're talking about.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And in the context here, he's talking about here's something too.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about some people here.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: These these happen to be Gnostics that he was talking about here in the previous five verses, and actually the chapters all leading up to this.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Where he was where he was uh these were religious people, believers.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: These were not, these were not people that believed in just indulging.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: They were just like, ah, just forget about God.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's just go be all yucky and ugly.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: They weren't those kind of people.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: They were pursuers.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: The Gnostics, they were, they thought they'd get it by knowledge.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: That's why their name they were called the Gnostics.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: It means knowledge.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: But John said, but they don't know God.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: They've made this whole thing with their knowledge, things that they figured out about him and they think they know, he says, but they don't know.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: He says, He says.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: And the Gnostics were saying that they were saying, we don't even believe that Jesus came in the flesh.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he said, right before this, he said, so if anybody says that Jesus didn't come come in the flesh, he's antichrist.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: He's against the whole thing.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't get it.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: It's the opposite of this whole thing we're talking about, this one who came to us, who loved us, who died for us.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: He says, and and and we're of God.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: And he that knows God, he says, hears us, they know what we're talking about.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: When I talk about this relationship, when I talk about this love, when I talk about the God that you just fall in love with because you found out how good He is.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Those that know this, they understand me.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: They understand what I'm talking about.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: And while there's many out there that just go, huh, that's good too, because that's a start.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: But there are those that just that just they they light up.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: They just they know that they're like, yes, I'm I I I've tasted and seen that.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: That's what I've come to.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: That's what I found out.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Because I come to know him.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, one of the barriers that people have is trying to know God as just Jehovah Jireh, Jehovah Roth, and all that.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Then they tend to be the ones that they're trying to get him to heal and trying to get him to provide, and trying to get him, and and they're fighting to try to believe this thing, and trying to, it's not a mental thing, it's a relationship.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: There's a real person that you are going to be with forever and ever and ever, and you're with him right now.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And when you wake up in the morning, he's right there.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: When you wake up in the morning, he's right there, and you can get, you can, you can talk about it like Solomon did in the Song of Solomon and get all mushy and gushy about it, but it really feels like that, I promise you.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm in love.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: This is where the joy comes from.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, Rick's just a positive personality.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know me before I found out I was in that God loved me.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Where does my joy come from?
31:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm in love.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Why are you in love?
32:01
SPEAKER_00: Because somebody loves me.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: I grew up feeling like nobody loved me.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Even 20 years as a Christian, still trying to give God reasons to love me.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: I got to know him.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: I found out how good he was.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, this isn't what like what I thought at all.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: I was scared of you.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: I trembled.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm not shaking at all right now.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: This was the whole intent.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: This marriage of the Lamb.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Are you hearing anything?
32:48
SPEAKER_00: He that's not of God doesn't hear us.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: And this is how we know the spirit of truth and spirit of error.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: See, it's it's it's this there's what's going on is it's getting focused where it's all Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: It's all it's it's it's all focused on Him, His goodness, His love.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Get to know the person.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: He said He said it.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: You'll find rest for your souls.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Why do people not rest?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Why do people have turmoil?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Why do people go through all this hell in their minds and they just don't know him?
33:15
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you just know me, if you learn about me, the person, you'll find rest for your souls.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: My message is getting more and more laser-focused.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, Paul, here's another mistake we make.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: We think we're emulating Paul, we think we're following Paul, his teachings at least.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: But we don't even know what he preached.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I've read the whole thing here.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't preach his letters.
33:48
SPEAKER_00: He wrote his letters and he addressed things in administration and the church and so on, but but he didn't get up and preach his letters.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in his letters, he tells us what he preached.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: He says, I when I says, When I come among you, I don't know anything except Christ and him crucified.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: We preach Christ and him crucified, and that's the stumbling block.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: To those who are wise, he said.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: He kept his message that he preached.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: It made it all about him, him, him, him, him.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: So, beloved, let's love one another because love is of God, and everybody who loves is born of God, and they know God.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: So you can't do it until you've been loved.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: You can't do it until you've been loved.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: And like the song we heard a few minutes ago, He loves you, loves us.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: So let's reach out our hands and receive that love.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: You can go your own way, but don't you dare.
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God, and that's the one who knows God.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: He who doesn't love doesn't know God.
35:19
SPEAKER_00: And there again, because those who struggle with the love just don't know the love.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Get to know the love.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: This is what the grace is important.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: This is why the mercy is important.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: This is why the unconditional love.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Believing in that is important because that's what God is.
35:36
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't believe it, you're always gonna have a little bit of a gulf there.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: You have a barrier, you're gonna feel like he's a God far off.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna feel like he's hard to hear, like he's hard to understand, like he's too mysterious.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: And he says it in his word, he says, it's not too mysterious for you.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not so high as someone's gonna say, Who's gonna go up and get it?
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Church is always, come on, let's go higher, let's go higher.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to, you're with him.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: You're with him in heaven right now.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: If you knew the goodness of God, you'd realize that.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: He who does not love doesn't know God.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: Why?
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Because it's simple, because God is love.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: You haven't you struggle with really knowing him intimately and personally.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me introduce you this morning.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: His name is Love.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: God is love, and just like it says in the book of 1 Corinthians 13, verses 4 and 5.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Love is patient, love is kind.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: You can call him Adonai, El Shaddai, Jehovah Jirah, Yahweh.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: You can call him love, for God is love.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: None of the New Testament people said God is Yahweh, God is Adonai, God is they said God is love.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: That was the revelation of the new covenant in this relationship.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: God is patient, God is kind, God is not jealous, God is not boastful, proud, and he's not rude.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: God does not demand his own way.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: God is not irritable.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: God keeps no record of being wronged.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: God is love.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: Finally, Ephesians chapter 3, another of my favorites, verse 17.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: The prayer is that Christ would dwell in your hearts through faith, that you would be rooted and grounded in his love.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: In his love.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: So then you can comprehend with the rest of the saints the width, the length, the depth, and the height, knowing the love of Christ, which passes all of our knowledge.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: So you can't know him through this.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: Knowing the love of Christ so that you can be filled with all the fullness of God.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand up.