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Transcript

In Him We Live · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I uh, you know, when you're up here, you can t you can tell because the the sound level starts to go down and you feel like, okay, it's about time.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I did I saw some conversations going on, and I didn't want to interrupt those at all.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um I um I loved that last song.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I loved, I loved the words.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was, in fact, it's my prayer this morning.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Father, open our eyes to your wonder.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Fill our heart with your heart, with your love.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let us behold your beauty, let us see, let us be amazed and surprised at your goodness, your grace, your mercy, your love, your beauty, all that you are.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're asking you to show us your glory today.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of our wonderful Savior, the one who died for us, Jesus.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna say I will have a uh a hot dog or or or maybe two.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this week, uh earlier this week, we Judy and I went to um Costco, and I have this thing that I have to do every time I go to Costco.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody know where what it would be?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a dollar fifty hot dog, right?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I got one, and that was my lunch that day.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and we also have this um this scale that way that you know tells your weight.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it do any of you guys got one of these scales where it's like uh, I mean, it doesn't just tell your weight, it tells how much water's in your body, your your skeletal muscles, this kind of fat, that kind of fat, BMI, and all I don't know if it's real.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's witchcraft, honestly.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I don't, I don't see how it can do that, how you stand on it and it tells you all this stuff about you.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I like it because after eating that hot dog, I weighed, I lost three pounds.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Make America healthy again.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: All right, for those of you that don't know me, my name is Rick.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I neglect to say that sometimes when I get up here.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I get uh focused in on what I'm trying to say here and how I'm gonna get started.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: But uh glad to be here.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love love being here.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the highlights of my week.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: There, I love talking with so many of you.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I uh we miss you when we can't be here.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're happy to be home this week and uh because we travel a lot, but uh we're gonna be home for the next couple of weeks, and I'm especially happy to be here on Chili Cook-Off Day because I love chili and we have hot dogs, and I'm looking to lose a little weight.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um I Matt, I think Matt did a wonderful job.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of a message touches my heart to talking about that kind of grace that is an amazing kind of grace that that uh as he said, it it doesn't make it doesn't add up to the normal human mind, the way that we think of uh of judgment.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and I and I believe it's because in our I don't know if I want to use the word logic, but in our when we're trying to, how did he say it?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Math math all the mathing or something.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we judge things, we uh we judge things with limited information.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So when we hear about grace, the kind of mercy that endures forever, um, the grace that's amazing, the love that goes beyond understanding, it's something beyond what makes common or makes sense to most of our thinking because of our limited information.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: We judge people based on our limited information of them.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But God, his judgment, his righteous judgment is based on unlimited information.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: He knows everything.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so while it might be unfair to us in some situations, like the example that Matt gave in Matthew 20, they said, you know, we've worked all day.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They came in at the last hour, and they said, You made them equal to us.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was their big gripe.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: That you made them equal to us.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So they must have thought that that they were better than those people.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they didn't like the idea of these other people that did not look like they did not deserve it being made equal to them.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in God's unlimited knowledge, he looks at things a whole lot a whole lot differently.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he says things like in the book of Jonah, he says, Isn't it right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jonah didn't didn't want these people receiving grace and mercy.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, but isn't it right that I would be merciful to these people who don't know their right hand from their left?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in heaven's judgment, in heaven's vision, because his ways are higher, remember, and if his ways are higher, that means his ways must be better, more accurate.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it right that I be merciful to these people that don't know their right hand from their left?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 20, when they said it's not fair, you made them equal to us.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, but isn't it good for me?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it right for me to be good to these people if I choose to be good?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because God is good.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And aren't you glad that He's good all the time?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he really is.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love hearing about a grace that goes beyond what may have made sense to me.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love hearing about a mercy that that's too big for my mind to wrap around.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I think as we, in my experience, as we move more into God, we learn more of God, we're being drawn more into the center of his heart.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're being drawn into love.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's a simplicity to that because it it appears that everything, when you boil it all down, all that there is in God is who he is, and God is love.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can taste that a little bit or try to comprehend that a little bit or consider that a little bit, your heart will bear witness with that, I believe.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the thing about the simplicity of that is that it's the kind of love that goes beyond our imagination.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a whole lot about that, and there's a big mystery uh in that.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we try to figure it out.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why uh one reason why I think we come up, you know, we come up with a lot of dogma.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's dogma and there's faith.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I want to get into this morning.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's dogma and there's faith.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that dogma is something that we put together as a, we call it a belief, but it's something that we put together in our minds and say, this is what makes sense, this is what fits, and this is what I think, how I think it is.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, faith is something the Bible says that with the heart or the inward man, uh, humans believe, man believes.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you can see the difference that, I know I can see it in my life, that my head has been influenced with a lot of things in this world and in the church world, honestly, that that have influenced my head that my heart did not believe.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I didn't realize that for a while because I wasn't paying attention to my heart.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was paying attention to my head and trying to put this together.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I have this dogma that says certain things about God, but as growth happens or as time goes on, then the heart starts to speak.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, the Bible says in Proverbs 4.23 that out of the heart come the issues of life or the things that pertain to life and godliness, they flow out of the heart.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the teacher uh is the teacher that's that's that's within you.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the teaching happens really from the inside out.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can hear things from the outside, like you're hearing, if you hear me talk, you might hear something that that goes along with what the truth is, which is what the spirit would say to you.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, he is your teacher.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the head can be influenced, but your heart, your inner man, let me say your spirit, is what influences from the inside.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the Bible says as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're being taught Christ by Christ within us.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that heart, if we listen to the heart, we we we hear beauty.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: We hear about a love that our head goes, whoa.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's that's you can see a difference in that.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody, have you ever done that, where you caught a glimpse or you tasted, or you got, or you just began to come to more of an understanding of love in a way that went beyond a love that you could define so so easily and say, here are the parameters.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh honestly, I'm I'm enjoying the mystery of this great love because I I don't know what the parameters are.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I suspect there may not be any.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you think of the word eternal, eternity.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that is an exciting thing, it's a mysterious thing, and and it sounds like a very beautiful thing to me.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it draws me, and I say, I want to look at this thing some more.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I want to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple and see this thing, and the tasting that I've tasted has had a wonderful influence and effect upon my my mind and my life, my relationships, my my certainly the way I feel about God and and about myself and about life.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I we've tasted and seen and we want to behold more, and that's that's why I come here.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I like hearing about it, I like talking about it, I like my heart is touched by the things of love and mercy and grace.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And today, um a particular part of that that I've noticed in recent years, that really touches my heart.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: If I watch a movie and this and and love and unity and mercy and grace and goodness, if that's expressed, I I can't I I can't help but cry.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've noticed I don't cry a lot at the at the uh sad things so much.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I feel the sadness, but I cry at good things for some reason.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: My heart gets touched.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard for me to describe, but I get touched every when I when I when I when I see that, when I hear that.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that that's something from the spirit.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I know also that in my dogma, I was not that kind of a person.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was very sectarian, very much a separatist.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is us.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're these people, we are God's favorite, we're the ones that's on track, and those people are just off track.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought a whole lot like that.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk about a big variety of different ideas and beliefs, but really the bigness of Christ, because in him we live and move and have our being, and how he's big enough to wrap all of us up in him, in his love.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to start reading by 1 Corinthians chapter 1, beginning in verse 10.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, and I I also want to say this that in my Bible, and in my New King James Version that I mostly read when I'm reading the Bible, there's a head, you know, they'll put headings over certain sections.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this particular section says, sectarianism is sin.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's pretty blunt.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is talking about that here in verse 10.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I urge you, my brothers and sisters, for the sake of the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree to live in unity with one another and put to rest any division that attempts to tear you apart.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Be restored as one united body, living in perfect harmony.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I like this.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, of course, from the Passion Translation.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Form a consistent choreography among yourselves, having a common perspective with shared values.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I first look at that, it almost sounds like it's saying, make sure you have the same dogma.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you all agree on the rapture or non-rapture, whatever it is, but agree on it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Have the, you know, have the same mind.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you have the same idea about this or that or or the other.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: But but he's talking about people that have different ideas, but he still says, with that, form a common choreography, a consistent choreography, and have a common perspective with shared values.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how are you going to have a common perspective when uh in just in Christianity, if there's such a variety of ideas about so many things?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been around for a while and I feel like I have, you you you feel like you've you've you've you've seen and heard them all.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And in my own life, I've moved from one to another.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I believe this.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: This now this is what my faith did.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now this is what I believed.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now this.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think this.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And now I think, and I and I've I found myself keep moving.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: But fortunately, what I have noticed is that as I've kept moving, I've been affected in a way that I do feel like I've learned more about the things that really have become more important to me, and that's love and goodness and grace, and certainly love for God.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And with that became an acceptance of myself with all of my so-called flaws.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm finding a greater capacity to love humankind in ways that I couldn't before with my former mindsets.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But how do we have a common, how do we have a consistent choreography with a common perspective and with shared values if there's going to be a lot of different ideas about so many things?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then what has to happen is, is what a friend of mine, I used to hear him say quite often, he would say, the main thing is to make the main thing the main thing.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I have found that I can be bond, I can bond with anyone, I can feel close to anyone, no matter what you think or what you believe.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: If my main value is love.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if my main value is eschatology, then some of you I can't be friends with.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: If my main value is what you think happens in the afterlife, then some there's gonna be sectarianism.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: There are gonna be the if that's the main value.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I really am I like the I like the fact that Judy and I, we have friends, I mean real friends, friends that we enjoy being with and we do things that things with them that believe like not only everything in Christianity, but many of them believe believe in boo uh their beliefs in politics that would not be tolerated in churches, in some churches, I think.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and and we have very different ideas on a lot of things.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: But man, the reason that we still are can be friends is because when we talk about love, when you talk about the unity in Christ, when you talk about the bigness of Jesus and and how big that, you know, when you when you go with that, when you get on on that, those are the shared values, those are the common perspectives.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's the consistent choreography that he's talking about here.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Judy and I have this thing, we we we call it the third option, because we have so many friends that are with diverse ideas on everything.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: We we've got we've got friends that are on the left, we've got friends that are on the right.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the friends on the left, they say, you know, when are you going to start taking a stand against those people on the right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the right are doing the same thing to those on the left.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we like to talk about, well, you know what?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's a third option.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to just join one of the world's teams.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is a heaven team, and his banner over us is love.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the thing that can save the world, that can change the world and make the whole world a lot better.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing else except that that'll make this world wonderful.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And God has a vision for this world, and his vision is as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea, and that glory is his goodness.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: I see.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what happens.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: See, that was your heart.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: That was your heart bearing witness to that common choreography, that one thing that means more than anything else in all of existence is God Himself who is who is that love.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact, I feel like I've I've begun to catch my father's vision.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that he says, in that day, you won't have to tell your neighbor to know me.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I will be good to them.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: They will know me from the greatest to the least.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some better, some worse.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he's talking in their terms.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're all gonna know me.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I will be good to them, I will be good to them in their transgressions, I will forgive, and their sins and iniquities I will not remember.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they'll know me, because of my goodness, because of my mercy, because of my love, because of the amazingness of my grace, because of the endlessness of my love, because of the mercy that endures forever and ever and ever and ever and ever.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is how they're gonna know me.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Boom.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So much dogma can topple with just that bigness of God.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And and none of us, none of us can describe it perfectly.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: None of us can put it in a box and say, this is it, I understand it, I've got it all, because I just think it's too big.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it's beautiful and it's powerful, and it's changing my life, has been changing it for many, many years.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact that my mind has been changed about Daddy God, about Father.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we say around here Jesus didn't come to save, uh didn't come to change the father's mind about us, he came to change our mind about the father.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the reconciliation that we find in Christ is that through him the veil is ripped open and we behold the beauty of our father, and we realize we are children that are loved.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if God loves me, you think maybe he loves you too, and if he loves me and you, then maybe he loves somebody out there in the parking lot, and if he loves them, maybe he loves the ones across the street.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if he loves them, maybe how far does it go?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's the consistent choreography that we can have.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the dance that we can dance while our mind is still trying to figure things out, and we're gonna land on certain things at certain times.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's all part of it, and God sees it, and it's it must be okay in a sense, because it's it's just it happens, and God's not God ne I don't feel like God ever condemned me in all the things that I now say.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I thought wrong about that, I thought wrong about that, and I thought wrong about that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I I am convinced that right now, as I stand in all of my brilliant wisdom right now, now that I no longer think that or think that or think that, and now I'm in this place of brilliant wisdom, I am still convinced that I am wrong about so many things.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they are yet, but I am convinced.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: How are you going to know?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you knew, then you wouldn't think it anymore.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I like what the scripture said.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: If any man thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing like he ought.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: How can we have pride about it?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 11, let's let's push this along.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: My dear brothers and sisters, I have a serious concern I need to bring up with you because I've been informed by those of Chloe's house, Chloe's house church, that you've been uh destructively arguing among yourselves.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I now I want to say this.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: This message is it, I I wanted to bring it in music script because it was beauty to me.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a spanking of anybody.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, you know, what you may personally be dealing with.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is this is not an ouch to anything.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just, this is an example of something that was going on in 1 Corinthians, but there's a beauty that we see in this.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 12, and I need to bring this up because each of you is claiming loyalty to different preachers.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some are saying, I'm a disciple of Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I'm a disciple of Peter the Rock, and some say, Well, I belong only to Christ.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the spiritual ones, right?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: But let me ask you, is Christ divided up into groups?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did I die on the cross for you at your baptism?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Did you pledge yourselves to follow Paul?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jump down to 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there again, in my Bible, it has another heading.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: That other one said sectarianism is sin.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: This one said sectarianism is carnal.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, ouch, okay.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 1.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, when I was with you, I found it impossible to speak to you as those who are spiritually mature people, because you're still dominated by the mindset of the flesh.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And because you're immature infants in Christ.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: This was the Corinthian church here that he was dealing with.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, I had to nurse you and feed you with milk, not with the solid food of the more advanced teachings, because you weren't ready for it.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you're still not ready to be fed solid food, because you're living your lives dominated by the mindset of the flesh.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So ask yourselves: is there jealousy among you?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you compare yourselves with others?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you quarrel like children and end up taking sides?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: If so, it proves that you're living your lives centered on yourselves, dominated by the mindset of the flesh, and you're behaving like unbelievers.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: For when you divide yourselves up in groups, like Apol group and Apollos group, you're acting like people without the Spirit's influence.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're talking about is the Spirit's influence here.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the beauty of what the Spirit reveals.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we I I have I have a graphic that I just uh put I think you can see the words on that.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's very simple.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: It actually did have AI try to make one, and it was worse than that.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what we've got.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I just but there's a circle, and that signifies Christ.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: In him we live and move and have our being.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's that's really dumb, I know, because he's boundless.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: He, you know, you can't put a circle around him, but but but it but it's it encompasses everything.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's what that's supposed to mean.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the very center is like a little target thing, and that's that's love because he is love, the whole thing, God's nature, everything about him, it's love, love, love.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And everything else we say about him is all drawn from that.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's all connected to that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: His mercy endures forever because he's love.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: He forgives because he's love and and and and and and forgiveness flows from him.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's so much love.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wrestled a little bit with the verse of scripture that just, you know, I looked at that for so many years and I just like, why does it say that?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make sense with so many other things, I think.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it said, even if we're faithless, he abides faithful.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: He cannot deny himself.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's big.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he can't stop being God.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: We see it on the cross, right?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Consider him who endured such hostility of sinful people against him, hanging on the cross, being mocked, everything about him, stripped in shame, everything we know everything that that did, and he hangs there in that pain, in that shame, with everything that humans are doing to him there, and he says, What's he say, Father, forgive them?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know what they're doing.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Even in that, he couldn't stop being God, if you will.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: He still abided faithful.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: He could not deny himself.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus could not become somebody different and say, God to hell with all of them.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: He had to remain who he was, and he did.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even in that, see, even when they were faithless, he abided faithful.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: He could not stop being Jesus.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he'll never stop being Jesus.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's who he is.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: If we look at the graphic again, no, and I just threw all these words in there.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: There could have been so many, so many more.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: But but uh, and people are people are not getting up because they're mad at me, they're getting their chili ready.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um wink, wink.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: But there's there's futurism, there's predatorism, there's his mercy endures forever, and there's eternal conscious torment.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all beliefs that that wonderful, beautiful people in the body of Christ hold to.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Different dogmas, really.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Some believe in uh, you know, uh in inclusion, some believe in exclusion.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's Calvinism, there's there's Arminianism, there's annihilation, there's dispensationalism.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some mean all mean some, some means that all some say all mean all.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's all these different ideas, but you can, but but we're in him.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's that's that's kind of what we're reading here.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're we're looking at here when Paul says he's not divided, even though we have that.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what we can do with our in our brains.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: We can look at these things and we can we can section off these things, right?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, in the body of Christ, what we like to do is we like to put an is or an ism on something.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember hearing somebody talk about something, uh, something that I uh personally believe, and he says, that's he named it is.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: He said, that's that's that's preterism.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, okay.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's preterism.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, okay.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And but it's obvious from the tone of like, okay, I guess it's wrong.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: I guess it's you're you're uh you're an exclusionist or you're an inclusionist, and you know, if you put those names on, it's almost always when you we look for labels, it seems, or people look for labels, and it's almost meant to be uh pejorative in some way.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant to be uh derogatory, it seems, in some way.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we can have all of those things.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now in 1 Corinthians 4 7, Paul goes on and he writes this he says, for what make what makes a distinction between you and somebody else, really?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you have that grace has not given you?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you received it as a gift, why do you boast as though there is something special about you?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: They said, You made them equal to us.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we think in all of our brilliance and our intelligence, because we now know some things that maybe we didn't know before that those people don't know.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those people are still believing that.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's been a surprise to me.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Not something I was expecting to come to.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it I've struggled with it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, whoa.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh honestly, even though it's beautiful and I'm excited about the things that I I feel the Spirit teaching me, I struggle with a lot of them.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I struggle with a lot because they're new.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's always something fresh, it's always something at least a little bit different than how I saw it before.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, there's always a there's always a bit of a struggle with it to some degree.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: So we struggle with it, we wrestle with it, we talk to God about it.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's true, if it's real, over time you end up landing on it because you're like, oh, I see it clear.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: See, because our prayer, like the song, is open my eyes to your wonder.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're still praying it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even though we're brilliant and we're geniuses and we know all these things, we still know that, God, I want to see you.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's more.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 12, verse 3 says, For I say through the grace given to me, watch this, to everyone who's among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly as God has dealt to each one the measure of faith.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, people would used to use this against me when I started, when I started declaring, as I after I saw it, that you know what, we're rich, we're seated with Christ in heavenly places.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: 1 John 4, 17, as he is, so are we.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now in this world, I would say things like that, and they would bring out this verse, and they would say, brother, you better not think more highly of yourself than you ought.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm God's child, and I belong in the house with him, and I'm with him in heaven.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're not.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else is.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But we know that that can't be right because all those things are true.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're very, they're spelled out so clearly.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: They are a revelation of our relationship with God.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: We see it so clearly.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: So if if if being seated with Christ is not thinking too highly of ourselves, I mean, how much higher can you go?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does it mean to think more highly of yourself?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: For me to think more highly of myself does not mean that that I don't think that I'm seated with Christ in heavenly places.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I am.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean as he is, so are we in the world.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now are we the children of God?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that, but what it means is if I think that for any reason I am better than you, then that is thinking more highly of myself because Christ did this for all of us.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but what about the ones that are doing this?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: But that don't make sense, I know.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: On a certain level it doesn't, but on heaven's level, wow, wow.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 8 1 says how easily we get puffed up over our opinions.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: But love builds up the structure of our new life.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Traditional versions say knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: How easily we get puffed up over our opinions, but love builds up the structure of our new life.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Love.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: It keeps coming to that all the time.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Love is teaching.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're learning by being taught by Him who is love Himself, and we're coming to know what is this mystery of love and what does it really mean.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 2, if anyone thinks of himself as a know-it-all, he still has a lot to learn.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, Acts chapter 17, verse 27.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is talking to some very smart Greeks who also worship a lot of different gods.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is where he says, I'm talking about the unknown God.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: That one's what I'm talking about.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: He makes this beautiful speech about God, the bigness of God, the beauty of God.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in verse 27, he makes this statement.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, To these Greeks who were worshiping other gods, he says, God is not far from each one of us.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Each one of us.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: As also some of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to see that maybe God's big enough to wrap everybody up in his love.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's a lot of wickedness, yes, there's a lot of stuff going on that we don't like and don't have to like, and all that stuff.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: But God is a wonder, God is amazing.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: And someplace at some time on this earth, I believe it with my whole heart, that the kingdom of heaven, the manifestation of the children of God, will affect this planet, and the true gospel.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: People will flow to it because it's the most beautiful.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: It begins to make sense.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: They see it as the answer, that's why all the earth is groaning, looking, standing on tiptoe to see the manifestation of God's children coming into their own.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: The walking, living, moving, breathing, fallible humans in weak flesh, with love pouring in and out, with a message of a love that any heart could melt at.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: With a message of a grace and mercy that is so true and so powerful that every knee would bow and every tongue would confess that Jesus is Lord.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Not to join the religion, but that his way was the right way.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: He is the way.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not just to call themself a Christian necessarily, but that the way that Christ has shown us, has made us, and what he has done and prepared has opened the way for all of mankind to know the Father in a way that love starts to take over the planet.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: From the inside out, the kingdom of heaven, which was planted as a seed two thousand years ago and started in one, twelve people, a hundred and twenty people, then three thousand people, and has continued to increase exponentially, not only in numbers, but in unveiling revelation of the beauty of God that we have so much to behold yet, so much to learn of in this mystery of his great love, his grace.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: That it is the kingdom that will prevail, and of the increase of his kingdom and of peace, there will be no end.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's where this is going.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to a beautiful love and and and and and a union in Christ.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was the plan for God for this world.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've caught the vision.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's incubating in my heart.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love how it feels.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love how it makes me smile.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love how it makes me feel when I look at another human being and I go, oh, Father.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, glory be to God forever.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: His mercy endures forever.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: For the Lord is good.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand up.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, give the Lord a praise if you if you see anything good about him.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the good news.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the gospel of Christ.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the opening of our eyes and the ripping of the veil by that love dying on a cross.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Father, let us behold, let us see as we go out the doors today.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let us go out with a new vision in our eyes, a new spring in our step, a new joy in our heart, and a song upon us.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you, Father, for your goodness and we celebrate life today and we celebrate each other.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for that great love in Jesus' name.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.