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Jesus, Your Best Friend: Absolute Love · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there came a point where God was not just someone I served or wanted to serve or wanted to bless or someone who had blessed me even though he had.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we grow and we we we draw nearer in the spirit of our heart and in our minds.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's near, but it's an awareness of that.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a point where I knew that I could honestly say that he's he's the best friend that we have.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking friendship, where he's not, where there's not uh you know uh a disconnect there, but but friends, someone that can uh when you wake up in the morning say hello, I love you.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna be with you all day.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um whatever you deal with today, you're not alone, I'm with you.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm and I have your best in mind, and I'm able to do it.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um someone who is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, as the Bible says.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Someone who, you know, Jesus, Jesus said to his disciples, says, I don't, I don't, I no longer call you servants.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I call you friends because a servant doesn't know what his Lord does.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you read that on there, he says, Nobody knows the Father except except the Son, and and then those to whom the Son will reveal him.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I want to look at uh something tonight um about knowing God and really uh knowing him in the facet of and the reality and the experience of of your best friend.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because what what one thing I see too often is so many of our brothers and sisters, we we we we believe in Jesus, we trust him for our salvation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: We've been blessed by him.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: We've uh you know, we we we give him all of our the affection that that we know how, we give him our worship, we you know, we uh all of that is is there, but but in that somehow it's it's it's it's funny that people will still tell me in in in times of counsel or in private times that sometimes it it are a lot of times it just seems hard to to make that connection.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'll feel frustrated with myself about my the way I am with uh in my in my Christian walk.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or sometimes people will say, in spite of all that, they're they believe in the Lord, they they they love the Lord, that you know, all that, they'll say, um, I get sometimes I'm a little frustrated with God about as far as you know, some of these prayers that I want answered and I'm trusting him and I'm I'm holding on.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: So there's these little, there's these disconnects where people, where it seems like it's kind of a struggle for a lot of people.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's there, he's real, you believe that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: But it seems like it's the struggle to feel like he's there sometimes, or or the struggle to to hear and receive that comfort and the counsel that's necessary at times that comes from the wonderful counselor.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and Jesus came so that so that there wouldn't be the disconnect.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus came so there wouldn't be a struggle with this.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if we look at it, we see that he really did everything and and and more um necessary to make this whole thing uh uh light and easy and wonderful.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, he did this whole union thing with us because he wanted to be with us.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so if the work's been done, but it's just the truth that makes us free.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to look at a facet of truth here tonight.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to start with uh Jeremiah chapter 31, because this is where God announces something very, very, very, very powerful and profound.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now, most of us will know this verse, we'll recognize this, but but but look what God is talking about.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: A day was going to come, he said.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he's talking about the new covenant when you read that, when you read that chapter.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: In chapter 31, before this, he says, I have loved you with an everlasting love, but you have not known me.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And he's and so here in in verse 34, he's speaking of this day.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: This he said, I'll make a new covenant with you.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And verse 34 says, And then no more shall every man teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, Know the Lord.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: For they'll all know me from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, because I'll forgive their iniquity and their sin I'll remember no more.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now, uh a couple of things here.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: This still astounds me.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's still, honestly, for a long time, this this still boggled me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, like nobody will be telling each other, know the Lord.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: I said, that's all we do in church.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Know the Lord, know the Lord.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: But he says, they will know me.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: He what he was going to do in this whole thing, this thing that he called the new covenant, he was speaking to Israel, is this whole thing is he's go, is he's gonna make it so, so that we will all know him.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not know about they already knew about him.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about something they didn't have, they knew about him.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: They knew the commands of him, you know, they knew all this.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: They knew soap, they knew lots and lots of things.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: There were so many teachings, so many admonitions and and and cur and and certainly commandments.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Laws and sacrifices, and they knew, and they had prophecies of God, and people had had spoken with God, and had had visions of God, and and and and all of these things, but yet John the disciple said, after he looks and sees who Jesus really is, after he gets that, and then he writes to us, and he says, you know what?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: After handling the word of life, after knowing him, no man has perceived God at any time.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: But the Son, who's in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And all those things, the reason God was saying this is because they didn't know.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: They knew lots of things about them, they had experiences with them, they had miracles by God, they had all these wonderful, illustrious things that we read about.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes a lot of people in the church, they they they wish they could have been there to be a partaker of those things and to see those, but he says, I'm gonna do something wonderful here.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: He says, think about this.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not only are not just are they gonna have my miracles, not only are they gonna be provided for, because he would do that with in the Old Testament.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Not only will I fight their battles, and he does.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: We sing about that, and that's true.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's him.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: But he says, they're gonna know me.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna know me.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now think of somebody that you know really, really well, that you know them.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know about them.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Think of somebody that you know that you don't, you don't have to spend your time studying about them.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Think of somebody that you know so well that you don't have to make an appointment to spend time with them.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Think about somebody that you know that well.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Think about somebody you know so well that you know what they're doing just the way their eyebrow looks right now.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know what they're thinking, you know what's going on, you know what they're you know what they're gonna do before they do it because you know them.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're talking about.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: He says, they'll know me.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: They'll know me.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what this whole thing was about that Jesus did was, as I say, the the well, he says it here actually.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: He says, they'll know me from the least to the greatest.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be the great scholars, it won't just be the preachers, it won't just be, you know, the ones that pray 24-7.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: They'll all know me because of me, because I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I'll remember no more.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now you could go off preaching on that for a long time right there.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: But but right here, so he he says, here's where it all starts.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: They'll all know me because I'm gonna take care of the unrighteousness problem.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take care of that sin issue.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I am going to, once and for all, forgive their iniquity.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And their sin I will remember no more.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think of 1 John 1.9, where you know the the verse there that people have used, uh, and they I was taught in Bible school that this is the maintenance verse, and and and I was taught wrongly on that particular issue anyway.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: They said, 1 John 1.9 is your maintenance verse, and that's the verse that says that if we confess our sins, that He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And they call that the maintenance verse.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, this is the one you do every day.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: That because, yeah, we're saved, but we still sin, and we know that.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: We still transgress the law.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: We still err, we still make mistakes, we still make bad choices, maybe.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: But but they said, but thank God we have this bathtime, this, this, this, this washcloth.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: So if we if we confess our sin, then he's faithful and just to forgive it, implying that if we don't confess it, it's not forgiven.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And where that where that it's a fallacy because of a couple of reasons.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, they don't even know who the context.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: He's not talking to us, he's not talking about born-again believers.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: He was talking talking to Gnostics, which was a big issue and a big problem that John was dealing with, and they were in the church in these days.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: John wrote this, wrote this uh much later than some of these other things that are in the New Testament, and the Gnosticism was really, really big.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And Gnosticism did they denied that the deity of Jesus Christ, they they they denied that he even came in the flesh, because Gnosticism believed basically all flesh is evil, and therefore, if Jesus is the Son of God, then he couldn't have come in the flesh because that would have tainted him and made him evil just by virtue of having flesh.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's why John would say, and and and you wondered why he would say this, and he would say it a couple of times.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: He says, if anybody, anybody that said that that says Jesus did not come in the flesh, that's a spirit of Antichrist.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: But whosoever believes that he did come in the flesh, you know, and we'd read that in our day, and we'd think, why is that such a big deal?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: But but there it was a big controversy with the Gnostics who were coming in and trying to make this part of the Christianity in that time.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they also believed that there was no such thing as sin.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: They had no sin.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's no such thing.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, but they don't need a savior, they're already sinless.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and John was telling them, you need a savior.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a problem here.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is the sin problem, but the answer is Jesus.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if you'll admit that you need a savior, if you admit you have sin, guess what?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's something wonderful here.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you do that, it's it's fine that you've got that that he is faithful and he's just to forgive it all.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't have to have a doctrine that says we were never sinless.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Some of that's trying to creep in again.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to have a doctrine that says we were never sinless, because we've got one that says even if if if you are sinful, it's all he was faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did you ever see that?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: All Judy and I were talking about that last couple days, that one part there.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: All.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: We know it's all in there, but think about it for a moment.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: See, we didn't catch the all unrighteousness part.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: What we thought was that here we got, we got saved, born again, now we're the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Not based on us, our righteousness is as filthy rags, it's all based on Him.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: His righteousness was imparted to us, so now we're righteous.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: But then I sinned.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I must have become unrighteous.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to confess my sin, and then I get righteous again, because then he'll cleanse me from that unrighteousness.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: See, and that's all a fallacy.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: What John was saying is you do this once, you receive Jesus, you get saved one time, you're cleansed from all unrighteousness.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: All.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: That means, what does all when we say all means all, that means any act of unrighteousness that you might do, I was let's say act of sin, excuse me, that you do tomorrow.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So so anyway, that's what all that's about.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: God was talking about this whole thing that he would do, and it would take care of that once and for all.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's why it's very important.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I will remember no more.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is amazes me still.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of amazes me, but I understand it because I did it.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was involved in it, and I, you know, I so I understand it, but when you look at the the the gospel here, isn't it pretty amazing that that we in the church world make an issue of sin as much as we do?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: We're still debating it, we're still arguing it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: I got friends that argue over what I just now said in 1 John 1 9.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Making sin a big issue when when he says, I won't remember it anymore.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about sin for the believer, the washed in the blood Christian.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, I'll remember it no more.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So he says, I'm gonna take care of that once and for all.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And in doing so, I'll remove all the guilt of that sin, I'll remove all the shame of it, and I'll remove all the condemnation of it, because there will be no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now they can know me.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: There will be nothing, no reason, no legal reason, no vital reason, no reason for them to not be near with me, or to think that they can't be.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: You'll have every reason to believe that you will, and you can.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's why in Hebrews he said, so let's just draw near with with with a with a true heart, with with boldness, by a new and living way that he consecrated for us.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: So he says they're going to know me.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now there are there are a few key things that I see that are important to know, to be established in this grace, of knowing him.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: The first one, undoubtedly, is that we know God by knowing the depth of his love.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was the change that I referred to so often that he became my best friend rather than just someone I serve because he said, I no longer call you a servant, but a friend.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's when he became the one that I'm talking best friend, the one that I that I feel like.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad to know you.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so not just thankful for what he did, I was always that because my salvation really changed my life way back then.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I but I lived a lot of it as a servant, huh?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Rather than as a son, and and in the context of what I'm speaking tonight, really in a friendship or or an intimacy, relationship with a person.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: A person, not a force, even though he's a force.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: A person that has a heart, a personality, a character, a care, a love.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: 1 John chapter 1, we see another familiar verse here.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, excuse me, 1 John chapter 4.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: We see another familiar verse here.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 8.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: It says, He that does not love does not know God because God is love.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, don't get hung up on this he that does not love.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because you get hung up on that and says, Well, you know, I have a trouble with love sometimes, so I guess I don't know God.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's not saying that the way that you know God is to learn how to love.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: That if you'll get this love thing right, if you'll start loving people more, then you'll know God.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what he's saying.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is God is love, is that knowing him causes you to know love and what love really is.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And John says this statement that I just think is so bold and amazing.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: He says, God is love.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody else says that.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, think about John, the disciple, Apostle John.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: John was different than the others in a particular way.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: Even his gospel, you know, the three, uh, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they're called the synoptic gospel.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: They basically say the same thing.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they tell a story about Jesus.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's wonderful.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: We love it.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then you read John.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you start off just by reading the New Testament, you read Matthew, you read Mark, you read Luke, they've all got their different twists and takes on it.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we enjoy reading all of them, but they basically are parallel to each other.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: They're basically telling the same stories in their own words.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And now you go to the fourth gospel, John.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And his sounds nothing like the other three, other than the that, you know, other than they're talking about the same person, Jesus, but where they were talking about all these things that he did, John gets into something really wild here.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Where the rest of them start out, you know.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at John.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: His thing starts out with, okay, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: In the beginning was the word.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the word was now the others, they start off in the beginning, there was a manger.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: He goes and he's he's he's looking at deity here.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: We beheld his glory.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: The glory is of the only begotten of the Father.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: In him was light, and that light was was was the light of the world.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the word of God that spoke everything to existence.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Without it, nothing was made.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: He's the creator.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's a course he knew he was Savior.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: They all declared him a savior in Christ.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: But he looks, he's got an insight into him that the others did not articulate for some reason.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And then he makes statements like this God is love.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: This takes a knowledge, because he that he that knows God knows that about God.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can tell me if you don't know Dennis very well, you can say, I'll tell you what, that Dennis, he's like this and he's that, and he's like, oh how can you stand to be around him?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you don't know him, I do.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't care.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you say, I'll tell, but I read I read this about him, I read that, I heard this teaching on it.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I we I went to a whole seminar about Dennis.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me I don't know him.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, if you knew him, you would feel about him the way that I feel.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Paul, that's thinking, Rick, you really don't know him.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: But you see, see, my point when you know the person, when you know the person, you're knowing something.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there's some things that look so lined up, but I'm like, I don't know that God that they're talking about there.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: I know somebody that's not that way.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I know some, he's never been that way with me.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: I personally have never known a God that was harsh.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: He's always been gentle to me.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's my experience with him, and I I've got an experience.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's he's my closest friend, if you will.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now he's awesome, he's almighty, he's God, he's Father created, we know that.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the whole, this awesome, and we'll look at how awesome he is here in a little bit.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: But this awesome God wanted to be with this.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I gotta go away for a little while.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: He says, but I go to make a place so that where I am, you can be there too.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: You can be with me.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: John, where did he get this?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Why did he see it differently?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: Why did he look at Jesus and see something that the others apparently they didn't articulate, so I'm assuming they didn't quite see it the same, the same way.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Even when all three of them were telling the same stories, they saw it from their angle and they put in their own twist in it.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And John goes into this whole other arena that they don't talk about, saying God is love, and he just and he and and and he's the one that while the rest of them, and you know, and Peter and all of them, they had passion, they had zeal, they were all going to follow Jesus to the end, and they would fight for him, they would die for him, they said.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: So all of that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: But John's the one while they're you know eating supper, and I don't think these were little sissy guys.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I see these burly men that worked with their hands and fishermen and all, you know, and and he lays his his head on the chest of Jesus at the table.
• 20:58
  unknown: What's that all about?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And he called himself the one whom Jesus loved and the and the beloved disciple.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting, he never called himself the one that loves Jesus, though he did.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: But he said he didn't call himself the one that loves Jesus, he said the one that Jesus loves.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says here in 1 John, he says, here in his love, not that we loved him, but he first loved us.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And because I knew Jesus, I knew he was love.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I saw God in him because I realized when we saw Jesus, our ears have heard, our eyes have seen, our hands touched him.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: The word of life.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, the expressed image of the Father.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: John called him that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: The expressed expression, the expression of the Father.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: You look at Jesus and you see God and you realize what these other men said.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: They did not know him.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: With all the good things that they said, with all the good things that they said they yet did not perceive him as that word.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: They just didn't get him.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because you can do a lot by being taught about someone, by reading about someone, by talking to people that know him, but if you don't know the person themselves, you just don't know him.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And John drew close because of what he saw.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And he looked at Jesus and all these other ideas that men had about God.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, No man had seen God anytime, but the Son has declared him to us.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you can say all these things, but if you want to know the centrality of this whole thing, if you want to know what it's all about, if you want to know the definition of the God kind of life, you want to under know the definition of eternal life, you want to know the definition of the light of God, of the life of God, the eternal, all of that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: God is love.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there is still a problem that people have with that in their minds.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Good intentioned people have in their minds.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is that people will say things like, oh yeah, I know God is a God of love.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: But he's also a God of this and that and the other.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Showing his real nature and his character.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, but he just don't put up with this, and he's he'll tell you.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you also see a God who has done away with all condemnation.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Any of those things that could block us from drawing near and knowing him, he took care of it all himself because him who is love wanted to be with you, close to you, near you.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the only way it could be.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: He had to get all that stuff out of the way.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Says, now, come.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's all there is to it.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we've convoluted so much of this with the by still trying to deal with the sin that he has forgotten.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Judy and I were talking we talk all the time.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're friends, because we're friends.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: We are each other's best earthly friends.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we're talking about, I said, now I I want to do a real message on sin.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: What is sin?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think people misinterpret it, but that's gonna have to be another another thing.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: But because if people don't understand this whole sin issue, they believe Jesus died for our sins, but where why is it people still struggle with that thing?
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want to do it.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: So what's your method of getting rid of it?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if you don't tell them that it's wrong, and how successful has that been in history?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the law told us that it was wrong.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Law told us all kinds of things were wrong.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Gave them chances for thousands of years to keep that.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Did they do it?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: So he says, you know what?
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is gonna get it fixed.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna know me.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't promise, I'm gonna make them so perfect, they never make a mistake.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: He said, they'll know me.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm gonna take care of all that.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's not gonna be the issue anymore.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's the issue?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: God.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: God loves you.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: God is love.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Someone says, someone said the other night said, Rick, I believe that Jesus loves me.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: This I know, for the Bible tells me so.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: But why is it so hard for me to receive that?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can believe it.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, you're gonna agree with it.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's in the Bible.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: But why do I not feel it?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it so hard for me to expect him, to accept that?
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Why does it seem like he's still far away?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why does it still feel like sometimes that I don't know if he's really for me in this situation?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mess that should not be there.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mess in people's thinking that should not be there in this wonderful new creation that we're in, where God says, I take care of everything so we can be together.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is God's love is incomparable to anything we know.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the Bible is very clear about that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: The things of God, the natural man can't receive it.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 3.19 tells us that it's that it's it's uh that it's it's beyond understanding.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: So what is it?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that goes beyond what we understand, but it's very real.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'll do the best I can tonight to show you what we're talking about here, but we're talking about God who is love, not who has love, not a God who has a relative love based on anything else.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, God is absolute.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And what where we miss it is we're missing the absolute of God.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: God is absolute life.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: That means when something is absolute, it has it has it's not relative to anything else, has nothing else in it.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: If God is absolute life, that means there's no death in him at all.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: If God is absolute light, in 1 John 1, 5 says, the message that we've heard from him and declare to you is that God is light, and in him is what?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: No darkness at all.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I remember being in church and somebody came up to me and they said, Yeah, we just heard, you know, our pastor just taught us that, you know, God is both light and darkness.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Where did you get that stuff?
• 28:42
  unknown: Huh?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow somebody thought it made sense.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: But see, because they don't they don't understand that they think it's balance, but God is not balanced.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Get that out of your mind.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: God is not balanced, he's absolute, he's not part life and part death, he's not part light and part darkness, he's not part love and part something else.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's absolute love, and that's what we're talking about.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, absolute, what are we talking about?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: What does it mean for something to be absolute?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolute means it's not qualified or diminished in any way.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is total, complete.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's not diminished in any way.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about a love that's absolute because God is not human love, not conditional love, not qualified love.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: God is absolute love.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'll show you how hard it is to fathom uh absolute.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: Look at the second, the second uh part of that definition.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Viewed or existing independently and not in relation to any other thing.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's absolute.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't tell me, well, yeah, God, he's a loving God, but no, we're talking absolute here.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Human minds know relative love, which is a quantifiable love, it's a it's uh it's a love that has its limits.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: Human love.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not relative or comparative.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing to compare it to.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: So when we say, yeah, yeah, you know, somebody was I heard somebody saying, well, yeah, you know, but God is does have a uh still have a still still operate in wrath, you know.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: There's like, you know, you might love your love your wife or your child, but you'll get mad at them sometimes.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, really?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're comparing us to God?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Us at our worst?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's not relative or comparative.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you, let me, let me, let me give you an example.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give this.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you there is a term used called absolute cold?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: You ever been in absolute cold?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: The coldest I've ever been is zero degrees, I guess.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: I've been in zero degrees a couple of times.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's too cold.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: We know what freezing is, it's 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's too cold to me.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: But some people like it, you know.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: But then it gets 20 degrees.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know we're colder.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're way below, we're getting way below freezing, 10 degrees, zero degrees.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's for me, it's like you you I can't I can't be in it more than a minute or two.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I feel that way anyway.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then I think of places farther up north where it might get 30 below.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm starting to get where where I like, I can't imagine 30 below.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: 50 below?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you can't even breathe, can you?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you breathe in that?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: What I don't doesn't your air freeze before it gets in your life?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm just thinking, 50 below zero.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's as cold as it can be.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's an absolute cold.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: See, all even if it's even if it's 50 below zero, there is still an element of heat in there that's keeping it at 50 and then not making it 60 or 70.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: There's still some heat in that.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Just like this room, this room is all lit up.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: But there's darkness in here.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is not absolute light.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: It can get lighter.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's relative light.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in relation to what's out there?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is light.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: This is glorious light.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we're talking in relation.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: Compare this to God.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Absolute light.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: What is absolute cold?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is it 100 degrees below zero?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine 100 degrees below zero?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a hundred, it's not, it's not even 200 degrees below zero.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's not 300 degrees below zero.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: Not four, it's four, uh right at 460 degrees below zero is when you get to absolute cold where there's no heat molecules.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Think of that.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: Who's gonna, yeah?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can't exist, obviously.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we stopped existing way before we got there.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Everything slows down to like nothing.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: No molecular movement.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Absolute zero.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, absolute that's absolute code.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: What if it's 300 degrees below zero?
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: What if it's what if it's 20 below zero?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you can go out and ask.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: Some of you probably have.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Put your layers on, you can handle 20 below for a little bit, you know.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: But 20 below zero compared to absolute cold is pretty warm.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: See, relative.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Compared, we're talking absolute, which is incomparable.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can't compare anything to absolute cold.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're talking absolute love.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do we quantify that?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: How do we how do how do we talk about that?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's we've got nothing, nothing to compare it to.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says it's a love that passes understanding.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the natural mind can't get this.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the natural mind has an idea of love, but we're not talking absolute love.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: This is why people have a problem with God's love.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: People tell me, I say, God is love, and they say, God is a loving God, but and I'm like, oh, here comes some of the relational stuff here.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about him who's infinite in his perfection.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Was infinite in perfection in love before there was anything else, it was him.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and when you see who he is, when you see that God is love, you can see how how love is enough and big enough, in fact, way bigger than you can comprehend.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: So why can't it be big enough to love you?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't it be big enough to deal with your little old flesh problems?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Why can't it be big enough to be one with you?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: His works, this whole death, burial, and resurrection, when you see the depth and the size of that love, you're like, of course he would do that for us.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: A love like that would do no less.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're crossing over from, I know God loves me, but I don't see how he can.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: See, when we look at us, that's what we think.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_01: We look at our frailties, our flaws, our mistakes, our weakness, our disobedience, if you will.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: We look at all that and we say, I know God loves me.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: It just boggles my mind how he could love someone like me.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: When you look at you, that's what you think.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: But if you look at him, like we're doing tonight, when you see how big this is, you'll look at that and you'll say, Well, of course, a love that that's absolute, how could it not love someone like me?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it has nothing to do with how good you are.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: It has everything to do with how absolute he is.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Of course he would do that.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: The look at um one of my favorite verses of all time, Ephesians chapter 3, 319, where he's he, and Paul is telling us, he says, I want you to know the love of Christ.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: Know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: People say, You can't quantify this.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: You can't really even describe it.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing my best tonight, but you know I'm falling short.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: It can't be quantified, it can't, you can't, you can't define it, because to define something means to put the parameters in the box around it.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Someone says, Well, what does that that love look like?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's it it goes beyond our knowledge.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing that I can come up with can really tell you what it looks like.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: And usually what they mean when they say that is, what does it look like?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: What do I have to do to fulfill that command to love, right?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Be nice to people?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Forgive them?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all these things, and you're like, you're thinking with the wrong mind.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have the mind of Christ to know and see these things.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: And the spirit, while I'm talking tonight and given my illustrations, the spirit does something in you where you're like, oh wow, he's bigger than I thought.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's more pure than I thought he was.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's his purity that allows him to save and to love a wretch like me.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: This Rick, I know you've got your story, but I know me.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: This Rick, who was a thief, lustful, selfish, shallow.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just if you knew my story, you know I'm not exaggerating.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm holding back a little bit, honestly.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: If I knew how to stop it, I would have way before long before it stopped.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: God is love.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Him who has love moved in.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing that was big enough to fill something, a hole this big, moved in.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: And only an absolute love could be that fulfilling.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: And there here in Ephesians he says, know the love of Christ which passes knowledge so that you can be filled with all the fullness of God.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, what this is why we're talking about this tonight.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: What does it take for you to for you to experience the fullness of God?
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Does it take you praying 40 days and 40 nights on the mountain?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Does it take you promising God you're going to be more obedient?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: Live a more holy lifestyle?
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Does it take, what's it take?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: It takes what we're talking about tonight, knowing, knowing this love.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: To know the love is to know Him who is love.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: See, you've got to understand we're talking about God who is love.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now think of this.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: He looks, what you ever notice how beautiful our planet is?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't, God give you eyes to see.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can see other planets now.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen what Mars looks like, and some we've got, you know, we've got cameras all out there.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: The moon.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're very dead, desolate.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: They're just, they're rocks.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: You don't see, there's no life.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Just rocks and dust.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Some are different colored dust and rocks, but they're rocks and dust.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: No life.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: They're looking for it.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're searching hard.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're trying our best.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: We want to find life out there.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: And this ball that we're on, God looks at it and bestows his love upon it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And while it was without form and void, it was just like those other ones.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Let there be light.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, he wasn't talking about the sun, he created that later on.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: He's talking about him.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Let me be there.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because wherever he is, he is life.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so, boom.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this is how God caused, just by being there.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because where he is, he brings life.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he caused trees to grow and the grass and the and he brought forth the animals and the fish and the human and he made man and all this.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: Only love, only him, only absolute love can bring this kind of life into existence.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's no life without the absolute love created.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Created it all.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Love did that.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't want it to stay like that.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do something here.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put bestow, and I'm going, my I'm gonna bestow who I am.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: And because he was there, the Spirit of God moving over the face of the deep.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever he is, brought forth life.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: We see that in Ezekiel, wherever the river flowed, life happened.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: So here was Rick, mean, ugly, stingy, sleeping in cars, under bridges, doing all the whole thing.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Thievery, I mean everything, in and out of jail, all these things.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And let there be light.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: I invited him.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: I responded to the message that I'd heard, and when I did, he was faithful and just.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I received all forgiveness of sin through that and cleansed me from unrighteousness.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: And not only was I forgiven, but he lived in me.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And he brought life here.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: He brought life to this stupid boy.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Really zombie-like in his transgressions.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just thinking of that sometimes will bring tears to your eyes when you think, when you think of where you where you've been.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it brought life.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was the life that started changing things.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: And somehow, in all this, growing and seeing truth and doing just exactly what Jesus said it would do, it began to continually make me free and free and free indeed.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: And somewhere I came to the realization, me and God, we be mites.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: We like each other.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: We go through the house, God, I love you.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we'll be driving down the road and we'll just, I love God.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: She'll say, I know you do, I do too.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know what's going on?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: What's causing this feeling?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's an absolute love that becomes a reality or becoming a reality to us.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing this, see, this is this is no, and it's just a truth, it's just the truth about Him.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing the love of Christ causes you to experience the fullness of God, because the fullness is found not in what he can do for you.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not just in answering prayers that we know that he's a wonderful prayer answering God because all because he loves you.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: All because he loves you.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: But the fullness comes because what the heart has really desired when you thought it desired more.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: More money or more validation or more fame or more fun or more work or more something.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: More booze, more what?
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Men, more women, more what?
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: When you thought it desired, well, a pursuit of happiness somewhere where when you thought it was all that that you'd be happy if you could just do this, and if if this situation would just get fixed, you found out what you really desired was the one thing you were made to be filled with, and that was God's absolute love.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll show you the difference between human love.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: Look, look at this.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: I found a picture here of this attractive lady here.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: But she uh she's she's drinking that bottle of water.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that bottle of water, this let's say this is a woman, she's been loved in her life.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: She's been nurtured, she's been raised well, people that believed in her and validated her, and she's been loved by people, and and she's she's she's drinking and partaking of the goodness of love.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's human love, it's constrained, it's limited by the size of the jar, the bottle.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: But it's good.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Good stuff, good, pure, refreshing.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: But it's human love.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: Behind her is God.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: And technically, we know that's not the right scale either because God we can't even.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: But where the bottle has water in it, the ocean is water.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody says, Well, here's what I think.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_01: That this love that the Bible talks about, I think that what it looks like is for us to be to be to be kind, to be respectful.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't agree with you, I don't have to agree, but I will respect you, I will be kind, I will let you give you room to do it.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, no, no.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: You're describing this bottle here.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're describing being cordial.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: You're def you're describing civility.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's good.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: And is that a part of God?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a part of God and his character and his nature, because his nature is gentleness, goodness, kindness, patience.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, it's all part of it, but that's about how much of that is.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is where people have a problem, is because when I say, I say, it's all about God's love.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing else.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: You're telling me that little bottle is all there is?
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then they started describing their bottle of water, what they think God's love is, and it's always that size somehow.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he's a God of love, but he's also a God of judgment.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Do you not see that the God of love did the abolition of all judgment took care of all of that?
• 46:48
  unknown: That's right.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: So is he a God of judgment, or is he not, or did he want to get rid of judgment?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: See a God that just, if he's a God of judgment, then he's a God who likes judgment.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, what can I judge?
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a God of judgment.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: Huh?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: Can I judge you?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a God of judgment.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is who I am.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a God of judgment.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see how stupid that is?
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: Why do they say that?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because they see so they see judgment in the scriptures, particularly mostly in the Old Testament, and they don't rightly divide the word.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they think that they're looking at God when they look at all that stuff.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: And John says, Whoa, we missed it.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: We've all missed it.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody perceived God before.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus revealed him.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the one that truly reveals who God is got rid of all of that.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, God wants us to serve him by giving.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to give our best for God.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's give God our best, you know.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sacrifice anything.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's what God wants.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll find scriptures.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: God demanded a sacrifice.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: He wants a perfect sacrifice.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: That means don't give it half a, you know.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: Make it, you know, and they'll they'll say it during worship, you know, come on, let's give God the sacrifice of praise.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: That means don't just do it halfway.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it all the way, you know.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: And come on, people.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: You guys would all, you guys would all be, you know, you guys, I saw you at the football game.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: You got up and shouted, come on, give Jesus some noise.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are we doing?
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're sacrificing.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because in the Bible, I see where sacrifices are pleasing to God.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: But God Himself said, I hate sacrifices.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't believe what he said there, look what he did with Jesus.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: He got it rid of it.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: This will be the last sacrifice ever.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: There remains no sacrifice for sin.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: So he's not a God of love and but also a God of whatever else.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: He is love.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so and everything else that is really true of him is true because he's the ocean.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Faith works by love, Galatians 5, 6.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: But how do I pray and believe, asking in his name and do all this?
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: Know this.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Know him.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Jesus said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm meek and humble.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: You'll find rest for your soul.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Learn of me.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I this whole thing is about knowing me.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing all of this so you can know me.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not know about me.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: What we're talking about tonight is truly, not theologically, not legally, truly, vitally, living, alive, and real tonight.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: Truly your best, best, best friend.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Who's your best friend in the natural?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're the ones that when you when you when you when you mess up, they'll stick with you.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: They don't throw you away.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who's your best friend in the natural?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: The one who believes in you when nobody else can believe in you, because look at everything you've done.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: But there's the best friend in the natural would still believe in you.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_01: And because we're talking in the natural, there can usually come an end to that.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because their love for you is like that bottle.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: They love you, it's real.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: But it's not absolute.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the love that John talking about is knowing this kind of love.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Peter says, What do we do?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Forgive people seven times a day?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'd have to have seven bottles of water.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: It gives him a crazy number.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: He could have used more.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Seven times seventy.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: About 490.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a big enough number.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: He could have gone bigger because he's talking about the love that's behind her.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all seeing this?
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when we say God is love, you look at that.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: Paul said, I want you to know the love of Christ.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to know the height, the breadth, the depth, and the length of this love of Christ.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: How big is the oceans of the world?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_01: How many know?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_01: How many bottles of water are in that ocean?
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a quick calculation of something here.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: Just to show you, when we're talking, first I want to now I want to show you the bigness of God because as big as He is, every bit of that is love.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you the truth.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: God is love.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is what when you cut through all the religious calisthenics, all the mumbo jumbo, all the theology and all the this and that, and you get to the person, not only who died for you and rose again, but the one who loves you, lives in you, and has married you and become one with you, you will have nothing but faith toward him.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: You won't have to try to believe, you will enjoy your relationship, which is an automatic trust.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody was complaining to Judy about a mutual friend because they had a problem with this friend.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what, and was saying all these things, and Judy says, honestly, I would trust her with my life.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: She said, She is my best girlfriend.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: A best friend.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can trust them.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'll trust them with your life.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I got this bill due.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's no faith works by love, his love.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not demanding.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to demand of your best friend here.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: Just trust your best friend.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: He cares for you.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: Cast it on him, he cares for you.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll be honest with you, there's so many times.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can testify of lots of things that I prayed and I spoke and it happened.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_01: But there are at least as many, if not more, times that I prayed and it didn't happen the way that I was saying it would, but life got better with him.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_01: And with all the things that I prayed and it didn't come out that way, why am I doing so good right now?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_01: It has to be him.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because I was praying in a way that, like, if you don't fix this, I won't be very good.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: I will be in horrible shape.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to make it.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I remember praying one time and said, God, I am going down the drain right now.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is the this ain't the 11th hour, it's midnight.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm you've got to do something now.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the drain didn't hurt.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Here I am.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because what we're talking about is bigger than our little temporary situations.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: But when we don't know him, we make life about those things.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus told us about this.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: Said, don't do that.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_01: Get the kingdom, get him.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: You'll see all these things follow.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, if this, I had to use a basketball because I've calculated the size of the scale.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if this is the sun, our sun in our solar system, the sun is represented by this size.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: How big is the earth?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's about the size of a BB, a BB shot.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I got found the littlest little gravel that I could out there, about the size of a BB.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the sun.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the earth.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how far away are they?
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've done the work for you.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know how long a basketball court is, 90 feet?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's right at 90 feet.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we would have to take this, if we're going to make a scale here, if this is the size of the earth, we'd have to take this basketball as the sun, and we'd have to go 90 feet, we'd have to go out that door and go all the way out and in the parking lot somewhere, and that's how far the sun would have to be to this earth to be correct according to the size proportion.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's big.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: And then we just heard the other day, astronomers say that there are as many stars in the universe as there are grains of sand on the earth.
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond comprehension.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even whatever.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's a lot of them.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_01: I know that.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: I look at the sand, I don't know how there's a lot of them.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the closest one to our sun, who's 90 feet away from us, is Proxima Centauri.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_01: 4.2, whatever light years or whatever it is.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, in our scale, this is calculated, where would we put the next closest star?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_01: If this is 90 feet away and this is the Earth, would the next closest star be as far away as Veneta?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: Would it be as far away as Kansas?
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: Would it how far away would we put this thing?
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: New Mexico?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: California?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: It would be Paris, France.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Would be the closest star to us, besides this.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's one star, the closest, forgetting all the rest of them.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can't even think of 5,000 miles, is how in this scale, how how the closest one would be.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at, and I said all that to say this.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_01: God is big.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if he's love, he's big love.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: Not not a part-timer in this.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Are y'all seeing this?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, what you want to see?
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: If he's that big, and then you get into all this to where it's expanding now.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Speed of light.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some say faster now.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't get it.
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody suggested, well, maybe it's expanding because God needs that room to because he's that big.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's love.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_01: To hold all the things that he's prepared for us.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_01: His love.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's taken us out of the kingdom of darkness and translated us into his kingdom.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: Some translators say the son of his love.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: If he's that big, and if he is love, and his love is that big, he can't even, don't even compare it to anybody on this earth who has loved you the most.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's a it's off the scale.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you see this and you know this, if you know him, you know what I'm saying is true.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you know him, you'll feel what I feel about him.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't know him, you might think all kinds of different things about him, and it's hard for you to make the connection and to trust and to believe, and you feel frustrated, and sometimes you're afraid, and sometimes you get real nervous, and sometimes you get angry, and sometimes and all those things happen.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: Indirectly because of misconceptions about someone that's absolute.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: Are y'all seeing this?
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do y'all see?
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead and stand up.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do y'all see how whatever I said tonight, whatever I tried to show, you realize I did a pitiful job of showing you how big God's love is.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I did.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: I showed you, I tried to show is God's love in relation to something.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: Relative, his love is not related to anything.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's got no relation as God is light, that means when he's absolute light, he's got no relation to darkness.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: The light in this room's got some relation with darkness.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: There is some darkness that's making it as that's allow that, excuse me, that's that makes it as bright as it does.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: Based on the source, not based on the power of the darkness.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally based on the source.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: You put brighter lights in here, there's less darkness.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's all there is to it.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_01: The darkness has nothing to say about it.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: You get absolute light, there's absolutely zero darkness.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: God is life, God is love, God is light, they're all the same things.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can interchange any of those words, and he's in you, and in him is no darkness at all.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the truth, and this is you and your righteousness and your completion, completely in him, total oneness with him, and a love like this, no two things.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you were a lousy wretch, which you're not, but if you were, of course that love is still big enough to love you in that condition.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it was.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was while we were yet sinners.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: But you're righteous.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: You've been cleansed from all unrighteousness.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul tries to make it relative, and he says, How much more?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: Will he not freely give you all things if he's the one that loved you enough to die for you?
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think God made a, I mean, Paul made a good attempt, but really I don't I think it's not even relative.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's just that he loved us a whole lot while we were sinners, but now he loves us more because we're righteous.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: He loves he's he loves us the same because he loved us absolutely before, but he loved us absolutely now.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't love us more after he made us righteous.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: But he's trying to appeal to your relative mind there by saying, Don't you get it?
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: He loved you.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: He loved you while you were at your worst.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Surely.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can accept the fact that he'd be good to you now.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: But when you look at how big he is, doesn't it make you say, of course he would love someone like me?
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_01: Of course he would hear when I speak to him, of course he cares.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: Of course he does.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: I told people, people have told me they love me, but sometimes it didn't seem like they cared.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: Of course God cares.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody says, but why does he seem like he's so silent?
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like, get to know him, and you'll find out there's a lot more communication going on than you thought.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: He's perfect and beautiful in him.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_01: How y'all doing?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of my altar call.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Just look and see.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: See, my altar calls are different because I've got nothing for you to chase.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've got nothing, I've got no exercise for you to do to change you.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: My altar call isn't a spoken word.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_01: It says, here it is, and the altar call's going on the whole time.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: If you can receive it, if you can see it, if something between you and the spirit's going on and you can see this thing, the altar call has been had.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because something gets conceived and becomes real.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't he?
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see his perfection, his beauty?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing except joy here in this.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: And it works, it starts happening in your life.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: It becomes your reality because you know him and you find out where did all the fear go?
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the perfect love displaced it just like the light displaces the darkness.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have to fight fear.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: Fight that fear, battle against that fear, speak against that fear.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have we don't have to speak against anything.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you're afraid, behold him, he'll keep you in perfect peace, whose eyes are stayed on him, not on the fear.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: He beat everything.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: He said, he didn't say you'll learn how to fight these things, you'll learn how to overpower this.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: He said, you'll know the truth.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_01: No wonder I'm so crazy, stupid, happy about this.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Rick, that's a good word, but you know, I like I like those guys at Spurs to push on and roll that old boulder up that hill and get to the high places in God.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: And like, oh, just open your eyes and enjoy.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: You're there.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome home.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: Father, I thank you.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: All I can do is say thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_01: We give all of our praise tonight to the king.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody say to the king, to the king, we love you.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.