Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Come, Let's Reason Together

Transcript

Come, Let's Reason Together · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to talk about this this morning, but this idea of this closeness that God brought to us, not just wanted, but made sure of.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: And we look at the heart, the heart of this thing, because what it all comes down to in the in the uh, of course, in this day we're in, but in the times ahead, is knowing God.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: God spoke some things about the ultimate condition of his creation.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing he said, he said it twice in the Old Testament, very, very clear, as truly as I live, this is love, as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: I like the way he says it in Habakkuk with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: One place he says it'll be filled with the glory.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Another place he says that it will be filled with the knowledge of the glory.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the glory is here.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit's been poured out.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was poured out.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: It ain't going back.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was poured out.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's here.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And he didn't have to keep pouring it out over and over again.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: He poured it out in Acts chapter 2, and that was it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was poured out.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's been here ever since, and whosoever can drink of it, can receive, can receive of it, can swim in it.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: But what happens is we're we're beholding the knowledge of this.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're knowing something.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing something.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, all the earth is going to be filled with the knowledge of it.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: People will know this.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: He also said in the Old Testament, talking about how it's going to be.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: See, God was feel the joy of God's heart as he's saying these things.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: He says, they won't even have to be teaching their neighbor anymore, saying, Know the Lord, because they will know me.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: From the greatest to the least, from the best to the worst of them, from the richest to the poorest, to the strongest to the weak, they will all know me because I'll be good to them.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities I'll remember no more.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: He would take care of every single thing.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And people would come to know him.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And also in 1 Corinthians 13, he talks about when that perfection, or now that that perfection has come, and there it's a matter of knowing it, he says, Then we shall know, even as we are known.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is God knows you.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, We'll know him just like he knows us.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now that is knowledge of the holy.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's that is that is that is knowing God.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And let's look at this this morning.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is what it's all about.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is what God wanted.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted us to know him.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: He rejoiced in his heart, saying, They will know me.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna know me.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: He wants people to know him.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: He wants us all to know him for so many good reasons.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: On the opposite side of that, he was lamenting.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was, you can you can hear the, I don't know if sorrow is the right word when we're talking about God, but you can hear him state the condition in the Old Testament in Isaiah when he says, My thoughts are not your thoughts.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's Isaiah 55, 8.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: My thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways, says the Lord.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then he goes on and he says, So let the man of iniquity forsake his ways and his thoughts.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, he's saying, So let him get new thoughts and new ways, let him get my ways, let him know my thoughts.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: Let him know.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And also in Isaiah 1.18, where he says, Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's sort of the title of our message this morning.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is for you.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you think, well, you think, well, you know, I've been called unreasonable at times.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, God says, Come anyway, let's reason together, and I want you to know me.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Also in Matthew chapter 11 is where Jesus said in Matthew 11, 29, he said, Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, or learn from me.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm gentle and lowly in heart.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I want you to know me.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I says, Know my heart.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Come and learn about me.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, I want to reveal myself to you.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, I want to tell you about me.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to learn about me.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: He says, and when you do, you'll find rest for your soul.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So what we're seeing here is we see a clear invitation from God to know him.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, now, when we talk about these things, it's so easy to just gloss over it in our mind where it's just like, yeah, that's good.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: God's good, he wants us to know him, praise God.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: But there's there's there's everything powerful about this.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: It changes everything.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Knowing God changes everything.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see as we look at this that God, one of his prime directives was that I'm going to cause my people, my creation, I'm going to cause them to know me.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're going to learn about me, and it's going to change everything.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: It'll change everything about what they think about me, how they relate to me, and it'll change everything that's inside them.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're going to be fulfilled by knowing me.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to make sure, I'm going to reveal myself.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: We have the invitation to know him.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or we're talking about what we're really talking about is intimacy, and people in church talk about, use that word a lot.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a definition of what we're talking about when we're talking about intimacy with God.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just talking about doing some religious activity and you know practicing that and calling that intimacy.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Intimacy, by definition, is a state of close familiarity.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you can think about it in terms of if you have someone or maybe some a few people in your life, maybe let's narrow it down to one.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: That one person that you are most familiar with.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: You guys know each other.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: You almost know what they're thinking without them saying it because you really know them.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um you don't know just know things about them.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know that person.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know why they think the things they do, you know what motivates them, you know what makes them laugh.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: You have a very close familiarity with them.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's marked by a consensual sharing of deeply personal information.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what happens when you're very, very close to someone.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: You guys have shared things about yourself that you probably haven't shared to everybody else around you.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you're closer.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we look at God this way, he wants to share deeply personal information.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I want you to know what makes me tick, I want you to know what I think in these situations.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to know what motivates me.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to know who I am.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like um when when Judy and I first were getting to know each other, Judy was really, really easy to to to become personally intimate with in our in our in our minds and in our soul because Judy is very curious.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Judy will ask questions.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And she would ask me things I hadn't even wondered about myself.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And she'd ask me things and I'd like, huh, I never thought about that much.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess I, yeah, yeah, I guess I think this about it.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I and and we find it, and and I and and I would answer every question, and we would have we would talk and and we would ask each other questions, and and I and and every time she wanted to know something, I was happy to give her to give her that that information.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because I wanted her to know me.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: She said sometimes afterwards, because she didn't know me that well at first, she says, you know, you you had plenty of opportunities to make yourself look better.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you would tell me all your all your failures and your flaws and your foibles and all your stupid things that you do, and all.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: She said, You would tell me everything, and you didn't have to do that.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you could have, you know, you're getting to know a person, you could have put your best foot forward and made yourself look a little bit shinier.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, that's what everybody else seems to do that I've met.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: But you didn't do that.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, because I wanted you to know me.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: Better for you to find out now, right?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I wanted you to know who I am.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And if you still liked it, after you knew all my my my ugly and my spots and everything else, then then we can go forward here.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and and you look at God that way, and God says, I really want you to know who I am.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now think about it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Judy, now over uh eight years now, she she she knows me more than anybody here.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And she knows, she knows what makes me laugh, she knows, she knows w why I think what I do, she knows what motivates my heart.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes there'll be um, and this can happen to anybody because people make judgments, but people can make judgments of you just because of a few things that they see or they or they might hear from you, and uh, and they can misunderstand you.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and it happens, it's not that big of a deal.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: You don't like it, but it just it's gonna happen sometimes.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And there have been times when people have maybe misunderstood me.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it would get back to Judy, like so-and-so thinks that Rick is doing this and da da da da, and she, and she would, I've seen her just cry.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, and she'll chill, she'll go to that person and she'll she's like, You have no idea.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't even think like that.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's nowhere on his radar.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: She says, if you knew him, you would never even think that.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because, and the only reason she would say, Hey, that's because she knows me.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: She knows why I do what I do, she knows what I say, she knows the heart of the person.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when you know the heart of the person, you know that that person.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and and you can say, even with God, would you agree that God is probably the most misunderstood being, individual ever?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's because people, a lot of people, a lot of us, we don't understand what knowing God is.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: We we think knowing about God is knowing God.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: We think reading about God is knowing God.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: We think serving God is knowing God.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But he says, I want you to know this.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to know what's going on in here, in me.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Intimacy is a state of close familiarity.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's marked by the consensual sharing of deeply personal information.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And those who are intimate with each other, they reveal themselves to each other.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: They're not afraid, they don't hold anything back.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you want, if you want to know, here, I'll tell you.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how God is.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's why he says, come, let's reason together.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Let's come on, learn.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Learn of me.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um they reveal themselves to each other, they care deeply about each other.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: We believe God cares very deeply about us.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do we care very deeply about God?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: The more we know him, the more we fall in love with him.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we are very comfortable with each other.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Are we comfortable with God?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh, Bible reading alone is is is not enough.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible does have the revelation of God, and we read it and we see the glory of God in this thing, but a lot of times people people just just do Bible reading without knowing the person that the book's about.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they think that they know or they know things about God, but they but they don't.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this is why I don't know if all of you have ever had this, but almost all Christians have, that you can read the Bible, this beautiful word of God.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can read the Bible and come away feeling very condemned by it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're not hearing the heart, you're not seeing the heart of it, you're just getting, you're just getting ahead knowledge, and you're reading some things, and you're not knowing how to put it together and where it goes and all that, and you come out, and people, because of that, because of human nature, they'll usually take the most negative thing there is, and so God is a vengeful God, God's an angry God, God's a mean God, God, God's very impatient, He doesn't like like it when He doesn't like you when you sin, He doesn't, he's He's ready to punish you, He's ready, He's He's He's He's all about trying to get rid of all this evil and these bad things and wickedness, and He hates it and He wants you to hate it too, and you get all these things, these ideas about God, and when you're thinking like that, all you've done is you've read some things and you put together a Picasso picture of God somehow, and you and you're not knowing the person that's revealing Himself to us.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you can see it in here if you're going for knowing the person of the book and not just the book about the person of God.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: So to know God, here's here's here's it's very practical, it's very personal, it's very real.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Ask him stuff.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you ever ask him, even concerning things that are going on in the world today?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Really ask him, not just assume, and not put our own, try to put our own thoughts on God.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I hear that a lot.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll tell you what God thinks about it, and I'm like, does he really have have you have you talked to him about that?
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or did you just read something and assume?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or is it just because you want this to happen and so you think God would want that to happen too?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: What does God think about things that are going on today?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: What does he think about a lot of the people that are doing some very some things that may be very frustrating to us?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: What does God think about that?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: What's his heart feel about that?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's not hard.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I tell people, stop and ask him.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Take a minute and ask.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'll give you a hint to sort of get you to look in that in his direction.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is this this is me.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anything, whether it's been whether it's been a conflict with another person, or I'm just frustrated by what groups of people are doing out there.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've never, whenever I've talked to God about these things, I've never heard God have a bad thought about anybody.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now I can have them, but he says, but Rick, just because you're your thoughts don't mean they're my thoughts, because my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're so much higher.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: I say heaven is higher than the earth.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's so much higher than that.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we make God so small by saying, Well, I'll tell you what God wants to do to them.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what God wants.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go to war against them, so God wants to go to war.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, church, let's rise up and let's go to war against these people.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't talk to God.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Say, Father, what do you say?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: What do you feel?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's your feeling about these people?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: See, we make assumptions based on the knowledge of good and evil where we're just like, well, they're they're evil, they're doing bad things.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously God's against them.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, ask him if he is.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll find out that.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just ask him.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll at the very least, see, I'm not saying these things to form a doctrine about any of this.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: At the very least, you'll you'll move into more of his heartbeat.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: What does he really feel or think about this?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And don't be surprised if it's not what men are saying about him.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't be surprised if it's not what men are thinking about him.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because what we're doing is we're going beyond what men think about God.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: We're going beyond what we've thought about God.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're going into him himself, knowing, knowing the Eternal, the Father, knowing love.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: You don't need, you don't need somebody to pound it into you that God is good, that God is love, that God is for reconciliation, that God, you don't need somebody to pound it into you.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: If you know him, you know these things.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: You just know him.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: You just know because you know him.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So many things I'm hearing people say about God.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, just like just like how Judy would feel if people said wrong things about me.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: You just want to cry and you're like, why don't you talk to him about that and see?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's right here.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: He wants to show himself, he wants to tell us if we want to listen.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's the God who wants to reveal himself.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: This whole thing was about come, learn of me.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm much more, I'm meek and I'm humble.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm not hard, I'm not scary, I'm not I'm not keeping my distance.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: You don't scare me, God would say.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: You don't, you don't do things that make me run from you.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Come and learn about me.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've used an example of somebody that was trying to keep Judy away from me when we first met because he basically just he just didn't like what I believe about God was basically what it came down to.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And um had read some Facebook posts and and had this whole conclusion about who I am.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember talking to him and I said, if you want to know me, I said, you could have asked me anytime.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Said you could sit down and spend a little time with me, have lunch with me.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: You would have learned some things about me, and maybe you'd think differently.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't, it was just like like you can't know somebody just by reading some things.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't know somebody just by hearing some quotes.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can't know somebody just because of what somebody else says about them.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to ask, ask the person, you've got to go straight to the horse's mouth, and you've got to hear them for yourself.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I remember uh when I was pastoring a church in Titusville, Florida back in the 90s, there was a uh uh a church in the next town over, and I was I was relatively new to the area, and and I knew this pastor, I had visited his church before I opened mine up and really liked him, but then there were some people that had, I guess they'd they were going to his church and they'd got mad about something, so they started coming over to my church.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they were leadership type of people, and they were had been on staff there, and and they were they they would once in a while they would tell me all these wrong things that he would do.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they would just, they were just they I mean, they these these things mounted up, and I found myself after a while, I didn't even like this guy.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I kind of liked him after I'd met him and spent just a little bit of time with him.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: But after hearing all these things, I I remember feeling like I don't even like him.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even, you know, I don't care if I ever see that guy again.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And anyway, to make it short, we end up spending time together and we end up being very good friends.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I liked him.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And all I had to do to like him was just spend time with him and hear what was coming from his heart, hear what was coming from his mouth, and let him reveal himself to me instead of somebody else giving me a picture of him.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's one reason God is so misunderstood, because people are giving pictures of God that don't really know his heartbeat.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: They don't know what makes them think, they haven't asked him, they haven't, you know.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: They say, well, spend time with God to be intimate.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's part of it, but while you're spending time, talk to him, ask him stuff.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is a I tell you, this is a really good way.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Ask him, God, what do you say?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think about this person who's being so mean to me?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: It always melts my heart because I find out, God, you don't think anything bad about anybody?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Come on.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's a just God.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Of course he does.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: He knows what's right and wrong, come on.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: But he's so much bigger than that.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you don't know that unless you know him.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: You find out how much bigger he is than all of our little tree of knowledge of good and evil stuff.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: He offered us the tree of life.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Come know me.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Let's push this up, this, this, this along.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in Luke chapter 10, 41, very quickly, is a story of Martha and Mary, and she was serving, cooking for him, making him a meal.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to do that, she wanted to do that for Jesus.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: She invited him to the house.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want to cook you a great meal.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm happy to do it.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: She's over there cooking and cooking and cooking, but her sister is just sitting there in the living room talking to Jesus.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And she gets mad and she says, Jesus says, make her come and help.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: She should be serving too.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, No, what she's doing is more important than serving.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to take that away from her because she's sitting here getting to know me.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: We're in the living room talking, she's finding out information about me, and you're over there serving me, which is fine, but you can't know me by serving me.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Mary's getting to know me, and that's what he said.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is the important part.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is what has to happen.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can serve me and make me meals from now, three times a day from now to the rest of your life, and you'll never know me just by serving me.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Y'all see this because but and the point is that a lot of Christians they think that serving, by serving God, you'll get closer to God.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, Jesus said, I did not come to be served, I came to serve you, to be good to you.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: You hear it so much in church.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be a servant for God.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: We want to serve God.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, serve God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus says, No, talk to me.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Get to know me.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sit in the living room.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's let's have some talk.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens when you're when when Mary's sitting in the living room with Jesus and they're sitting right next to each other and they're talking, guess what's happening?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: She's getting to know this guy.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: And why does Jesus like it so much?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because he wants you to know him.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I like talking to Judy so much?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I love all her questions?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: I just like, here, know me.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Here's some more about me.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Here's some more.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Here's some more.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because you want that person to know you.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Quartz and all, here I am.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I like you, Judy, and I want you to know me.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And she was the exact same way.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we have this really great thing because of that.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: In John chapter 15, again, he says, No longer do I call you servants.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: John 15, verse 15.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't call you servants.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: One translation says, I never did.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: The word I no longer can also mean I never called you servants.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: I do not I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't have intimacy, doesn't have knowledge of the person.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know the master.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: He knows what the master demands.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: He knows what's what the master expects from him, but he doesn't know the person.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know what makes the master laugh.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know what makes the master what motivates him.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know what the master is thinking about things and situations without even talking to him.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: The servant can't do that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Martha could never know Jesus by staying in the kitchen.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But Mary could know Jesus by talking to him, asking him things.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: The servant doesn't know what the master is doing, but I've called you friends because everything that I've heard from my father, in other words, I want to tell you everything.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I love God.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that I heard from my father, I've made known to you.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Here I am, here I am.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Please come know me.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: What else do you want to know?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's a God who says, I want you to know me.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: He's not hiding in a cloud.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: He's not mysterious.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: Not mysterious like we think he is.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, here.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: He invaded our world.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't even asking for it.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: He invaded our world to reveal the Father to us.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Here he is.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're busy doing our legalism and doing our traditions and doing our rituals and all that and doing all those things and thinking.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, look what look what Jesus just said.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: Look what Jesus says in John chapter 5, verse 39, talking to the religious people, especially the religious leaders.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You're busy analyzing the scriptures.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: Frantically pouring over them in hopes of gaining eternal life.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Gonna learn this, gonna learn this, gonna learn this, gonna learn this.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: He says, You're always analyzing those scriptures, frantically pouring over them in hopes of gaining eternal life.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Everything you read is pointing to me, yet you still refuse to just come to me so I can give you the life that you're looking for, eternal life.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: He says, talk to the person that you're reading about.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not so what that's saying, no, is it not is not serving, and it's not in theology.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible is clear, just knowing stuff.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are there are atheists, professors who do not believe in God that can run circles around you and the knowledge of this book.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: They can tell you the history, they can tell you all kinds of things about it, they can tell you chapter and verse, they can they they they're they're experts in the in the book, but have no knowledge of God.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not theology.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Knowledge just puffs up.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: The Bible says knowledge puffs up, but love edifies, it builds up.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, I want to read this passage from Ephesians chapter 3 in the Passion Translation.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: It gets so good if we take these words and look at how powerful, they're pretty words, so we can just use them as poetry, but they're powerful.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I pray that he would unveil within you.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's Ephesians 3.16.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I pray that he would unveil within you or reveal to you that the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods, floods your innermost being.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I've been talking about a lot lately, that river of life that flows from that sea that's within us.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: It floods your innermost being, all of your soul, waters all of your garden.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: It floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's faith.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: As he is, so are you.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: He's the very source.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord is my shepherd.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: I shall not want.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you're coming to in finding out about him who loves you.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: You shall not want.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: You shall not want.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, as I read this, can we have the the singers and musicians come back up?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'd really, if it's okay, I'd really like to finish with that song again, Amber, that you were uh just leading us in.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're talking about this very thing today.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: This is the leading of God wants to reveal to us this river of life within us.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: This when I say he wants to reveal, it says he's he's he's inviting to intimacy, to knowing.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: He says, His love will become the very source and the root of your life.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences, every saint, that great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all of its dimensions.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: How deeply intimate, and how far-reaching is his love, how enduring it is, how inclusive it is.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you find out those things?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Ask him.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: Where did Paul get this thing?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't get it from going to church and listening to James preach in Jerusalem.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: Where did he get this?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: He says, I didn't talk to anybody.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: I went out there for 14 years by myself, and I got and I talked to God.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I came back, and that's where I got this stuff.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And everything God told me, it did not contradict all the scriptures that I learned.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it made them very clear.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I can go back to all those scriptures, and all they had was the Old Testament in those days, and I go back and I bring out all those scriptures and say, this is what God meant, this is what God was talking about.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: How do I now understand those scriptures that I had no understanding of before?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: I thought they were rules for me to keep, and I tried to keep them.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Where did I get this other thing?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: I got it from him.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Where did he get this language?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's people, do you realize what this is?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's endless love.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's during, it's inclusive.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's enduring, it's inclusive.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: It transcends our understanding.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's bigger than we can think about.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's the extravagant love that pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Never doubt God's mighty power to work in you and accomplish this.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's big enough, strong enough, he's certainly good enough, and he wants to.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if God wants to, ultimately it's gonna be done.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: His will be done.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: All the earth shall be filled.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Get that today.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: You're dealing with stuff?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Ask God about this.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it'll blow everything, all your limitations away every single time.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he gives to all men liberally and he upgrades not.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't find fault with you.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: You will not come to know God and learn how to be more of a jerk.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to learn that, I'll tell you, watch CNN, watch Fox, watch all those things.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: They'll show you how to how to accuse, how to be a jerk, how to hate.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's what they'll do.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm running into Christians around the country telling me certain news venues are preaching truth.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: I say, God, if that's you, then I don't know you.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: He will achieve more, infinitely more, than your greatest request.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: He will achieve more than your most unbelievable dream.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: He will exceed your wildest imagination.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: He will outdo them all.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: When you know him, you know he's that big.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: He will outdo them all for his miraculous power constantly is energizing you.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church and every generation through Jesus Christ, and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Paul saw this.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where did he see it?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't get it from the scribes and the Pharisees.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: He got it from the person that told it to him, who revealed his heart.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Paul, son, here's what I want.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what I see.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what's coming from my heart.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: I want us to close out with this.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: I will be back next Sunday.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day and don't forget the offering.