Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Behold the Beauty

Transcript

Behold the Beauty · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Grace Orlando.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Orlando, where it's sunny.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Eighty-five today, I think, right?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or something like that.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: See, I you know what I just heard?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's almost hard to celebrate that when you know uh people are suffering.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just joking about that.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh, there's a lot of cold weather out there um in this time.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um but anyway, Father, we thank you for everything.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I I thank you for everyone that's here.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I just want to pray right now, Father, that your breath, your spirit would would um bring life to those that are dealing with hard things today, the hard things of life, and you are our life.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thank you, Father, for the fresh breath of your spirit upon their life, their heart, their mind, their situation, that it restores their soul, refreshes them in their body.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I thank you, Father, that you're the one that we can trust.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're with you, we're in you, you're in us, we're together with you, and we're always safe.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you, Father, for your goodness today.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for showing yourself to us in a beautiful, wonderful way that we can we can go away astonished that we have beheld the beauty of God as you spoke to our hearts.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for this.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the name of our Savior, we thank you, Jesus.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I um I want to start with this.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: I somebody brought up a good question when I finished last week uh that I would have liked to get into, actually, but you know, you don't have time to do everything.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I'm getting some amens already, and just wait till you hear what I have to say.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The little baby amens, those are good.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and uh uh, you know, you don't have time to get into, but but someone asked a good question about it because I was talking about how the you know the separation of man and God, it was in the mind of God.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible even brings that out, that, that out clearly.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus brings about the truth, and he he bears witness to the truth and how we are actually one with God.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus was a correction.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was a, he, he was, he was a fresh breath of God for the for the planet Earth at that time.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now the spirit of him living within us uh is that breath that's that's that's in us and is bringing the reality, the truth of God to us all the time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: But someone says, well, if it was just in our mind, if it was we were separated uh, you know, in our in our thinking, and you know, God was always there with us, then why did Jesus die?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why what what about the shedding of blood and and and and you know uh wasn't there a debt to pay?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, wasn't there something that had to be taken care of there?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and of course, the old idea is that there was a debt that man had owed to God.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's what many of us have heard.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I heard it for a long time, thought that for a long time, and that we owed God this debt, and then Jesus paid this debt.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: One of the fallacies with that is let's say, let's say I borrow$100 from you.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now I owe you$100, and uh now I'm having trouble paying you back.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I've got a friend who says, Well, here, I'll take care of that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so my friend goes and pays you that$100.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then you come up to me after that and you say, Rick, I've got good news.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to forgive that debt.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Was that debt forgiven?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, because the debt was paid.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, in that kind of thinking, in that, in what Jesus did on the cross, we don't have, we don't have a forgiveness there.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's no this wonderful Father that we know, whose mercy endures forever, who is love, and his love is everlasting and never failing, who's who's who's a who we know is a God of forgiveness.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: We don't even see forgiveness with the with Jesus on the cross because Jesus would be more of a payment than the Father forgiving us.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: You were thinking about that.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so so so then then what then what was it about?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the cross.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: What does the cross say to you?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Everything about it indicates because of that bloodshed, the picture we have.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We see the Old Testament, there were sacrifices of animals, bulls, and goats and all that.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then we look at Jesus on the cross and he says, Well, if that's it's if if if if this issue is this sin and this sacrifice and all that, then I'll put an end to that and become the finality of all of that.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything about the cross says, no separation between you and God.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: No?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: No separation between you and God, but Jesus.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: See, because the blood of bulls and goats could never purge your conscience of sin, but Jesus can.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus didn't have to convince a vengeful God whose hands are bound by justice.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't have to satisfy a God like that.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't the mind of the father that got satisfied about that whole sin issue.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was my mind that got satisfied about that whole sin issue.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel does that for me.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: The father's mind didn't need to change about you because the Bible says he loved you, and that's why he gave.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: But my mind needed to change about God.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And thank God for the beauty of the gospel, because it changes my mind about the Father.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when it changes my mind about the Father, it has a work and starts changing my mind about who I am, and certainly about who you are.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And love starts to abound.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, let's get into this because Jesus is the correction.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the fresh breath of God.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to talk about really the difference between the word and the spirit, I guess.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Look at a man, there's a man named Nicodemus.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, and he came to Jesus, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we know the story.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is where Jesus says, unless a man is born again, you can't see the spirit of God, you can't see the kingdom of God.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And Nicodemus is like, uh, so is what?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You go back into your womb and all that, and he says, No, he says, I'm talking to you about spiritual things.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, unless a man is born of the spirit and of the water and of the spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then, and and if you know anything, you know, here's Nicodemus, and he's a man of the Pharisees, and he's a learned man because the Bible says he was a teacher in Israel.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um I'm going to have to need some water, but you bring that up to me.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm keeping looking.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: He was a teacher, thank you.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was a teacher in Israel.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so he knows the scriptures.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, unless you're born of the spirit and of water, you water of the spater and spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a direct reference to Ezekiel 36, where God said that I will wash you with pure water and you shall be clean, and I will put my spirit in you, and you are, you will have a, I'll take away that stony heart, and you'll have a heart of flesh or a soft heart.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so Nicodemus hears what Jesus is saying, and he says, How can these things be?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't get it.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when Jesus says, You're a teacher in Israel, and you don't know these kinds of things.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Because I'm and then he starts talking to him about the spirit.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm talking to you about spiritual things.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's which is a flesh is flesh, is spirit is spirit.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about those who are born of the spirit.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about, when you say born again, he the what it really means is to be born from above, or born from the spirit, or born from the from the beginning, actually.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, you don't know these things.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a here's a dilemma that we have in that time.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes to be a fresh breath to people that are studying scriptures and doing all they can to try to understand God and try to understand the things of God.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know what we do with scriptures?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we study them, we we look, we we we go through there and we put them together and we we piece things together and we we we discuss it with each other, maybe debate it with each other, and have disagreements with each other about it, and all these.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to understand all these things with all his life's work of learning these scriptures and even teaching the scriptures, and Jesus comes along talking about something spiritual, and Nicodemus can't even connect.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're a teacher in Israel, and you don't know about spiritual things, and so you can be very learned, and and I I I have seen over the years, and I certainly have saw it strongly in myself, that you can be very zealous for the scriptures, and you can miss the spirit of life the whole time, even New Testament scriptures.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: So then a couple of chapters after that, then Jesus is speaking to some Pharisees, and in chapter 5 of John, verse 38, he says this nor does God's word truly live inside you.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, something about Jesus, when he brings this in, Jesus come that we would have life.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus brings in life, he brings in the spirit, he's bringing in something that just that that that people that are think that they're sticklers for the for the for the scriptures, they just don't get him because the things he's talking about are so so different.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, his word, which is the word logos, what does logos mean?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the living expression of God.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's the word.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The beginning was the word, and the word was God.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and his word does not live in, or excuse me, his newly, nor does his word truly live inside of you because you refuse to believe in me or to embrace me as God's messenger.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're not bearing witness with me.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in other words, you're still over here in carnality flesh.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're very serious about the scriptures because he says, next verse, you're busy analyzing the scriptures, pouring over them, hoping to gain eternal life.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you read points to me.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now he says, You're you're busy analyzing the scriptures.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: We know that this is their life's purpose here.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: They love doing this.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but he says, the scriptures, the first verse said, you don't have the word in you.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: The logos is that word, the living word, the person, the one that made everything.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Word.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: But you're analyzing the graphe.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Logos, graphe.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Grafe is written words.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Logos is living word that speaks, imparts life, makes all the difference, lifts you out of just low-level carnality and into understanding of God and heavenly things.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, who brings that whole thing to us, is that wisdom to us in this day, and he comes to us, comes to us in that hour and bringing it as a breath of fresh air to planet Earth.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it looks very, very different than anything else that they've been doing.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we I want us to see a difference here.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: There was a man named Saul of Tarsus, and um, you know, we know there was a story about him on his way to Damascus to basically to get some Christians arrested and then killed.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: He was the Bible says he was angry at the great Christians and had just and and wanted them to die.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we know he has a conversion.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's Saul of Tarsus, who we find out by reading about him later, that he was he was very, very zealous for the things of God and the traditions, and he was a Pharisee, and he was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, and concerning him and his peers, he excelled, excelled above uh beyond them.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was into it, man.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: You talk about being into the scriptures, talking about being one who analyzes the scriptures and pours over them and thinks that he's getting it that way, or at least in that direction, because whatever these people that are believing in Jesus are doing, they're totally wrong and they're messing up everything, and really the best thing to do is to have them arrested and killed.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he thinks about it all.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he has this conversion, and in the conversion, the Bible says that on his way to Damascus, that this bright, shining, this bright light shined around him.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: And Saul fell down and he said, Who are you, Lord?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Who are you, Lord?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: A bright light shined around him.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened, and it didn't just happen around him.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Something illuminated, something blasted inside of him.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Something hit his heart, apparently, would you say?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: For him to cry out, who are you, Lord?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: It had to be more than just an outward physical thing going on because it changed his life and the direction of the world, actually.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And something happened inside him that would transform him.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, his his conversion was very, very dramatic, and probably very few people you've ever met have a similar story.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: You might look at that and say, Well, mine wasn't anything like that.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, mine is still going very gradually, and you know.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: But still, there's something very, very similar to what happened there because Paul would write later on in 2 Corinthians 3, said that God who has who has radiated brilliantly in our hearts, shined brightly in our hearts.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Acts 3, he's on the road.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: There was a light that shined brightly, and it brought him to his knees.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Who are you, Lord?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says that God who commanded light to shine out of the darkness has shin brilliantly in our hearts in order to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God that we see in the face of Jesus, who is expressing God to us.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But the shining, but it's not just learning about the life of Jesus, it's not just learning about the teachings of Jesus so we can know what are we supposed to do and what are we not supposed to do, pouring over them that scriptures that way, thinking in that in them you'll find eternal life.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: But it's in the one who radiates brilliantly in our hearts in order to give the light and the knowledge of the glory and goodness of God.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what's happening to you.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's been happening to you for quite some time, probably, and will continue to happen is that radiance and that bright light of the spirit not the letter, but the spirit.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, Paul says about himself in Galatians 1, verse 15.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there again, I want you to think about Paul.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: He has that bright light experience.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you, Lord?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of other amazing things went on about that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And something happened in him so clear, so real, so dramatic and dynamic that when Ananias finds him to pray for him so he can see again with his physical eyes, he goes and stays with them.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: He takes them on, takes him on to Damascus, where he was going to have some Christians killed.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that right there, he stayed with him about a week, but in that time, Paul was preaching Jesus.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hadn't even studied this whole New Covenant yet, this New Testament, hadn't studied the book of Romans.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: But he's preaching Jesus.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: What happened to him?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: He saw something.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: What happened to this man that had been pouring over the scriptures, that knew all the traditions, that knew that written word?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: What happened?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Something just like he described radiated brilliantly in him, and he became convinced.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: He saw something so powerful that changed everything when he said, Who are you, Lord?
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because apparently, when you say, Who are you, Lord?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: apparently you're saying, I guess I don't know who you are.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So who are you?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, He revealed his son in me.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then it says in verse 16, to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn't immediately confer with flesh and blood.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I didn't immediately, I didn't go get taught by those guys.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_02: Something was going on in me.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, he went away for three years.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: What happened to there?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know exactly, but I know one thing that happened.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation was happening.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Life was happening, spirit was happening, unveiling of God's glory was happening because this is the man that writes so much about it.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Unveiling of heavenly things was happening because this man's writing so much about it.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I was caught up into heaven.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know he's talking about himself.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and I heard things uttered that are not lawful for men.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, are those unlawful things bad things?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because they certainly were lawful in heaven.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what were why did he say they were unlawful for men?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because for men, to men they were.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: They were so unlawful that in those few days when he was with Ananias in Damascus and they were, and then he went and he was preaching Jesus, in his first few days of this illumination that's happened to him, they the man who went to go have Christians killed, now those Jews are wanting him to be killed in Damascus.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because what he was uttering was not lawful to them.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, why are you why you why must you do what's unlawful?
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why must you say these things?
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm just saying what I hear my father say, I'm just doing what I see my father do.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's unlawful.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can't say that.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: A man need a man came to for healing and you said, Your sins are forgiven.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's unlawful.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: You called Gat, you called God your daddy, your father?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's unlawful.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do that.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: We can't say his name.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: We can't even write it out.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you're calling him your father, it's blasphemy.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do that.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can't give people a God like you're giving.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can't validate sinners the way that you're doing.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be friends with them.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can't eat with them.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: You what are they gonna think?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: What message does that send?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna keep the sin out of Israel if you keep treating sinners like that?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: Not right.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: So they thought.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: But Saul Saul of Tarsus has this change.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the big one of the big changes that we don't want to overlook is that he realizes what's happening to him too.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that he's gone from flesh to spirit in these things.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the man that writes so much about spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit and flesh, spirit and flesh, spirit and flesh, not flesh, but spirit, not flesh, but spirit, because I was in the flesh, but spirit.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so many, so, so, so, so different.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the spirit, this is where you get to live by your authentic self, your heart of hearts, the things you really know.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever have you ever just slowed down with yourself and just said what do I really, really believe about God?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: In my heart.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not what not if I can just push aside everything I've ever thought, or everything I've been taught, or everything that that even might seem to make sense, what do I really believe about God?
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I did it.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: It scared me.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: It scared me.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I felt like I was going someplace that I like.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: It scared me.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: Why did it scare me?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because what will they say?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: That can't be right.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I would pull back.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: But then I was curious.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, here's what happens to some of us that just go crazy about God like this.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who really go crazy into life and just really fall in head over heels in love with God because we just believe that he's head over heels in love with us.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we just believe that his grace is sufficient, his mercy endures forever.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And God loves you and he likes you and he loves me and he likes me and he likes and not just you.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And first we start to say he loves all the Christians.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then we start to say, you know what?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: God's even bigger than that.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: He loves all the everybody.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, yeah, but even the ones, yes, and we're crazy like that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And like, you can't say that.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because that starts taking away some of these laws and some of these rules.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, I no, God, I can't think.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: I started finding myself changing about people.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, I can't love those people.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not supposed to.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think good thoughts about them.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: No, they're they're they're wicked, they're evil.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_02: You keep getting pulled.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I got too close to the water when I said, What do I really believe?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the spirit was drawing me to life.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: The spirit was teaching me life.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: The spirit was showing me things.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what I began to notice was that everything that I saw, even if it was contrary to what I had found, putting my Lego God together with scripture here and scripture there and scripture there, some good, some bad, some positive, some negative.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: What I found was everything that was revealed to me, just like Paul was writing about, and I think he was hoping that we wouldn't make some kind of rule book out of his writings.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why did Paul say this?
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're not supposed to do that.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, that wasn't my point.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, the things that we see, I noticed they were always something more beautiful than what I thought before.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: It made God bigger than what I thought he was before.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It made God more beautiful than what I thought he was before.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to deal with that.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So how can this be wrong?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm just messing with my own mind here.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm just, maybe I want a God that's that good.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should stick to the God that's not that good.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to keep going back to look at it.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like Moses, who saw this bush that burns and it doesn't make sense.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can't, it you can't do that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, finally he says, I'm gonna turn.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna turn and look at this thing.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: This bush that burns, but it doesn't kill.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't burn it out.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's still alive.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_02: This thing, and when he looks at that, he finds himself, oh, he's on holy ground.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because God has always been there.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul made this statement.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Being someone who was a Pharisee like Nicodemus and doing all that stuff, he comes into this thing life.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's willing because of the light that shined in him so beautifully and brightly, he's like, I don't know about any of that stuff, but whatever it is, this has got to show me.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know this is my life.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: This life has come to me.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: So he writes things about the flesh and the spirit.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if you look at that, see, they uh they used to teach it to me in in church almost like whenever he mentioned living after the flesh, it was like living in living in debauchery and ugliness and sin and and rape and murder and and and depending on your church, you know, drinking a beer or soda pop out of a bottle, because that's kind of close too, or playing cards that have kings and queens on them, or dressing a certain way, you know, and go from that all the way to the worst.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But that's flesh.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's what the that's what they thought the Bible meant by flesh.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: But in Paul's context, it was never he, it was always about what he how he was operating, how he was operating in his mind with God before.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all carnal, and it was all flesh, and it was all his own intellect without the spirit that gives life.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: But he meant the spirit that gives life.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: It pleased God to unveil his son in me.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul would write later on that that that even when even to this day, you can read Moses, you can read the reading of the Old Testament, and there's still a veil over your heart.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Take it from me, Paul would say.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I lived it.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in Christ the veil is removed.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: For when the heart turns to the Lord, the veil is unveiled, and we behold the glory.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is all about.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: To behold the beauty, the glory, and the goodness of God.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he makes this statement in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 6.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: God has made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, the graphe, but of the spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: So not ministering by the letter.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know that you notice how Jesus, in his way he would teach people, he didn't say, as a rabbi, as some as as recognized as a leader, a teacher.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't get his little group together and say, All right, now let's get somebody grab a book from the Torah, grab Deuteronomy, and let's go verse by verse.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not knocking verse by verse Bible study, but I'm just saying we don't see Jesus doing that in his situation.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see him like, let's let's figure this out, let's learn, let's go over it, let's try to decipher it, and let's try to get the correct interpretation of it, and let's do that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with having understanding in those things.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: But his ministry happened to be one where he would just, he would say, the kingdom of heaven is like this.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of heaven's that way.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Your heavenly father is like this.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he would teach, and he would use parables to take something as complex as trying to understand this big God and this eternal kingdom of heaven.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we'd take these simple farm stories and lay it alongside it to try to give understanding of something very complex so that we could have an entrance into something, because what he was about was declaring and revealing the beauty, the good news of the Father.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul himself would write, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: The letter kills.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: So let me give and let me let me read this.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy chapter 3 goes along with this, verse 16.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: It says, every writing is God breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, correction, for instruction that is in righteousness.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: Every writing is God-breathed.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: You see that in that the word is is italicized.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's really, it's not there.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you can just make it say it the way that it makes most sense to you.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so many people will say, all the all the letters, all the writings, all the scriptures here that we have here, they are God-breathed.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Another way of reading it, and you can do this by looking at a Greek inner, I mean a Greek interlinear or whatever, and and look at the how how it's worded, you could also just as just as authoritatively say every God-breathed scripture.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you why that fits more.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because without the breath, the scripture itself or the letter is uh it is dead, and it kills.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll show you, I'll give you an example.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think so many people struggle with looking at the scriptures and looking for the rule, making it the rule book and making it what you're supposed what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It kills okay.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was a woman caught in adultery, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: People brought her to Jesus, and they also brought the scripture.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: They said the scripture says, Moses says, said that she should be stoned.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, what's it what's that scripture about to do?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_02: Kill.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: But they bring her to Jesus and they bring that scripture to Jesus.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: The scripture says she should be killed.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: What say you?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus brings the breath onto it, because every God breeds scripture.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: See, that scripture's gone kill.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can still look at that today.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard fellow believers in Jesus look point back to things like that.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard fellow believers point back to Old Testament stuff similar to this as reasons why we really just need to go kill all the liberals in America and that'll make everything better.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got some scripture that can kill for that, you know?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And every God-breathed scripture.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So are you saying that that what what that what Moses wrote was not inspired or was not God breathed?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm saying Jesus is the inspiration and he's the breath of God.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus takes that scripture.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what happens in the story, but ultimately what we see in the end of it.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Does the woman get killed?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, because of what Jesus does with that scripture.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't throw it away and say, no, you don't have to listen to that.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: But he takes it and contextualizes it in a way that brings life.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because he takes that same scripture and he says, Okay, okay, all right, she should be stoned.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: He that's without sin, do it.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: You you start.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: And what he does, what happens then is that same scripture that was supposed to kill that woman reveals to him what the God breathed word will do to all of us.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: That you know what?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: They can't do this either.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: They're not that great at keeping the law either.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: They got exposed.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that exposure can bring life.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Another thing it did was it got those church people to drop their stones.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it removed condemnation because he said, Well, where are your where are your condemners?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Who's here to condemn you now?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: She says there's nobody.
• 33:32
  unknown: Why?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because that same word, and all we have is that one scripture, she should be stoned, but you put Jesus into that.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: She says, There's no condemners.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever wake up with a revelation one time in your life and you just kind of looked around and said, There's no condemners?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Neither do I condemn you.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever have an awakening?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Did a light ever shine in your heart where you said, He doesn't condemn me?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that word, that scripture that could kill.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus took that scripture, breathed on it, if you will, gave life, gave life to the very scripture that looked like it should have killed.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And it brought life to the person.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: I remember hearing so long and even preaching for so long how we gotta be, we gotta crucify our flesh.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta do it.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta crucify the flesh.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep working on it, let's keep working on it.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: How many years?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't know.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's been about 20 so far, maybe another 20.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's keep working on it.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Crucify that flesh.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Deny that self.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Deny our self.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, who is our self?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't ever taught you that, but just deny it.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who are you?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then that scripture bringing death, and that's a New Testament scripture.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because the letter kills.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's the spirit that brings life.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: It became a God-breathed scripture to me.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: The breath of God, the living life of God, lit me up, opened my eyes, and I'm like, you've done this.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you've seen it for the first time.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: How did I miss it?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have been crucified in Christ.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: The old man is dead.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm alive.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not an Adam.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in Christ.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: I start lighting up.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because the scripture by itself, it's not like you open the book and it's like all this stuff.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's the scripture is a letter.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_02: But the logos, the word brings life.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to finish with this verse, this passage here.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: I just alluded to it a moment ago.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: Verse 14.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now Paul had this is where he actually, this chapter is where he talks about the letter killing, but the spirit bringing life.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he actually calls that ministry that they were operating in the ministry of death, because the letter kills.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they had the letter.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: But Jesus came that did have life.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we could see.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: But their minds were blinded, Paul wrote.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Which is all that they had in those days, you know.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because the veil is taken away in Christ.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: This whole thing was not just to get us to find the correct doctrine.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think it's grace now.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: I see it now.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than that.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's bigger than getting a good doctrine of grace.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's great.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: But for in my instance, accepting a grace that was sufficient, that opened the door to a glory that was astonishing, and a mercy that was forever, and a love that was ever enduring and bigger than I could see, and I can't find the bottom of this.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm amazed every single day because of what is shining in me.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And how did this happen?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, for the life.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the light.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that my heart now rejoices where it once struggled with trying to appease and to please and to figure out what you want from me.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you that I'm feeling at home in heaven and with my father.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And another good thing is I'm feeling much more at home with my fellow man.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Much more in love.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening to me?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't me.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Judy and I were in a conference recently, and somebody said, one thing I'll say about Rick and Judy, they they love well.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought he might have been exaggerating in some anyway, even in the natural, but they love well, they love well.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, there was a day nobody said that.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Even as a Christian minister at one point.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, Rick's got this, he's anointed, he can do this, oh, he's good at this, he's good at that.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't think I ever heard anybody say he loves well.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: How did this happen?
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: It just, the Spirit is giving life.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's opening our eyes, and we're beholding, and the veil is being more and more peeled away.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what this is about is not are we are we carrying the correct doctrine or not?
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Those guys say it's that one, we think it's this one, they think it's that one.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Which one is it?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's so much higher than that.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is so low level, and it's part of the separation mentality, the us and them and us.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: Man, you start to see beauty and the oneness with God.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, that sounds like that sounds new eight, new agey to me, or or what sounds like some kind of ism or some kind of some kind of kind of something.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I Paul, who was a Pharisee, and you know what Pharisee means, right?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Separatist, then writes, There is no Jew nor Greek, male nor female, bond or free, for all are one in Christ.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 16.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, that veil is taken away.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord is the Spirit, the Spirit, and where the Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: But all of us, with the unveiled face, we look, and it's like looking in a mirror.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: We behold his glory.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but Rick, well, look, let's look over this.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: When it says this, I'm like yeah, yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hang on a minute.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm beholding the glory.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let me gaze at his beauty.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you think about these people that think that I don't kind of don't even want to talk about them right now?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel like I just love them all.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not right, I know, but I can't help it.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're beholding, it's like looking in a mirror.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're understanding us.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Who are we?
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: One with Him.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're transformed.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Change is happening to you by the by the into that same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Would y'all stand up?
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: See, I want us to recognize that we're being taught, we're being comforted, we're being loved, we're being led, we're being shown life for you to ever know and grow in.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the more you do where the Spirit of the Lord is, where the Spirit is doing ministry like this, there's freedom, there's liberty, and you're free to love, and you're free to feel it feel at ease and peace and in awe of God.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you're free to have peace with yourself in spite of all your perceived flaws.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: You're lovable, you're likable, a child of God.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your time.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: God bless you.