Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / You Are Not a Failure

Transcript

You Are Not a Failure · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I want to bring uh to start out uh this morning, I want to bring Judy up here and help me start this off.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um I want to talk about of course the title says that you're not a failure.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh um we want to talk about a misunderstanding that so many people in the world have.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: So many people think that their uh their faults or their flaws or the things that don't work out or the things they don't do well, uh it seems like it reflects back on on them.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Even in Christianity, people feel like there's always something more I need to do.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not quite as good as I should be, or I'm not doing something as much as I should, and I keep pressing and trying.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh maybe you uh, you know, someone was talking to us the other day and was talking about how every every time they start something, they'll they'll do it for a while, and then it and then they they uh you know, then they don't seem to follow through.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this person was just feeling so bad because he's thinking, like, I guess I just don't have what it takes.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I just don't have the self-discipline to to stick with things, and it seems like he like he just fails all the time.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about his, you know, he's talking about how how much he weighs, and he's never never been so fat, and he's just like, and and uh he says, he says, I guess the reason is I just don't have the willpower or the self-discipline and all that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he just feels like he's failing in all the all these ways, and so many people do.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we want to cut through that and tell the truth about that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: We've got some real good news about it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I wanted Judy to come up and and share something, because this started uh I guess last week sometime or week before, and we were talking about something, and because Judy, she she's always uh she's really into to health and and feeling good and eating well and and not not cultic, not crazy about it at all.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: She's not.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: She you can by the way she feeds me, you can tell she's not crazy about it.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But but she but but she it's interesting to her, and she's and she likes to read and study these things, and she was talking about something she had she she was uh uh uh uh looking at, and it just it sparked something in me.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, wow, this is just just how it applies to the kingdom of God.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing that people haven't seen this before, but people in the world are getting duped by a lot of the the things that are put out there for us, and a lot and a lot of people just buy it, and and it seemed like they fail in so many things, and it always comes back on the person.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're left just trying and trying and trying and trying.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this this kingdom, this gospel is not about putting the burden on us, it's about taking it off.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and and we see when we look at the gospel how this yoke that Jesus said to take upon him is an easy yoke because he's carrying all the weight.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to share a little bit about what you were telling me about, and I'll give you the mic here.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about two different systems, the world system and the kingdom of God system.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: That word cosmos in the Bible means system.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And in the world system, I'm gonna talk a little bit about the system of the diet culture because this is something that has impacted me a lot.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um when I was young, when I was growing up, I was tall.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, I come from a family of larger bodied people, and uh I did not want to be in a large body.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to be as small as possible.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: I thought all the cute girls at school were the petite ones, the cute ones, and I just desperately wanted to be small.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And luckily, I didn't have any real issues with um staying small.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I remember in my teens, I looked at a magazine.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I get my culture, what I thought was beautiful from the magazines, and in this magazine there was a model, and she sort of looked similar to me, and I was the same height as her.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember looking in the cover, the weight they showed what her weight was.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I decided in that moment that would be my weight, and so I I went along with that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I went to school, I went into theater acting, I did some modeling, and I stayed at that weight.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But as I got older, I started coming out of that weight, gaining weight, and I got desperate, like panicked that I was going to become a larger person.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I wore a size well when I was working in at Disney, I wore character shoes, and I wore size nine character shoes, and I ended up having to go to the doctors because my feet developed uh bunions because my my size was really not nine, it was ten.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I caused issues in my feet because I so desperately did not want to be a size ten.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I wanted to be a size nine.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the same thing happened with my weight.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up going into treatment and I I was never anorexic or bulimic, but I was obsessed in my mind about weight and gaining weight, and I felt like my whole career depended on getting to that weight that I had learned just randomly had taken out of a magazine somewhere, and I was in treatment for six years and got some help in that area, but I'll say, even as after that, you know, in the world, there's all these magazines, there's all this predetermined idea of what beauty is, and it's always thin, and it's always this perfectly sculpted body.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you have any like cellulite dimples, it is really um awful, like for for for a woman, you know, and because what we're doing is we're comparing our natural bodies to actually a body that doesn't exist.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're they're um what's that called?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Airbrushed.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: Airbrushed, they're airbrushed.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So you're looking and comparing yourself to an airbrushed image.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I did some research and I found that 91% of women hate their bodies.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: 91%.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is in America, and uh 70% of girls are dissatisfied with their body.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: 50% of girls age 5 to 12 want to lose weight.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: So and this woman who was doing the research, she asked over a hundred women to describe their bodies, and the most common word used was disgusting.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in the if you think about it, um God created all these different sizes and shapes, and they're all beautiful, but because our eyes have been trained to this world system, we think only thin is beautiful, only this certain particular shape and size is beautiful, and it messes with our minds.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Even when you decide, okay, I'm not gonna fall for that system, I'm just gonna love my body just exactly as it is.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: Even then, um you still have the challenge of what your brain has been trained in for so long.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought when I was sharing it with Rick, it's very similar to the religious world and how we have this idea of perfection and what Jesus wants from us, and we try and we try to get an unattainable thing, and we wear ourselves out.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as women, I feel like we have worn ourselves to the bone, constantly thinking, always talking about what we can't have, what we can't, you know, can have, can't have.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a system that puts all the burden on the woman and and does not help her to achieve it, just like the law.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly like the law.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh and it's in in much the same way.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, we have there's been projected to us, given to us somehow by uh religious teaching and maybe assumption that there is a perfect model of the Christian believer, that there's the perfect model of a child of the kingdom of God, that there is that you're supposed to be and look just like this.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of you know, they may just say um Jesus is our is our example that we're supposed to emulate.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're you're you're going to fail doing that.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's not our our example.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was our our savior, substitute, sacrifice, he was everything.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was the he's the empowerer.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's not he's not just the the model and says, now everybody try hard and look like me.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what he did.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of more what the what the law did in the Old Testament, uh, the knowledge of good and evil.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um in fact, Adam and Eve failed in the very beginning, um, but it wasn't really their failure.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: They chose a system that was doomed to failure.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I and and I also remember Judy talking to me about the the diet thing, says, says, Why is it that that that diets come and go after time, and then there's another one, another one.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And nowadays you can get on uh social media or or whatever, get on get on your phone or whatever, and there's somebody offering this new scientific breakthrough program that they've discovered, and this is going to take care of you.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you just do this, if you if you'll eat this particular thing or whatever, and there's always something else.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they do that?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're designed to fail.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: They can't help it.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you ever failed at something like that, I got good news.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't fail it, it failed you.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when Adam and Eve, you know, they've got the they've got the two systems, if you will, kingdoms.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's one that's life, where that life would be the source for everything instead of the demand or the knowledge of good and evil, which was another system that looked like man has failed in all the time, but it's the system that has failed us.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus came to give us life.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: He came to give us something that does not fail.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because the system puts all of the burden on you and I.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: It always comes back on us.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: If we fail, we feel bad.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like a failure, we feel like we didn't have what it takes.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and I've had Christian friends, I've I've had, uh I've seen so many, and you have too.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them, it really hurts me because way back in the day, when I met the Lord, there were other people that I used to run around with and and and live like the devil and act like the devil, and after a while they saw how good it was for me, and they followed in.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: They they actually came to God and and and gave their heart to him, but but a lot of them um bailed out uh pretty soon.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they would say things like, Rick, I'm sorry, I just I tried it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in God, but I just can't live that Christian life.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not for me.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it, you have what it takes.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have what it takes.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they felt like they failed at being a Christian.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if they you know the truth, there's no way to fail because it's not about anything you do, it's all about what he has done for us.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and so I want to start, I want to look at something here, I guess beginning in Galatians chapter 1, and I want to look at at somebody who who was a was a success in a system that it seemed like so many others were failing, or it looked like he was a success, and that was Paul.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we see how Paul brags about how good he was.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, he's he's not really bragging so people would think he did good.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's showing how well he did in a system.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians chapter 1, verse 14, is where he says, I advanced in Judaism, that system.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Paul did real good at it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was the one that if he were going to make a uh a self-help uh video system that you could buy online, he's the one that would get on there and say, you know, here's how I do it.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it too, just buy my system, and you'll be just like he because I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation because I was more exceedingly, exceedingly zealous for the tradition of my father's.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So his pitch would be all you need is passion, all you need is motivation.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you how to get it.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then people are listening like, well, I've that's why I've been failing.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just haven't had the passion, the motivation.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just haven't been able to keep my willpower going in the long term.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this guy's gonna help me.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we look at another verse in Philippians chapter 3.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Paul again talking about how good he, how how he has worked the system in verse chapter 3, verse 4.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said, Though I also might have confidence in the flesh.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if anybody else thinks that he can have confidence in his flesh, I do more.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Look at me, verse 5.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm of the tribe of Benjamin.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have the bloodline.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, nobody's more Jew than I am.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's more a descendant of Abraham than I am.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Concerning the law, I was a Pharisee.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: None of them were stronger than us.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: None of them did it better than us, and I am one of those.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Concerning zeal, I persecuted the church.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: How much passion do you have for God?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Have you done that?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've done it.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he did it because he thought that's what God wanted him to do.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh concerning zeal or passion or motivation, he said, I persecuted the church.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Concerning the righteousness which is in the law, in the law, blameless.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Means I lived squeaky clean.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, the other Pharisees, the other people that were believing and following that system, Paul would have been an example.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Paul would have been a guy in the church that people were like, I wish I could just be like Paul.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could be as passionate as Paul is.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could pray like Paul does.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could be as spotless in my life and live that squeaky clean, you know, life for God like Paul does.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, but the things that seemed like they were something to me, the things that were gained to me, these I've now counted lost for Christ.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've given them up.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says they were actually nothing.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, indeed, I count everything lost for the excellence uh excuse me.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yet I can't I count everything lost for the excellence of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I've suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when he's talking about losing everything, he's not talking about losing his car and losing his shoes and losing his house and and all that.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about I've lost or given up or thrown away, really, all those things that I once thought were important, the things that I was doing, the things that I was working in that system, the things that made me uh look successful, he says, now that I know Jesus, they are absolutely powerless.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're nothing compared to what I now have simply by knowing him.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not by doing all these things, but simply by knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I count them as rubbish, verse 9, and I and and uh I count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which comes from the law, the system, knowledge of good and evil type of system, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God, from God simply by faith, or believing, trusting in him.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now we go to Romans chapter 7, and we look at Paul some more.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul so far here is laid out, he says, he says, All these things I've done, but I've thrown them away.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I did it good.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: You guys that are trying to excel in this system, you guys that are trying to make yourself better in this system, you guys that are trying to get to the perfect model, maybe some of you see me as that model, Paul could say.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and if you think that I'm a good model of somebody following after God, he says, I want to tell you all these things I did, I count them as just crap, dung.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're nothing.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're all the things that I thought were so important, all the things I thought I needed to do, all the things I wanted to do, all the things that that I was doing so I could be a certain thing or a certain way, he says, it was all nothing.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in chapter 7, I'll just skip through a few verses here, but verse 10, talking about that commandment that he did so well in, he says, and the commandment which was supposed to bring life, I found it to bring death.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 15.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: For what I do, I don't understand.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I want to do, that's what for what I want to do, that's what I don't do.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: But what I hate, that's what I do.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 19.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: For the good that I want to do, I don't do it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the evil that I don't want to do, that's what I'm doing.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul is showing that he looks like he's he's succeeding in the system, but he's pulling back the curtains and he's saying, but let me tell you something.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I lived a squeaky, clean life, I didn't touch this, I didn't touch that, I didn't go to the show, I didn't play cards, I didn't drink coke out of a bottle, I didn't do anything close.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, he says, but let me tell you what was really going on behind the scenes.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: The things that I didn't want to do, I was doing them anyway.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The things that I really hated and really wanted to stop doing, I couldn't stop doing.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that I really wanted to do, I didn't have the power to do it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, Paul is saying, You think that I succeeded?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, There was a failure here.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I love that in chapter 7, I love this chapter because he's not calling himself a failure.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 21, I find then a law.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I have found a law that evil is still present with me, even when I will to do good.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, What it was was not me failing.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: That law failed me.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: That system failed me.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this whole fellow thing, this we're not, and this goes beyond just religious things, just just Old Testament versus New Testament things here.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: This goes into, it's all based on the knowledge of good and evil.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: All of the world's systems do this to us.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: That is why Judy gave the statistics that she did.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's why, without statistics, you know that people struggle with, why do they struggle with so much shame?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was it it entered in our it was like it was huge, it was it was in fallen man's DNA almost from the beginning when Adam, the first thing he experienced is shame.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because now he's got the knowledge of good and evil and he realizes, oh, I don't measure up to that knowledge.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't measure up to that model.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he's ashamed right off the bat.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Before he'd even done anything.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was naked before.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's naked after, but now that he's got the knowledge.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: See, he's still the same.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't fail.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: That knowledge of good and evil failed him.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: That system failed him.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the world system fails him.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think every ever there's so much, there is so much stuff out there trying to teach you how to be a success, trying to promise you success and all that, because everybody wants it.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wants to do better, everybody wants to, they want more, whether it no matter what it is.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Most people, or say a lot of people, it's it's it's that are if it's if it's only if it's really about um money and we all like it and it's great and it's fun and spend, and God gives us freely all things to enjoy.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: But but when that's your your thing, when it's like when you have this success thing, like I have to be a success, how do you measure that?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: There is no measure of it, so you you create your own measure or you get it from what somebody else says.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why your first million's not enough.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: You want more.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you want more.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: There are, why are why are billionaires being so cutthroat and playing these hard games and destroying companies and each other and so because they want more.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, it's not enough because they never get enough.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's this model out there.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think you have achieved the model, then it seems like it moves.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I call it that carrot on the carrot on the carrot on the string.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, What I found is a system.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I found a world, I found a law.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: This thing that I was doing, it was not of heaven.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was just of the world.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I found a law that no matter what, that the evil is still present with me.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still the same.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have failed to live up to that, but rather, he says, but it was that system or that law that failed me.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 24, and since that's that system or that law, since the way that I was that I was going failed me, oh wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: If that system didn't work for me, and then we go to chapter 8.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: If that diet didn't work for me, if that success program didn't work for me, if that that endeavor that I tried, if I failed at that, and everything, and all these failures are going on, if I've had a marriage and it failed and all that, I've got good news.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not the failure.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the system failed you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what you thought you were supposed to be failed you.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what you were trying to do gave you a false target.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when you compare that to what this beautiful gospel does, Jesus comes and takes all that off, and he doesn't, he makes no demands.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: He just says, Come, you've been working hard.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: All you that labor, you're heavy burdened.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where did those burdens come from?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's pointing to the religion, to the Pharisees and all that.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Woe to you.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You put heavy burdens on people, and you don't have, and you don't give them any power to remove those burdens.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: What were the burdens?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was all the things, the emulations, all the things you were supposed to be, all the things that you had to do, all the things that you needed to do.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then God would be pleased.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: According to the law, the Old Testament law, it had blessings attached to it.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you wanted favor according to that system, there were things you had to do.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus comes and says, I just give it to you, no matter what you do.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have favor.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you wake up tomorrow, that's all you got to do.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you're breathing, you've got favor.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to be blessed, you have to do these things according to the law.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the other side, if you don't do them, you're not even in the middle.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're cursed.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: There was like no middle room there.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do them, you're cursed.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't do them, he says you lose everything.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Everything bad will come down on you.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: But if you do them, then you'll be blessed.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So people like Paul do it all the work in the system, working it, working it.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when it's all said and done, I just don't get where I it just didn't produce what I was hoping it would produce.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Even in, you know, keep using this as an example because I think it's a good one.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: But in the diet culture, so many have experienced it.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it, I've watched so many people I know do it.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But they they they they they get into something that seems to work first.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they're all excited and they're posting pictures and just like, hey, look at me.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometime later it reverts because those things are not made.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: They cannot sustain because it's based all based upon your weak flesh, your ability.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's all on your strength, it's all on your willpower.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna deliver me from this?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried everything.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: People tell me everything I do doesn't work out.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And naturally I feel so bad because they feel like the failures.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: To hear that almost a hundred percent, ninety-something percent of a whole gender.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was you know, don't like how they look.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you look at people, and you like the vast majority just immediately just you just think they look beautiful.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And they can be all kinds of shapes, but you just think they look good, and and you and I both have we've run into people that that that do look very nice, and they're they don't like their looks.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I sad, it makes me cry, because I I love girls, I love females.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've raised them, I just have this heart for it, and I just think, my goodness, there's so much pain.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, and then there's us men, I mean, maybe we should care a little more.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: But but you had that whole thing, and I was telling telling Judy, I thought, yeah, I said, we don't even, most of us don't even think like that.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even if we don't look good, we we think we're all right, you know.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: But to think that that people, and and of course it's not just that, it's in so many other areas that people feel like like they fail.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: All they can do is just keep on keeping on, so they just keep going and keep trying.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: But we love this gospel because his yoke is easy, his burden is light, and it's all about not God demanding anything, it's about him giving, giving, and supplying.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that system that was offered in the beginning, the tree of life, and God said, I am your life.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Choose life that you can live.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be the source.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: You go this other way, it's all on you.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're the source, you're the strength.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Adam, it's gonna be hard because you're gonna run out.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let it be me.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And God had planned the whole time that it was still gonna be him.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Jesus is all about.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 8, verse 3.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's wrap it up here.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me let me just read, um, starting from verse 1, because it's just it's it's it's beautiful.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, who's gonna deliver me?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: This thing that put the burden on me, he said, I have found a new way, a living way.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is the gospel that he's telling to the people.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, now, in this one, there's no condemnation, there's no shame.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not about me.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that was about me, it looked like it was good, but he said, but honestly, it was nothing compared to knowing this.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Those who walk who are in Christ Jesus who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: The flesh is that other system.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh puts it on you, spirit is supplied by him.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: For the law, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've taken on this other life, this other system, this other way, and it's made me free from that way where it always put made me a failure.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 3 for what the law could not do.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Notice he didn't say what I couldn't do.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: That law could not do it.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: The law could not do because it was weak.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was weak through the flesh because it was dependent upon me.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I failed.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I looked good, but inside I kept I was ashamed.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: He said, the law couldn't do it.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: The system failed us.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a failure.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: If you think that you failed something, look at it again, think about it again.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Look at what you were trying to do.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what failed you.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it failed you.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, God knows.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: See, we see this so quick.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: God knows our flesh.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that we're but dust, he knows our weakness.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: He made us as weak and foolish flesh so that his glory could be amplified in our life, that his spirit could supply, and that would be the full everything.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we love him, and that's why we worship him, because we know that.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: For what the law couldn't do because it was weak through the flesh, God did.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: What that law couldn't do for what the system couldn't do, what everything they're selling me can't do, what everything I think I'm supposed to be, what everything I think I'm supposed to ascend to, everything I think I'm supposed to become and grow into, he says, what none of those those models could do, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of that weak and sinful flesh, and on account of sin, he condemned that sin in the flesh.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's not about trying to quit sinning.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because what what you cannot do, but that system can't do for you.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Following a system that demands you to quit sinning, you're going to fail and fail and fail.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what, and it looks like you fail, but really it's that system.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was designed.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: There was no way to succeed in it.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It could not do it.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't say you couldn't do it, it says that law could not do it, that system couldn't do it.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: The picture that was put in front of you and said, be like this, was a false picture.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: It could not do it.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what it could not do, God did.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: No wonder we love it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's no bad news here.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: If we get our gospel right, let people, if they can see how good and wonderful and loving God is, they can't help but love him, I don't think.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Adam hid himself from God because of his shame.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember after I started hearing the gospel, it made me nervous.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: It scared me.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I felt, and the way that I heard it was, I don't know if he said it this way, but the way I heard it was that the way I am, I'm not living up to it.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: God's not happy with how I am, he's not pleased with how I am, and I didn't know the power of his spirit.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought, I just thought God was wanting me to be a better person.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't feel I could do it, and so I kept rejecting that gospel.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want anything to do with God.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like Adam.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was ashamed and I felt too weak for it, and wasn't even sure I wanted to even try.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what I what was presented to me or what I was seeing was a way that wasn't even God.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was a system that I was seeing.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was called into another system where I'm supposed to try harder and be better.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why I detect that whenever I hear messages in the name of Christianity that are that are all about that that when they put it back on us, I can feel that just like cold water on a hot iron.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, no, that's not it.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've done that before.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've eaten that food.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've already vomited that up.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that I used to do.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I now count as dung, even though it looks good.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And boy, you know that flesh likes to think I can do it.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we have revival in churches, because it's like people are, people are all have all failed at this.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then if we can get some hot, some some spitfire preacher to motivate us, and we feel like, yeah, and we get all excited, and we go out of there thinking, you know what?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think I can do this now.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And just like a diet, you'll do real good for a little while.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be bragging, just like, ooh, man, I've been changed.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happens six months later?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: We need another revival.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Bring an evangelist in.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because that whole thing was designed to fail, because it was it comes back on us.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Has nothing to do with us.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: God did it all.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, He did it, verse 4, so that the righteous requirement of the law would be fulfilled once and for all in us.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh puts it on you, spirit supplies it to you.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is free, that's gift, that's love.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 6, for to be carnally minded is death.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, it's you're it's gonna fail.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna fail, it's gonna fail.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not life, it's death.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: But to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let the spirit supply, please, just enjoy it.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot fail because it has nothing to do with you.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what if this never changes in my life?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: It don't matter.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: You've got life.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy it.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about that so much.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Paul asked God, you know, three times, take this from me, take this from me.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like it, take this from me.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, he got it from God.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said, My grace is sufficient.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got something better for you than taking that away, than changing that.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've got something for you.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not so interested in the things you think I'm interested in, Paul.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 7.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna finish there, verse six.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's stand up.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a failure.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: This world has failed us.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe religion has failed us.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe whatever model of perfection we've put in us, we've put in our minds, has failed us.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: What we have is a God who loved us, loves us, and gave.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: And gave and gave and gave and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives and gives.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: If people could see this gospel, they would realize that this is the simplest.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Paul called it the simplicity of the gospel, and but he also called that simplicity the power of it.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is the simplest thing.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's as easy as saying yes and opening up and letting life just be and happen.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that life includes the joy, the peace, the goodness, everything that God is, and that's all he is.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: He is life.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's light, and there's no darkness in him at all.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's nothing but wonderful, it's nothing but good, and he's given it to our heart.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the free gift.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And if you never make it to America's next top model, enjoy God.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why he says, as he is Jesus, so are we.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because God did everything to cause us to already hit the mark.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul did say, he says, I count everything lost, and I forget all those things that are now behind me.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now I look to that mark.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's him.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about the free gift.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you for the gift.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: What can I know what to say.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just thank you.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you are showing us.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that you've been showing me and been so faithful all of our lives to take us to where we're at.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let us see the magnitude of your goodness, your power, and your love for us.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: All that we could know.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this time when we could gather today around you and look at and even celebrate the goodness of our God and our free gift of salvation.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you in Jesus' name, the name that saves us.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.