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The Intercessor · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

0:09
SPEAKER_00: God is bigger than we thought he was.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that has made me uncomfortable in my theology.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: But it's been every time it's been such a great blessing to realize that God was bigger than I thought he was.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And I'm enjoying that liberation because I keep seeing that.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And uh I was thinking a moment ago, and then this thought came to me how you know there's a uh a movie coming out, I think this week, about something that happened back in the 1960s.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And if you know the time, so on the cover of Time magazine in 1966, the cover said in big bold letters, is God dead?
1:10
SPEAKER_00: And the theme in in Time magazine, in that issue, was was talking about how we, you know, it's not like the 50s and the families aren't going to churches on Sunday anymore, and and and the the the moralities have changed, and there's and and there's the hippie movement, and there's free sex and drugs and rock and roll and all this stuff's going on, and people carrying signs saying God is dead and protesting the war and and and and and all this, and the theme was, is God dead?
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Is that just an old idea, an outdated idea that we've now moved beyond?
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Five years later, on Time Magazine in 1971, the big bold letters on the cover was the Jesus Revolution.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Things had changed in a very short time.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And and and I don't and and and uh I want to see the movie.
2:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how good it is, I haven't seen it, but I liked that in the previews I saw that they included a man and sort of gave him some credit for his part in this uh in that that movement of that time.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: The movie is about those days.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: And um and it's a it's a man who'd sort of been whitewashed out of its story, out of its history.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: When you read about, you know, how many know what about the Jesus freaks and the Jesus movement and the Jesus people and you know back in the when the hippies started finding the Lord back in the you know later 60s and early 70s.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is this whole thing is about.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: But they've whitewashed the story because there was a a hippie who was really responsible for the whole thing, and and they sort of just pushed him off to the side because they didn't like his story.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: And he was a uh he he was he was he was a gay man for one thing.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: He found God on an acid trip, taking LSD, and that's just kind of how they were doing.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: They they knew in their straight mind they couldn't find God, they weren't knowing God, so they were trying different things, and he'd go up to the mountains and take acid trying to find God, and one time he just screams out at the top of his lungs, God, are you real?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: If you are, show me.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And somehow God did.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: And the guy doesn't know anything about the Bible.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: In fact, his early ideas about Jesus was he must have come in on a UFO spaceship or something.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he doesn't he doesn't know anything, but he believed God was real, and he started telling people that God loves you and God's real.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: And he starts doing miracles and healings and signs and wonders, and he comes into this pastor's dead little church that's that's that's that's dwindling down to to almost nothing, and the pastor was about to quit or get fired or something, and he comes in and brings his hippies and his barefooted people with their free sex and all this stuff, and they're coming in, and and he's and and and and Lonnie is doing these miracles and healings and signs and wonders, and everything's exploding.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the pastor's loving it.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Uh until they found out they didn't like the idea that God would use somebody like him.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: And things happen.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, my whole point is I like the idea that God is bigger than we thought he was, and he's got lots of room for your humanity, your frailties, your weaknesses, your insufficiencies, your the ways you just don't have it right.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And none of us have it right.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: We're we're we have stumbled, we've stumbled onto this grace thing and we're following this, and we are learning about the goodness of the Father.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: And none of us have the whole truth in a box, do we?
4:45
SPEAKER_00: I hope not.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: I hope you don't think you do.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Because if we do, then we become those people that think that we're the people that carry this doctrine, and anybody outside of that, you know, is doesn't qualify.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's not true.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: God is bigger than we thought he was.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's good.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And he's gooder than we thought he was.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: And today I want to talk about the intercessor.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I've titled this the intercessor, talking about Jesus who is our intercessor.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: And uh it starts with Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: This is the verse of scripture that comes to my mind anytime somebody mentions Jesus being our intercessor.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And it says, Therefore, he is also able to save to the uttermost, or save completely, those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's all kinds of backgrounds you can come from in Christianity.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And I seem like I've come from a lot of them.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: But the main idea as a younger Christian that I got, in fact, anytime somebody said the word intercession, I thought of prayer.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in my circles, it wasn't just prayer.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just, Lord, I pray for so-and-so.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was it was a an intense prayer.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: If we said, we're going to, if we said, we're going to, you know, let's gather at my house or let's gather at the church and we're going to intercede, we're going to have intercession tonight, we knew the idea was we were going to do some yelling and some groaning, and there's going to be lots of tongues, and we're going to, and we're going to be, oh Lord, and we're just going to go and go, and we're going to and and we're going to beseech and we're going to anyway, it was a real intense thing.
6:26
SPEAKER_00: That was our idea of intercession.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And not to say that none of that doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, doesn't occur or doesn't have validity, but that was the, that was our definition.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: That was what we thought of as intercession.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And um and uh, you know, if they said, let's get together and intercede, in my mind, I knew that we were going to have a loud time of prayer.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: A loud, very intense time of prayer.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: It was that that type of prayer is what we thought of.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: And so when we'd come across the scripture that Jesus is ever living to make intercession for us, this is where people would would preach sometimes and they would say, just think, Jesus is up there right now, and he's praying to the Father for you right now.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: And we sort of like that idea on the surface, but me, the way my brain would work, I would get the picture.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And I would picture here's Daddy God sitting on his big chair, and here's Jesus, ever living, continually, they'd say.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Interceding for you.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And so here's Daddy God in his big chair, and Jesus is sort of at his feet, just, oh, Father, you know, help Rick.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's so he needs you, you know, moaning and groaning for me and going into this intense prayer, and I and I would think, and he's doing that all the time.
7:51
SPEAKER_00: And that was the picture I got.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, that wasn't exactly accurate.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: I realize as some time goes on.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to look at the word intercession, and and while prayer is a way to intercede or make a connection for somebody, um, it's sort of the one of the smallest way things that this word means.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not groveling at the Father's chair, trying to change his mind about you.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: That was the idea that I had.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: That was the false part of that whole thing, was that he was praying for me as if he needed to have a lot of that type of activity so that God wouldn't move for me or God would change his mind about me, as if almost like he didn't want to, but Jesus was continually asking him to.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And so what that does is it gives a sort of that's part of that good cop, bad cop of the father and son thing that some of us used to think.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I used to think it because it was, it was, it was preached to me that way.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: It was just like, you know, Daddy was wanting to give me a big whipping, but Jesus kept stopping him somehow.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, even with the blood of Jesus, we'd say things like, I just want to, I just thank God that the Father sees me through the blood, you know, and and what I thought that meant was that that there was something wrong with God's eyes.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: That, you know, if it wasn't for that blood, God would look at me and he sees all how horrible and ugly I am, but because of this blood, it sort of distorts his vision, and he can't tell that I just have all these sins and weaknesses and flaws and faults, so he thinks I'm okay.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like we gotta fool God somehow.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: Because the idea behind that is that he's wanting to be vengeful, he's wanting to be punitive, he's wanting, is, you know, he he can't stand the spots and blemishes that you have on your life.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus has to do something to change his mind about you.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the big flaw in that whole thing.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, when we take John 3.16, we can we can really look at everything through that.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, in fact, you could just, you know, whenever you find something that's confusing, confusing to you, that seems to be contradictory, just remember John 3.16 and remember God loved the world before he gave the Son.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: And so, and we've heard it around here a lot.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not change God's mind about you and me.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: He loved before he gave the Son.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: He already loved you.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: Already.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't cause the Father to love you.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Before the Father gave the Son, he loved you.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus did not change his mind about you.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has changed my mind about my father.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And yours too.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what this whole thing is?
10:49
SPEAKER_00: Everything about Jesus, this expression of grace in his walk, his talk, his teaching, and especially his death on the cross, yells at us or it tells us about a gracious father that loves you.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: And everything we've learned about him, everything the Spirit is teaching us, is pointing us more and more, isn't it?
11:15
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are being amazed at how good God is?
11:18
SPEAKER_00: You're still being amazed.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: You're still getting insight, eyesight, and revelation at the goodness of God.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: I know I am.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: I know I am.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll hear people say, Yeah, grace is getting, you know, I've been in grace a long time, it's, you know, been there, done that, and I'm like, I don't understand that talk.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Because I just like, I'm still being amazed.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just, it's like I don't think a day goes by.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: When I catch another glimpse of something that impresses me about God.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: And it just, it just, it draws me nearer in my heart, and it makes me, I want to see more.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I want to know more.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Talk to me about grace some more.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the most beautiful and empowering thing I've ever found.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: See, because you've stepped out of it just being a logical doctrine that you've agreed with, and it's become something that's impacting and changing your life, and it's affecting how you feel about daddy.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's and as it's affecting how you feel about daddy, it's really feeling like fellowship, connection.
12:24
SPEAKER_00: And one of the words that you could think of when you think of intercessor or intercession is connection.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is the connector, the one mediator or connector between God and man.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: There's a worse, the the word that you that you hear is uh for sin is the Greek word hamartano.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: And it literally does mean to miss the mark.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: The word for intercessor is the word, I'm gonna pronounce it entucano.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: And is is a word that means within or inside or at or with, it's it's that that kind of a prefix.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: But tumcano means to hit the mark.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Look it up.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: To hit the mark.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: The intercessor is the one Jesus ever lives to hit the mark for you.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Or you could say to hit the mark within you, to hit the mark inside you, to hit the mark with you.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: He hits the mark.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is it to miss the mark?
13:31
SPEAKER_00: To miss the mark is to is to misunderstand God.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: We've missed.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: God is vengeful, hateful, punitive, and he's looking for a flaw so he can punish you.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: That is a total missing of the mark, right?
13:44
SPEAKER_00: We have, no, that's not that not it at all.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: To miss the mark is to misunderstand God, therefore you'll misunderstand you, and you'll misunderstand other people.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And part of the spirit of God is the spirit of understanding.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus ever lives, ever lives to hit the mark for us or to cause us to hit the mark.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: And and we see it there again in the gospels and all that, but he ever lives and he lives within us.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: And the spirit is given to us so we can know the things that are freely given to us, right?
14:15
SPEAKER_00: And what's happening to us as we're as we're beholding him and we're seeing he's better than we thought he was, what's happening to us is we're we're we're hitting the mark more and more.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: We're getting closer and closer and closer.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: And don't you love that as you're knowing him more, nothing you're finding out about him is making you back up and say, oh, he's not as good as I thought.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Right?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I like that there was laughter that shows you that you know that it's ludicrous because that you you're you're saying, no, that's not the experience at all.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: It's the exact opposite, Rick.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Everything since I first had an experience that opened up my heart and mind to see that God was bigger and better than I thought he was, everything I have learned about him has made me think that he's even better still.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: Where does this end?
15:16
SPEAKER_00: How good is he?
15:22
SPEAKER_00: I can't even comprehend that, but I like it.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
15:28
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah chapter 59 uses the word in verse 16.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: It says, and it's talking about God.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: He saw there was no man, and he wondered that there are marvel that there was no intercessor, no connector, no, no one to make the connection, because people were missing the mark, misconnecting, not connecting with God.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, his own arm brought salvation for him.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: So, so you know, I I my mind goes a lot to John chapter 1 that says, No man has known or perceived God, but the Son who's in the bosom or the heart of the Father, he has declared him to us, or he has revealed him to us.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Ah.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Jesus shows up on the scene, nobody else is showing them these things.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was talking about a God who's too good, it made people uncomfortable, it made some people angry, it just got them out of their box.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: No, God is this way and that way and that way, and Jesus just brought in a father who was better than they thought he was, and through him people could begin to connect.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: Your father loves you, your father cares, your father, your father, the father loves the son.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: That's why what the son asks, the father does.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: Job chapter 33, want to read these scriptures?
16:53
SPEAKER_00: Verse 23 through 26 says, if there is a messenger for him, for man, a mediator, one among a thousand, to show man his uprightness.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: To show man, if there is one intercessor, if you will, to show man his uprightness, then he's gracious to him, and he says, Deliver him from going down to the pit or down to death.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: For I have found a ransom.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: His flesh will be young like a child's.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: This is restoration.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: He shall return to the days of his youth.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: He shall pray to God, and he will delight in him, for he shall see his face with joy, because he restores to man his righteousness.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: I think if we read the Bible, study it just a little bit, we can see something about this.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: When you look at the prodigal son, that is a great story.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad Jesus brought that out.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Because what I love about it is I realize the daddy is the hero.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: The boy's not the hero, the daddy's the hero.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Because we reveal, we we see a father who is very good and loving.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: We like the prodigal son's father, don't we?
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And the prodigal son comes to him and we see the restoration to righteousness.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: We see the restoration to the family.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: Puts the coat on him, puts the robe on him, family ring on him, throws the party, makes him the man of honor.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: After he's done all these dishonorable things, he's still the man of honor in his daddy's house and in his daddy's eyes.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: And even though the man was sleeping with the pigs, daddy brought him back to his right standing.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: Because he was still, he was a son.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: And he belonged in the house, and it didn't, and it was independent of what he had done with all the money and everything else, and all and what he'd spent on the women, and how he was sleeping with the unclean swine and all that stuff, had nothing to do with how daddy saw his boy.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: But but what needed to happen was the boy needed to repent or have his mind changed.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: And when his mind changed about his daddy, it started to change about him.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: That's when he started to hit the mark.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: And we see that restoration to a righteousness.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: But it was a righteousness that was not lost in his father's eyes, it was only lost in the son's eyes.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: God loved before he gave.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: The prodigal son, the daddy didn't start loving the boy because he decided to come home and change his ways.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the daddy didn't even ask him if he had changed his ways.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: What a great story.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Why?
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Because his daddy was bigger than he thought he was.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: His daddy was better than he thought he was.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: And and the father's whole heart for mankind.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think how big.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: I know I've done it like everybody else has.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: I've been small-minded, I've been judgmental, I've been critical.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: So much of it in a lot of my lifetime, my Christian lifetime.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank God I'm finding out he's better than I thought he was.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And I like the freedom I'm feeling.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: I like the release from a lot of the judging and critical spirit that I had about people.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: And it's not that I that you condone a lot of things, but it just, but God's still bigger than I thought he was.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And and that God would was loving this world this whole time, and while we were yet enemies, and while the world was in that condition, and and doing all of that.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: And even, you know, back in the time of 66 when Time magazine said that they're saying that God is dead, and and there's all this stuff that's going anti-God and anti-everything, you know, uh about that.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: God is still loving the world.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Saying, I want to show them something about me.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: And people start, what a what it was such a revival in those days that I was referring to because people didn't, it wasn't about, it wasn't about anything else other than God had become real to them and God was good.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And this guy is doing these signs and wonders and miracles because just because he just he didn't know anything, he just thought God would.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: He thought that God would.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Thought that God was good.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: And didn't have a box of anything hindering him.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Over time, in that particular story, back in those days, um tried to put the man in a box.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Not to say that some of the rough edges didn't didn't need to be, you know, couldn't have been made more Christ-like, but still things got to put in a doctrinal box in some ways, in many ways.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And It even caused the young man who was once so full of joy.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: This young hippie who was just so full of joy and just so free because he found out God was good and God was real and God really loved him, it caused him to become hurt and uh and bitter because of the box that church can put us in sometimes.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, the reason our own righteousness, which is our own righteousness through our through our merits, the reason it's called filthy rags, is because it creates a false image of our Father.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Creates an image that God is demanding that we do certain things in order to be one of the good ones, in order to get the blessing, in order to receive the favor, in order to.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: But this young hippie was just so full of joy, and just just just full of joy and baptizing thousands of people in the in the ocean off the coast of California, and people are coming and finding that same joy, and they're just going wild over Jesus.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Not knowing anything.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: Anything that was that would even smell of Phariseeism.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, in uh Hebrews chapter 7, and we don't have this up here because I just thought of this this morning after I got here, but I want to read it to you.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: In Hebrews chapter 7, verse 13, it says, Under the old covenant, the blood of bulls, goats, and the ashes of a heifer were sprinkled on those who were defiled, and they were effectively cleansed from uh it effectively cleansed them outwardly from their ceremonial impurities.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Yet how much more will the sacred blood of the Messiah thoroughly cleanse our consciences?
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Thoroughly cleanse our consciences.
24:11
SPEAKER_00: When we look at the goodness and the bigness of God, I what what I am loving is that somehow, somehow this connection that we now have through Jesus has thoroughly cleansed our conscience so we realize it's not about the sacrifices, not the rites, it's not the rituals, and it's not just about doing everything right and putting together the correct image of God somehow through this verse and through that verse or anything else, but it brings a connection that gives us fellowship and gives us the place where we belong in oneness and communion with our Heavenly Father.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And what a good thing to tell people that God's with you and you're with Him right now.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: And what a power there is when you're aware, when you wake up every day that you and God are just right here, like this.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: And you're in the safest place that you can be.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: In spite of what's happening in your situation, in spite of your circumstances, that you are in the safest place that you can be, and you are complete and whole and one with Him, and you are living eternally as His child, and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and you will outlive every problem, and you will rise above because of what's going on inside of you, and greater is He that's in you, and all of that reality is yours because you've got a real connection that was made.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: And and not just the legal connection, because you can have the legal connection and not know anything about it, but you found out.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: You've discovered something, you've connected somehow through this message of God's goodness that's demonstrated through Jesus, how good he is, how big he is, how gracious he is, how loving he is, and it continues to surprise you because every day you're finding out he's even more loving than I thought.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: He's even more gracious than I thought he was.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: And that starts to put in your mind, it starts to put God out of the box.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And God can do anything.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: And God can live through you, and God can fill you with joy, and God can move through you.
26:18
unknown: Wow.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: And you're walking with a pure and clear conscience, and there's no condemnation to you who are in Christ Jesus, and here you are, these weak and foolish vessels with flaws, and you make mistakes, and you even break many of those 613 laws that are in the Old Testament.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Not that you're trying to be a bad person, but it happens.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: But we know our Father.
26:47
SPEAKER_00: He says, yet how much more will that sacred blood thoroughly cleanse our consciences?
26:54
SPEAKER_00: For by the power of the eternal spirit, he has offered himself to God as the perfect sacrifice that now frees us from our dead works, so we can worship and serve the living God.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: That is why Jesus is the one who has enacted a new covenant with a new relationship with God, so that those who accept the invitation, prodigal son, accepted it.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I'll wear it, Daddy.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Bake the cake, kill the calf, let's go.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Those who accept the invitation, older brother did not accept the invitation.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Those who accept the invitation will receive the eternal inheritance that he has promised to his heirs, for he died to release us from the guilt.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Died to release us from the guilt, from the guilt of the violations that were committed under that first covenant.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, from what I've studied, from what I've seen, in the Old Testament there would be there was a way to make atonement for sin, the blood of animals and so on.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: What did that mean to them?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: What was that atonement about?
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, there was this reward punishment idea.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: If you go to Exodus 32, you'd see, you know, you see the story of Moses interceding for the people there after the whole golden calf incident and all that.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: And he's talking to God about it, and God says, you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll be merciful, you know, to those that deserve it.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: But he says, but under those who sin, you know, I'll I'll I'll visit their iniquity to the third and fourth generation, and that's where people get that whole thing, you know.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: But you see this whole reward and punishment thing.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: This whole blotting out of the book of the living, and we see all of that going on, and and and it's all about reward and punishment.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And so people would want atonement so that they would not deserve something bad, some punishment in their life.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: That the wrath of God would not be upon them.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: That's the way that they looked at it, that's the way they thought of it.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: But we see in Christ, we see a different unveiling, we see a reality, we see a revelation of the Father that really pushes all of that out of our sight, and we see a God who's who's good and who's loving, and he's telling us through Christ that it's not about any of that stuff.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: I love you, and I'm doing all of this and and going so far as to even make a sacrifice here, to give myself as a sacrifice to say to say, look, it is done.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: I have died on the cross here.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: Blood has been shed for you.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: You see, I did not deserve to go there, but I went there willingly.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: And among other things, what he did in that is he showed us that this is over, that there is no other sacrifice for sin, that there is nothing else there.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And what Jesus did, when we see the goodness and the graciousness of God in that, it cleanses our conscience from that whole sin and death thing, that whole reward and punishment thing there, and we just see grace.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: We see love, we see goodness.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Judy and I were talking about it this morning on the way here.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about how, you know, you can construct a God logically, or you can try to construct a God logically by using just scripture.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: And that can be a problem because if you're just using logic, everybody uses their own logic, and so we get all these different ideas of God just from putting together verses of scripture.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: On the other extreme, we can have people that say, You don't need that, you don't need the verses of scripture, it's just all about the spirit.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And there's life in the spirit, but the problem with humans is that many times they don't know the difference between the spirit and their imagination.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: I've been there myself.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Somebody said your imagination is too close to the Holy Spirit, so sometimes you don't know.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: But but you know, that and then weird things go on.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: You get weird ideas about God.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: So where is it at?
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Is it the Spirit here, or is there a combination of it?
31:21
SPEAKER_00: So, and if what, how do you mix these two and all that?
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And all I can see in this is that somehow, whether you got it from the scriptures first or the spirit revealed it to you first, but somehow when you found out he was good, when you found out that he really, really loved you, or started to believe it, or even started to consider it, and you started going down that path, it started weeding out maybe some things that had been confusing in Scripture.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And it started weeding out some of the weirdness of you trying to follow God's spirit.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know what I'm talking about?
32:01
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of has a way of doing it because you because when you do that, you have stepped foot onto the path of really knowing God.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: And I say it so often now that this is why declaring his goodness, his grace, and his love is very important, and it's not done too much, in fact, it's not done nearly enough, because if we don't approach God as the God who he is as good and loving and gracious, we're probably approaching an image of God that's not real.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: But when the heart turns to the Lord, the veil is removed, and we start beholding the glory or the goodness of the Lord.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And it changes us, doesn't it?
32:50
SPEAKER_00: It says we're changed into that same image.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: And I love that I'm at least in a place where I can look back at some years and I can testify to the changes that have happened in spite of myself, in spite of my confusion, and many times in spite of my own stupidity, my own weirdness, everything else.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Somehow we're seeing the target clearer and clearer, and it's good, and it's wonderful, and it's lovely, and it's so pure, and it's so clean, and there's no weirdness in it, and there's no confusion in it.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: It's just good.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: It's just beautiful, and it becomes something like this is what the world needs.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: Not this this brand of Christianity or this little fad that's going on here or that or the other.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: It's it's none of those things.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's God, it's his goodness, it's the simplicity of this good news that just declared through Jesus Christ that your father loves you, your father has wanted you, your father wanted you, is why he did all this, and he wanted to restore your heart and your mind, and he wanted to clear you once and for all of all the guilt.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: That it has nothing to do with those things.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Has nothing to do with your strengths and your weaknesses and what you've done and what you haven't done, that he wants to clear your mind of all of that.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: It's just that you are his and he is yours, and the other things that we think are such a big deal so many times.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: In our mind, God says, those are way, way, way down the list.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: I want to know you.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I need to quit doing this.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: He says, I want to know you.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: I had a lady come up to me after church one time, after a meeting, and she says, I want to quit my cigarettes, my cigarettes.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: I know God's not pleased with that.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: I want to quit my cigarettes, and and well, I would have never done this at one time.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, you really just need to enjoy your cigarettes right now.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: And rather than focus on that, start enjoying God loving you while you're smoking a cigarette.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: Smoke your cigarette and just feel God loving you.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Not because you're smoking a cigarette or because you're not smoking one.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: But you need to know, see, you see what my point is, is that you can get somebody to quit habits.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes people can succeed at that, but what good does it do?
35:21
SPEAKER_00: That's why I say, why do we care that if somebody comes in, you don't like their lifestyle, so you want to put a straitjacket on them somehow with some kind of a rule and think that they're okay?
35:29
SPEAKER_00: And why have I seen so many times over the years we put that strait jacket of religious dogma on them and we think, oh, look, they've got they're all cleaned up now, but they they don't know.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: They don't know God loves them.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: They still think that God's blessing them because they they've they've been abstaining from certain things.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: This is this see see why grace is so scary to some people?
35:55
SPEAKER_00: People tell me, well, well, that kind of grace preaching, it just it allows for it allows for a lot of sin.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: I thought, you better hope so.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't, then we're all excluded, probably.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: It has to make allowance.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say condone, it just God is bigger.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Am I okay?
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Don't make me nervous by looking at me like that.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Last verse, Colossians chapter one.
36:31
unknown: Wow.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: We're just in love today, aren't we?
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it great to have that simplicity to just you just love God and He loves you?
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Colossians 1, verse 19 says, Oh, I love this.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: For it pleased the Father, that shows his heart.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: It pleased the Father that in him, Jesus, all of the fullness should dwell.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: And by him to reconcile all things to himself, he's bigger than you thought he was.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: You know what's happening to me personally?
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Especially over the last few years.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: I've watched some of my judges' robes drop off.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's misunderstood, but it's been misunderstood by some of my friends.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm compromising, they think.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm condoning.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, there ain't none of us that believe in the goodness and grace of God.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: That we how many of you think sin's a wonderful thing to do?
37:47
SPEAKER_00: There ain't none.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: That's that's not even real.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: We don't condone, we don't encourage sin, but we do encourage people to believe in a God that loves them.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: People have told me, well, you still need to hold up 1 John 1 9.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: They have to confess their sin in order to be forgiven, because if not, they'll just run them up, they'll sin, it'll be anarchy.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that before I knew that God was gracious and good, my license to sin was 1 John 1.9.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: Huh?
38:33
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't do this, but if I do, I've got 1 John 1.9, so I'm gonna do it, and I'm gonna quickly do 1 John 1.9, then I'll be okay.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: That was my license to sin because they told me that if I would just confess that sin after I do it, then I'd get forgiven.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Now you don't need a license.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Now your conscience gets cleared, your guilt gets taken away, you've got a connection with God, and you're living with the experience of that righteousness becoming more of your experience.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, it's what Paul was talking about.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talked about it.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: Paul explained it very well when he says, he says, love covers all of it, because that's what you're getting.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: You found out that you're loved, and so you fell in love with him.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: And that love starts filling your heart.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: And Paul said, Love covers it all.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: He said, If I love, I'm not gonna steal, I'm not gonna kill, I'm not gonna cover it, I'm not gonna.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: We didn't need to fill this checklist.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: We needed to live loved.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: So our intercessor brings us home.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: It pleased him to reconcile all things to himself by him, whether they're things on earth or things in heaven, and having made peace through the blood of the cross, you who once were alienated.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: That word alienated means not partakers.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: You were once alienated and you were enemies in your mind.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad that it worded that way in the Bible.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: Not enemies in God's mind.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I've come to behold him and believe our Father has no enemies.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: People might hate him, but it's not reciprocated, not from what I see.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: We were enemies in our mind because of wicked works.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Well, I sinned.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: According to what I've been taught, I've broken fellowship now.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Now I won't get my prayers answered.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Now I have I've lost my favor, lost my blessing.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Going to the doctor for that good report tomorrow.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Now I can't count on it because I sinned.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: Alienated, cut off, enemies in our mind.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Now God's disappointed in me, now God's mad at me, now God's angry.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: The deed's been done.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm standing in line for a whipping.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, doesn't it hurt just to even say that?
41:32
SPEAKER_00: We were enemies in our mind because of the bad things that we did.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's it's not just in the Jew, wasn't it just a Jewish religion?
41:41
SPEAKER_00: They were throwing people in volcanoes on the islands, the in the Yucatan, they were offering blood sacrifice.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: I mean, all this stuff to try to appease this God who they felt disconnected with.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: Jesus brings us home.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: And you, who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled, made the two as one.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: Reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy, blameless, and beyond reproach in his sight.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: Let's stand up.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: How many of you believe God is holy?
42:26
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know that you are holy?
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy, holy.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: Holy are you, Lord?
42:34
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, holy, holy, holy, holy are you, child.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy, holy are you, child.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: Blameless, clean, beyond reproach.
42:51
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for the intercessor.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: How did he connect us?
42:58
SPEAKER_00: Purged our conscience and let us know.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: Father, I love you.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: I think this has been a good time this morning.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it's been a good time of beholding your goodness.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And let us marvel right now that you're bigger than we thought you were.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: You're better than we thought you were.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's why we have stopped all negotiations with the God of all creation.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: We need none of those things.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: We're home.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: And to the people here today, I say, welcome home, church.
43:33
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the spirit of the living God.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the presence in the city of the living God.
43:39
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the heavenly Jerusalem.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to an innumerable company of angels.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the spirits of just men made perfect.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: Welcome home.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: For it is finished, it is done.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: And you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Have a great day today.