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Righteousness - Man's Holy Grail · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: A word that's used all over the New Testament.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's thrown out there a lot.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: People use this word because it's all over the New Testament.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's it's it's spoken of 91 times in the New Testament.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this word called righteousness.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Righteousness.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now what you know we heard it mentioned a moment ago.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: God has made us righteous.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We see that clearly in the Bible.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be righteous?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or what does righteousness even what does it mean?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it holiness?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is it um a legal right standing?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is it absolution of of sin?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Is it what does it really mean?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think there there may be no word in the in in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, that's more not only not misunderstood, I don't think people really even, most people don't even really have a definition for it.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not understood.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean?
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: It looks good, it sounds good, but I can tell you that it's not understood because of the manifestations that we see believers dealing with in their life.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: What I see in all of my experiences in my travels with people, and what I deal with in the body of Christ, is trying to help people to come into a realization of something, of the goodness of this salvation, the bigness of this salvation, so that they don't have this sense of neediness and lack and wanting.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why we say right here, everything you need, you already have.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the house.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus, right?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everything, God has given us everything that pertains to life and godliness through Him.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But yet Christians struggle.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And not only Christians, but the world has struggled with something ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I go back to it all the time.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: What happened when we when we went after that knowledge of good and evil?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: We separated, pulled away from God because of a shame and a fear.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's interesting that he didn't say he was hiding because he said, I knew I disobeyed you.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I was ashamed of my condition.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was ashamed of who I was and how I was.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a sense of guilt and inferiority that made him feel that he could not be with God that way.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he immediately went to trying to do things for himself that might make him not ashamed, that might make him not afraid.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And man has been doing this ever since.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it is the holy grail of humankind ever since the fall.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Man has been trying to fulfill this something, right?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you what it is.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's righteousness.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now they don't know that word, they don't know the definition of it, so they won't say that's what they're looking for.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: But they'll they but they do it in all kinds of ways.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because of a lack of righteousness or a knowledge of righteousness, mankind, in the church and out of the church, carries with them a sin consciousness.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: This sin consciousness has led man to try to unburden himself of it because it has led to everything.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's doubt, it's fear, it's not measuring up, it's not being good enough, it's not, it's always needing to be better, always needing to improve yourself, always needing to get rid of something bad.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's always, it's always this sense of lack and not having and not being.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And man has has tried it different ways.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, I believe it goes, they they do it in three different ways.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: One, some people just get so frustrated with trying to be good or right or or or whatever, or perfect.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that perfection thing is is there, that myth, mythological goal of perfection, thinking that's what is righteousness and thinking that's what's going to fulfill it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you have some that that simply indulge.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: They just say, I can't do it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: They don't.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, they don't, they don't do the Christianity.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're not big seekers of philosophy that will rid them of that sin consciousness.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: They just kind of indulge.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: I had a had a friend, and and he he came to the Lord.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: He he had he was somebody I used to run around with when I when we were young, and and we would we would indulge and we just, you know, and just party all the time and do drugs and drink all the time and do every kind of sin we could find ourselves to get into.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But um when I was a a a teenager and he was like in his early 20s, I was in my late teens, and he he he got saved.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: He he he found the Lord, had an experience with God, and and uh I ran into him one time, and he's not doing the things he used to do.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to, he didn't want to smoke dope with me, he didn't want to do any of those things, and he said, told me what had happened to him, and and that he was enrolling in a Bible college because he he felt a call to ministry and he wanted to to help other people to uh to know the Lord.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, after a little while of that, he became so frustrated and he gave up.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because in his learning as a Christian, he never learned righteousness.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: What he learned was more sin consciousness.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he kept trying to deal with his condition even after he was a Christian, and trying to deal with this sin consciousness, and oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he never could could actually get it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: He continued to chase the holy grail even after he had met the person of Christ.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he finally gave up.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he just and and I run into him again, and and he's he's drunk, and he's telling me, he says, I've been drunk every day for the last couple of years, and he said, he said, I make no bones about it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't try to quit.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said, This is what I do, this is what I like to do, this is what I want to do, this is the only thing that makes me feel the best that I can feel around here.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he was and he probably drank himself drunk probably every day for the rest of his life, which really didn't last that long.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: He died young, his liver just couldn't keep up with him.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: But he just went into indulgence because of this burden of sin.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have others that really, they really try it through through Christianity or through or through other religion.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, this sin consciousness, this burden of guilt and inferiority and lack and neediness has birthed every religion of the world.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gone from one end of a spectrum to another.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's been the the perverse pagan religions where there was lots of suffering and bloodshed and you know murder in the name of trying to be right, righteous with God or appeasing God.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then it goes to the other uh philosophical types of religions to where they and there's so many like this that there's they they try to explain away this sin consciousness somehow, so they come up, and they do it by sense now, they come up with these ideas that there's there there is no sin.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh never was to deal with, and God is he gets depersonalized because he becomes the the universal con uh universal oneness.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: He becomes the cosmic consciousness, and and there's really no heaven or hell or anything.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's you get absorbed into this universal something, you know.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a way of dealing with this sin consciousness.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a way of trying to find an absolution and continues to fall short.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it robs them of the reality of this person of God who is very loving and has a personality and has character and has is a person.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very, can be very, very personal and intimate, but the best they can come up with is a cosmic consciousness that we eventually get absorbed into and become nothing in this ether world of something.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just man's attempt to try.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking for the holy grail, and some go into other indulgences, and that's why people, you know, and and and and nothing wrong with enjoying life, I do it, and and loving toy, you know, having toys and playing and all this stuff, but it's often uh uh people are just always trying to rid themselves of this guilt, this burden of not being happy, not having enough, not trying to find some joy somewhere, some peace somewhere, some some rest somewhere.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we to, you know, we we'll we'll plan these trips, we're gonna have fun, and we're gonna get away, and we're gonna it's gonna be peaceful and restful because we're always looking for that.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you're carrying within you a sin consciousness.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have you gone to have some, do go have something fun, and and it gets ruined because of the stuff?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: You just can't find it.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in ourselves that can that can attain this holy grail of joy and peace and happiness and being fulfilled and complete in life.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in the Christian church, we failed miserably by and large by by by by preaching real good a sin consciousness of what we need to get rid of and what standard we need to try to live up to, and and and all that.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But there again, all that does is reiterate our failure to do so.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it brings a sin consciousness and the thing they did, Pharisees were doing this, thinking that by keeping the law, by being perfect and keeping all the jots and tittles, if you can keep that, then there's a righteousness that will come through that.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that will bring in that sense of completion.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: But they're like the rich young ruler, I've kept all these things.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: What am I still lacking?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it is the thing.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's righteousness.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: This thing called, the Bible calls righteousness, it's what it is.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the restoration needed to be done, because the best definition of righteousness is this it is the ability to be with God without any sense of guilt or inferiority, without any sense of coming short, without any sense of lacking, without any sense of being needy anymore.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're with him.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So there's spirit knowledge, a revelation.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Paul talks about being led by the spirit, trusting in the spirit, believing the spirit, believing the reality, of this eternal truth, or believe in the sense knowledge, which tries to figure it out and tries to do things to absolve ourselves of this pain, the guilt, the insufficiency.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we go into the New Testament, and I'm gonna I'm gonna read, start reading out of Matthew 5 if you want to follow there.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We go to the New Testament and we see all these powerful words that people love.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what's it really mean to them?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's it mean when the if the Bible says, we are complete in him?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a pretty poem?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a nice little phrase?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Make us feel better for five minutes if we read it?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it a truth?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a reality?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the eternal truth, an unchangeable truth of heaven, that through Christ He has totally made us complete?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if He's made us complete, does it mean that He's made us complete right now, right here, is that how we are and is that who we are?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or does or does God need the enemy of death to make that happen later on?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: If it says as it does in Ephesians, that that He made us holy and blameless in His sight, is that after the enemy of death takes hold, or is that something He's done for us now?
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't the redemption need to be done in the now?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, the Bible says also in Ephesians says that he would present to himself, he did all this, that he could present to himself a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I used to hear that preached wrong.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because of sin consciousness.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful thing, that he could present us without spot or blemish or wrinkle, any such thing.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: People like you and me, that he could present us that righteous that way.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: But because of sin consciousness, you know how I always heard it preached for years?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's gonna present to himself a church without spot or blemish or wrinkle.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: That means he's got some washing and ironing to do, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Got some washing and ironing to do.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You all know he does.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know you got spots.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: He got to do some more washing on you.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't clean yet.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know you got wrinkles.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: You heard that old thing about the two old guys in the nursing home playing checkers, right?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the one old lady never could get their attention because all they wanted to do was play checkers, and she'd she'd try to flirt and try to talk to them, and they would hardly acknowledge her, and they just kept playing their little game.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So she decides she's gonna get their attention, and she takes all her clothes off, and she runs right by them.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the one old man says, Did you see that?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the other one says, Yep.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what was she wearing?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but it sure needed ironing.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd say, For that scripture to be right, for that scripture to be fulfilled, to be true, God's gonna have to do some washing and ironing because he because they would take us back to the sense knowledge, take us back to the flesh.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, just like we once knew Jesus after the flesh, we don't know him after the flesh anymore.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: He once was a carpenter's son.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: They said he was a prophet, they said he was a great teacher.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: We know who he is now.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know him after the flesh.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says just the same way, we know no man after the flesh anymore.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Old things are passed away.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Look, behold, all things are become new.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: There ain't no washing and ironing to do, because the gift of righteousness has been given.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: The free gift of righteousness, as by one man's offense, sin and death came onto all, so by one man's obedience, the gift, free gift, free gift of righteousness came upon all.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so this whole thing of righteousness, this mystery of righteousness, Old Testament would talk about it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hosea 10, 6 said, It's time to seek the Lord until he comes and reigns righteousness on you.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: There again, because of sin consciousness, we preached it wrong for so many years.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: We latched on to the seek the Lord, and we would tell these people who had been given the gift of righteousness to seek God until they get that righteousness.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because they didn't know what it was.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: They thought it was some completion that you're still trying to get, some fullness you're still trying to get.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, of his fullness, he has given to us all, and grace for grace.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of his fullness we have all partaken of.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when we're looking at something, here's why this is important.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because the big problem, the big problem to your faith, the big problem that causes wrestles with doubt and fear and all those age-old things that came at the fall of man, they are dealt with and eliminated.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: The conscience is purged by the knowledge of this free gift of righteousness.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: You have it, you've been given to it, but we haven't been taught it for day for you know throughout throughout history in the church, the way it's the way God's revealing it now.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing the truth about this, and Jesus said, when you know the truth, the truth will make you free.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just knowing the truth.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's not when you get better, why?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because he already made you better.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: If any man's in Christ, he's a new creation.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So where's the washing in iron, and where's the where's the getting better?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: The getting better is in you trying to still do something with that flesh.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says over and over again, let's not walk in that flesh.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's walk after the Spirit.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at truth here.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's not neglect so great a salvation.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at this thing and get this.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, well, I better start reading or I won't get done.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Look at Matthew 5, verse 20.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Look what Jesus says here about this righteousness.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: There again, I have a preacher friend.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I remember sitting in a meeting, him preaching this wrong.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: There again, he was using this righteousness as our our our our actions.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and he was saying, You think you think the Pharisees had it tough?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus made it even stricter, and his whole point was to try to get us to try to live better.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Try to act more Christ-like.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he used the ministry of condemnation, which which always points out what's wrong with you instead of this free gift.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: It always points out where you're still coming short.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: That is the ministry of death.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's the ministry of condemnation, that's the ministry of the flesh, not the spirit.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus was right.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: He said, your righteousness has to exceed theirs.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those Pharisees who are doing everything right say it's still got to exceed that.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because without that, you don't enter into the kingdom of heaven.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now think about this: the kingdom of heaven.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's another thing, too.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to get that.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: That it doesn't take the enemy of death to to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: It takes Jesus, the author of life, to inherit the kingdom of heaven.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, your righteousness has to be better than theirs.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: He said in verse 6 down there in Matthew, Matthew 5, he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in Hosea 10, 6, when he said, he said, It's time to seek the Lord until he comes and reigns righteousness upon you.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of Hosea, Old Testament, the gift of righteousness had not been given.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the New Testament, Jesus said, Seek ye first the kingdom and his righteousness.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here he says, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love this verse.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love the right reading of it.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Before I didn't used to like it.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because there again, I saw it in flesh, and so it made me sin conscious of how I didn't have that righteousness, or I didn't hunger and thirst enough, maybe.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: See how that that ping-pong, it always comes back to you.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It always comes back to you.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to enjoy the simplicity, the power of this gospel, which is the power unto wholeness, deliverance, salvation, it's knowing that Jesus is the hero of this thing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: That what we couldn't do, he did.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what we couldn't do, he didn't turn around and start demanding it again.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because the demand was met.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I came not to do away with the law, I came to fulfill this law once and for all, so that the righteous requirement would be fulfilled for us.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: A free, free, free gift.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not a work of trying to live godly, it is a free gift of righteousness that changes your nature.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a changed nature right now.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Once you see the truth, you can start acknowledging that and you get to start enjoying it and living like it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your faith becomes easy, your joy becomes automatic.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Peace just becomes how you are.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've got a new nature.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: You look back and you notice.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, where did this peace come from?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't used to have it.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Things that used to make me freak, now I'm just like, I feel so much bigger than those things.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because we've got a new nature.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've been given a gift and we know it had nothing to do with our self-rehabilitation.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Woo! But why didn't he say, well, it's time to seek the Lord until he reigns righteousness on us?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: When is God going to do that?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's when Jesus came and did his thing and he reigned righteousness on us.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: That means it's not time, it's it's if once you get it, it's not time to look for it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to enjoy it, it's time to live in it, it's time to walk in it, it's time to acknowledge it, time to watch it work.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Why did he say here, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because every man has hungered and thirsted for righteousness.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: They might not have used that word, but they're dealing with this trying to find the fulfillment while they're carrying a sin consciousness, an inferiority consciousness, a guilt consciousness.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Religion is just packed with it.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in the past, too much of our Christianity has been packed with guilt.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what the world has seen in the past.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, a lot of them they don't know what's going on in the church world today.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know what God's saying to us and how He's revealing the beauty of this gospel.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they think that all the churches are like that.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: They just think all the churches is just a place to go and get guilt because it has been in a lot of places.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of us liked it.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: I know I did.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I used to say I didn't feel like I've been to church unless I came out feeling like a sinner.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, gosh.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: We thought that was good.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want a preacher that beat breeze around the bush.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: I want to pick up the whole tree and hit me over the head with it.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'd say stupid things like that because of trying to deal with this sin consciousness.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: We thought that's what we needed to get beat up over the head.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that'll break this horse, you know?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus came along saying, I'm about to give you a gift.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those who hungered and thirsted, those who've been hurting, those who felt guilt and fear and shame, those who couldn't find happiness and peace and joy in your soul.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Those who keep looking, you're looking in things, you're looking in indulgences, you're looking in religion, you're looking in philosophy, you're hungering and thirsting for this thing.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell you, you're really blessed because you're going to get filled.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to get it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give it to you.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you you rose to the to the to the status of hungering and thirsting sufficiently so I can so you can finally find it.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: But because I'm giving it freely, and whosoever will can have this free gift of rightness with God, of being able to stand with me so that where I am, you can be also.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Be able to stand with me without guilt or inferiority, a sense of need, lack.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord will be your shepherd, and you will not want.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that good?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then we then we go to the next chapter here, in chapter 6 of Matthew.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 31.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is where Jesus says, Therefore don't worry, saying, What are we going to eat?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are we going to wear?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: What are we going to drink?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because after these things the Gentiles seek.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: The world.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: The people that these are the people that still don't know.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know God.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: They're still seeking, still always looking, always trying to have lack fulfilled.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because your heavenly Father knows you need these things.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: This righteousness and the kingdom of God always going together.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: We read it there in Matthew in the beginning.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Unless your righteousness goes beyond the righteousness of the Pharisees, you won't enter the kingdom of heaven.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a righteousness to get in.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before they knew what Jesus was talking about, they thought he was demanding more activity from them.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: But he was saying it takes a gift.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Bible says in Romans that the kingdom of God, there again, is righteousness.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: The ability to stand with God without guilt or fear.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kingdom of God.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, I thought it was walking on clouds with harps.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Don't be afraid, little flock.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's your Father's good pleasure to give it to you.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Give it to you.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't come to condemn.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't come demanding anything from you.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've been demanding of yourself for thousands of years.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I came to give you something.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's called grace, it's called mercy, it's called love, it's called God.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: And all these things will be added unto you.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how many of you would do with this verse like I would do?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom of God.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is beautiful.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And all these things will be added.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: All these things will just come to you.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I wouldn't see that when I'd read that verse for so long.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: What I saw was seek first the kingdom.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's my problem.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I need to seek harder.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there again, look, he's talking before his death, before the gift has actually been poured out.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he's telling them, this is what you need.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Says, get this.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Get the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: By receiving him.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: When we believe, the Bible says, to those who believe, the gift of righteousness has been poured out.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: What must we do to work the works of God?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do we deal with this, Lord?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do we become whole?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do we deal with the sin consciousness?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: What is it that God wants?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: What must we do?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: They said in John 6, he said, This is the work.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Believe.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Believe on him that he sent.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do you believe it?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: By hearing it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And considering.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe Rick is telling the truth here.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is right.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe everything I've needed, I do have already.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's already in the house.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not insufficient.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not incomplete.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not lacking.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not that, it's not me going around saying, well, what I need is this, what I need is that.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: That holy grail, people look at in the world.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why is see right now in the day that we're in right now, big business is these life gurus and life coaches, and and and they they can cut they they can, I mean, they project this fullness that people want.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Follow me and by my program, and you'll finally have all your dreams come true.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: You'll have all this success.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll teach you how to believe in you, they say, and then you can have faith to dominate those who have no faith.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: They prey on the sin consciousness.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You need to lose weight.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Follow me.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: By my program.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: I found the way of perfection.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I finally found the right one.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a thousand other ones that say they have, but I'm the right one.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Follow me.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Follow my financial program.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll finally never have any money problems.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: You'll finally get this right.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And because people have a sin consciousness, a lack consciousness, it's like, yeah, I need that, and I need that, and I need that, and I need that, and I need that from this perfect person, and that from that perfect person, and that one, and all they're doing is trying to satisfy their own holy grail using you.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it all stems from that same one little thing right there in the Garden of Eden, that sin consciousness.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: So in church, we're saying, what I need to do is this.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: What I ought to be doing is this.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: What God really wants me doing is that.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I know I don't do enough of this.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: I need to do more of that.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Sin consciousness, not righteousness consciousness.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: It says I'm complete in Him.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: He has made me holy.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gift, it's not something you did.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all here?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So He said the kingdom of heaven is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're established in truth, this is where the peace and the joy in the Holy Ghost.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: What was it that you were saying yesterday you were telling me about how um how when people are not established in righteousness, not established in this, that's the problem.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not established in righteousness.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: So no matter how hard they try, they're still uh going after that elusive peace of mind and rest of their soul.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they hear they should have it.
• 31:05
  unknown: I'm sorry.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think too is that that sense where you say, Well, I know God loves me.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: God loves everybody, I know I'm righteous, everything's good.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't necessarily mean you're established in righteousness.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: Very good, that's right.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know it, but you're not necessarily established.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And even in this with righteousness, people go, you hear, and people say, I'm the righteousness of God in Christ.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the righteousness of God in Christ.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: But to be established in that and established in the love of God to where it becomes a part of who you are, you believe it.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know it.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you wake up, you're aware of it.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to be it.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just a legal position, it's the reality, the eternal reality of who you are and always will be.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you see act out.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're established in this righteousness, this is why I say this is very, very important.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: When you're established in this righteousness, the joy just happens, the peace just happens.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Get the righteousness, which is the kingdom of God, and all these things are added unto you.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the flow of life.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: We had to be made complete.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as we're trying to become complete, we're not in the flow of life.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all here?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Eternal life, stand up, you guys.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Linda, unless you've got another song in mind, I'd like to do, I'll take you back if it's not too hard to remember.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: How y'all doing?
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: We used to sang a song and we can we're complete in him.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are complete in him.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: First time I ever walked into a service and Linda opened up on that piano and sang, I'll never forget it.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: She sang a song and said, I know I am righteous, I know I am whole, I know I am complete in him.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can sing that one if you'd rather do that, either one of those.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: But see, Jesus took us back before that fall.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: He took us back to the Father.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: As if the shame never entered in, as if the fear never happened because of that sin consciousness.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in Hebrews, the blood of bulls and goats that they used for all those thousands of years, it could never cleanse our conscience of that sin.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Legally, we were forgiven for that year.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: But when they would make that sacrifice, they'd walk away.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: In their mind, they still knew they were a sinner.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: They still knew that they weren't enough.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the blood of Jesus purges our conscience, where you literally, literally feel.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't feel this, hear this truth today.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Meditate on this, get a hold of this, where you literally feel like you've never sinned in your life.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Though you know you have, but you feel like you haven't.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: You feel clean, you feel whole.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: You feel complete because that's your reality.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you guys.