Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Going Outside the Camp

Transcript

Going Outside the Camp · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to look at Hebrews chapter 13 and get into this.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how far I'll I'll be able to go with this, but I've got there's a lot of scripture that I could cover that I know I won't.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um God was speaking to me this morning and I heard these two things.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I just pulled up these two scriptures, and I didn't know where they were going to go together or anything, and and uh but I knew that I was going to open up to this.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: One was Hebrews 13.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it was about it was about leaving the camp and going outside the camp.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, okay, I guess God wants me to encourage people to leave the church and go somewhere else.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, and the other one was John chapter 3, where Nicodemus comes to speak to Jesus.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I was reading those this morning, and I and something looks like it might come together here that's really, really good, and I started looking at things and remembering some of my uh reading of the history of the Pharisees because Nicodemus was a Pharisee, and you know he he kind of snuck off to go talk to Jesus at night.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to look at that.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: But in Hebrews chapter 13, beginning in verse 8, says, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we can take that verse all by itself, and that's a good message itself.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I can take that verse and I can preach that the same Jesus today will be the same Jesus tomorrow.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: And normally what we do is we say things like, the same Jesus who healed yesterday is the same Jesus who heals today and will always be your healer.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's appropriate, and that works, and that fits because Jesus in every single way is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: He does not change.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but there again, in the context, and I love teaching this way because for those of you who are serious about studying God's Word, you know, you get into the Word, you read a whole lot, to be really powerful in it and ground it to where it really can have an effect on your life and not I don't know.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot, if you don't, if you don't understand a lot of the things about why the Bible was written and who it was written to and when it was written and the situation, really the the the context of it.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can take certain things and I mean we can create a people do this, they create doctrines out of one verse.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you take that one verse by itself, they look like they've got solid ground to stand on, but then when you look at the whole uh scenery around that verse, you realize it's not so solid.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But this word of God is solid.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: We look at it for what it is, and and so we look at the context here, look, look at what the writer here is, and I believe it was Paul writing this to the Hebrews.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh he was always uh appealing to the to the Jewish mind because he understood it.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: He he was a Pharisee, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what he's saying is that he's not going to change his doctrine, his view, or the way he's doing things.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of this kind of this kind of gets over into like God's doing something different now, God's doing something new.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what we really see is that God's revealing something in us and we're doing something new.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's really what it is.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But he's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, so, and since that's the case, don't be attracted by strange new ideas.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus isn't going to come up with any new ideas.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: His idea was good.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was right, it was fulfilling, it was complete.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not like that idea that he's coming up with new ideas means that he didn't finish the work, he didn't really do it all, but in the future he's gonna finish this thing.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, because Jesus is saying yesterday, today, and for the same one who died and rose again from the dead ain't changing the plan, ain't changing the message.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be attracted by strange new ideas.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your strength comes from God's grace, not from rules about food.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reading from the New Living Translation.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Your strength comes from God's grace.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: What's he pointing back to?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That same grace that we see in the work of Jesus is that same power.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need a new idea to change it or add something to it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: He says, your strength comes from God's grace, not from the rules about food, which don't even help those who are following those rules.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have an altar from which the priests in the tabernacle don't even have a right to eat.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the holy place as a sacrifice of sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: So also, in the same way, Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make his people holy by the means of his own blood.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let us also go out to him.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go outside the camp and bear the disgrace that he bore.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in context, what he's the specific thing he's talking about here was, and this applies to people, it can apply to us here today, even, but uh, the specific thing was here's these, he's writing to Hebrews.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he's telling them about Jesus.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: About how he is God, he is Lord, he's the sacrifice, he's the way.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And all this, this is the end of the book of Hebrews.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: This whole book he talks about the priests, the sacrifices, the order of Melchizedek.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: In every single point of the law and the prophets, he points out it's talking about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now that I've told you that, make a choice.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're going to have to despair the gr uh bear the disgrace from your peers, huh?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there's confidence there, there's security there.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna, if you choose this way, your local synagogue is gonna start praying that you'll get back in church if you start following Jesus.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna believe that you fell from the faith, they're gonna believe that you're that you're uh uh apostate, a heretic.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but I'm calling you to come out from that which seems right, which seems normal in the past.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but now that you see what you see, step out and follow it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in fact, now I want to go to John chapter 3.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we see sort of a description of what he's what he what he's talking about here.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: You remember how we don't have time to read it all, but there are accounts of those.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus was a Pharisee, Paul was a Pharisee.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees we see were always opposing Jesus, but let's not forget that of the Jews that believed, many of them were Pharisees.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Pharisees were sort of the majority party of the Jewish religion.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: There was the Pharisees, the Sadducees, there were the Essenes, who were the who they were so the Pharisees, Pharisee means separatist.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Their whole point was the law, the law of Moses, the law, the law, the law, the law.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And using that law, that's what made them separate.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: They were keepers of the law, and they called themselves separatists.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: They believe in being separate from the world.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Separate, separate, separate.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they didn't touch things that they deemed lawfully unclean.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have anything to do with Samaritans, they didn't touch lepers, they didn't, they didn't, they didn't eat with sinners, they didn't have anything to do with sinners.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: They were separatists.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: The Sadducees were more about the temple things.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: They actually took upon themselves the priestly thing when it should have been the Levites historically, but they became, they sort of kept that going, the priestly duties of the of the of the temple.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: That was their big um big issue.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was what they put at the top, was the temple worship.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the Pharisees put the law.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees believed uh uh in the law of Moses, they also believed happened to believe in the supernatural.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: They believed in uh miracles, they believed in angels and demons, they believed in what they called the end of days, they believed in a resurrection.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where the Sadducees were simply more about the temple and the worship temple and the rites and the sacraments, and they did not believe in the supernatural, and we know that one of those big issues was the resurrection of the dead.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe in that, anything supernatural.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: The Essenes were the ones that were totally even more uh they they they separated themselves from the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all that.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees were started in the first century, uh, really before Jesus came.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it and if you know that the history there, and and and if you're a real good Bible student, you study the history, it just it brings, it brings so much more weight to what you read when you're just reading the uh the scriptures.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the history of this was was Jewish, the Jews had come under for many, many years, from Alexander the Great and Ptolemus and the Seleucid.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: These were all this was all a Greek influence, a Greek, a Greek dynasty had come.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were under Greek rule, they were under Babylonian rule before that, after the Babylonians, they were under the Persian rule.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because it was just one one empire after another would take over, and Israel happened to be in that area, and whoever took over, Israel was theirs now.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so then after after the Persians, then it was Alexander the Great, and then all then the Greeks took over.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the Bible is written in the Greek language.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Greek dynasty lasted a long, long, long time under different people.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it strongly influenced the Jews.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Jews were having a, they were more and more becoming more like the Greeks.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were, they still practiced and believed in their Jewish God, but they were taking on Greek philosophies as part of their religion.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were taking on the group the Greek stories as part of their as part of their religion.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They were they were that they would uh that would it was just a common.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: They were called Hellenistic Jews with Greek influence.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: They were a mixture.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Pharisees actually were zealots who just who decided they wanted to rise against all this stuff coming in.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they went to war.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you ever heard of the Maccabees, there was a family of the uh of the Maccabees, but the Maccabees, a dad and his sons, and they were great, great soldiers, and they could gather 40,000 people eventually, and they would come against the Greeks, and they actually won.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: This was a glorious time in Jewish history.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: They actually defeated uh the Greeks in their land, and they became their own autonomous territory.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: They they actually got to rule themselves, and they were not really under Greek rule for that time.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: They became so powerful.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so during that time, then the Pharisees rose up to get rid of all this Greek influence that had come into the Jewish religion, and so that's why they were so big about the laws of Moses, because they were restoring it back to back to the purity of that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so they stood strong against that.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Sadducees still held a lot of the Hellenistic things, um, and then there were those that were very, very much Greek-style Jewish people that still believed and worshiped their God, but they had taken on so many Jewish, uh, excuse me, Greek uh philosophies and ideas and mixed it in.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this was very common.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus sometimes would talk, would minister in that way.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the you know, the story about, you got this issue about the story of Abraham and Lazarus, and you know, they die, and and uh, you know, one wants his tongue cooled by water and all that.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a Greek story that that was common that had come in through that.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus used that story that they all knew to illustrate something.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so this this whole thing was mixed in.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So the Jews, I mean the Pharisees, this is why they were so strict about it.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they've got there was a man here who was a one of the Pharisees, verse one, named Nicodemus.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he was a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And after dark one evening, notice he came in secret.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because those who would who were beginning to believe in Jesus of the Pharisees were doing it secretly.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them were actually still in the Sanhedrin and still in the leadership, but they but they they they didn't let on that they were starting to believe in Jesus because the Bible says it very plainly that they feared that they would be excommunicated, they'd be kicked out of their synagogue, their church.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they wouldn't make that commitment, and they had this secret thing, say, yeah, I believe.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: But they had all this mixture in them.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's why John would say in the book of 1 John, when he would say, you know, whoever confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh, whoever confesses, because they would not confess in in that early time.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they they they would tell people secretly, but they would not openly confess that they believed in Jesus.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so Nicodemus came in the came in the after dark one evening and he said, Master, Rabbi, we all know that God has sent you to teach us.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So here's something.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Pharisees were talking all the time about this Jesus.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: He was causing trouble.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And there was some, and and and Nicodemus, think about this.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why brought all I gave you all this background because I want you to think about something.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: What a big deal it is for somebody in the camp of the Pharisees to start looking and hearing about Jesus, and in his own inside, something starting to change, and he's thinking, not like how everybody else around him is talking, he's thinking, you know, maybe he's it.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe everybody sitting around me right now, who have such great arguments and they believe so strongly, maybe if that's not the way it is.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what we thought the Christ was isn't really what the Christ is to be at all.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is it.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he's curious, and he he goes to Jesus and he's just it it's working in him so strong that he's just got to slip away and he's got to go talk to this guy that they've got to do it in the dark because his other brothers in the church, they they he can't let them know because they'll kick him out.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're very sensitive about this.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, now we we know.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, we know, we the Pharisees, we know that you're a teacher sent from God.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they had such a problem.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, we see these things you do, but why do you got to break the rules?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you know that you're a teacher sent from God?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You're miraculous sign.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody can do the things that you do unless God sent them.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So they're sitting there, and Jesus has got this guy, an opportunity to this guy, and he's like, Well, you believe that, huh?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, let me tell you something.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you a truth right here, since you're here.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you what it's about.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, the the Pharisees, when they came to Jesus, and usually their questions were nothing like this.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Their questions were, what about washing?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: What about marriage?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: What about the Sabbath?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: What about this?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: What about what about those things?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: They were always about those, the laws of Moses, laws of Moses, and Jesus says, You think I'm a teacher, so you believe I'm a teacher?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me teach you something tonight.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let me go beyond your your rules and your ideas about what it's what it's all about.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Unless a man is born again, he can't see the kingdom of uh of God.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he goes beyond ritual cleansing and washing and keeping of rituals, and he goes all the way over into the kingdom of heaven, something bigger than anything else that they've been talking about here.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, said Nicodemus?
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: How can a man when he's old go back into his mother's womb and be born again?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, I'm telling you the truth.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the spirit.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Humans can reproduce only human life.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: King James says flesh is flesh.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Humans reproduce only human life, but the spirit, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's shifting way on over from anything that they've been able to talk about before.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's offering something big now, and the reason I want to get into this is this, because what where this applies to us this morning is remember what you've got.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That what Jesus was teaching here, who's the same yesterday, today, and forever, has no new idea, is not going to come up with a better idea for you next year.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: What he gave is what you got.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with people operating in it and enjoying it and living in the supernatural power and goodness of this thing, is because they don't really look at it, they don't really esteem it, they think that it's just a little something, something, and they still want God to do something different in the days ahead.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: And bring it back to this.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: He said, What it's about, Nicodemus.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: He could have said, it's not what something's gonna happen 3,000 years from now after I die.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, It's about being born of the Spirit.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what you've got is this law of Moses, flesh can do all this flesh.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And all you guys keeping this law and keeping all these rites and rituals, all you're gonna keep producing is human beings.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal human beings that keep those rules and laws, or at least try to.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about something different, Nicodemus.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You believe I'm a teacher sent from God?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me talk to you about something.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: That this that all you're gonna do is produce humans and after humans after humans.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about producing after God.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about a new creation, I'm talking about a new nature, I'm talking about power, I'm talking about eternal life here.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about being born of the supernatural spirit of the same one who created all things.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the new birth is.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing better than that.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that needs to be extra added to it because what you've got, when you've got the spirit, you've got God Himself.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm?
• 18:38
  unknown: Amen.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people, all people will agree with that, and they'll say, Yeah, I know, I know I'm the temple and God dwells in me.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why does it not seem like God's living in me?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because of the distractions.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because of the idea that you don't, and so because you're looking at it at it in the flesh, you think that there's got to be something else that God gives.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I got good news.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: I got good news.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the good news there's nothing more.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: You've got it all.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody says, Well, that sounds like bad news to me because I want it to get better.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is better.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: It got better.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your growth comes from the acknowledging of what you got.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Man, wake up every morning and understand the truth here that God's with you.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to enter into the spirit, you don't have to seek and find God anymore.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: He found you.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's right there.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's with you every single morning.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: You are a part of him, you're in union with him.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You are low, you are, you are really in union with him.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is truth.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're not playing, this is not a mental thing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is talking about being born of the Spirit.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: This is not positive thinking where you think it up.
• 19:51
  unknown: Amen.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is a truth that if you'll stop and sometimes just be still and get quiet and get back to the real.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Look in the mirror and say, I am a born-again child of the living God.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to live forever.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I need is in this house.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've got all power in heaven and earth.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you can live it and you walk it.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: Your faith becomes affected by the acknowledging of every good thing that's in you.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Humans can only reproduce human life.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just the repetition of quote correct doctrine will only reproduce humans with correct doctrine.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's the spirit that gives life, right?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Very simple.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 7, so don't be surprised when I say that you must be born again.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: That phrase either means born again, we understand what that means, or born of the spirit, or born from above.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: A whole otherworldly thing here.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: The wind blows wherever it wants, just as you can hear the wind, but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't explain how people are born of the spirit.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a human thing.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not logical.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get it from keeping all the rules and getting all your ducks in a row, and then you finally get the anointing.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Then you finally get the abundant life.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then you finally attain eternal life.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then you finally get the goods.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You don't get.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can't explain how this works.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just does.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: How are these things possible, Nicodemus said?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus replied, Well, you're a respected Jewish teacher.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't understand these things?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're one of the top ones, and he was.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the history there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: He was very respected as one of the, not just a follower of Pharisees, he was a teacher of the Pharisees.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: A member of the high council.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Respected.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: People listened to him when he talked normally.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You're Respected Jewish teacher.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and you don't understand the things that I'm telling you?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Listen, I guarantee you that what we're telling you, we know and we have seen, and yet you don't believe our testimony?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: What were the earthly things he was telling?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a lot of times he was telling them what was about to happen in Israel.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: The natural things that were about to happen.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Notice those who believed, who believed it when he talked about the earthly things that were about to happen, those who believed his words were the ones that were spared and went out and evangelized the world.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: They also believed the heavenly things.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No one has ever gone to heaven and returned.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: We read about Elijah being caught up to heaven, I guess.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: We don't read about him coming back to earth.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Nobody's ever gone to heaven in return, but the Son of Man has come down from heaven.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And just like Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: For this is how God loved the world.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, there again, remember what we're talking about.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: We read this as if Jesus is talking to us.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the word does talk to us, but in context, he was talking to a Pharisee, a leader of the Pharisees, who doesn't really understand spiritual things, but understands everything else.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and what one thing he does understand is condemnation.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: He understands about breaking the law, he understands about punishment, he understands about pressure and condemnation of the law, he understands about the standard of holy living that everybody gets condemned under.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: He understands about all that.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but this whole thing, he says, Licodemus, you want to know something?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've made it a point to come out here and talk to me.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to tell you the truth here.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: He said, it's not about condemnation.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: I did not come to do what you guys are doing.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: I came to do something totally different.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I did not come to condemn, I came to say it.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, today, all of these thoughts and these ideas of not living up to a standard, of not being quite being there, of being less than.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: What are those?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: They may not be condemnations that come straight from the laws of Moses, but it's the same spirit of death that 2 Corinthians 3 talks about.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: The spirit that ministers condemnation.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: It says, You're not there, you're not enough.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Even the acknowledgement that says I'm going to get there, you're saying I'm not.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: See, there's not a new idea out there ahead of you.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's what you got.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: See, your victory is not in your future.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's in your faith now.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I talk about the now, the now zone.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now I started preaching now, and I started hearing about these people, and they call them kingdom now.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't want to start believing like this.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I started getting around some of them, and I thought, I thought, oh, well, I I believe in the kingdom like right now, so I want to get around these guys.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I get around some of them and I find out none of them believed in the now.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're still all pushing it ahead somewhere.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: That means now.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever he's gonna be, you know, in your future ten years from now, he's already that now.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all hearing me?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna be something better ten years from now for you.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you think he's gonna be next week or next year, he already is.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, isn't that a good word?
• 26:09
  unknown: Yes, he is.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't come to condemn or judge the world, but to save the world through him.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 18.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Nicodemus is, I mean, look how cool Jesus is.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: He starts off by letting Nicodemus know I'm not, I didn't come, I'm not adding anything to what you guys have.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm way over here in another world here.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I came from heaven.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I brought heaven to earth here.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are producing after men.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was a man.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I came from heaven to give you life.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody that believes in me, the Son of Man, Nicodemus, who has thousands of laws and reasons to judge man, anybody who believes in me has no judgment against him at all.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: What do we see in Hebrews?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is God's grace that gives you strength.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but anyone who does not believe in him, he's already been judged for not believing in God's one and only Son.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Look at you, Nicodemus.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Before I come along, you're already judged.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're already living under a standard.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're still crying hard, you're still working, you're still trying to get there.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you came to me.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you came.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: You still want more.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you're doing hasn't been enough.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why you're condemned, Nicodemus.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you live under that.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you live under judgment all the time.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: All those who don't believe in me, all those that you left behind tonight to come talk to me.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, They're living under judgment.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're living under condemnation.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they're putting it on everybody else.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and it's simply because they don't know me.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: They don't believe.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and the judgment is based on this one fact.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: God's light came into the world.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: But people love darkness more than the light because their actions were evil.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: When did Nicodemus come talk to Jesus in the light or in the dark?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the light came.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: But they like the darkness more than the light because their actions are evil.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And all who do evil hate the light and they refuse to go near it for fear that their sins will be exposed.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they're doing what God wants.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to go ahead and take that step that you feel yourself being called to.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know that you're curious about me.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know you want to believe in me.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: But you're condemned because of the religion that doesn't want to let you out.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you came in the dark.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you just come on into the light?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you come see me when it's daytime?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you make a commitment?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you confess me?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you believe in me?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, short story, long story short, he did that.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: We see pretty soon, we see Nicodemus in another situation where where they're uh arguing about about Jesus and what to do with him, and we need to kill him, and he's a false prophet and all that.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Nicodemus stands up, wait a minute, wait a minute, don't be so fast.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody should be judged until he's been heard.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because they were all ready to go go arrest Jesus that night.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Go get him.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute, he ought to be heard first.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he's he's still playing both sides here.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: But we also see that when Jesus died, Nicodemus came into the light, because right there in front of everybody, him and another Pharisee, Joseph of Arimathea, came and buried the body of Jesus.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Nicodemus went and got a hundred pounds, a hundred Roman pounds worth of spices for his burial and and study.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: You find this is an extraordinary amount.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: This was a king's burial that Nicodemus was coming to prepare Jesus with in front of everybody after his body was dead, and they took him off of that cross and they fixed him up right there.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: So he stepped over, he stepped across.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the whole point I wanted to see in all this, because we know the story that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and he came and he was curious, and some of you know that he eventually crossed over, but look at the teaching that Jesus was giving him.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this same yesterday, today, and forever.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Look what look what it look why Nicodemus was willing to pay the cost because inside of him he began to say, you know what?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is Jesus.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what he's saying really is it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe what I have been looking for has is really wrapped up in him.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he we know, because of his actions, we know that he committed his belief to Jesus.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that as he committed his belief to Jesus, that he experienced what Jesus said, no judgment upon him, no condemnation.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus stepped out, and this is the altar call to him this morning.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus stepped out of that place, that camp, that mindset, that city where no matter what he he learned, no matter what he studied, no matter how good he was at it, he was never going to be enough.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was always going to be less than.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he crossed over into life.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Nicodemus experienced in his life later on.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And history, I mean, there's actually a book of Nicodemus in the Apocrypha, and they're taken with grains of salt, but there's also religious traditions that Nicodemus became a great, a great saint and a martyr and all that, and maybe he did, but we know that he believed in Jesus.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he stepped out of never being quite there into right there with Jesus.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: My word, my altar call is come out of the camp.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: That might be a mindset, that might be something that's haunting you, it might be a religious tradition that says sometimes it's as subtle as just I'm not there yet.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you to have the guts and the boldness to step out of that today, to leave that place of I'm not quite there.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because you'll never get there that way.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a place called there, and his name is Jesus.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're born of the Spirit, welcome home.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're there.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you're born of the Spirit, you're with Christ in heavenly places.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, where do you want to go?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're not where?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Remember when God asked Adam, Adam, where are you?
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting answer he gave.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Adam, where are you?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: What did Adam say?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was afraid.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was naked.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was ashamed.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't ask him how he felt.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Where are you?
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: You ever think of that?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't ask him, Adam, how do you feel?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't even ask him, Adam, why are you hiding?
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Adam answered a question that God didn't ask.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: You ever think of that?
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Adam, where are you?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was afraid.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was naked, so I hid myself.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: God could have said, I didn't ask you, why did you hide?
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Where are you?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was naked and I was afraid and I was ashamed.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't ask you, how are you feeling?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I asked, where are you?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: If Adam had answered, you know where Adam would have would have said if he had thought about and answered the question, if he had answered it truthfully?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even though he felt ashamed, even though he felt afraid, even though he knew that he was insufficient and naked, even though he had hidden from God, Adam, where are you?
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know where he was?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: He was still in the Garden of Eden.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm not quite there.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you how you feel.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm in the garden.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're seated with him in heavenly places.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the kingdom.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the throne room.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the spirit.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: See, we look, we brought in all these ideas of insufficiency.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: We used to talk about, well, you know, I don't want to be in the flesh, I want to be in the spirit.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to get out of the flesh and try to get in the spirit and all that.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we understand that, but Paul says, listen, you're not in the flesh, but you're in the spirit now, if so be that Christ dwells in you.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not there yet.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you now?
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm afraid.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I did bad God.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I pulled away from where are you?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're still there.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Stand up, guys.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.