Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Legos and Logos

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Legos and Logos · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I know I share this this often, but it's important to the to the message this morning.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had had a had quite a few years of Christianity where I was when I say this, I don't want to negate that even when I even though I was so much in my head a lot of it, even though I had false, incomplete, and inaccurate images of God that made me and it caused me to struggle in my Christianity a lot, I don't want to negate that God was with me and God was still good to me and God was still faithful and he was still blessing me in in ways, right?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing that he can still do that.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and in fact it is amazing.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I still think it's amazing that he could ever how how did I ever get how did someone like me ever even get saved?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Somehow he he had a way of knowing how to break through, right?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then even after that, when I talk about my my other conversion experience where I lay it on the floor and I'm laying there and saying, Father, I quit because everything I'm trying is not enough, and I appreciate the blessings that I've gotten from all these things, but but I'm I I've never been satisfied, and I can't make it to the top of the holy mountain, sir.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, and I I've I've I don't have any more strength and I don't have any more ideas, and and uh and the body of Christ has run out of ideas.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They've preached a hundred different things to me, and I've tried them all, and and and I I don't have any more juice, and I'm I quit, and I wasn't quitting him, but I was quitting trying.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you have you know you've heard me say this, and it was like God said, Good, are you done now?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and and what happened, or what began really began to happen that day was was I describe it in many ways, but today I want to say what uh what happened was I went from my head to my heart and I beheld the glory of the Father.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was changed.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and I know all I do is talk about his goodness, his grace, and his his love, and there are many things that we can do in the body, and there's many things we can teach about God, and many ways that we can operate and the gifts and and all of that, and I love it, and more power to all of you for and for doing those things and operating in the administrations that God has given you.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm captivated by something that has brought me the most precious thing I've ever found, and that's peace in my soul.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the greatest treasure that I've ever known.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: God loves me, and I love him, and we are one, and I know that.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as we sing about being in Christ today and being in that life today, and it's long because as long as he's alive, it's not done.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because that life that we've possessed that that is in us, the life we live in Christ, the life of Christ in us, it supersedes everything.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna live forever.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is that our fan?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have a fan?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And all these things that we experience and all the things that we stress about, and all the things that are going on, all those things are that are manifestations of a world that is death, are in our lives being swallowed up by life.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The life that has been freely given that we powerfully possess within us.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even in these weak and and and and and and and frail vessels.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Himself, being in a living, kept choosing to come and be here in a body that could die, but had the life of the Father in him.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the grave couldn't hold him.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: As long as he's alive in you, it's not done today, right?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's get into this.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a little mouthful to say, and I want to be able to say it efficiently and not take uh a whole lot of time.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um John chapter 1.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 14.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all love John chapter 1?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love, aren't you glad John wrote a gospel too, besides Matthew, Mark, and Luke?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now theirs is awesome.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We love that.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We preach out of it, we read it, we get so much out of it, but they've got a lot of this parallel things, they're called the synoptic gospels because they're similar.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: But then you read the fourth one, you read John, and he goes out there, boom.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, well, that sounds like Genesis.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he was, and he went there.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: He went past, you know, the other ones, they were saying, you know, this guy begat that one, and this one begat that, and that be, and then, you know, and this whole earthly genealogy, and John goes past all that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Forget that.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the real thing that we saw past the Jewish man with the beard.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning was the word.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And John chapter 1, verse 14 says, And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we beheld his glory.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and full of truth.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me say a word about this word.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: We know that some of us know that in the beginning was the word, and that word became flesh.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: That word, there's a word for the word, the word.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Did you catch that?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: There is a word for that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: We know some of us know that it's logos in the Greek.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how many of you ever heard of Heraclitus or Heraclitus?
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I get to bring a little bit of new information here.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Heraclitus was, he, about 500 years before John wrote this, he was a Greek, he was a Greek philosopher.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he's known as one of the great, one of the main architects of what we recognize as Greek philosophy.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was before Socrates, before Plato, and and he he's the one that first coined the usage of the Greek word logos, which simply means word or to express something.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: He coined its usage to actually refer to God Himself.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: He called it the divine expression.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, and he's the one that said, the logos is the divine expression of God that speaks, that always has spoken, always will speak.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It will never change.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it created all things.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Heracletus said this.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, it is it is indifferent to all the opinions of man because it is eternal truth.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it brought life to all things.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Heracletus said this.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it holds all things together in spite of all the things that man is up to.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: The logos will endure forever.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The word was God.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, and and and many uh and and many probably most serious scholars of the Bible agree that John was very aware of this and was actually referring to the idea of Heracletus.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You understand that in this time that this place was very heavily influenced by Greek culture, philosophy, and thought.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Jewish religion itself was very heavily influenced at that time by by Greek thought.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um in fact, it was so heavily influenced, that's why they had the Maccabean War, because there were certain people that didn't like the Greek ideas being brought into their religion, but it was it was all over it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh in fact, Jesus himself, sometimes in his some of his stories, he would borrow some things from some of the Greek tales and myths and things, and not that what Jesus was saying was a myth, but he would take from those and tell a truth.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was heavily influenced.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they're aware of this.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: They already know that there's a term, I believe, I'm very sure, uh, this logos, and so he's using that.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so when he writes this, he's thinking of that.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying the logos in the beginning was the logos.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now, see, we got these colorful things up here.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: There's a play on words I'm using here.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm normally the worst about titles.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: People will ask me, even after I've preached, do you have a title for that message?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm I never can think of anything.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say, I don't know.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you watch it and try to find something?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: But but I got a title for this.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I made, it's a good title.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: I made it up myself.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's called The Logos and the Legos, or the Legos and the Logos.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna have an expression, we're gonna have a uh something here uh this morning.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So think of that as we're reading this and we say, and and John's writing says, and the logos.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what we're when we say the logos, the word, we know we're talking about Jesus when we read here.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: But let's look at what John was talking about and what he was referring to, and let's, if we can, let's go beyond the Jewish flesh of Jesus with the beard and the sandals.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to that which was in the beginning.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think of the logos, also let's go beyond the written page and not to belittle or demean the Bible at all.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It is the inspired word of God and it contains the revelation of God.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the book of Jesus, if you really look at it.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: But look beyond, you know, what Gutenberg started printing on paper, and look at that which was in the beginning.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Look at that which created all things and that which holds all things together.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: There is a logos, and the logos is, by this definition, the living expression or the divine expression, Heracletus said, and what John's referring to, the divine expression.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you have a passion translation, I like what it uses.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It says, it says, and the living expression, the living expression became flesh, and it dwelt among us.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you remember John wrote later on in a letter, he says, that which was in the beginning, that which we have felt, that's what we have tasted, we have touch, well, excuse me, not tasted, we have touched, we've handled the word, the logos of life.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because there were people at that time that were thinking that he didn't even come in the flesh.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We've touched it.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe he was not talking about just the the the earthly flesh, but even the resurrected flesh of the one that that that dwelt among them for 40 years, eating and drinking with them 40 40 years, 40 days, excuse me.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: 40 days.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was the 40-year guy.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us felt like we were the 40-year guy, right?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: 40 days.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, No, you think he didn't come in the flesh?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We've touched him.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Resurrection is real.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Resurrection life and resurrection power is real.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, then we go into verse 17 here.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth, there it is again, grace and truth, grace and truth, came through Jesus.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Next verse.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Passion translation.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: No one ever gazed upon the full splendor of God except his uniquely beloved Son, who is cherished by the Father and held close to his heart, and now that he has come to us, he has unfolded the full explanation of who God truly is.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what do people have before God is fully unfolded before you, before you see who God truly is?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I found?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: What I found that that we will do anyway, and they've done it throughout all of history, is that if we don't see God, then we'll make an image of God.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll create one in some way.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's like how many of you like to read books, novels?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: You like your readers.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody is, but some of you are.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: You like to read.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have ever read a novel and it became a movie, and then you said, you know, the book is even better than the movie.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Most people that read will say that.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Judy's a reader.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: She reads to me.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: I can read.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I can.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: But but I hear that often.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: You we've all heard that often.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: People will say, you'll see a good movie and you'll brag about it, and somebody will say, Well, the book's better.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, how would I know?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, but but sometimes you'll see the movie after you've read the book, and sometimes you'll be surprised by how they how it looks on the movie, because in your mind you already had created an image.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like you thought a character would be more like this.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But then somebody else, when they made a movie, which is a real visual, something you can really just look at.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: You when you look at a movie, you don't have to imagine what the person looks like.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: You see what the person looks like.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: In the book, you have to imagine it, more or less.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes you're surprised by how it's depicted when you see the image that you don't have to create.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing is, sometimes we'll say, you know what?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: I like the book better because I liked what I imagined about this person better than what they showed.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if if you can kind of compare that to where I'm going with this, is sometimes when you try to present the reality of God as Jesus did and what he was doing in his day when he walked on the earth in a fleshly body, is he was presenting the full the full picture of who God is.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But some people like their image better, didn't they?
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Than the living image, than the real thing.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't, you know, the than the than the real thing.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want uh Judy's gonna come up here and and and help me now.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to we're going to create some images because what happens is it's what I had done for many years uh until God really just began to unveil himself to me was I had all these images of God.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And in the and these images of God, they got in my way and they caused a lot of trouble in my Christianity.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: They made my Christianity hard.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because I wasn't seeing God clearly, so I don't see him really clearly.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I start making, start making him up.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to make, I want to use a verse here that talks about that from Isaiah chapter 44.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he says in verse 9, those who make an image, all of them are useless.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know mine were.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was making all kinds of images of God.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And their precious things don't profit.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're their own witnesses, they neither see nor know.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's talking about the images we make, but he but but but some translations will make it sound like, you know, the images cause us not to see.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, if we're looking at an image of God, we're not looking at the real thing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: They don't see and they don't see God and they don't know God.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: That they may be ashamed.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now the word shamed is is is the word is a word pronounced boosh, and it literally means they're disappointed.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that was me for many, many years.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I came up short and I was disappointed so much, and that's when I said, God, I'm not satisfied.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just not there.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, this isn't working.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Good, are you done now?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and what I was looking for for so long, I didn't know.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I was looking for some kind of reward for all my work, maybe, or possibly that I was working toward a great end time revival, you know, that I was going to wanting to be a part of.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or some great end-time anointing that I would operate in, that people prophesy that we would all be doing things, and and I would walk down the corridors of the hospital and and clean out the hospital rooms just by walking around.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I still see those kind of things.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: But I see it in a different, in a more clear way now, that it's not what I thought, and it's not the image of a God that was on the more on the outside of me, gonna bring something to me.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's a God that lives in me, that's with me all the time, that loves me.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and of course, we see them all all in a completely different way.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened, what it really was was not an end-time move or an end-time revival or uh or an end-time anything like that.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Not something that was that was not here that was yet to come.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: What I found was something, someone that was here the whole time, right in front of me.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And all I got that day was a revelation.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it was.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: All I was really looking for was a revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that day the Holy Spirit began to do just what Jesus said he would do, that he would take of my glory and he'll show it to you.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he did.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw three things.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: One was that the finished work of Christ really was big enough and it and it took care of everything that I would ever need, and it worked.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything that I was trying to get, I already had because Jesus did it and it was finished, and it's all mine, and he's in me.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if that were true, then the next step was that then that means that everything's forgiven.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: God's not demanding anything of me.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then I can rest now.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: But but what about my behavior still, God?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: His grace was sufficient.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw fullness, and why I wrote a book called Fullness, because that was, I didn't know about a grace movement or anything like that.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I just I felt full for the first time in my life, full of love, full of peace.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now we've got a friend here who's doing something.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: We will we will help this person in just a minute.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But but then the third thing was, and if if if his grace is that, if he did that, that gracious act of death, burial, resurrection, and all that he did and ascension on high, he did all that, and he did that for me because he wanted to be with me that way, and he wanted to make sure that sin would not be an issue and there would be no barriers, no reason for any separation at all.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then he must really, really love me.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that has been growing ever since then.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: That revelation.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: We see we have a friend here who's busy.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's busy making an idol.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, look at she's got her Bible there.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why is she looking at her Bible and putting a piece?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are basically three elements that it that we make our idols with.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: One of them is we'll take fragments of scripture to build a false image of God.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can do that, right?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen it done.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've recognized you've done it, or you've certainly seen other people do it.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thick book, man.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can believe all kinds of stuff just from reading the same book.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens a lot of times is that we take fragments of scripture, and the reason somebody believes in the Bible and you believe in the Bible, but you are you're seeing two completely different images of God is because sometimes what we'll do, and I know I did it, I did it for many years, is that I would find the fragments in Scripture, I would gravitate to those scriptures for some reason.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: The scriptures that would induce fear, the scriptures that that would induce doubt, the scriptures that would induce uh being judgy in some way, critical, a judgmental type of God, uh giving me the freedom to be judgmental because that's what I want it to be.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I would find those scriptures.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can find fragments of scripture and piece them together and create an image of God that's not even really God.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: How many know that's true?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing is that we build these things out of our imperfect nurturing figures.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you had, maybe it was a parent, a mentor, a so-called spiritual leader that that gave you false information, and you started using that information to build your image in your mind of God.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all following me so far?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: How many know what I'm talking about?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: How many have ever done this?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God we really do, as the Bible says, we get set free from our idols.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is a living expression, and that living expression speaks to us.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: And number three, we we will build these things by interpreting our own experiences.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, you pray for something and it didn't turn out the way that you wanted it to, so you make an interpretation and say, well, God doesn't heal today, or God doesn't want to bless me, or God, you know, whatever.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we build that image of God, and that may that causes struggle for us.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, now, this this this our friend here with the hat on here, she believes in a God who's who's vengeful and punitive.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: She believes in a punish, punishing, penalizing God.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And her name is Peneliza.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to call her Peneliza.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because she believes in a penalizing God, a punitive God.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And she's building an idol of that type of God.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's got her scripture, she's got her experiences.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: She hasn't seen yet.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: She believes that she's inherently bad.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: She believes that she's inherently evil.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she's trying to become good to please and appease this vengeful and punitive God, this God who's looking to punish at any opportunity.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever had that image or have heard of that image in other people?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, none of you guys.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, just me.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing is that if she believes that she deserves punishment, I know this just from watching and experience.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: If we believe that we believe punishment, then we think there's others out there that deserve even more.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I'm bad and I'm trying to be good, whoo, you guys.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And we get these ideas and we get these sort of like this, there's been a lot of, there's you'll there'll be false.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: We think they're prophetic utterances sometimes.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have this image that, oh, God is getting fed up with all the evil that people are doing in the world today.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where do we get that from this image?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, maybe not.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Did I overstep?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But we get those things.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I got that I remember being five years old.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: Five year five-year-old boy.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Cute.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe I wasn't that cute.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I was innocent.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was a little boy, right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just a boy.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was very active.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I remember being very active.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't diagnose in those days.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: We just spanked.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying that was better, but we that, you know, we didn't know.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was this five-year-old boy, and I know I drove mama crazy sometimes.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, she was always trying to put me down for naps in the afternoon.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm this active five-year-old boy, and I'm like, a nap in the afternoon?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sleep.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't do it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember ever falling asleep in the afternoon when I was a boy like that.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: But she would put me down, not because it was good for me, it was good for her.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I remember one time actually thinking, I can't sleep.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, maybe I've been laying here long enough, maybe she'll think I slept.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I come out, and I can remember coming out of my bedroom, and I come out like and I looked at her, and she had grabbed the belt and she was chasing me back in the room.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was very active and I was very deceptive.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I jumped, I remember jumping up and down on a chair, and we had an ottoman in front of that chair in the living room, and I was bouncing up and down on a thing, and I jumped over the ottoman, and I and I cleared the ottoman.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Five years old, I cleared the ottoman.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Landed cleanly on the floor.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's no applause.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: I landed cleanly on the floor.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I jumped, I made it over the ottoman.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: But when I landed, I bit my lip.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm crying, and I run to mommy and tell her that I bit my lip.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she had seen the whole thing, and she said, God was punishing you because you're not supposed to be jumping on the furniture.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was her belief, I guess.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it became my belief.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: I began, that was when I began to create this image.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I believed I was bad.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I was always trying to become good.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole time, the living expression, the real God, loved me, cared about me, wanted to express himself to me, but when you believe you're bad, it's hard to receive that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be good, you God stretches out his hands to you, but I believe he hits.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: I believe God hits.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: I believe he punishes.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I would I remember preaching some, even in my pastoral ministry, I had that had that image by and large.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say things like, Oh, God took me to the woodshed this week, so I'm just going to share with you what he said.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I look back on that, that was not true, to be honest with you.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: The when after the living expression himself, God revealed himself to me.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I say, Oh, this is you.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I spoke of things I knew not.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you've never taken to the woodshed.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've been nothing but gentle and kind and patient and understanding.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the living expression.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: God is love.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have another idol that we can build.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the God with impossible expectations.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the one that we create in our mind and we try to serve that God, that image of God, and we're never good enough.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And these are all related to the others and they'll overlap, but but we're never good enough.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: We can't do enough.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because we can't do enough, we see ourselves as failures.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe not so much expecting punishment, but we certainly experienced the shame of failure.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was me laying on that floor because for 20 years I tried to climb the holy hill and get to the top of God's mountain like he wanted to, and I failed.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons was because no matter how high I climbed, I looked up and the top was still as far away as it was before.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like the goalpost kept moving, right?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like his expectations were impossible.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: I always think of the yellow brick road, and I wrote a chapter in my first book, and the chapter is called Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, because when I saw the fullness of God, I left that journey.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't been on a quest for God for decades now.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am home.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: So are you.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome home, church.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the heavenly Jerusalem.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the city of the living God, the living expression himself.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the innumerable company of angels and of just men made perfect.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Legalism is a part of this God.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it all.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I saw where someone said recently that God, that God's always trying to make you more, quote, holy.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think, do people still talk like that?
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: You forget sometimes we're the minority still.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: But but the butt you know, he and he so what he does is he'll work hard on one sin of yours, and once you get that conquered, then he'll start on the next one.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that was my life.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would work hard on something, and I would think that I've overcome this thing, and I'm feeling really good.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Woo! Now finally I'm where God wants me, and dog gonether ain't something else now.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all know anybody know what I'm talking about?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all ever had that experience?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was just another after another after another.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you guys have you guys had a lot better teaching than I did.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: But another thing was always trying to accomplish more for Jesus because I could never do enough to feel worthy of this God because of his expectations.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: When my when my you know my church, after I built a church here, after one year I had 30 people.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that's pretty good because I started with none and nobody came until the fourth service, so to get to 30 was a miracle.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: But after a little while, 30 seems pretty small.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you know, 50 is more respectable.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then I wanted 50.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: When I got to 50 people in my church, then I thought, that seems so small.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd go to conferences, and how many people you got in your church?
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, I got uh about 70, you know.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Then when I got 70, you know, they they well, how many people you're running down?
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've got getting close to a hundred, you know.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was never, the shame was always there.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I got a hundred, then two, it was, it just kept going.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was never enough because God was a God of impossible expectations.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is somebody who has built an image, is building an image of a God of impossible expectation.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Gilda.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Gilda.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: She can never do enough, she carries shame, and no matter what, the living expression loves her.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: The living expression's not demanding anything from her, right?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: God's not demanding anything from you or me.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I learned laying on that floor.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, I saw that truth.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't take me 40 years after that to get into scriptures and put something else together.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Once I saw the real thing, I was home.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's been learning ever since because when you see the real thing, you have fulfilled what David was crying out for in the Psalms when he said, One thing have I desired of the Lord.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I began, I got at the beginning of that that day.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire daily in his temple.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we're at.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why in this place of revelation, we can grow like a weed because now we don't have to try to find the house of God and climb the holy hill.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're home, and now we can just inquire daily and behold the beauty, and that's how we're growing today.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we are becoming more and more like him because we're seeing him.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm trying to, the living expression is always speaking to us.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's always with us, has never left us, and he's always trying to let her know.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love you, and you're mine, and let's be together and listen, Joel.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I am the fullness of life, and here it is.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: But this idol has guilta distracted.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't see the living expression, the logos yet.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: That God with the impossible expectations is often, she feels this God here is aloof, unsympathetic, distant.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: All the image of her God cares about is her performance score.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: The living expression cares nothing about that.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, and there are many, but we're gonna we're gonna give you three.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, some people have the image of a God that's the unreliable God.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is the God that's here sometimes and sometimes he's not, he's up and he's down, sometimes he's good, and sometimes he's not.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: He's the God that did this amazing miracle for you last week.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: You told everybody about it, you rejoiced in it, you testified, you said, Oh, God is good.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: But this week you got a different challenge, and it looks scary.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've got a wrong image of God, you're not sure he's gonna be good to you this time.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're you're feeling fear and doubt because he sure did something before, I know he has, but that's not enough to convince me that this week I'm gonna actually come through.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he helps, but not always.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: He abandons.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: We find the scriptures to try to prove to us that God doesn't always do it.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know how we find those fragments of scriptures?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh there it there's I'll tell you, there's one verse that uh that that I one passage that I'm glad it's there because I understand it, but in one way I wish it never happened.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when Jesus went in and turned over the tables in the temple.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because all of us that have anger issues, we know that verse, boy.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: We love that verse.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you tell somebody, like, well, you know, maybe you can just find it in your heart to forgive these people.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus turned over the tables, you know.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's try to love them.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus turned over the tables, you know.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, and I'm like, yeah, but that's a big book, and he did it one time, not every day.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we find those scriptures to build our God.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not even a God that's good.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we need that God that's good, and that's the reality is always has been and it always will be, independent of what any of us think, he is just good.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And here, here is um, we'll call her ficelina because she serves the unreliable God.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Fickelina.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: She doesn't know if God's gonna be there or not.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know what?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm with you always.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it doesn't look good, but I I'm here.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm right here with you.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was there last week.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the same God that I had back when I was in my revival type days, where we would like have church services where the manifest presence was so real and strong, and we would go out just crying, sometimes even feeling drunk about it, just just I mean, like, man, we've been in church.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the glory, woo, the presence of a living God.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then next week it's like, where'd you go?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're trying to figure out what did we do last week that made him show up?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I must have done something right.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I must have done something good.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh could you sing that song again?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what it was.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone know what I'm talking about?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those kind of things.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and you know, because there again, we always put it back to us.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: We must have done something right.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: When the whole time, he's right here.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And all that happens when you are experiencing the heavy, manifest presence of God, all that's happening is that you have for that moment become aware of something that has always been true.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's always been with you.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And always will be.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And revelation opens it up to where we're aware every day when we wake up every single morning.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: To the time we lay down our head, it takes a revealing of the Spirit.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we get to 2 Corinthians 3.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where it happens.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that we do about this?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how does it happen?
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Rick, I I so you got a revelation and all that, and people are always asking, is there something I can do?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: How can I get a revelation like I got nothing for you because it's not about you?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: But there is one small thing that we can do.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: When the heart turns to the Lord, you've got the living expression that's been here the whole time.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, something happens.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: When the heart turns, when the heart turns to the Lord, let me read this correctly here.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the moment one turns to the Lord with an open heart, the veil is removed.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we behold, we see.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Lord is that Holy Spirit that's been here the whole time.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: And when we see, we never care about these things again.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: They have no more power, no more fear, no more guilt, no more shame.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now we and for the rest of your life, it's a walk.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: For the rest of your life, the two have become one.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that this is the real marriage of the Lamb when the two hearts, his heart's always been toward us.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And this love that we have today.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Judy revealed, she was telling me about this a couple of weeks ago in her studies.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Said, you know, there's a we talk about agape, but there's a Hebrew word for love.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a special, just like the word agape, they had to coin a usage, and they it's it's often interpreted loving-kindness, and it's the kind of love revealed that God has always had for you.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a special kind of love, it's not just emotional, but it comes from a word that means to bow towards someone.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's used as a covenant type of love because it's a love that's an attaching love, a binding love.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Lo, I am with you always.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do not fear.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Long as I'm alive, it's not over.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you see anything, give God thanks right now.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Give God thanks for what you're seeing and be grateful in your heart.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've got good news.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Your love and the logos, the living God and his expression.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: His loving you and speaking to you.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: I often marvel, I think, how did I get any of this?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: I still don't get it.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of it's just a blessing.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's just all you can do is be grateful.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more for me to see, and that excites me.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm thankful for what I do see.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because that little bit I can see now.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I say little compared to what we see through eternity, that little has made all the difference in our lives, and that's what we celebrate.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: When we think of him, when we speak his name.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Father, here we are.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Look what you've done.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're here because you have shown us your beauty, or else we're here because we want to see it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you're the speaker.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: You are that word that reveals to us.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I thank you for everyone here that no matter if they've if they're looking to find it or they have found, that right now where we're at, we behold the beauty.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we say, Show us your goodness.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because the path has not been told.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: And let everyone here remember after this day.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Always be in awareness from their waking up to the laying down of their head, that they're alive together with the one who's always loved them.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that living expression, the living word, the living resurrection life and power of He who is the resurrection is swallowing up everything.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look to our externals, we don't always see immediate changes here and there, but we're walking together.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we are safe, and all is well.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for that seventh-day rest and that peace in our souls.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being able to do what we've never been able to do on our own as we've tried to think of you and tried to understand you and even imagine you.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: That even right now the reality of God can be seen.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we are home today.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we are safe.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Father.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: I love you, Grace Church, and I know your father really, really, really, really does have another beautiful day today.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.