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Jesus: The Sun of Righteousness · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I uh I want to start off by saying I think that Matt did uh a wonderful job last week talking about what it means to redesign church.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's an exciting time that we're in, and it's actually really, really fun because once you start to think for yourself, as Matt was talking about, you experience the things that we just heard about, about some of the some of the idols and some of the gods, they start they start being exposed in our own life and our own thinking, and then we start to see the beauty of God in it.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: So today, and I'm gonna be speaking uh the next uh this week and next, and so I wanna I want to just talk about some of these things.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Talk talk about I want to talk about what our salvation is.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about uh who we really are and and and our relation to God and and and so on.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: As we do this, we find out.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't come up here just to point out it all the things that I think are lies or falsehoods, but it does get exposed and it does happen.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about, I want to start off this morning anyway, really talking about salvation.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about salvation as it's mentioned in Luke chapter 19, verse nine.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus makes this statement, and he makes this statement when he's talking, when in the story of Zacchaeus or Zacchaeus, and we know the story that Jesus has, you know, has gone to his house and Zacchaeus, something happens inside the man.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus says, I'm gonna, you know, pay back everybody I've stolen from four times, and I'm gonna I'm gonna give half of my goods to the poor.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus makes this statement.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to him, Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation has come to this house.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, notice that this is said, this is happening before Jesus goes to the cross, before he's shed his blood on the cross, and he uses that word salvation, which some of you know is a Greek word soteria, which is kind of important to know when you look at the definition of it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, salvation has come.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that you know when Jesus was being born, there was an announcement that there is born to you this day a savior.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: A savior.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to uh you know look some more at really what are what is our salvation and what does it mean, and what do we, what is it really all about?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now he said the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So something was lost, somebody was lost.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But salvation came to that man, and notice Jesus didn't say, Zacchaeus, because you're giving your money to the poor, you get to go to heaven when you die.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, because of that, you don't you don't have to be punished forever and ever in torment.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But he said salvation came.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what was he talking about?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously something happened to the man, didn't he?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Something happened to Zacchaeus, the man who was a thief, who was seemed to be greedy and selfish, and he, it seems like nobody likes him, but at least he's got money and he's living this life, and a change happened inside of him because of his interaction with Jesus, because of something that was revealed to him through Jesus, something he encountered with Jesus, something happened inside the man.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when that something happened inside the man, we see it looks like a change happens.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: We see his actions certainly change.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I I submit to you that what happened to Zacchaeus was that he he stepped into more of who he really who he really is, into his real natural self.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation came to him, restoration came to him.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, David said, You restoreth my soul.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus's soul gets aligned.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a righteousness there, there's there's an attachment there.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus, something happened inside of him.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at the words salvation, the word soteria, you know, I bring this up every once in a while.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: It means essentially it means wholeness, healing, well-being, rescue, and safety is in there.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it has to do with your condition, how you live, wholeness, well-being.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with the soul.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, 1 Peter 1, verse 9's, receiving the end of your faith or the goal or outcome of your faith, which is the salvation of your soul.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 14, 17 says that the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these are all things that happen inside you, right?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So salvation, we're talking about saving the soul.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what we used to say about saving the soul was what it meant was that you didn't have to have to be tormented forever and ever in fire, and you got to go to the good place instead.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what really needed to happen, and this is what we want to look at today, is that that there needed to be a restoration of the soul of humankind.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: There needed to be a restoration of that which was lost, that which had wandered.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what happened?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at the story here.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've got a, do I don't do we have the graphic?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we've we okay, great.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it shows up.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now I want us to look at this because I'm I'm I call this the big lie here.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my my salvation was I was grounded, it seemed like my foundation for Christianity was on that I was depraved, I was a horrible being, but I could be made better.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was separated from God, and there was a way that I could get back.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we see in the graphic, we do see a separation there, and people talk about this.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say this that the separation from God, in one sense, it is a big lie, and we'll explain that.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: In the other sense, that separation was very real.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Bible says that we were alienated.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Colossians chapter 121, I'll read that and says, and you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now has he reconciled.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Alienated and enemies in your mind.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the Bible says that he that believes a lie shall be condemned.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation talks about getting rid of all that believes and maketh a lie.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we see a whole, we see that the whole, in fact, when we go back and we look at that graphic again, if we can't, that we see that we see here in the beginning, we see the story that we read in the Bible.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: We see man and God in the Garden of Eden, right?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Eden meaning delight, pleasure, paradise.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Adam, according to Luke 3.38, is called the Son of God or the child of God.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't have an earthly mother or father.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: He he came forth from God, nobody else.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we see in the story, it looks pretty good there for a little while.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: They were naked and not ashamed, no shame.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It looks pretty good there for a while, but then we know how the story goes.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: The dirty deed is done, and then there's this separation, death.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the way we always, the way many people will look at it is that man was disobedient.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And man's problem has always been rebellion and disobedience to God, and he's been bad and he's been evil, and somehow we got to deal with that, and Jesus dealt with that in some kind of way.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: But part of the problem with that is that we keep this mindset of this separation and this depravity that we spend our whole Christian lives trying to connect with God, trying to still connect.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Christians still day by day are feeling like God is still somewhere else, that he's out there, that he's far away.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: When you're going through hard times, it's like, God, do you care?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: God, do you hear?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: God, are you out there?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the dirty deed is done.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the human is naked and unashamed.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then something starts to happen inside the human.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens, starts to go in the mind.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we see a beginning of it with the whispering of the serpent that says, Did God really say, You won't show you?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: God knows that if you do this, you'll be like him.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so we start to see this separation going on here.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that choosing of the knowledge of good and evil was us saying, This is what we're going to go with.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to go with this duality thing here.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that fear came and shame came because of that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then we see the story, we see not God pulling away from man, right?
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: See, I guess I always had the mindset from things that I'd heard that God was the one that pulls away because of my ugliness or because of my sin.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: They tell me if you sin, God can't look on that, he has to turn his back on it, or your sin will separate you.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: They would tell me, technically, I'm still in relationship with God, but I have broken fellowship with God.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to do something to try to make that fellowship right.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's that was the kind of idea that I had.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so we see, we see in the story, we see God coming to the man.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: We see man pulling away, we see man hiding, we see man being in the fear and in the shame, but we see God coming to him.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Adam, where are you?
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Adam's hiding from God.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Adam's got this separation mentality, just like the Bible said, you who were once alienated and enemies in your mind.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is the beginning of God being somewhere else.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the beginning, it was just presence.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, it was oneness, union, communion.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens not to God, but to the human.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the human starts on this separation mentality and it starts working in everything.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: God is now too holy.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot be in his presence.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just like the prodigal son, who would say in the parable that Jesus gave, I am I have sinned against heaven and against you, and I am not worthy to be called your son.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Luke 3.38 says, Adam was God's son.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I have sinned against heaven and against you, and I'm not worthy to be called your son.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is that union talk or separation talk?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not worthy to be called your son.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So something's going on in Adam, and it brings a fear and it brings a shame.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And remember also, you know, when God, when God brought forth the woman, he took of the human and he took of the side of that human and made a female, and male and female he now had.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what did the male say?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: What did Adam say?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's oneness talk, right?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's union, that's communion.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But something now has happened in the human.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: With the separation mentality, something has happened because God says, Adam, where are you?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Well, I was afraid, so I hid myself because I was a I was naked.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, Who told you you were naked?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did you eat of that tree?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because that tree is the only thing that's gonna make you feel like this.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only way you could be thinking like that is to have that duality going on there.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Where you're separated from me.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be you're afraid and you're ashamed.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Did you eat of that tree?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the man who once would look at his wife and say, You're flesh of my flesh and your bone of my bone.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are one.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now says she did it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: The woman did it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: The woman, the woman did it.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, now they're not one.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, I heard a pastor one time many years ago say this, and I think it's a really good illustration.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That he had a that he was talking about on Sunday morning.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about how a husband and a wife are one flesh, as the Bible says.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Said it there in Genesis.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Paul talked about it later on.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: How they're one flesh.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so the pastor makes a statement.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, So really, you can't be upset at your spouse if they do something that's not good, because if your spouse does it, it's the same as you doing it, if you really want.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, oh, that's pretty good.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, after the service, there was a couple in our church that, and uh the wife had left because she had brought some people to church and she was going to go take them home and come back and pick up her husband.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the men were just were just talking, and and after a while, his wife comes in, pulls into the parking lot, and comes on up and she says, she says, Jake, did you like that sermon today?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I thought it was good.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, Do you believe it?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you believe we're one?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Yeah.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: She says, Well, you need to come out and see what you did to the car.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're one, oh, you won't feel too bad about that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: You, I mean, you can you can have a sense of oneness, like, oh, hey, you know, if you did it, I did it, we did it, it's all one.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're afraid and you're ashamed, and you're in the separation of ego instead of the joy of presence, then what you want to do is protect yourself, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so this man feeling now naked, now afraid, now ashamed, because he's not in presence, he's in ego in his mind.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's alone, he's solitary.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's got to protect what he has here.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so he blames it on the woman.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: The woman you gave me, you gave me.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You gave me the woman, you gave it to her.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So really it kind of goes back to you, and I wouldn't be in this pickle if it weren't for you, God.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a that's a separation mentality.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we see this separation mentality.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Did God ever pull away from that?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Were we ever really, really pulled away from God?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was inside of us.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was in our thoughts and in our mind, and that thing still is so prevalent today.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And with that moving into ego rather than presence, we we felt shame, fear, blame, and comparison.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: She did it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's willing to throw her under the bus.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: In comparison, it's like, yeah, I shouldn't have done that, but at least I'm not as bad as her.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: She started it.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I heard a guy talking about one time, he was talking about one of the people that minister in their church, and he and he was just running this guy down and just said, you know, just the way he is, when he's not in the pulpit, said, I it just it just makes me mad every time he gets up there.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And his wife says, Will you do the same thing?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and he did, because I know them both.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Will you do the same thing?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yeah, but at least I don't get up there and preach.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing the same thing, but he's better comparing because at least he's not getting up there preaching.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the presence, how many know God is the same yesterday, today, and forever?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: How many know the word says that he's with us always, even unto the end of the world?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: He'll never leave you nor forsake you.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: God never changes.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: God never left.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: God always is, and we have always been with God, but we have been ignorant, we've been blind, we've been lost.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ignorance and darkness and blindness don't know.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: They do not know, nor do they see, can't, nor can they understand, the Bible says.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we needed to be found, we needed to be saved, if you will.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, like he told Pilate in John 18, I have come to bear witness of the truth.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've got this eternal truth, truth that the presence of God is always.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is God everywhere?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: If God is everywhere, he can't pull away from me, he can't separate from me.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: He can't go where I'm not.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you when you sin, God goes away.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Where does he go?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where can I go to be away from you, God?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't the guy say that even if I make my bell in sh my bed in Sheol, that you are there too?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So God is always.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see in the blue line on the top, this signifies eternal life.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is forever.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is unchanging.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is God yesterday, today, and forever, always the same.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: But man has now taken this journey here.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And man is lost.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're in dualism.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And with that lost condition and dualism and being blind, we we we know we feel the separation just like we did in the beginning.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Fear and shame.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: We feel the separation.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do about it?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna try something.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna try all kinds of things.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Religion comes from that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Religion comes from that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: So many, we we come up with so many ideas trying to figure this out.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is where moralizing comes from.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're if it's declared that our problem is our evil actions and depravity, then the answer would be for us to be better.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get better.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Did any of you in your Christianity, you came to Jesus and here you are now, and you believe that you're that you're that you're washed by the blood, you you read that you're the righteousness of God in Christ.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever still struggle in your mind with this sense that you're still not quite good enough?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where does that come from?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever still struggle in your mind where it still still felt sometimes like God wasn't real, real close?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: You could get close sometimes.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: If the worship service was really good, you could get close.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you had a successful time in the prayer closet, which you didn't always have, but if you did, you felt like you could get close.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about drawing near to God.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: We would invite God to come to us.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we have these ideas with this that that still include this separate mentality, separation mentality.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all, remember, it was all based, this whole thing started, it was all based on a deception.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was all based on a misunderstanding of the Father, just like the prodigal son when Jesus told that story.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, the prodigal son, when he remembered his father's house, what did he say?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go back and be a servant, because I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I am not worthy to be called your son.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember being in church, and we would say over and over again, how we're not worthy, we're not worthy, we're not worthy.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God is with us and He'll He's He's He He loves us and He's our teacher.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, He corrected me on that one time.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Even after I got I got a hold of how gracious He was or began to understand that, I remember one time just being so grateful and thinking, ah, God loves me, His grace really is sufficient, Jesus really is enough, and there's nothing demanded of me.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I got a hold of that.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it blessed me, it changed me, it did a work in my soul.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember one time worshiping and I was just thinking, oh God, this is so good.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I thank you for loving me so unconditionally this way.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I don't deserve it, but thank you for doing it.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Could not have thought of this on my own.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: It did not go with any of my thinking, any any way that I believed at all.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I heard an interruption in my thoughts that said, I have very valid reasons for loving you.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what are they, Rick?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know to this day, but I believe.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe he likes me.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it and there again, something happened in my soul where it wasn't about my unworthiness anymore, or my worthiness.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't, it wasn't even an issue anymore.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was just about oneness, union, communion.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: God who likes you and likes things about you, who brought you forth, created you the way you are.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're unique, and he likes things.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, does he like you know, here's what here's here's what people do when I say things like, you know, God loves everybody.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: How many know that?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: How many know God loves everybody on this earth?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: God so loved the world.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: About three of you.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's true.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what happens sometimes in the mind is people will say, they they feel like they have to bring this caveat.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Oh yeah, he does, but he doesn't like everything they do.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I wasn't even talking about that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about people.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: But what what we do is not even not even related, really.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I I use the example of our our youngest granddaughter, it wasn't that long, she was still in a go, she was still in diapers.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've loved that girl uh every moment of her life.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I hate, hated when she'd poop her diaper.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have this thing about my nose is sensitive to those things.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I gag, I just they're like, oh, it's not that bad.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, ugh.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like all the babies in my life have been those been the ones that everybody will leave and they'll say, we're just gonna be gone 10 minutes.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: It said, said, she's just been changed, everything's okay.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, I know what they do as soon as you walk out the door.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is what she does has nothing to do.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: At her stinkiest, poopiest mess, there was not one moment when I did not love and like that child, that person.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not for a moment.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're not related.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: How did they get related?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because we had to tie something to our separation.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the moralizing comes from.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard people talk about what God's gonna ask you when you get to heaven one day is did you get the sin out of your life?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyway, so many things that that are a part of the separation mentality, and some of them are a part of our religion.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, why do you think there's so many doctrinal debates?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: People just trying to figure this stuff out.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they compare, and we've got ego in that separation.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: So my doctrine's better than yours.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And even though they love Jesus down there, you better not go to that church because they believe, yeah, so it's us versus them.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Culture wars are all a part of that same thing.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when you got that separation mentality, he said, you can you can even think some of those things are God.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: See, Adam's separation mentality didn't just affect how close he felt to God, it felt how close he it affected how close he felt to his wife.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Then the story book goes on, and we see that downward thing.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: We see Cain and Abel, Cain killing Abel.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because look like God respected Abel's sacrifice, and and and and I can't can't live with this.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: If I get rid of him, then I'll be number one.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Ego has to defend that.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ego is afraid.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ego is afraid because it it works on a mentality of being separated from God, and it feels alone and it feels unsecure and unsafe, and so it will fight for what it's constructed.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why are there fightings and wars among you, James says?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is it not because of those lusts, those desires that are in your members?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those things you want, but you can't have, so you fight and you war.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And all of these things that we see are simply a Part of a big lie.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: The idea, the idea that we're separated from life, the idea that if there's a God, He's way out there, you know, this righteousness that we know, it doesn't say who's going to go up there and bring it down to us because he's not up there.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: He is an ever-present hell.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: What if God was always with us?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: See, here's another problem.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of us have an idea, at least, that our history begins with the fall of man.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: We think that's where the story starts.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Fall because of that fall.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: The fall, the fall, the fall.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: We go to the fall.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you remember the story was going on before the fall, right?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Together with God.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Ephesians 1 says that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So where were we, and how long ago was that?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that that that's that's that's a whole lot longer than this thing.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then somehow, with this whole separation thing, people still think, even though Jesus has come, that he's we're still in Adam somehow.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or we're still the ongoing story of Adam.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And basically the idea that's not in the Bible at all was that all of mankind, because of his depravity and sin and rebellion and disobedience, is what they say, is all sliding into this eternal torment.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: They were all sliding into this eternal torment, and then Jesus came and sort of made an escape hatch that some people would find.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: But most of them wouldn't, and they would just slide in and scream forever.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the story of Adam goes on, and Jesus is just some kind of a footnote.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just some kind of asterisk in the story.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the story of Adam goes on.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the real story of Adam doesn't start with the fall.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: The story of man starts with God in the beginning, who has loved us.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if we can go to that other, there's a there's another graphic I have, which is a continuation of this.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the the the the back part of this.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we've had the whole separation mentality, but in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, Jesus.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was also called Emmanuel, which means God with us.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, catch that.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: The very name, God, with that's a declaration, that's a statement.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: God with us.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now the Bible says that we are born from above.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, is that something that is not true, but it can be true if you do certain things?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or did Jesus come to bear witness to the truth and say, Look, you guys are lost.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: I came to seek and save that which was lost.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I came to bear witness of the truth.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I came to open the eyes of the blind.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I came to heal the broken hearts, the salvation of the soul, the well-being and the fullness of the soul.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was said that when he came into the earth, that unto those who sat in darkness have seen a great light.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes and brings illumination.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel comes and brings brings the light to us.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: It opens our eyes and we see.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And because of Jesus, and because of everything that he says, everything his life says, his incarnation, everything the cross says, his death, burial, resurrection, shedding of blood, all of it speaks of a union and a presence with God.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is God with us.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: In John 18, he said it this way: I have come into this world to prove what truth really is, and everyone that loves the truth will receive my words.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: So he came to seek and save that which was lost.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: He used these stories to describe what goes on with us.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: He said, It's like a woman who had 10 coins and she lost one.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she did all she could to find that coin.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because the coin was still valuable.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, I say this, I use it this way.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: I did a lot of horrible, horrible things.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I lived an ungodly type of life.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: God, not even hardly in my consciousness, doing what I did.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the whole time I was valuable, I was precious, and I was loved.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was lost, I was blind, I was ignorant, I was in darkness, I pooped my pants a lot, so to speak, but I was loved, loved the whole time.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know it.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know God loved me.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want anything to do with God because there's no way that he could love me, because it was all based upon these, on the dualistic thinking of it being works and so on.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he came to prove what truth really is.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is that God has always loved us, for God so loved the world.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And come on, you know this.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not come to change God's mind and make him love us now.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: God was not some angry, hateful, vengeful thing that he just couldn't stand us, and he was just, you know, he his justice demanded that he kill us, but Jesus came.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, I've even heard that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus came to shield us and protect us from an angry God.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, it was the eternal God who loved so much that he gave.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was his intent, it was his original purpose, it was his eternal purpose.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's why the Bible says that it was his eternal purpose that we were in Christ, and it says that he would do this to gather all things unto himself.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because where were we lost in our souls, mind, emotions, and wills?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus came, we see the upward working going on.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's called the Son of Righteousness in Malachi.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: The Son of Righteousness would arise with healing in his wings.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: A new day would dawn.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's called a new creation.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: A new day, the day of the righteous.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Peter said that we pay heed to that prophetic word until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our heart.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening to us?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: God is with us, and inside, unveiling is happening.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're getting unveiling of is union.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: What we're getting unveiling of is who we really are.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because they they talked about our separation, but never talked about our communion.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Told us to deny ourselves, but we never even saw who we really were.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were the coin that was valuable and precious and belonged to the Father, but just lost.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: We were the sheep that went away, but we were still a sheep.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't turn into a dog.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't turn into a scorpion or something else.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: We were still a sheep, but we were lost.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you get that?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: The coin didn't turn into a button or a paper clip when it got lost.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was still a coin.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was still valuable.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: It still belonged to the woman looking for it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation was not about trying to get us somewhere in the afterlife.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was about restoring our soul.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Restoring our soul to truth so we could know, like Paul the Apostle said, not the spirit of bondage again to fear, or not the spirit of religious duty that makes us not feel good enough, but the spirit of sonship that causes us to cry.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Daddy, I'm your child.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, son is that story.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Prodigal might have been lost.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: The father never stopped his love.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the son always belonged in the house.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: The son didn't think he deserved it.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: When he gives his speech and says, I'm not worthy to be called your son, Daddy says, Forget that business.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Put a ring on his hand.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is my son.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: You belong here.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is always in your place.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is always.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 1 10 says it this way.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, God would gather together.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome home, people.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: All things in Christ.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: They would gather together in one.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: All things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: That we are in him.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he's in us.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's union talk.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's communion talk.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's oneness talk.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a God who's somewhere else.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's God with us, in us, through us, before us, behind us, around us, God, we in him, and him in us.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where does one start and the other end?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's how one we really are.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: What this will do is affect you in your day-to-day because you're always home, you're always there, and you're safe, and you're cared for.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: It says that subject unto him all in all, or when translation says everything and everybody.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because in Christ, the lie is disposed of, and that which is from the beginning, we see at the end.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: When we see the paradise with God at the beginning, we see it in the last page of the Bible, Revelation 22.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the Alpha, the Omega, the first and the last.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's the beginning and the end.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: He is the author and the finisher.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's all in Christ.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all stand up?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your time this morning.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love God?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know He loves you?
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Be blessed and have a wonderful Sunday.