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What About the Hard Sayings of Paul? · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start in 2 Peter chapter 3 and look at a particular verse here that mentions something we want to deal with.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we're going to have fun with this, but it's going to be a Bible study.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at some scriptures here tonight, and I'm going to kind of jam a few, quite a few little, quite a few scriptures in a short time.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So follow me.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing it for a reason, because I want to deal with some things that we get questions about a lot.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And probably, maybe, and you probably do too, or maybe you have these questions.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this is about.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: We want to help.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we look at the Word of God and it's apparent.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We look at the story of redemption.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can see it from Genesis to Revelation.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You see that it is a story of the redemption of man that had fallen.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We see Jesus in all of it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: We see it from Genesis to Revelation, if you look.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's all Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: The law talked about, pointed to him, the prophets pointed to him.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, he came.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It all culminated with him.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he did it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he finished a work.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we see in this that he revealed to us in that work that God so loved the world.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus taught that, revealed that, and demonstrated that.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And reveals it to us still by his spirit as he's dwelling in us.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We see the goodness of God.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of talk about it.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's worldwide.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's going on.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: People are talking about the goodness, the grace of God, the and it's getting really good because our message, our pulpit message, is becoming very, very, very Jesus, Jesus, Jesus centered.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it's all about.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But yet, in all of that that we know, that we're willing to receive, once in a while while we're reading our Bible, we trip on some scriptures here.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, that doesn't go along with that.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why does it say that?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we rightfully get those questions people want to know.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to deal with this, and there's a lot to say about it.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to deal mostly with what I want to call the hard sayings of Paul the Apostle.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so, right here, it's interesting, right here in 2 Peter chapter 3, Peter is writing his letter to the church, and he says in chapter 3, verse 15.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: He says, And remember, and remember our Lord's patience.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reading out of New Living Translation.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, our Lord's patience gives people time to be saved.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is what our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him, speaking of these things in all of his letters.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And some of his comments are hard to understand.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is Peter saying this.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some of Paul's writings are hard to understand.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture, and this will result in their destruction.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, so you know, Peter is conceding to this.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you know, I understand.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says some of Paul's letters are hard to understand.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, he said, and people that don't know are they unlearned and they don't understand Paul or what he's trying to convey here, says they easily, they twist these scriptures to mean something else, and they do so to their destruction.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: It works against them instead of for them.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And really what we see is that there are some things that this apostle of grace said that look very harsh and legalistic.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll look at some of the examples if you're if you can't think of any.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: But first of all, before we do that, I want us to to uh well just to gloss over a few.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: For uh one some sometimes you'll get a question like, uh, well, what about hair length?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: What about what Paul said about hair length?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that the Bible says the Bible says certain things about short hair on a man and long hair on a woman, and nobody seems to care about it?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the Bible, you know?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what about male authority in the church?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: What about a woman's place in the church?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: What about a woman not opening her mouth in church?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they want to know why do we just think it's okay that women open their mouth in church?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the Bible, Paul said it.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: You see how what people do.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: They they they trip over this, and it's and and the intention's good because they want to, they believe that we should believe this and live this, and why is it in the Bible and people don't seem to adhere to it.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so we want to address those things.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul, as this guy's talking, his whole message uh was a message of of grace and not works of our of our own flesh.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But then it's like he's telling us, given, it's almost like people look at it, it's almost looks like he's given us some rules.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's the apostle that comes up, I mean, he came up with these great, great, great truths as he learned his things, he became a new creation, he saw some things that he spoke to us in ways that nobody else has said so clearly and so profoundly.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: How he spelled out through so many of these letters that he's writing to the churches about how it's about how we're saved now by grace, not works, how Jesus fulfilled it.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was brilliant.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at this, he was a genius.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever been around a true genius, sometimes it's hard to follow what they're saying.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Paul Peter was talking about that, you know.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to get some of some of the things that Paul's saying here, some of his writings in his letters.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: He talked about how Paul was the one that explained to us how love fulfills the whole law.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: How it's not about trying to keep a set of rules because we have a new nature.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We have the divine nature.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: We're new creations now.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that nature of God and that love that that love fulfills the law.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, it's not about trying not to covet.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you love your neighbor, you're not going to covet what he has or she has.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you love your neighbor, you're not going to want to kill him.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you love him, you're not going to hate him.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be angry with them.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you uh so so he talked about that, he talked about how uh he talked about being led by the Spirit and not by the letter of the law.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's interesting.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one that talks about that, but then sometimes in his letters, he's like, but hey, these things don't do.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's a place we'll look at tonight where he says, hey, somebody's doing this thing.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I told you, don't even don't even keep company with people that do these things in the church.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: People, church people that do these things, don't even keep company with them.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Kick them out of the church.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, Paul, where's all the grace?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And where does it fit?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what do we do with that?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I hope to help with that tonight.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: He came up with, uh when he came up with, he didn't invent it, God revealed it to him.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: But but he saw that what happened in this new creation with this coming, with what Jesus did, in all that he did with the shed blood and the forgiveness, remission of sins, and all that, he also saw that the prop through him the promise of the Spirit was fulfilled that he gave to those of us who believe and it imparted to us the divine nature of God.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, if anybody's in Christ now, though we once knew him after the flesh, we don't know anybody after the flesh.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: As far as we know, if any man's in Christ, he is a new creation.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Old things are passed away, all things are become new.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And though we once knew men after the flesh, we don't know him that way anymore.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: We don't judge by the flesh.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: If they're in Christ, they're they're new.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one who said that in Christ we're holy, we're blameless, we're justified, we're righteous.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But in 1 Corinthians, he said, hey, you got a brother doing these things.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Kick him out of church.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is it with Paul here?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one that says we're all equal in Christ.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: He said, in Christ there's no male, no female, no Jew, no Greek, no slave, no masters, no male nor female.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Then he turns around and tells Timothy, Don't you let women talk teach in the church?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why not, Paul?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because Eve, Eve was the one that disobeyed.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Adam just Adam just didn't know better.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Adam was deceived, but Eve disobeyed.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's letting Adam off the hook in that whole thing.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And all because of what Eve did a long time ago, now you guys can't talk.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: What is it with Paul here?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's a complicated guy, isn't he?
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at him.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have your attention, or I've gotten you really confused now.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: You did you you're you're aware of this, right?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: You guys read your Bible, you come across these things, and it's like, oh, where does this go?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this in the and and it's almost like and we can't just take a marker and mark it out.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's in it's in the Bible.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: But there's very easily valid reasons for this.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing that I want to say overall is that when these things come up, when you find something that goes against the message of God's heart and his word to us, this whole thing, overall, you look at the context.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, there is a grand context of the Word of God.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is the redemption, the resurrection of mankind through what God's purpose was, eternally.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a whole context of salvation by grace, for it was by grace that we were to live with God in the beginning, and it was the fall from grace, which doesn't mean you did something bad, doesn't mean you made a mistake or did something wrong.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: The fall from grace was that we turned from grace to ourself.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Grace puts it all on God.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Flesh puts the works on us to do, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so Adam was doing that way before Moses gave the law.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why death reigned even from Adam to Moses before there ever was a law.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a story of God creating us to walk by his grace, to live and let it be God.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let God be the provision, let God be the life, let God be everything.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: We said, no, we can do this.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be we'll be that for ourselves.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it didn't work.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But God had the plan from the beginning.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a we understand there is a big context of God loving the world and bringing her home to him.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: We understand, when we rightly divide, we see old covenant, new covenant.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: We understand the context of covenants.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: We understand the context that anything in the within the that's talking about the new covenant, which is what Paul was talking about the whole time, uh, anything within that context is all about the new covenant that God promised, where it would be a divine nature.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: He would put his ways within us.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: He would be with us, he would live in us.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: He said, their sins I wouldn't remember, their sins and their iniquities I would remember no more.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man whose sins are not held against it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: As far as the East is from the West, they will know me because I'll be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities I'll remember no more.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we see this all in the new, the context of the new.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when you read reading the New Testament and you see something that looks like it's against that, we're not seeing it right.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And context puts it in right.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Also, when the individual book in the Bible, the letters that we read, Paul's letters, Peter's letters, but when we read these, understand context.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Understand why it was written, who it was written to, what time was it written in, what was the situation in, what was he really trying to deal with?
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: When we don't, when we know those things, it becomes very, very clear every single time to me.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: When we don't, a problem that we have had in American Christianity for a long time is we've taken the Bible as as in sound bites.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we've taken, we say, well, it says over here this, and it says over here that, and then we create a sermon and ultimately a doctrine out of all of that.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: There have been church denominations started basically on one verse sometimes.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and and and what happens is honestly, you can take some of the things that Paul said, whose whole thing was salvation by grace.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: He was beaten because of it.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: He was stoned because of it, he was persecuted because he preached a salvation by grace and grace alone and not of works, and he was hated for it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Romans chapter 3, verse 8 said he was accused, accused of preaching, preaching grace so greasy.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was, huh?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul, he said in Romans chapter 3, he says, so we says, and we're not as those who, as some say, that we preach, well, let's just go ahead and sin because grace abounds.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: We still hear that today, don't we?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's all they're preaching over there.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just go ahead and sin.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you, I've never, never, and I don't even know anybody that's ever really said that, to be honest with you.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard a lot of them.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Never heard anybody say, yeah, go ahead and do all the sin that, do all the sin because grace abounds, it won't matter.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But we understand how people can take it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul was so all about grace because grace wraps everything up in Jesus and puts everything on him.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he was about.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: What he preached was Christ and him crucified.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Crucified.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so we know he was all about grace.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: He would get so mad when teachers would come into the churches that he started and they preached against it.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: He'd get angry.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, his personality, his personal, I think, sometimes fleshly zeal would come out and he'd say, I wish they would be castrated.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another one, he says, he says, I wish they would be, I wish they would just go to hell.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now, King James might say, Count them merit uh, you know, accursed or something, but the original reads it's a little bit different.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: He he he he he was so into grace and hate of this, but then we can also we can take certain sound bites from his letters and we can preach the most legalistic, harsh, burden laying on you message from some of the things that Paul said.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to know context to know what he's saying.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: You see it happen in the media all the time nowadays, right?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see something, you'll say, you know, this politician said this, and it's like that's shocking.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: How could anybody say something like that?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you ever get a hold of the whole video, you find out, oh, they weren't even talking about that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sound bites do that, and we've done that with the Bible too much.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to look at context tonight.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as we look at these things, Paul sometimes he would give a list of sins.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians chapter 5.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: What would he say about those sins?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Those who do such things do not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Idolatrous, covetous.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, covetous.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to covet?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: It means to want.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: You want something.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wish you had something.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that brings the bar pretty pretty pretty low.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody's like, well, who who who doesn't do that?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: He said they don't inherit.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, well, it looks like a list of rule.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, if I want to inherit the kingdom of God, if I want to go to heaven, then I can't ever do any of this.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can't ever.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 5, he said, kick this man out of the church.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Don't associate with him.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at some of these verses here.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to begin in verse 21 and look at this.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, some things we have to be aware of.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this this we're doing this to help us understand, right divide, and this way the word becomes clear, and you'll have you'll you'll not come across these verses and have any kind of condemnation because Paul's the one that wrote, There's no condemnation in Christ Jesus.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and so I want you to look at what Paul preached.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, what we're reading in a lot of these like, we're reading letters to churches that he started.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: He birthed them, led them to Jesus in most cases.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Many of these churches were very, very new believers that had that that came out of idolatry, paganism, different things, and he's these are his babies.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so he would write these letters to them, and sometimes, such as the hair issue, we could talk about that, uh, it was obviously a cultural thing.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So as it so was it with the with the woman thing that he that he addressed.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: There were certain cultural things of that time that you would speak in a certain way about those things that now are understood totally different now.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was situational.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: His letters were addressing certain situations.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: The church was a certain kind of church in a certain kind of place with certain things going on in the culture around them.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were, there were certain, they were specific, his talking was specific to that church.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the things he told the Corinthian church, he didn't say to the Galatian church, because they were having different situations.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't tell the Galatians church to kick people out of church, he didn't tell them to do any of that, no Ephesians, Colossians, none of that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: But in Corinthians, there was a thing going on that he'd prayed about, and he was led by the Spirit on how to do it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't get led by the Spirit to let put down a law of rules.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: What people want to do again is they want to look at some of these writings that Paul, the apostle of grace, wrote, and they want to take, they want it, they want the a list of rules to follow.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: See, and that's a fallacy right there because he because Paul revealed to us in Romans 8:14, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they're the sons of God, that now we're led by the Spirit.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have the Spirit.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is our leader.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, He'll lead you, he'll guide you.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible even says you don't even need that a man be your teacher.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is really your teacher.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, God gave the gifts of the teachers and the pastors and the evangelists and so on, but but but really what in what we're saying up here is that you don't really get anything unless the Spirit is teaching you something.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: The one who's in you, the one who's with you, who is your guide and your teacher and is showing you these things and opening your eyes to things.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, so so these letters here, he was writing certain things that were in certain situations that you may not be in.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing is that let's remember that in these letters he had distance.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he was in prison or he'd be on another another journey somewhere else.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so there were problems that would come up that he would he would address, but he was very, very far away.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, it took forever for a letter to get there.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd say, So do this, and the rest I'll set in order when I come.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he would give them a quick stopgap measure sometimes.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh remember another thing is that the reason Paul, who gave this great revelation of grace, which is centered around who Jesus is and the work of Jesus.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what he preached.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: But in his letters, because he was the apostle of that church, birthed that church, was setting in elders and sometimes pastors in the church, and he was he was dealing with governmental things, he was dealing with administrative things in the church.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't deal with any of that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came and taught the kingdom, showed it, and brought it to us with his death, burial, and resurrection.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul was getting into some into into things with dealing with administrative and governmental things in the church.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make a law doctrine for everybody to do because they're not in that same place and position that that and situation that Paul was in necessarily.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to lay all that down so we can look at some of these scriptures here.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: So in 1 Corinthians 1 verse 21, he said, For since in the since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Jews request a sign, the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime we were talking about this, and we said, What we were talking about, what did what is it that Paul preached?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, did he preach something?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: So all we know is that whenever he did say what he preached, he said, I preach Christ and I preach him crucified.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the other things that we get and make doctrines out of was I want you to be aware this was not his message to the people.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in talking to his churches in certain in certain situations, then he would say certain things.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: But remember that the message was always Christ.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The message was not, and he dealt with sin in the church.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: But his message was not about going, he didn't go to the to the to the nations that he went to and preach about dealing with sin.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: He preached Christ and him crucified.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: That was the message he brought.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: He preached Christ and how in the goodness of God and what all what all that it meant and what all it entailed.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We preach Christ crucified.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: To the Jews, that's a stumbling block, and to the Greeks it's foolishness.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: But to those who are called both Jew and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and he's the wisdom of God.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also there in chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, in verse 2, just that one little verse, he says, For I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul was all about.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing that we do is we because we don't know context, this is how our message in the church gets off of Christ and Him crucified.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that sometimes we'll take these letters of Him dealing with situations, and while there's truth there and while there's wisdom there in us to help us look at things in our situations, but what we've done too often in the church is we'll take some of those things and we make that those the central message.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why people get into other things.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: We preach things and we major on preaching in things that aren't aren't Christ and Him crucified.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how that's how Christians, why Christians struggle so much with just living by the grace and the goodness and the love and the endowment and the favor of God is because they think it's about all these other things too.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what Paul said, no, the message is Christ and Him crucified.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in all of that, he would deal with things.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: He would deal with, he, he, he, he, he would deal with things, but people take, take, take messages.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what we do, what do we do today?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: People will find pieces, little phrases of things that Paul said here and there.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Peter and Paul, they'll find phrases in these things, and they'll develop a message about spiritual warfare.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: People have ministries from that they take it here, and it's all about inner healing.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: A thing that's going around, you know, the courts of heaven, and people are just all getting into all these different things, and they're getting away from the and from the Christ and Him crucified message, which is the fullness of everything, and we start getting piece and parcel of this and that, and developing doctrines.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, that's why Peter says, and they take some of the things that are hard to understand by Paul, and he says, and they twist it to mean something else.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Paul, one, he mentioned, he mentioned, you know, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but principalities, powers, spiritual darkness.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so what do people do?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: They took that letter and they start building a whole, they've there have been whole churches and movements built on that, built on spiritual warfare.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've been involved in all of this stuff.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: But let's remember that the central message has always been the central message.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is Christ and Him crucified, what He has done.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you keep your life centered around that, you'll always be in the grace of God because everything is on Him.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: But see what these other things do?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: They put it on you.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the courts of heaven, you gotta do it, you gotta plead your case, you gotta win.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta repent of things.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta, you gotta, you gotta break curses in your life.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's another one.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Curse breaking, that's all a part of it.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Where do we get that?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Where do why do people have whole ministries built on and have whole conventions and conferences on things, and they'll they'll call you in and and everybody get together and we're gonna break the curses in your life.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they get that?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: From some little piece of a verse over in the Old Testament that says something about visiting the iniquities of the fathers to the third and fourth generation or something like that.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this whole thing is built on something over there like that.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we do that?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And why why we why do we even follow it?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're not we don't stay around Christ and Him crucified, and so because we don't, we're not focused on the one who is enough and who is the fullness of him that fills everything and everybody, we go looking for it in something else.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: What did Peter say?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: He said we twist it to mean something else, and we do so to our own destruction.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why Christians have are have been chasing carrots on a stick and thinking that, you know, I need this, and oh now I know what my problem is.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to break these hereditary curses in my life.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these, I'm talking about physical hereditary, I'm talking about generational curses, they call them.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Something your great-great-grandpa did that you didn't know about until you went to some meeting and somehow something happened to you, and you you suddenly realize that, oh, it's what great-great-grandpa did, and no, that's why, that's why I'm so miserable while everything bad's happening to me, but I break that in Jesus' name.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now everything's okay.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but but but but the truth is that Jesus took care of all of that.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is no curse on you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're a new creation in Christ Jesus.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: As he is, so are you.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: And y'all hear.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so we see there what this looking at what Paul preached.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 5 there of 1 Corinthians.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm going to get into something here.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 1, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality it's not even named among the Gentiles.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's talking to this writing to his church here, and so he's saying, I've heard about something.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotten back to me that there's something, there's some stuff going on in the church.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's far away.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's trying to trying to take care of this church, but he's far away, and all he's got is letters.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, he says, but he says, but I've heard.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's gotten back to me.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's been reported that there's that there's a kind of, there is a sexual situation going on that even the unbelievers don't even do this.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even hear that out there among them.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says that a man would would would have his father's wife.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was with his mama or stepmom or something, but he says, He said, and this is in the church, he says.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, and then on uh verse verse 9, he says, I wrote to you in my letter not to keep company with sexually immoral people.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So he had written to them before and said, Don't keep company with people doing this stuff.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but I certainly did not mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and extortioners, idolaters, because then you'd have to go out of the world because they're everywhere.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, so but now I'm writing to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother who is sexually immoral.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he's already changing some of his, he says, you know, I need to reword this to make it more clear to you.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, now I'm telling you this: don't keep a company with anyone uh named a brother who is sexually immoral, who's covetous, who's an idolater, who's a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And don't even eat with such a person.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what we do we take that, and it's like, all right.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we we we but this is we turn it into witch hunts.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to find what's wrong with you, and if you're doing any of these things, I've got to keep myself pure, I've got to keep myself clean, stay away from you.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says to stay away, stay away.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're staying away, trying to stay away from everything because we're afraid we'll be defiled, because we take this thing and we don't understand, understand context.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you just read the verse by itself and you take it as a sound bite, then what do we do?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: We take it in our brain as a rule and a law to follow.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now understand, Paul said it's many, he that is led by the Spirit is a Son of God, and he's and he's and he's dealing with this by the Spirit, the best that he can here.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and so, and so that's what he's doing here.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing he did, and he's dealing with these situations.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't come and explain grace so well, and then come along and invent his own New Testament ten commandments for us to keep.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: There are none like that.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one that told us love fulfills everything.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's that that, you know, uh the the Bible says there is one commandment.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: The commandment is love.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Love God, love your neighbor, and it fulfills everything.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not coming along making lists for the church.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's not thinking I'm gonna make a list that for thousands of years the church is gonna read my list and they're gonna know what they're supposed to do and what they're not supposed to do.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, it's not about that.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have espoused you to Christ.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is a relationship here.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but something's going on here that I want to deal with, he says.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and so he talks about that, and then I want to, for time's sake, I want to skip on down to verse 1 of chapter 6, because it's in this same same letter here.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And now he starts, he starts dealing with, he continues to talk about this, and he says, you know, don't even hang out with someone.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, This is this is some bad stuff.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't you know a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh yeah, polluting, you know, gotta get so what do people do?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: They'll take that and we're gonna get the sin out of the church.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you literally take that as a law and try to do that, you will have an empty church.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Huh?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: Take the covetous right there.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: That'll disqualify just about everybody, I think, in some way or another.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and where do you define that law?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: You say, well, no, he just means a little.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do you know that?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you draw your own line on this?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every church would draw it in a different place.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can covet this much, but you can't covet that much.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, then you get into that.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's all flesh, then.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: It all just becomes a carnal ordinance.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he goes on talking about that though.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and he, and he talks about, he mentioned, he says, he says, here's what I want you to do.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I've I've he says, he says, I've already decided concerning him.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: What he means, I've already discerned it, I've I've prayed.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, he says, and with my spirit, here's what I want you to do.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Next time you gather together, he says, because I'm with you in spirit.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm far away, but I'm with you in spirit here.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm I'm all involved in this.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: He says, so the next time you convene and come together, I want you, when you're together with the power of God and with my spirit with you, I want you to turn that man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that his spirit, so that his flesh may be destroyed, but his spirit may be saved.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So you know what people do?
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: They'll take that and they'll develop a doctrine of turning people over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: We see him do this in this situation.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: You think that you think this is the only sinner he came across, only person that that needed some some direction and correction in the church?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't going around doing that with everybody, but I know people that do.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know I know someone who used to go to my my church back in the 90s when I was when I was pastoring and and uh was uh was uh going to another church, going under uh you know with another pastor, and and uh and this lady had lost her, her husband had died, and so she was she was alone and and you're in a situation you can get everything's confusing.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of the other guys in the church, they get together and they have relations, and they're they're not married.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And she felt, I mean, just right after she did it, she's just like, oh, that was stupid.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't even, you know, that wasn't even healthy of me.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was such a mess.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and she and so, but anyway, her pastor gets wind of it, and he comes and opens her door and drops his Bible on the floor and says, You've been having sex.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Yeah, Pastor said, said I did.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was stupid.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so he told her, he says, What we're doing is we're turning you over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that you may be saved.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I don't know exactly what that entails.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, but if I were you, I probably wouldn't be leaving my house.
• 33:55
  unknown: Huh?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's an extreme case, but this is somebody that took something that Paul said in the Bible, and he thought he was doing the right thing by God because it was biblical.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought he was trying to help her.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And this lady was so distraught, she finally she calls me and she just like tells me this whole thing.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, she says, and I haven't left my house because I believed him.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I was scared to leave my house.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Listen, that's I said, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody that's that's that's offering you that, offering you that fear instead of instead of uh goodness and faith and love.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I said, He ain't got nothing.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be afraid of anything he says.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and go outside your house and do what you want.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's just but and that's a sad extreme case, but he just do what the Bible said.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: See, we take things and try to make rules and laws and try to make doctrine out of it rather than walk with God and be led by the Spirit.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how do when people say, well, then how do you deal with these things, Rick?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do it the best you can with Jesus, and every situation is different.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you some more examples of that.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a I've shared some of this before, but a couple of situations.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so there was one where back in those days, uh my church was was growing pretty good size that time, and it had a lot of people, a lot of workers, and a lot of big, kind of a pretty good size staff, good paid staff, and and one of them was uh was a head of a certain department, and and so I was in my office uh during the day and I heard him having a meeting with the people in his department, and and and he was being pretty harsh.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: He was being pretty condescending and and and harsh to them, and I felt like, well, what are they done?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: They don't need that.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why is he acting like that?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of listened, then I understood what was going on.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: So afterwards, you know, I said, can I can I talk to you?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I we talked, we we sat down in my office, and I said, and I realized what he had done.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, he had he had seen me deal with some people in the church in a uh a way where I was confronting things with them, and he was trying to emulate that and be that way too.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a different situation.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing, I was the apostle of that church, I started that church that I cared about those people.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't just trying to do what the Bible told me to do.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I cared as a reason that I was talking to these people the way I was, and I explained to him, he said, there's a difference about doing it in the right spirit, doing it in a spirit of love, and doing it just out of a spirit of religion.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and he got it, he understood, and he just said, Oh, he says, he says, yeah, he says, that's exactly how I felt.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was supposed to be like that.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I'd like I was being pressured to do that, you know, because of how he had seen me do, and also what he saw in the Word of God.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that took the pressure off of him, and um, where he realized he didn't have to do that, that he could just flow in the Spirit, whatever that is.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're all doing.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're all being led by the Spirit.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we're all going to grow and learn to be led, you know, more accurately by the Spirit, and that's an exciting thing, but we're growing in it and doing the best we can.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're walking with him.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's with us, he's patient with us, he's leading us, he's guiding us in the best way that he can with us, and we're learning him more and growing.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why there's no condemnation.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of times I would have done things differently.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: When I look back at my younger years of pastoring and ministry, and I look back and I said, you know, if that were to happen these days, I would I would do some of those things different.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: But there's no condemnation about that back then.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was just walking with the Spirit the best I knew how and and doing what I could.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're growing in that.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's one of the good things about this.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Another situation was I had a uh around that same time, I had a a youth pastor that that was uh he was he was around 30 years old or close to it, and uh I I noticed him behaving unseemly with one of the the little uh uh little teen girls.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: She was 14 years old, and I just thought something wasn't right the way I saw him acting with her.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I called him in, I said, You just need to watch how you carry yourself with her and all that.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh yeah, Pastor, God already dealt with me, says, Yeah, yeah, I'm doing.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he he really didn't deal with it.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: He decided, well, I'm gonna get around that since since you know, Pastor's on to what I'm doing, because he was after this little girl.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and he got her.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so pretty soon they show one night they show up in my house and he had her family and everything, and they were just acting like it was a good old time.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, You know, the Bible says, He that finds a wife finds a good thing, and I want to marry her.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you're a grown man for quite a few years, and here's a little girl.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I thought, no, I can't, you know.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I tried to be as nice and gracious as I could.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, if this is, if there's if God's in this thing at all, you wait till she's of age, and that's gonna be some years, and you know, if it's still love, real love, then you know, it could be a different situation.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: But this situation, I can't say yes to this.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted me to marry them.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now he's all upset.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now now people are pout people know what's what's what's been going on, and he so he now he's he's resort he's resorting to subterfuge, he's still uh hanging out with this this girl in secret.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're they're having sex, and he's having sex with this little girl, and and this is going on, and and and so, you know, I can't let him, you know, be my youth pastor that way at all.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so now he's upset and he's mad, and and and people know that he's carrying carrying on with this, but he was very sharp and very charismatic.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so he started, he had a lot of friends in the church, and he was talking to them, and he was, you know, and he was able to talk to them in a way to where it was like they actually began to think, well, I think he's right.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think the pastor's the one that's kind of not seeing this thing right, you know.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and he was just and was talking all about these things about me, and all he even he and one guy even told me, said, Yeah, he told me that you made a homosexual pass at him.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and I and I will tell you, see, I I'm I'm a I'm a person like anybody else.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things that could tempt me, but I promise you he was not one.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but but but all this was going on, so I've got a situation that's not a normal situation.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't have a normal situation here.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: I had I've got a situation that I've got to deal with.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not making doctrine, whatever I'm gonna do here, this is not my message to the nations that I'm preaching.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna deal with some administration, some government here in the church.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't have to write a letter because I'm not a thousand miles away.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm right there, so I can deal with it in person, so that makes a difference.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it it finally it got to where I had to, because it was just it was just had spread all through the congregation.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Something had to be done.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had to address it publicly because everybody was in on this thing now.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to address it publicly and say, here's the truth.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to tell that story, I wanted to keep him covered.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted him to deal with this thing secretly and privately with just me and him.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: But he did what he did and it got out, so I had to say, I had to tell him the whole story of what he was up to.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and uh and because he was he was hanging around and and and still getting in people's ears, then I said, so don't don't associate with him.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's poisoning, he's hurting things around here, not helping.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's working against, not for, or he's not even neutral.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: He's working against what's going on here.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: I said, so don't associate with them.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody says, Well, aren't we supposed to love him?
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Are you just saying that that that we that we can't we can't love him and and spend spend be around him at all?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: I said, we sure we we always love him.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I said, now I can be around him because he's not affecting me.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's not poisoning me.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'll probably talk to him tomorrow.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know if you can.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can be around him and not be affected by him.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is what Paul's doing with these young Christians here.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he's saying, so don't associate with this guy.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there were people that that that that that that that that were involved in things in my church.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't do any of that to everybody.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only time I ever had to do that.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't have a rule of telling everybody, if if they're in sin, disassociate from them.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have it.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I'm the opposite of that.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So be around them all you can, is how I am with with people that are that are struggling, having problems, or even living in some kind of a sin.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Be around them, Christians.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Be there, love them, help them, you know.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Be somebody who believes in them, be somebody who can encourage.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't have a doctrine of disassociating from someone, but and and Paul didn't either.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you could take this one situation.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: You see where we're going?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can take a situation, and you can think that Paul had a doctrine of disassociation from anybody in church who's not living up to a certain standard.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Same right at that same time, I had a couple in my church.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were a new couple, they they had they had found Jesus at my church just recently.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: They can't, they were in love.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: Their faces just glowed.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were so excited about Jesus.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they were in love with with Jesus.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: But they're they're not formally married, they're they're living together, and they they're they're not married.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and and everybody knew the situation, so so somebody's asking me, said, Well, what's the difference?
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you know, you think one sexual immorality is better than another one?
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Says, says, you know, they're they're in sin.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they allowed to just stay?
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why are they why why are why are everybody around around, why does everybody get to treat them like they're wonderful around here?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: See, it was a different situation.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I and in this situation, remember.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we're led by the Spirit.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no rules.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: See, people are always looking for rules.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do with someone like that?
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: People ask me, what would you do?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would try to be led by the Spirit.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what would you do if somebody told you this and that and the other?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now we think we have a rule in our mind that we'd like to, but honestly, I'd like to think I would be led by the Spirit and listen to God in that moment about handling this thing.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're talking about people.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about objects here.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what it what it's about.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: But so so this other one, so I said, so they said, Well, what are you gonna do about them?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna do nothing.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: In this situation, I feel like being led that.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna, I'm just not gonna say anything about it.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going, this message that I'm preaching, it's working on them, it's doing something to them.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_00: I said, so so let's just see what it does.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just see.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm trusting that what they're getting from Jesus right now is gonna take care of all that stuff.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sure enough, it wasn't long.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: They said, we'd like to talk with you, Pastor.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Said, we would really like you to marry us.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, see, I could have given a rule.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: I could have said, you know, you need to do the right thing.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: It says right here, you know, better.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: So do that.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: You could have done, and and they would have done that, I think.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: They were that kind of people, they would have done it, but they would have done it out of rule.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: They would have done it out of obligation, not out of relationship with Jesus.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it was beautiful because it was a relationship with Jesus.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there's two cases of what people could call sexual immorality, but we don't we don't deal with them by by rule of any law, whether it's in the Old Testament or New Testament, we're led by the Spirit.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we do the best we can.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as we're growing, sometimes we might make mistakes.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we think we're led or we're not, but you know, what can you do about that?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: You do the best you can, right?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: We grow, we get better.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, there's some things I think when I look back, I would have done them differently.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I was just doing what I knew to do.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no condemnation in it.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel uh bad about the other.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: But see, but I wanted to point out in chapter six, as he goes on in this, why another reason why he was dealing with it and why it was so important to him.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because in because in chapter six, he's going on and he says, Oh yeah, there's something else too.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, you guys are taking each other to court.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you guys are having fights in the church, disputes, and you're taking each other to the unbelievers' court.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Why are you guys doing that?
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, what he says, he says, you're having these disputes and you're you're wanting to take from each other, and you're doing it right in front of unbelievers.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul was thinking, like, was showing them, you guys got so much more than that.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't you know?
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that you're going to judge the world?
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that we're going to judge angels?
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: What's he doing?
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's getting back to identity now.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, see, don't you know we're so much higher than that?
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know we're so much better than that?
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Don't you know that the unrighteous, the unrighteous don't inherit the kingdom of God?
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: Was he talking to church people when he says the unrighteous?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're the righteous.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't be deceived.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm down there in verse what?
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Go on down there to verse 9.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be deceived.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Here's his list.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Another one of those lists.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: Neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Looks like a list.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like Paul's saying, don't do those things, or you're not going to make it.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: But read on.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you were washed.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's not you, I just talked about.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's them.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you were washed.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: You were sanctified.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not a sinner.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not this, you're not that, and the other.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you act like you're not that.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, you're washed.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: You were sanctified.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: You were justified.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: You've already been justified.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: So anything Paul's not, Paul, Paul can't shouldn't be able to successfully condemn them for any of these things.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's perfect.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got flaws.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're still trying to, you know, get better at this.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but you were washed, sanctified.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of God.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: What's he doing?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's not telling them how to act or not act.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, This is who you are.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're better than that.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are righteous.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are justified.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God has done this in you.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, don't even relate to how the unbelievers live and what they're doing.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you haven't found out yet, you will that knowing identity causes you to walk in identity.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: I say it all the time.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you think that you're still a sinner saved by grace, you're going to act like a sinner.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll say you're saved by grace, but you'll still live like a sinner because you think you're a sinner.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think the Bible says, as he is, so are we?
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: And why do you think people struggle with it?
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I'm not, I want to be like him, but that's not really true for me because, see, I do this.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't do that, but I do this.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't matter.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's not your identity.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: What Paul's saying is, live who you are.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants his church.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, he was passionate about a church.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was a very passionate man, if you hadn't noticed.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Even when he was going wrong, when he was a Pharisee, he was more passionate than anybody about that.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was just his personality, his nature.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: This brilliant, passionate man.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: But once he gets on Jesus, he's passionate about that.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: If they preach anything other than what I preach, let them go to hell.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: He said, you know.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who is this teaching this other stuff after I've taught you that?
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wish they were to all have their things cut off.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, listen to how he talks about him.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, don't go over there.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't, don't, don't, go, don't, don't go over there, Paul.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: They'll put you in chains and they'll beat you.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I'm going anyway.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want nothing gonna stop me.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he, nothing would stop him.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this guy was passionate.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he's passionate about his church.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was this man.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'd deal a little more calmly with him.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: But y'all, are y'all seeing the point here?
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what we what we the reason we stumble is because our natural minds look at it and try to make this into the rule of Christian life.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Ten Commandments of the New Testament.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that was not Paul's intention at all.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: His intention in all of this was you've been washed, you've been justified, you're new creations.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: He believed in the power of knowing that to change your life because it did that to him.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: He said, He said, you know, in Romans 7, he says, now before I got Jesus, he says, now listen, you know, here I am.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's a Pharisee.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's passionate.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to keep this law.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was so passionate he excelled faster than everybody else around him.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he went for it.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: He comes in, he was an adult when he joined the sect of the Pharisees.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's those that had been in it a long time, and here's Paul rising up through the ranks and passing them because he's so passionate about it.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, but you know what?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: In Romans 7, he says, even then, the things that I still that I, the good things that I wanted to do, I still couldn't find the power to do it.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the bad things that I didn't want to do anymore, I couldn't stop it.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Who's going to deliver me from that?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's no condemnation in Christ because what the law could not do, God did for me by sending his Son.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_00: There it is, back to Jesus, in the likeness of sinful flesh and fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul was really about.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't about putting burdens on us.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: See, keep it Jesus.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because in Paul's preaching, this is what he built his churches on.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: He kept it Jesus.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he started his churches on.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: This was the message that he brought to people was Christ and Him crucified.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: And all centered around him is where your power of salvation and deliverance and all things are.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: When you take it as law, then you put it on yourself to try to act like something.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it just, like Peter said, it just brings destruction.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like that guy in my church, he was trying to do what he thought he was supposed to do because he'd see me do certain things and it just didn't work.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because doing trying to fulfill ritual, law, trying to fulfill law.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Rule.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: What is the rule?
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: The rule that we live by is to be led by the Spirit of God.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he won't steer you wrong.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I like hearing a pastor that I heard him I was talking to him about the uh even the topic of homosexuality.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, what do you tell these people in your church?
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What do you mean, these people?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: He said, He said, I don't tell them anything.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, Well, don't you don't you help any of them with any of the he said, oh yeah.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, they're like everybody.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: They come to me.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: People that come to me.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: He says, everybody's individual.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a word for these people.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have a word for this one.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've got counsel for this one.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've got advice for that one.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll say this one to that one in that situation.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: But see, we group sinners up as these people.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what are we going to say to those people who do these things?
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're dealing with people here.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I found?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some people in certain situations, you know, you you and you care, you love, you want to help.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you got to set them down and say, hey, put the brakes on that.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is killing you here.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: And others, I would think I'm going to do it, and they're doing the same thing, and God would say, No, just do it this way.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just be their friend right now, so they'll keep the door open to you because they're not ready to be confronted with that.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: See how patient and loving and good God is?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: He wants the best for everyone.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: But if we take law, then we say, here's what we're supposed to say to these kind of sinners, and here's what we're supposed to do with those kind of people.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not what Paul or anybody in the New Testament was doing.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't Paul bring that guy back?
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, thank you.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another thing, too.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: See, they got it wrong when he said, Oh, thank you.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to leave him out there.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the guy that he said, he said, next time you get together, said I want you to kick him out of church.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they did.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then have you read his second letter?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's he do then?
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you guys, you still got it wrong, because now the guy wants to come back.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: The guy has said, I'm sorry, I mean, I he said, I've I've I blew it.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he quit doing that.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And now he wanted to come back into church, and they weren't going to let him back in.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: But but but what?
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said to kick you out.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's all we know.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_00: See they're going by law now.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: So Paul writes a letter.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: Read it in chapter 7 of the second letter he wrote to him.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: He says, He said, You guys, he says, you missed the whole thing.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: The whole point was not to not to hurt him and punish him.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was for his good.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: Says, look what it did.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: He said, so let him back in.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let him in church.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: See, he was doing it out of love in his situation, out of concern, and for restoration.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: They were just trying to do what they thought Paul wanted them to do.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't even know why, really.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were just, Paul said, do it, so we're doing it.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand at all.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they did, when he came back in, they would have let him in and told Paul, say, hey, guess what?
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: It worked.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: But they didn't need, they wouldn't, they didn't want to let him in.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Come on, guys.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: You got it wrong then, and now you're getting it wrong in the other way.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that, but there again, see, that was that was the whole point.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you take it by law, then that's when people go to war against sinners.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we are the friend of sinners.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is the friend of sinners.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_00: You better be glad because he became your friend when you were still sinners.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why in all of these things, you don't have to get confused anymore about certain sound bites of Paul.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you say, well, when do we do what Paul said?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, who knows?
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: You live by spirit.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe if you're happening, if you happen to birth a church in Corinth with all the paganism that was going on back then, and those people and those young people, and you have people doing the exact same thing they were doing, then maybe you might do what Paul did.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you got a friend who is giving in to temptation of the flesh and they're they can't find out how to stop, you don't have a rule that says, cut them off.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do I do?
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: You might cut them off, who knows?
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_00: You and God know.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: Am I making sense to you?
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this whole thing always comes back to that.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the liberty in Christ.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_00: We just get to have freedom.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get put under restriction in law, and there's no condemnation because then you won't be thinking, well, I guess I was supposed to do this.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: But then the Bible says that.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was supposed to do that, and you don't know what you're supposed to do.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are you supposed to do?
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be supposed to do your best.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to help.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit can help us to help.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: To not condemn, but to help.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no rule.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: People find it, people are looking for it all the time.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Rick, you just say love everybody.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're supposed to confront.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think love confronts.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but not every time.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what times is it?
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: When the spirit wants it.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's a living thing here, not a dead law thing.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is a living thing.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_00: Let's all stand up.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: Was this okay?
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was different.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know.