Finding Our Way

From the transcript...

Oh, we’re finding our way through this wild life. His love shines brighter than the brightest light.

2 Corinthians 3:18—so you’re being changed into the same image. As we behold Jesus, He transforms us into what He is. We begin to awaken to the reality that we are joined to Him, one with Him, complete in Him. We’re in union—a life-giving union.

But we don’t really understand what that means until we see it in Him. And that’s when transformation begins. The word there is metamorphosis.

It really comes down to not only how you see, but what you see. Because how you see is like that veil—your perception. You can be veiled. And then, what are you actually looking at?

One thing I’ve noticed in my own life is how my perception of people has changed. That’s where the rubber meets the road—I look at people differently.

When Jesus was teaching about prayer, He gave what we call the model prayer—some call it the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father…” In it, He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” or some variation of that.

And when He finishes, that’s the only part of the prayer He comments on. He essentially says, “If you don’t forgive others, your Heavenly Father will not forgive you.”

Two things stand out to me there.

First, how you understand the nature of the Father will shape how you interpret what He just said. Because some people see the Father as a legalist—a judge saying, “Oh yeah…”

From the transcript...

We ended up turning into a restaurant. Somebody else turned in, I turned in behind them, and then somebody was backing out in their parking spot. So it hung us out—I was sitting sideways in traffic. They stopped for me.

Then I got to a four-way stop. The truck was straight across from me, but the intersection wasn’t a perfect square—it was kind of offset. The truck across from me started coming through. If he had his blinker on, I didn’t see it. I just thought he was going straight—he probably didn’t have one on.

So I went right, and he laid on his horn. I mean, he was about to T-bone me. He did hit me. He wasn’t too happy with my driving. He should’ve had his blinker on… well, if he did, I didn’t see it. I don’t know.

“That’s where I used to live, James.” “Really?” “We should stop and remodel that house. Take some pictures, add some commentary.”

We’re at an All-Star. I remember one time right here—Sally said something to me, and I reached back and slapped her. As soon as I did it, I thought, What have I done? From that day on…

And that’s how we often think God is—like He reacts to our mess the same way. “Oh yeah, I’m gonna get you.”

But the more I hear my Father’s heart… the more I hear His voice… I realize I can leave all that stuff out there.

Just sit down and rest in the relationship that Jesus has forged for us.

Not to mention—it all started before time, in Christ. It did. And time is just revealing it.

This unfolding plan of God that brings Him great delight… Yes, and much pleasure.

I do love that language in Ephesians 1—the unfolding plan.

It’s reconciliation. It’s a bringing back.

From the transcript...

But that doesn’t mean God’s not drawing and He’s not teaching. It’s, I don’t see it, I don’t perceive it, I’m not responding—I’m fighting against it, whether it’s consciously or subconsciously. And He’s just patient, waiting on us and working in us. Scripture says He tasted death for every man. Yeah. Okay, and He takes away the sins of the world. He’s the Savior of all men, especially those that believe.

Okay, so… for whom did Jesus die? Sins. Whose sins did God remove in Jesus? Are you asking me a question? Yeah—that you want me to answer? Whose sins did God remove in Jesus? Well, I think it’s the sins of the world. It wasn’t just Israel—that was all. Okay. So in Hebrews chapter 8—that’s my opinion—where He’s talking about, “I will remember their sins and iniquities no more,” right? Yeah. Okay, so is that the same people He’s talking about earlier in Hebrews chapter 8 where He says, “I’ll write my laws on their minds and put them in their hearts?”

From the transcript...

We didn’t even finish chapter five. He talks about, “Do not think I will accuse you to the Father.” That’s a good one. We don’t have to—we’re looking at everyone. Oh well, verse 43 and 45: “I have come to represent my Father, yet you refuse to embrace me in faith. If someone comes in their own name and with their own agenda, you readily accept it. Of course, you’re unable to believe in me, for you live to enjoy the praises of others and not the praises that come from the one true God. I will not accuse you before the Father. The one who will incriminate you is Moses, the very one you claim to obey, the one in whom you trust.”

Okay, so we know what he does with Moses’ law. Yeah—he nails it to the cross. He does. But if you want to keep living under it, you’re just going to keep condemning yourself. I don’t accuse you, but you won’t believe it. You won’t accept it. You’re insistent that this law of Moses is how it is. As long as you keep doing that, you’re condemning yourself under that system. I’m going to take that system out of the way—maybe you’ll believe. Yeah, that’s good.

Did you find the next verse? I think after—I think then we go to chapter 6 after that. Yeah. Okay, chapter 6, we’ve got the feeding of the 5,000, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. And following that, he starts teaching. And I will point out, I believe at the end of the teaching, most of them walk away. Oh yeah, out of that. So we probably have some pretty heavy teaching going on in that. Jesus says, “Will you too? Will you also go away?”

From the transcript...

So you don't think when Jesus said have meat to eat you don't know if he found some musky dines on the side of the road like we just did. No, she was talking about the Father's will. It was the Father's will that I came down this road and ate those musky dimes on the side of the road, and they were good.

This next passage—oh, what's your next one? Ought to be really good. John 5:17. I think he healed somebody. Yeah, he healed a man at Bethesda, and out of that comes a conversation because they want to know why he's doing it, because he does it intentionally on the Sabbath, and they get bent out of shape about it. And Jesus answered his critics by saying, every day my Father is at work and I will be too. And that was his—why are you working on the Sabbath? He's like, well, my Father was working on the Sabbath. I'm just with Him.

John's also laying out the plot—why they killed Him—all the way back in verse 5. See, here it is again. Jesus is talking about His Father. He's going to talk about judgment. That's all. We finally get into, we finally get the revelation.

From the transcript...

You were asking about John 3:34—the one whom God has sent to represent Him will speak the words of God, because God has poured out upon Him the fullness of the Holy Spirit without limitation. The Father loves His Son so much that He has given all things into His hands. Those who trust in the Son possess eternal life; those who don’t obey the Son will not see life—God’s anger will rise up against them. That’s John 3:36. He gives all things—is that what He’s doing? Yeah. Now O’Brien says that “all things” can be translated as all things, or all authority, or all people—all means all. I wonder if it’s the same phraseology used in John 12 or John 17. I’m thinking about John 12 where He says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all to Me,” and in John 17 at the very beginning He says the Father has given Him authority over all flesh. So Jesus comes from the Father and He has all power—He is Lord, He has all authority. John 1 talks about Him becoming flesh, and we were talking earlier about everyone being included. What I’m saying is that when Jesus became a man, He inhabited humanity—He gathered up humanity—because Scripture says more than once that He tasted death for every person. This is the purpose of His coming: to save the world. So when I say Jesus became flesh, I’m saying He affected all flesh—every person, humanity as a whole. That’s the incarnation. I’m learning to think about the incarnation not as a single man who came and died to satisfy the wrath of an angry God for me, and if I do something right I can get in on it, but as God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—invading our sinful darkness and lostness and saving us as a man. Because sin entered by a man, life had to come through a man; resurrection had to come through a man. That’s how I’m beginning to understand it better. The significance of the incarnation is that in becoming a man, He related to every person—connected to every person, representative of every person—and every person is included in Him. By “man” I mean mankind, humanity, all of humanity.

From the transcript...

Well, I’ve been reading the Gospel of John, looking for the times that Jesus spoke to or spoke of His Father—that’s a good one. And I’ve found in John chapter 8, there’s a lot of it; He talks a lot. It seems like when He talks about the Father, He talks about judgment. I don’t know if it’s as regular as I think it is, but I know it’s there in chapter 8, and I know it’s there in chapter 12—He’s talking about the Father, He’s talking about judgment. But anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing, and I haven’t finished yet. I might be about a third of the way through, just going through and looking at that—reading the Gospel of John, and any time He comes up talking about the Father, making a note of it. I think that’s a good way to read through John, a good emphasis, because when Jesus is talking to His Father or talking about His Father, it gives us insight into the relationship He’s given to us. Because He said, “When you talk to Him, say, ‘Our Father.’” He’s brought us into His family, and as such, we’re part of that relationship—that the relationship He has is the relationship we have. The same love the Father has for Jesus, He has for us. We have been made one, and that’s what He wants us to know: “In that day you will know—I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you.”

When you mentioned John chapter 8, I immediately thought about John chapter 1. I’m going to pull a James Alderman and start with one verse and then go into another—you’re going to be discipled in my ways. I just follow the Lord; the Holy Spirit brings something to mind and I go with it. In the opening chapter of John, verse 18, it says, “Nobody has ever seen God. The only begotten God, who is intimately close to the Father, has brought Him to life.” That’s the N. T. Wright translation. He’s starting the whole book off with this idea. And in the Passion Translation it says, “No one has ever before gazed upon the full splendor of God except His uniquely beloved Son, who is cherished by the Father and held close to His heart. Now that He has come to us, He has unfolded the full explanation of who God truly is.” That’s pretty good—really good. God is a Spirit, no one has seen Him, but Jesus, God the Son, has come and unfolded Him, revealed Him.

From the transcript...

But the first thing is, you’re talking about how He sees us in Christ. The reality is that we were created in Christ. That’s right—because in Him was life, and that life is the light of men. John’s right. So there was something created in Christ; there’s this creation—God creating something. It’s in Him and through Him and by Him that the Word created all that is. So that’s where we got started. Another scripture that came to mind is that one—I forget exactly where it is—but it talks about, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” Now you know how we grew up on that, but what I’m understanding is that God created Adam in His own image and likeness, and that wasn’t and never could be altered. How are you going to take a child of God and make him a child of the devil? Well, they told me that’s what happened when Adam sinned—I understand—but can a leopard change his spots? So that’s another scripture that comes through. And then there’s this other one that’s very familiar, no surprise about it, but you’re talking about how He sees us. This is my understanding—what I’m beginning to see about this wonderful gospel, this gospel of God that is good news—that from before time, God planned this in Christ, and it included you and me. We were associated in Christ. That’s what I want to read about right here. Paul says, “Dear friends, my name is Paul, and I was chosen by God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. I’m writing this letter to all the devoted believers who have been made holy by being one with Jesus, the Anointed One.” So that’s the question—how do you become one? “May God Himself, the Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, release grace over you and impart total well-being into your life.” That’s what we were talking about earlier—that kingdom of God that’s available.

From the transcript...

So we were looking at, or talking about, how we’re coming to see God differently. And in understanding who He is, we realize He sees us differently than what we thought. Yeah—how He sees us is different than I used to think how He saw us. Exactly. He hasn’t changed His mind; it’s our perspective that has changed. Because under that penal substitutionary thought process, the idea is that He’s angry, Jesus is running interference, and He sees me “in Christ,” meaning He really doesn’t like me, but as long as I’m hidden here I can get near Him. That’s another scripture that comes to mind when you say that. The whole idea is that in that law-based, legal transaction, it’s like He marks out our sins and gives us a legal righteousness—and for years, that was my understanding of justification. And then I realized, no, that’s not it. It’s not limited to a legal transaction on a piece-of-paper concept, but He’s made me right with Himself in the entirety of my being. Who I am has been made like Him—that it’s the same love He has for Jesus that He has for me. That I can sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and rest, because I belong there because of how He made me and how Christ has redeemed me. That through this good news, this is the life that’s available now and forever—we’ve been brought into that triune dance.

From the transcript...

He’s just saying something about the love of God. No, but maybe we don’t want to look at that. That’s right—look, it’s something about holiness and justice, the wrath. Oh yeah, vengeance is mine, said the Lord. Let’s see here, Romans 1:1—what’s that say? I’m not sure, I thought you had a Bible. Passions, yes. Just verse one? Yeah, for right now, I might have to get to verse two. Paul, a loving and loyal servant of the Anointed One, Jesus—he called me to be his apostle and set me apart with a mission: to reveal God’s wonderful gospel. Okay, that’s it. Is that the end of the verse? I can’t tell you. No, it’s not—hang on. I write to all his beloved chosen ones in Rome. May his joyous grace and total well-being, flowing from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, rest upon you. Son, that’s good. Yeah. All right, now he translates that to God’s gospel—is that how he said that? Yeah. You want me to read the New King James? Well, that’s God’s wonderful gospel—the gospel of God. I think New King James has “the gospel of God.” Speed limit, speed limit—I don’t know if that’s a motorcycle cop or not. You’re good now. No, but I need to slow down anyway. It’s cool, huh? Yeah, 20 miles here. Yeah. It’s the gospel of God, which is the good news of God. Yes. Okay, and sometimes I think that gets missed when we hear the word gospel—that it’s good news about a lot of things, but it’s primarily the good news of God, of who he is. Because when you see who he is, everything else gets taken care of. That’s right, that’s right. The good news of God comes with threats? No, it doesn’t—that’s just it. We thought it was good news because we were getting saved from threats, but that’s not true: you’re going to love me or else. That’s right—it’s the fire, eternal fire. But when you begin to, through Jesus…