Jesus Christ and Him Crucified

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thanks for joining us today as you listen to a portion of the message recorded at Vine Life Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you'd like to connect with us further, you can visit us online at www.vinelife.com.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I stumble forward. Necessarily, I'm not the smoothest. Not feeling so smooth in some ways. I just want to just say hello and good morning, and just the beauty of this day, just to welcome you into the beauty of this day. I was amazed this morning at the birds. So I hope you heard bird song this morning. And uh I'm and I just wanted to also acknowledge Jeanette. Again, you know, I she she was here from Friday night at seven till seven o'clock last night. Sometimes just she and the Lord. Sometimes there were others. Um I got to be here a couple of times, a few times, uh in that 24-hour period, and it was absolutely beautiful each time. And I just want to encourage you, Bob's already done that, I just want to encourage you again to uh ask. Ask, how can I help here? How can I participate here? Um, because what's coming up is again a very beautiful time with the Lord. It already is and it will increase, and people will see him. That's the hope that they will see him. Uh so two weeks ago was our recognized Easter morning. Uh, it's the celebration of resurrection. Today I'm gonna continue because uh resurrection and Easter don't stop for me. I don't think they stop for any of us. They're not one day that is celebrated just because it's celebrated around the world on a certain day or it has historically been that. It continues. Uh the death, life, and resurrection of Christ are ongoing within us all the time. All the time. So, yes, it's wonderful to take the day and acknowledge it and celebrate the resurrection. Uh, and it's wonderful to take today and celebrate the resurrection, to come into the reality of who it is that we are living within. We are living in the reality of the crucified, buried, resurrected, and ascended Christ. That's who we live within. We are his body on the earth. Uh someone said this last week, and I thought, wow, that's pretty wonderful. Uh when Jesus ascended, the enemy thought, when Jesus first he crucified him, the enemy thought, oh, it's done.

unknown 3:08

Got him.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Uh when Jesus resurrected, the enemy and death were ab, sin and death were absolutely defeated. And I believe that when he ascended, the enemy thought, oh good, he's out of here. He's back in his unmanifest form. But the reality, a reality, I'm not going to say the because we get to determine that in our own being, the reality is, is that he exploded into a million billions of cells called the body of Christ that inhabit the earth. That's you and me. We inhabit the earth with his glory. With his glory. So if that is possible, it might sound foolish. Might sound foolish. It might not be wisdom of the world, but it might be something to ponder with the Lord. Again, I'm not here, I don't want to stand here and tell you how you should think. I don't want to tell you should. I don't want to should on you in any way at all. I want to encourage you, my hope is that you and I will stand and be together in the Holy Spirit, and that if some things I say are good to you, you'll bring them in. If some things aren't, you'll let them fall. You'll let them fall away. Because it's Christ and Him crucified that we're after. And that's what I'm going to talk about today. Uh a little bit. 1 Corinthians, uh, Paul's letter in 1 Corinthians was a letter of addressing some of the disunity that he'd heard about in the body of Christ. Um he came into a place and he was inviting them, he wanted to invite them first to acknowledge something, and then to invite them to move forward toward the living hope they were born again into, into the life of Christ that they were born again into. That's Luke talked about that on Easter morning. We were born again into a living hope. It's a living hope. So that's can we allow the truth of that to come in? So 1 Corinthians 1, 10 through 14. Uh now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me, concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe's household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this: that each of you says, I've am Paul, I'm of Apollos, I'm of Cephas, or I'm of Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I want to propose that the same mind here, uh, there's two minds operating. There's the mind of the world, which would be a mind of uniformity. Think this way, talk this way, move this way, be this way, and if you are, you're in. And then there's the mind of Christ, which is wide open and broad. It's inclusive and welcomes everyone in through the cross. He died once for all. Uh forgiveness of sins. It came into a whole other state of being. And the mind of Christ was a mind that I've heard also some one person say recently that exclusivity, the only thing that Jesus excluded was exclusion itself. That's it. And when he experienced exclusion, he talked about it to the Pharisees, to Peter, to others. He just excluded exclusion. And in the awareness of that and in the truth of that in his own being, uh, the manifestation of that, he went to the cross. That's how he went to the cross. And that's how he came through the cross, through the grave, and out the other side. Uh, first, I'd like to ask a rhetorical question about the state of our culture, both small and large. And I'm gonna ask it about the church, both small and large. How's unity going? How is it? Um in our neighborhoods or jobs, if we were to open up political conversations, how does that go? You know, if in our denominations we open up theological or denominational conversations, how does that go? Uh we've got some things happening here that seem to be pointing at some divisions. So the message of Paul was not a message for a church hundreds and thousands of years ago that was just forming. It was, as the scripture is, an ongoing message. It's a message for today. It's not a new condition. This first letter to the Corinthians and the later letter to the Galatians were written in the same year, 57 A.D. This was some 21 years after Paul saw Christ and turned toward him with everything in him. During those 21 years, there was about 14 out in the wilderness. And then about seven more that he started moving around. During that, from that, he moved from that initial revelation of Jesus Christ into knowing Christ, Jesus Christ, and him crucified. So in the first moment, something opened up in him and he saw, he heard Jesus say to him, Why are you persecuting me? He didn't say, my people. He didn't say something else. Why are you persecuting those guys who believe in me? He said, Paul, why are you persecuting me? That's his body. We were his body. His body was already manifested on the earth. And so Paul in that space began to recognize something. He saw Jesus. He came to know him. He saw Christ resurrected, and then he began to spend time with it. So in coming in, the solution to the contentions and strife are knowing Christ and Him crucified, according to Paul. So I'm in the 1 Corinthians 2, 1. So he started it saying, I'm coming because of this. Brethren, when I came to you, did not I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew, for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. If they didn't crucify Jesus, he wouldn't have ascended, I don't think. Maybe he could have, you know, maybe that all would have happened, probably. But if they hadn't crucified him, if he hadn't gone through down to death, descended into hell, set the captives free, defeated death and sin once and for all, rose again, came out of the grave with his wounds, hands and feet, oh hands and feet of God with your wounds. You all have wounds, hands and feet of God. I have wounds. I'm resurrected in Christ. We come into a space here. You are resurrected in Christ. We are. There's a we here, big we. Something shifted in that time, beyond the ages. Not the wisdom of the world, not small, something big that, as Jeanette was praying into the other day, is the lights of God, the manifestations of the light of God inside each and every one of us, igniting so that none would, no light would be hidden any longer. In you, in me, in the rest of the body of Christ, so that the whole world can see the glory of the Lord on the earth. How do we get there? We have faith, we've prayed these things, we get there. When I believe in certain places, I believe that up in my head. Sometimes I believe it in my heart, but down in my soul sometimes, when I'm stuck in some place of shame that I don't understand, or I'm stuck in some place of insignificance that I can't quite wrap my head around, or I'm down in some place of insecurity. It touches me somehow. I want to ignore it, and I'm pretty good at it. I've got a few years behind me of practice. But um, the beauty of the Lord is that he's after me. He's after that aspect of my being. He's after the whole of me. Every bit to know him and him crucified, to know him resurrected. He wants to meet me in my low places. Knowing the cross is knowing the descent of Christ. I get to know him in his descent. That's what I'm talking about. Okay. 1 Corinthians 3, David. Thank you. So Paul went on a little bit further. He goes, for you're still carnal. For where there are envy and strife and divisions among you, are you not carnal? And behaving like mere men? For one says, I'm of Paul, and another I'm of Apollos. Are you not carnal? Who then is Paul and who's Apollos? But ministers through whom you believed as the Lord gave to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and who waters are one, they're one. And each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, you are God's building. In Paul's determination not to know, to perceive anything other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified, he determined not to take sides and see who was right or wrong. He determined to see people as in the unity of their faith. He determined to see them as unified in their belief that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, had come in the flesh, was resurrected, and in that space they could move into the fullness of the stature of the measure. We all can. He determined to see them as belonging in Christ, significant in Christ, and secure in Christ. He asked them in the letter to recognize the divisions and strife among themselves, to see where they had first found belonging in a group or under a certain leader, rather than first in Jesus Christ and him crucified. It was stated another way in the letter to the Galatians, written during the same time frame. For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. This is Galatians 2, 19 through 21. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. Here Paul was not only perceiving, declared the perceiving of the cross, he could see it. But he stated that he was crucified with Christ. And it was Christ who lived in him. That's another kind of knowing. It's another kind of knowing. It's a transforming experiential knowing. As we move forward, I'm gonna call up a couple of uh graphics back from some earlier talks that both Luke and I gave this year. I hope that they will help make this more concrete. Remember these? I don't know for those of you who are here. Bounded mindset and centered mindset. A bounded mindset, these I believe these mindsets, they've been alive in the church from around 400 AD, and uh they're still around today, and they they permeate our culture as well. A bounded set is where we create a boundary, a theological border, a doctrinal fence, and separate those who are inside the fence from those who are out. It's an us versus them mentality where everyone on the inside is accepted, loved, and welcomed, while those on the outside of the fence are kept away until they can change their beliefs and behaviors to fit the entry requirements. So that's a bounded set. The centered set, the other model, uh, there are no boundaries, there are no walls, there's no fence, there's no dividing line between us and them, no rules or guidelines to determine who's in and who's out. Everyone is loved, welcomed, and accepted no matter what. Everyone automatically belongs. But how is it different? It's not just a random mass of people randomly milling around because of what and who's at the center. A centered set has no boundaries to keep people out, but it does have something compelling at the center, which pulls people in. There are no gatekeepers turning people away for everyone's on equal footing being pulled toward the center. Jesus is like gravity, he holds all things together. That's at the set that's in this in the centered set. So if that's the case, and I begin to believe scripture in some places around that, um, you know, it might, those things might start to make sense to me in a different way. In him all things consist, and he's the one that does hold it all together. It happened through the cross. The awareness of it, the defeat of sin and death happened there for once and for all for everyone. So the first graphic, the bounded set, is the way of the world. Thank you, David. Uh it's what Jesus was up against with the Pharisees and the governments of his day. It's tribal and exclusive and often results in divisions and strife. It's what Paul was asking the people of Corinth about. It's often where people try to find their identity and their sense of belonging is in that first bounded set. I have lived in this set most of my life. Uh I was born into this set. I grew up in this set. I've moved around from set to set. I haven't stayed in the same set. You know, I'm a little bit of a bouncer in my life. You know, I bounced in to this set, believed it, took it on, and then when I started not feeling significant or secure, or that I really belonged deep in my soul, and I couldn't quite measure up in some way, I moved to another set. And I really did my best in those sets. Examples, I have examples. The Lutheran Church was the first one. Um wanting to be a hippie, I wanted to be a hippie. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say hippie. At the time I really didn't like that language. I had my own language for it, but I really enjoyed being in that culture. And I wanted to fit into that culture, so I uh dressed a certain way, I looked a certain way, I talked a certain way, I did everything that was pretty acceptable to get myself in there. Uh I moved into other tribes. I've been a tribal mover uh throughout the uh throughout my life. The Lord, I believe, right now in this stage, I believe it's like He He was helping me come into those places to see, because I oh I thought every one of them was it. This is it. Whew. I'm home. I'm Home. I got it. Now this is it. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. Most of them lasted about nine years. I think that's a number of completion. I think that's what that is. So it lasted about nine years. And then I would find my way. I'd find insecurity rising up, insignificance rising up, not belonging rising up, and I began to question it. I began to go, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do, God? Hello, Lord. And there'd sometimes be this pause of maybe a year, two years before I found myself in the next thing. And during that time I was crying out to God, God, help me find the truth. Help me find the truth. He's after me. He loved me. So this bounded set, again, you know, we we look at it. I'm just asking God, I'm of this group, this leader, this age group. I'm part of the cool ones, I'm part of the not cool ones, I'm part of the creatives, I'm part of the workers. And whichever one it is, we try to conform into those images. Instead of being conformed into the image of Christ, I've tried to be conformed into an image that would hopefully get me to the image of Christ. I start here with the hope that I would get here. I go a little deeper. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. Just saying in my own being here. So imagine there's several of these bounded sets in one building or community. Corinth. I'm of Apollos, I'm of Paul, I'm of Cephas. I might, I'm of Christ. Even in this bounded set, there are people inside of them that believed they were of Christ. I'm the only one who has it together. This group, we're the ones who have. Every one of them thought they had, they were the ones. We got it, brothers. We got it, sisters. If you only, you know, do it this way, you're in. All the way in. Well, yes, we're in this bigger thing, but if I only do it this way, I'm all the way in. So looking at that in my own life, how is that manifested? It has, over and over again. I've lived in this set. Um I'm a Lutheran, so that was my first set. I'm a Lutheran. I still consider myself a Lutheran somewhere in my being. I was confirmed and baptized in that whole thing. You know, I learned a whole lot of Bible there. I learned a whole lot of beautiful things. Most Lutheran people I've ever known, most of them, not all, but most of them have a have they're kind of uh gentle at a certain level. They can be fierce, but they're mostly kind of gentle. And um I like that about them. I'm a charismatic. When we came back into the church, uh, when the Lord brought us back into the church, he brought me back in. We I came back in, we came back in, my wife and I. We came back in, I came back in through the Nicene Creed. So I was outside of the church for a while because I wasn't sure. Um, I didn't like the bounded set too well. I liked the idea of everything being in Christ, but I didn't like the bounded set that felt like, no, no, you've got to be this certain way in order to get in. So I was outside. Uh and I liked it out there. And then the Lord invited us back in. He called us back in. My first response was no. I'm not going. Uh I don't want to. And he said, I want you to know my body. I want you to know my body. Because my body is my church. So he said, Yes. We came back in. So I came back in through the Nicene Creed. In the middle of the Nicene Creed, in the middle of this beautiful place, my heart cracked open and the awareness of the crucifixion happened. The awareness of that life that was given for me happened. I don't think I was aware that I was crucified with Christ. I was aware that the crucifixion happened and he died for me. So at the time I was very much in the He died for me, he died for us all state of being, but as far as with me, me with him, that was not even anywhere near my awareness. So living in this place. Um I'm a Lutheran, I'm a charismatic in this house. I've been of Freedom Ministries. I thought for me, freedom ministries, we got it. This was me. I'm not talking by anybody else. Me. I got it. I'm in there. This is how it is. This is the best one. Um of Vine Life University. Oh, we got it. We know where the good, I got it. Uh I'm of the river. I was of the river. Uh praying weekly. When some of these things ended for me, my belonging, significance, and security were challenged at my core. Uh, because I identified. I was part of freedom ministry. It was where my identity in Christ. It started there, my identity of Christ rose out of something. That was just how I was. So, and there's no blame. See, the beauty of the cross is that there's no blame in the cross. Christ did not blame anyone. He blamed no one for his crucifixion. There is no blame through the cross. It doesn't exist. If we follow through the cross, we go with Christ through insignificance, insecurity, into not belonging at all, into rejection, into abandonment, into those places that continue to try to rise their ugly little awarenesses within us. And we come out the other side through silence of the tomb. The tomb is sometimes silence, my friend. I'm just, you know, it's a pretty quiet place. Not much is happening in a tomb. Except sin and death are being defeated there. That's what's happening. Resurrection was it begins to come into our lives. Again, we come out with our wounds. I came, Jesus arose with his wounds. He came out, people saw his wounds. They were able to put their hands in his wounds, Thomas. I'm sure everybody else in the room would have liked to, but we like to call Thomas doubting. I call him one brave man. Hey, I want to put my hand in there. Everybody else was mystified and dumbfounded. That's where I would have been. I'd have been just mouth on the floor. Jesus walks in. That's where I would have been. And then some brave person would have come up and said, huh? So in those places, in that space in my own being, in our own beings, there's no blame in here. Blame has lived for me. If I no longer feel like I belong or I'm insignificant or secure on the inside of a bounded set, I'm going to blame people for it. I'm going to blame people who are in that set for whatever I'm perceiving in myself, which might only be the Lord drawing me into a deeper place in myself that I might know him more fully. That might be all that's happening in the truth of it. In the other spaces in my being, it's like I don't want to go there. So I'm going to blame somebody for not, for not, for not, for not, for not making me significant. Helping me belong. Giving me security. So the second graphic, this next graphic. Thank you, Dave. You're so good. In this scripture, it's, I believe, Colossians 1:19 through 21 gets at this. I don't think I'm having it put up. For it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell, and by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of the cross, and you and I, who were once alienated and enemies in my mind by wicked words, yet now he is reconciled. So in this place, thank you, in this place, in this centered set, all things have already been reconciled to the Father. Every little group, every little tribe, Paul goes on to say there are no tribes. There are no Scythians, and he goes on and talks about all these things. In heaven, in Christ, none of that exists. None of it exists. And we know these scriptures. We know them. How are they doing? How is it working? How's it working? How's it working in here and here in my soul? All the way down. Am I being drawn? Is gravity working? It is. God thank you. We're all here. You know, we're all here. Gravity works. Jesus works. Jesus is. He is the one that holds it all together. He's not concerned so much about tribes. He's concerned about whole, I believe. So again, anything I'm saying, you can embrace it, you can sweep it out the door, you can, you know, kick it off, you can do whatever you want to do with it. This is what the Lord has me moving in right now. So I'm just living here for a moment with you. So again, he reconciled all things to himself. And we who were alienated and enemies in our minds, he's now reconciled. The reconciliation is not an intellectual process, it's not something we can earn. We can't earn reconciliation. It's a gift. We can't get it through our performance. Man, if I just do this better, then I'll be reconciled. It's a gift of grace and mercy of our Creator. It's his mercy and his grace that reconciled us to the Father through him. The Father through Christ reconciled us to himself. It's one. One thing happened. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. There's no one kept out here. All are welcome. Christ's body again became immense at the ascension. It became something that is to fill the whole earth with his glory. It's who we are. I'm a light of the world. I have often hidden my light under a bushel. Out of my bounded mindset. In my bounded mindset, I have put a cover over myself and not allowed anyone outside of that set to really see the truth of who Christ is in me. I've really wanted to keep it to myself and share it with my friends. Be good that way. But the Lord has called us to go into all the world. The gospel, the good news, that you have descended with him through the cross. Sin and death are defeated. I have descended with him. Sin and death have defeated. I have gone through my shame. He despised the shame. He didn't despise the shame. He went right through it. I despise shame. When shame starts to rise up inside of me, I despise it. I want to get away from it. I don't want to go into it. Jesus did not despise the shame. He went straight in. Straight in. No complaints, no arguments, no accusations, no blame, forgiving everyone all the way through. God help me. God help us in those places as we move through, as He brings us into the depths. At the center of it all is reconciliation to the Father through the cross. It's in this abiding, in the unified Trinitarian presence that's never ending every never-endingly revealed in us and through us to the world through the Holy Spirit. Glory to glory. We pray that all might see. To only know Christ and Him crucified among us lets us first see and have the revelation. And then hopefully discover the habitual underlying awareness that I, that we, were with Christ when he went through the utter rejection, the abandonment, the not belonging, the insignificance, the betrayal, the becoming nothing, the having no security at all. To the silence of the grave and the glory of the resurrection and to the life we now live. I live in the faith of Jesus Christ. We live in the faith of Jesus Christ. It's subtle and painfully exquisite. It shows up when I we think that we're doing well and then suddenly feel like we don't belong. And wonder how to fix it one more time. Or if we should even bother. Sometimes I wondered that. I'm feeling this thing again. Should I even bother? God, I don't think so. For me, I've gotten a little depressed in those moments. I've sat in some places of sadness in my own being that was like, man, I have I have tried this thing over and over again. I've jumped from one bounded set to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, to another, all the while the Lord is drawing me. He doesn't stop. Even if we're in our minds bounded away from him, he does not stop drawing us to himself until he cracks through the boundaries of our own thinking. He comes through the walls into the upper room, into those places with his wounds. He comes in with his wounds to demonstrate to us, look, you and I are one. We're one. John 17 is real. It's not an imagination, it's not a future prayer, it's a prayer of life here and now. I have crucified the old man. Stop thinking about it. Stop wearing it as a badge on your chest and let it meet you in the depths of whatever things continue to subtly or quietly separate you from the love of Christ. Because most of it, many of us won't speak about to each other. We might to a close friend, but most of us won't speak about it to each other. Because we have to put something out. Well, that putting something out doesn't help my friends and neighbors out in the world because they don't see Christ crucified in me. They see me believing in a hope for a future day. A hope for beyond this earth. Which is all true. It's all true. It's all true. We have eternal hope for beyond this day, beyond this life. That's all true. It's both end all the time. It's not either or. It's both end. So come on in, he says. The water is a little painful. It's a little uncomfortable. You might not enjoy it all the way. Right here at this point, as you're getting in, as you remain with me in this place, where love remains, all these other things are going to pass away. Everything else is going to pass away. All the prophecies, all of that stuff. That's where that Corinthians book goes. It starts here. What are the divisions among you? What are these things? I only want to know this. And then it keeps going. Into, man, all these other things, friends, are going to pass away, and one thing remains. One thing remains. It remains here. Right down here in the depths of you where you have avoided because of whatever it is, whoever it was you you chose to follow, maybe instead of me, thinking it was me. Lord help us. Lord help us. If I died then with Christ, then what might be different? Can I sit with that and discover the gospel, the good news, right in the middle of the bad news? Because that's where it reveals itself. Is in the middle of the bad news. If I'm just preached good news and I don't allow the awareness of the cross to happen, I may not. I may not. I might, but I may not come all the way to the good news. I have an intellectualized good news. I have an intellectualized good news. Paul concludes, I'm getting close here, guys, so Paul concludes the chapter three in this way. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God, for it's written, He catches the wise in their own craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. Therefore, let no one boast in men, for all things are yours. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come. All are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. That's the invitation in. Come on in. It's the invitation into Ephesians 4 13 to come into the unity of faith. Till we all come to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. You know, every one of these letters and beautiful things, they all speak to many different things. They're all amazing, but there's one thing being preached. One thing. That's all we have. You know, this morning in our meeting, I was asked, what should we know? It's like, huh? I'm standing there kind of blank, you know, in that spot. I couldn't answer. And then my friend says, Well, just to know Jesus Christ and him crucified. He said, Yeah, that's it. If I can know that, if I can know that, if we can come into that space, something shifts. Then when I'm sitting with a friend, someone who is in that in that in that um centered place. If you notice, we'll go back there a minute, David. In that centered place, there are people who aware or are aware of the gravitational pull. There are people who are working really hard to pull away from it. They're fighting it at everything. And there's people who are indifferent to it. They're not one way or the other. That's the world around us. That's who our neighbors. That's our friends. That's our people that we know in every different religion that we may know. That's people who don't believe in God at all. That's people in the denominations and in every other bounded set of people that we know that we might rub up against, get a little close to, but I'm not going in. I won't go in there. I don't want to go in there. Man, in that one, uh, you might have to wear camel hair. And that just, you know, I'm not going there. That one, that one might have something else in it that I really, man, I if that's what it takes to be in that one, I don't want to go in. I don't want to go in there. But if I'm standing in this centered mindset, if I'm in this place, the mind of Christ, in the mind of Christ, he died for all. In the mind of Christ, he went willingly through every bit of it down into death. In the old icons, in the oldest icons, and the oldest paintings before there were Bibles. The oldest paintings show Christ pulling Adam and Eve out of the tomb. They're pulling mankind. When he rose from the dead, he brought mankind with him. That was the earliest church's belief. Somewhere later on, the pictures changed, and it became Christ holding a big flag, standing up, you know, high above everything else, separated from all of us. It's foolishness to think that we were resurrected with Christ in some people's minds. That's up to us and the Holy Spirit. He's the one inside of us who is gonna help us move through or come into another place of seeing and witnessing what it is that the Lord is doing. So what's the application? If you choose, it's up to you. If you choose, if you do choose, expect some something that may or may not be the most, wow, you know, I don't know, I don't know. You know, when the Lord started dropping me into deeper levels of shame in my own soul, in my own soul, I was like, man, this can't be of you. This this has got to be, there's gotta be another way here, isn't there another way here? You know, I don't want to feel this. I I hate not belonging. I have, there's been times I have not felt like I belonged for the majority of my life. Completely, anywhere. That's changing. It's not all the way I'm in it. But he's revealing himself in deeper and deeper and deeper places all the time. Glory to glory is happening. In the space of significance, I have looked to my friends for significance. I've looked to my friends for significance in this house. I've looked to my friends uh for significance in my job when I was working as a special educator. I loved being significant in that group of people, and I really enjoyed it. I've looked for security in all kinds of places in the world, and finances and money, and they're both the same thing, I guess. And uh and and what it would be like to be in a tribe. I want to have security in my tribe. I've looked for significance in all those places and security. And he keeps dropping me down and drawing me in to these places where it's like if I know Christ and Him crucified, that's that is shifting. When we we touched this scripture several weeks ago in one of our meetings, in the in a senior leadership team eldership meeting, we touched these scriptures, we lectio-devened it together. Man, talk about a can of worms. Talk about, you know, look at the strife and divisions among you. Oh God. You know, how have I supported them? You know, what centered set, what what uncentered set, what bounded set have I jumped into and lived in? So that's shifting and changing. So if you so choose, ask the Holy Spirit to show you where you may well have supported, bounded thinking in your lives. If anything comes up, be with it. Feel it in your body. Where am I feeling this in my body? Is there some aspect of my body that actually constricts? I feel constriction here. I feel tension in my guts. I feel tension on my heart. I feel tension in my throat because I haven't sometimes spoken when I needed to speak. I feel tension in my mind. Lord, help me see it and help me remain there with it with a little while. A little while, will you reveal what happened through the cross there? The good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ manifests itself there outside of some thought or belief that I have. As the gospel's revealed there, forgive yourself for believing any lies of not being enough or belonging, for not having the significance you desire, or the lack of security that may arise. Again, there's no blame in the gospel. In the gospel, there is no blame. Jesus blamed no one. He went through and we went through with him, as sin and death were defeated, and we were resurrected with him into a new man in him. So I'm just gonna pray for a second. Thank you. It's good to see you. I know I'm near the end. I know I'm near the end now. Thank you. Enough already. Okay. So, Lord, I just thank you for your beauty and your mercy. I thank you, Lord, for your kindness and your grace. We thank you, Lord, for the kindness and your willingness to go with us, to take us with you. Lord, the oneness in you that we have in you in Christ, Lord, is all the way in you, all the way through, through the cross, through the grave, through the resurrection, and now we are seated with you in heavenly places, Lord God, as well as being here on the earth. We are your hands and your feet, Lord. We do carry our own wounds. Lord, help us recognize the truth of what you have done in them. Lord, as you heal the wound of shame in me, Lord, I can stand in confidence and know that you have loved me here. Lord, as I stand in the wound of insignificance, I can be with you, Lord, in that place and recognize the significance I have in you. Lord, nothing else. Security, security, the security I have in you, Lord. So thank you, Lord, for your mercy, for your grace. Just pray for beautiful dreams, sleep. Pray for your rest in the Lord. I pray that you in the Lord, again, anything that's that's come here out of here that you want to take, you want to spend time with it, please do. Anything that you need to let go of, please do. Well, I thank you, God, uh, for the beauty of you in our lives. I love you. Amen.