Awakening To Union

Sometimes we need to deconstruct the lie of distance and rebuild a way of life rooted in union with the Father. Scripture reframes sin as distorted image and repentance as a change of mind that awakens us to what Christ already secured.

• why Wednesday nights matter for questions and clarity
• sin as distorted image rather than mere behavior
• separation theology challenged by scripture
• union as identity secured by Christ’s finished work
• traditional lens vs finished work lens contrasted
• house metaphor for present access to God
• resurrection as revelation of who we have always been
• John 14 and Acts 17 on awareness of union
• repentance as metanoia, not mileage or merit
• feelings of distance vs facts of union
• image restoration over sin management
• beholding and transformation from 2 Corinthians 3
• loved as the Son is loved in John 17
• practical steps to cultivate awareness and intimacy

We will be here Wednesday night at 6.30. We’re going to talk about some of this. If you have questions, write them down. Bring them. Ask them. I’m on Facebook. Shoot me a Facebook message. Got my number, shoot me an email. Ask the question.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back & Why Wednesdays Matter
• 3:45 Dismantling Sin And Separation Myths
• 9:15 Replacing Separation With Union
• 15:30 Traditional Vs Finished Work Lenses
• 22:30 The House Metaphor: Door Already Open
• 27:50 Resurrection As Revelation Of Identity
• 33:30 Scripture On Union: John 14 And Acts 17
• 40:30 Before The Foundation: Rethinking “Beginning”
• 46:30 Feelings, Distance, And Perception
• 52:30 Repentance As Metanoia, Not Mileage
• 58:30 New Creation Or New Awareness?
• 1:03:30 Image Restoration Over Sin Management

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

It's good to see everybody again. Again, it is it is good to be back up here and walking again, uh moving around. Not walking like I want to be walking yet, but uh it's good to to not be sitting up here teaching. I love to move around, I love to walk while we're doing it. Um just to uh piggyback off of what Cynthia said, Wednesday nights, you know, we we do want to be here as much as we can. I mean, this past Wednesday night I I that's I started walking last week, so I put too much pressure Wednesday night and or during the week. I was actually out Wednesday night, but somebody's always here. It might not be but a couple or three, or sometimes we have more than that. Sometimes there'll be quite a few here. But uh, you know, please try to come on Wednesday night if you can. It's it's really important. We talk, we we really get to answer a lot of questions that people have. And uh I'm not gonna ask, you know, do people have them? Because I know you do. I I mean I do. I still have questions. I can read over my own sermon and come up with questions and say, well, you know, what do you mean on that? You know, and I have to dig deeper into it and try to try to explain. And that's one of the things that I try to do is I try to dig in here and look at it and say, how can we make this as simplified? Nothing to do with anybody's intelligence. It's just we want to make it so it's understandable why, so people can take it and teach it and present it back to other people. If you were to say something that you heard in church and somebody kind of said, Well, what are you talking about? You know, I want you to be in a place to where you can explain it to them. Uh, not just say, Well, that's what the pastor said, uh, but you can actually explain and you can stand on and you can support whatever it is that you're saying. So that's what we try to do. I know it don't always come out that way, but uh that's that's the goal is to present it in a way that is easy to support it with scripture and it's easy to stand on. So what we're gonna talk about today is uh is awakening to union. And the reason I'm doing that is because last week we come up and we really kind of dismantled some long-held ideas about sin. And again, I'm not going back into the definition of sin, but the easiest way to remember when we're talking about sin is we are not focusing on behavioral stuff. That is a byproduct of sin. But sin itself is a distorted image. It's seeing myself in an image in a way that God never called for me to see myself. Okay? And when I look at myself in the mirror like that and I see myself as something negative, then I'm automatically going to push out negative behaviors. So those behaviors are not the sin itself. The behaviors are what comes out of an image that is not like God, that is not what God created in me. So we took some of those things and we kind of we kind of broke them apart and we kind of dismantled, uh, dismantled them last week. Um the one saying that we hear all the time that sin separates us from God, we kind of tore that apart a little bit. That uh your sin is a stench in the nostrils of God. We kind of broke that down. That God cannot look upon sin, he cannot be around sin, which is where we get the idea, which is not biblical, but we get the idea that he is separated from the people who are sinning. Why? Because he can't be around sin. That's not biblical. We tore that down a little bit. We broke it down and looked at it. Uh, and we reinforce that sin, again, is not simply about bad behavior. It's a distorted image. It's forgetting who we are, and not just forgetting who we are, but forgetting who he is. One of the problems I see in the church and with a lot of people that I talk to outside of the church when we start talking about the Bible or whatever, one of the things that I see is the image that they have of the Father. It's a very negative image sometimes. I mean, I'm not saying they're cussing God and doing all these, but I'm just saying the way they perceive the father is in a very negative way sometimes. Uh that they don't see a father there that's there, that cares for them, that loves them, that supports them, that wants the best for them. They see a father who's out to get them. Every time they make a mistake, every time they mess up, he's just waiting to bring the hammer down on them. And that just comes from bad theology. Not purposely, somebody's not purposely teaching somebody that just so they'll think he's a bad God. It's just bad theology. I've taught it. And thank God I've got away from it. I've matured, I've come to a better understanding on some things. So again, it's, you know, when we talk about what we're teaching and what we what we're saying to people, it matters. Our words are so powerful. But beyond that is again the mindset that we're putting into people. Okay. When I say something from up here, I really do. I don't just look and say, well, I wonder what that's gonna sound like from the pulpit. What I do is I say, I wonder how somebody's gonna perceive that, what I just said. What kind of mindset are they gonna walk out of here with based on the words that I just said? And sometimes people walk out with a negative mindset, which tells me there may be some misunderstanding on it. That's what's important about Wednesday night, because that gives you an opportunity to come back and say, wait a minute, I heard you say this, and this is the understanding I got on it, and I'm not sure that's what you meant. Can you explain a little bit more? So it opens us up to be able to just have communication about what we're talking about. Uh once we see that sin doesn't separate us, and I hope you see that. If you didn't, go back and listen to last week's message. Uh but once we see that, that sin does not separate us from God, another question automatically arises. I've heard it asked from other people, I've asked it myself at some point. If separation was never the truth, then what is? I've said this many times on Wednesday nights when we talk about it. I've said this, and I've said it from this pulpit. When you start deconstructing somebody's theology that they've always been taught, you can't just tear it apart and take something away from somebody and not give them something back. That's the important part. And I think sometimes when we first started teaching this, I was doing a lot of that. I was tearing a lot of things down, but I wasn't really replacing it with anything. And I learned real quick that when that people do not want to let go of something if they don't have something else to grab on to. So that's when my teaching kind of shifted. And I said, okay, I don't want to just look at what the Bible says and is this true theology, but why was this, what kind of mindset was this putting in people? Why are we breaking this down? Why are we deconstructing this? And now if we're gonna deconstruct and tear it away, what can we give back to them to hold on to? So that's kind of where what my teaching, you know, how it how it goes. That's the way I like to look at it. So, same question here. If separation was never the truth, if we're gonna deconstruct that, if we're gonna tear that thought process down that we are separated from God, and that's not the truth anymore than what is the truth. We have to ask ourselves that question. And that's what I'm gonna talk about today. We're gonna deconstruct separation and we're gonna reconstruct union. Union with the Father. Now, when you ask that question or you make that statement, what is union with the Father? I've gotten to where I like to look at it in both ends of the spectrum. I like to look at it from traditional, why? Because we all grew up in traditional churches, most of us, okay? Especially if you grew up around here, you grew up in traditional Baptist or Methodist or Church of God or whatever. Nothing wrong with that, but it was a lot of traditional teaching. Okay? It's a little bit different than what we're saying now, what we're teaching from here. So traditionally, union with God is seen as conditional, it's relational, uh, it's sort of like a relational closeness with him, but it depends on obedience and moral performance. How close I am to him depends on how good I am. It depends on what type of moral person I am. If I'm out there messing up, if I'm out there slipping, then guess what? My union is not as good, is not as tight. Why? Because I'm separated from him. That's the mentality that separation teaches. I can be close to him if I do the right thing, if I say the right thing, if I'm got everything together, but as soon as I slip, as soon as I mess up, he's backing away from me. And if he's backing away from me, then my union, my closeness to him is being torn apart. So that's why I'm putting those two together and I'm saying we're deconstructing separation and we're reconstructing union and looking at union in a different way. The focus, if you look at it from a traditional standpoint, the focus is on meeting divine expectations, avoiding punishment, and earning or maintaining a connection with him that's going to get me into heaven. And let's be real. That is the foundation of the traditional message is how do I get to heaven? That's it. A lot of other stuff's just fluff. How do I get to heaven and miss hell? But if you look at it from, I'll go ahead and say it like this the non-traditional view from a finished work, from an inclusion lens or inclusion theology, it emphasizes that union with the Father is a present reality. It's not just something we're gonna get one day. It is present right now. I can have union, I can be close to the Father right now. I don't know why people don't want to believe that. It blows my mind that I say I want a relationship with him, and I say I love him, and I say all these things, but I want it one day and I don't want it now. Not that you don't want it, you don't think you can have it. Okay. That blows my mind. But this is what finished work is about. This is what we're trying to show people is you have access. It is a present reality today. It's fully secured by Christ, making our relationship with God a matter of identity rather than performance. It's not about what I do, it's about who I am because of what Christ did. Now, that doesn't do away with performance. That doesn't mean that I don't need to do good things. That doesn't mean that I don't need to come to church and I don't need to pray with people and I don't need to evangelize, and it's not knocking all those things out. It's just saying we're not doing those things to try to gain union with the Father. I'm in union with him because of who I am. I'm doing those things because of who I am, not because I'm trying to gain an identity. There's a there's a big, it's it's a very slight, but it's a big difference in there in how we look at that. So growth and transformation, and when you're looking at finished work, growth and transformation arise from resting in this union, not trust not trying to strive to earn it. I'm recognizing that what he did on the cross is absolutely complete. What he did was sufficient. He's not coming back to do it again. I don't think he's gonna get up from the right hand of the father and say, Oh, I forgot something. Let me go back and go through that again because those poor people just can't make it because I forgot this point. No, he finished it. I believe that. I believe that he done everything that he was supposed to do while he was here. And then he went and he sat down at the right hand of the Father. Now, if I said that right there, if I left the word finished work and inclusion out of what I just said and went to any other church in this area and said that without those words in there, people would be up and shouting as amen and me. And they would agree with it. They would agree with every single word that I said until I put those words finished work and inclusion in there. It's amazing. Those words change the way people think about it. They would agree with it though. But agreeing with it and actually believing it to the point that it's active in my life is really different. I used to believe a lot. Every time a preacher said something, I'd believe everything he said. I trusted in him. I trusted that he was researching, I trusted that he was studying, I trusted that he was praying, I trusted that he was being led by the Holy Spirit, and I would fully put my trust in everything that was said. And I hope you are. But guess what? Sometimes I'm gonna learn more. Sometimes I'm gonna go a little deeper, and then I'm gonna look back and say, you know what I said a couple weeks ago? Scratch that. Not that it was wrong, but we're gonna go a little deeper in it. We're gonna go just a little bit more, and we're gonna pour some other stuff out of it that gives you a little bit of more insight into what we're trying to say. So imagine it like this. Imagine God's life as a house. What traditional thinking people look at is they made it to the property. They're on the land, and they look at the house, and his life is the house, and the door shut, and they're doing everything they can to try to get inside. Their goal is to make it inside the house. To do what? To sit down with him, to have union with him, to be one with him, to live with him. They want to be in that house. But they're waiting on the outside until he gives them an invitation one day to come in. Finished work in inclusion. We just look at it like this the door's already open. It's your choice whether you want to walk in or not. We're already actually on the inside. We just don't see it sometimes. The work is done, and God's life is ours to live right now. We had the ability to live heaven on earth. We have the ability to be in union with the Father. We have the ability to have intimacy with the Father, to speak with the Father, to hear the Father speak back to me. If he's way up there somewhere and I'm just down here, I never hear the Father. It's like to have communion with him and I have communication with him. I'll get that one day when I go there. No, I want it right now. I want him to speak to me now. I want him to lead my life now. I want to have all the things that he says I'm entitled to right now when I need them. Listen, you ain't gonna need none of that when you get to heaven. I mean, really, there's the stuff that we talk about that Jesus done for us and give us give us a right to, we're not gonna need that in heaven. So if he's given it to us and he's given us access to it, but we don't need it in heaven, when do we have it? When do we need it now? I mean, that's just a process of deduction. I mean, we don't need it then. So that means he's given it to us to have and possess and operate in right now, right here on earth. And the resurrection. We go back to the resurrection, we we look at what he did on the cross, we look at the death, we look at the burial, and then we come up to the resurrection, and we often teach that the resurrection was was God sort of. That was Jesus saying, Okay, here's the invite. Here now everybody's entitled to everything because I was raised. Now listen to this now. I don't want this to I don't want you to miss this. The resurrection wasn't God giving us a new invitation. Listen to this. It was God pulling back the curtain and saying, This is who you've always been in me. Live like it. It wasn't anything new. We had always been in him, he had always been in us, he chose us from the very beginning before the foundation of the world. That that scripture messes with people. We can't wrap our little pea brains around that. That he actually chose me before the foundation of the world created me in the image and the likeness of himself. Before the foundation, he knew me. That's hard for us to wrap our minds around. So, this what I'm saying right here, that the resurrection wasn't God giving us a new invitation, only makes sense to the people who realize that he chose me in the very beginning. The resurrection was a great thing. The resurrection was was awesome. But I was already in him. The resurrection just basically said God pulled back the curtain and said, recognize your identity, know who you are, and he's given us access to walk in that here on earth now. So, how do we move from separation to union? It's not easy. How do we get from a place of always being separated from the Father and then step over here into a place where we're saying, I am one with the Father? How do we live? How do we move over to that place and begin to walk in that, begin to live in that, begin to believe that? Because it's difficult. Because the hardest thing to change in somebody is their mind. And when you've had years and years and years of saying you're separated, you're not good enough, keep trying, keep praying, keep worshiping, keep, you're like, man, this is this is just about not even worth it. I've been there. I've had the conversation with God before and said, God, this ain't worth it. I'm not seeing what your word's saying. Your word says this, but I'm not experiencing that in my life. I'm not seeing it experienced around me. And if this is not true, if this is not going to be active in my life, if I can't see it, I'm wasting my time and I don't want to be a part of it. I've been there. I had that conversation numerous times with God. And he always blows your mind and he always begins to just show you something. Just to, just to sometimes he'll let you get out there and cry a little bit and pout and whine. And you know, have your little pity party. Sometimes we need that. But then he'll show up in the most in the moments where you never expected it, he'll just boom, he'll just show up and blow your mind on something. You're like, okay, that's that's God. That can only be God. So we've been told for so long that God is up there somewhere on the we don't know where, he's just up there somewhere. Uh and we're we're down here, we're uh separated from him. He's there, we're here. And that that we need to pray hard enough, and we need to worship long enough and deep enough, and we need to repent enough. And if we do, we'll get closer to him. And to take it out of our hands, he sent his son to bridge the gap. See, I'm feeling say something here that's gonna be challenging to you. And if you don't really listen to it, you're gonna misinterpret what I'm saying. And you're gonna say, oh, he's saying what Jesus done wasn't important. No, what Jesus done was absolutely the most important thing that ever happened. But listen to what I'm talking about here. If we have the mentality that he's way up there and I'm way down here, and Jesus had to come to bridge the gap, then how can I now say that I was in him from the very beginning? Jesus coming did not open up the door. It was already done, and now he's given me true access to realize it and to see it. Does that make sense? Am I saying that good enough? It wasn't a new thing. Me being in him and being in union with him had already occurred. And Jesus coming and doing what he'd done just pulled back the curtains and said, now live your life in the way that God created you. He chose you from the very beginning. Stop seeing yourself like that. Stop looking at yourself in a negative way. See yourself the way the Father sees you. So if we look at it as I he's up there and I'm down here, and I gotta do all these things to try to try to you know reduce the distance between us. That's a that's a tough mindset to have. But look listen to the words of Jesus in John chapter 14 in verse 19 and 20. Listen to what he says right here. Keeping that in mind that God's up there and I'm down here. A little while longer and the world will see me. A little while longer and the world will see me no more. But you, he's talking to his disciples, you will see me. Because I live, you will also live. At that day, listen to this, because my first question comes up right here, what day? At that day, did Jesus is saying this to his disciples? At that day, and I would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what day are you talking about? And I'm sure one of them probably did. He said, At that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I. There's there's something you gotta see in this verse. You gotta see this. Jesus was speaking before the crucifixion. Okay, he was talking to his disciples. We're just bringing it into context now. Okay? He was talking before the crucifixion to his disciples who were already in relationship with him. They were with him in the flesh. They were sleeping beside him, they were eating with him, they were drinking with him. Everything he did, they were there with him. That was his entourage. They were right there with him, they were in relationship already, and he still said this word. And the key word right here, he didn't say you will become in me one day. He said, you will know. That's the verse now. You will know. On this day, you will know what? What's already true? Not what will be true one day. You will know what's already occurred. You will come to an awareness of it. You will come to a realization of what's already true. You've been with me. Again, context matters. He's talking to disciples that's already been with him and already been in relationship and already been in union. But he says, on this day, and he was talking about the day that he went to the cross, on this day you will know. Something's gonna come to you that you've never seen before. You're already in relationship, but on this day you're gonna see something different. He wasn't just talking to the disciples then, he was talking to humanity. On that day, we're not waiting for it one day. In other words, union was already true, but awareness had not caught up with it. They were already one with him, they were already walking with him, they were already in relationship with him, but the awareness of their union with the Father had not been made aware to them yet. But he said, On this day, you will know it'll come to you. Paul echoes this same truth in Acts 17 and verse 28. I love taking verses like this and looking and saying what did Jesus say and what did Paul say and comparing what they said. He said, For in him, in who? In Jesus. For in him we live and move and have our being. We can read the rest of that, but that's really what you need to see in here. In him we live, we move, and we have our being. You know what that verse tells me, that first part of that verse. If in him we live, in him we move, in him we have our being, then outside of him we have none of this. Outside of him, we don't we have none of this. That's union. This is the definition right here. This is the this is talking about being one, being joined together in union with him. That means life doesn't come and begin when we find God. How many of your life began the day you got saved? That's what we say. I've said it too. I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. I'm just asking you to think about it a little deeper now. Because most of us think that our life in Christ began when I said the ABCs of salvation. I admitted I was a sinner and all that. It didn't begin then. Oh, that's right, it began in Genesis when he created man. No, it didn't begin then. Your beginning was not Genesis. Your beginning was before the foundation of the world. He knew you. That's Bible. I can take that verse if I want to. If I don't believe it, take it and tear it out of your Bible so you don't have to read it anymore. Because if you read it, you got to come to terms with it. You got to say, what does this mean? Because I can't say I'm not in union with him, but I was in union with him before the foundation of the world. That don't, that don't jive. So if I'm gonna read those verses, I've got to be willing to understand what they mean in true context. My beginning was not Genesis. My beginning was not salvation, my beginning was not an altar somewhere or wherever you got saved at. That was not the beginning of your relationship with him. It was the awareness, maybe, for you. Your mindset maybe shifted during that time, but you were in him already. And that's hard for us to see because now we can't separate the ones out that's not that hadn't done that yet. And that's what we want to do. We we were so caught up on separation that we always gotta separate people out the saved versus the unsaved, the ones heaven bound versus the one that's gonna burn. We gotta we gotta divide it out. We think that God has given us this mandate to go through and and separate sheep from the goat. He didn't give you that mandate. The only mandate he gave you was to go out and tell people who they are and help them come to an awareness of who he is and who they are because of him. That's our mandate as Christians. Be Christ-like. That's what it means. Can you imagine what your life would look like when you truly realize that you've never taken a breath outside of his presence? I know some of you are thinking back now to some of those times in your life where you weren't born again. And you're just like, I don't know if I was with him then. He was with you. You didn't realize it. He was with you. I'm telling you, he saved me from a mini-rex when I was being stupid. He kept me alive many times when I probably shouldn't be here. We've never taken a breath outside of his presence. You've never stepped one inch beyond his reach. You don't know where I've been, but I know where he's been. And he was here from the very beginning. And he said, I chose you before all that, before the foundation. I chose you. I knew you. Before you even went into your mother's womb. We keep looking at this thing because this is the easy way to say it. I can't look at anything beyond my birth, my natural birth. Well, maybe you can in the natural because that is the natural birth. That's when the natural started. But it ain't when the spiritual started. We're looking at God from a spiritual level, not just from a natural level. But we got to go beyond my natural birth. We got to go beyond my day of salvation if we want to go deeper. If you want to just stay on the surface, then stay there. But if we really want to go deeper and say, how do we step into true union with him? I got to go deeper than salvation. Not taking salvation away. I'm just saying we got to go a little bit deeper and realize there's more to it than just that. There's relationship. There's union with him. Have we made Christianity more about getting to God than realizing we're already in him? Have we turned it into something? Y'all remember something? Have we turned it into something that's not? And I think we have. I believe, this is just my belief. It's not Bible here. This is my opinion. I believe we've got to quit teaching the lie in church. We've got to quit teaching lies in church. What is that lie? That you're distanced from God. That you're separated from God. That's a lie. And the Bible itself proves that it's not true. We've got to quit teaching people the lie of separation and the lie of distance. Because it's not the truth. And it creates a mindset that leads them on a path that God never called them to be on. See, sin whispered the same lie in the garden that religion is whispering today. You're separate, you're unworthy. God has left you. That's the same lie that was whispered to Eve in the garden. And religion has picked that lie back up and is still whispering it to people today. But what did God do when Adam sinned? I mean, according to our theology, he should have got as far away from him as quick as possible. But he walked in the garden just like he had done every day before that, where he walked with him in the cool of the day. The day after he sinned, he didn't separate himself from him. He went right back to the garden. And said, Well, Adam, where are you? He wasn't asking because he didn't know. He was asking because he realized that Adam didn't know. He was lost. He didn't turn away from him. He drew near to him. On a on a in a situation that we look at from a from a spiritual standpoint, we look at from a theological standpoint, the way we teach it, and we say that that day that Adam sinned, God should have distanced himself. Why? Because he cannot be around sin. And sin causes separation. According to our own theology, that's what he should have done. But he didn't. Colossians 3 and 3 says, Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your life. Every single one of you. It don't say your life if you've born again. Your life if you've repented. Your life if no your life is hidden with Christ in God. It's something that I think about on that when I read Colossians 3.3. If your life is hidden in him, how can you ever be outside of him? If I'm hidden in him, how can I ever be outside of him? If nothing can separate us from his love, as it says in Romans 8, nothing separates you from the love of God. Nothing. I love Pastor Dale, you said all the time, nothing, no thing, no thing can separate you. If nothing can separate you from the love of God, then why do we keep preaching distance? Maybe it's just me, but it don't make sense. To keep preaching a theology, a distance and separation theology that is totally contradictory to Romans chapter 8. And at some point, we just got to rise up and say something don't make sense here. Yes, it's gonna make other people mad. Yes, that other pastor ain't gonna like it because you just tore up his sermon. But are we just gonna keep preaching lies to go along with everybody else? Or are we gonna say this is the truth, this isn't the word of God, this over here, the way we're interpreting it, contradicts the word of God. Somebody's wrong. Is it me or is it Paul? And I've had to come to terms with the fact that I've been wrong many, many, many, many times. And not one time have I come to terms with the fact that Paul's wrong or that Jesus was wrong. So I have to take my theology that I've been taught and all the traditional stuff that I've been taught and I've heard over the years, and I have to put it up against the word. I've got to be willing to do that. That's going deeper. That's saying I'm not just gonna believe it because Pastor said it. That's going deeper into it and saying, okay, let me compare what's being said here. And let's be honest. Sometimes things happen in our life. Sometimes we feel far from God. If you ain't been there, just hang on. You'll get there. And you'll feel like you'll wake up one day and be like Jesus. Oh Father, oh Father, why have you forsaken me? I've been there. I've laid on the altar many times and said, God, where are you at? What did I do to make you leave me? Why don't you hear me? You hear me when I pray, you hear me when I prophesy. I can prophesy words over other people, but in my own life, you've totally discerned me. You're gone. Where are you? I've been there many times. And I felt far from him many, many times. Have we mistaken feeling? Catch that. Feeling far from God or actually being far from God. Feelings are liars. I use that in counseling, but I can use it in church. See, feelings can be liars. You could I I use this example all the time, but it's just, it makes sense to me. It's just the truth. I mean, you know, you can be, Barry could be sitting here smiling and happy and having the best day of his life, and I just walk by and go, Barry's gonna go from happy to angry, like that. Feelings change. Feelings change when circumstances change. We can't trust feelings all the time. You see, somebody lives off of feelings, their life is up and down, up and down, up and down. Why? Because it's always changing. We can't always depend on how we feel about something. And that's the question is have we taken this thing and said that I've mistaken that I feel far from God? And we've turned it into a truth. And we try to say, because I feel that way, therefore I must be. No. I can't remember who the political guy is, but he he always says that uh feelings don't care about facts. Don't, because feelings come and go. Feelings are not always accurate. But the facts and the truth of the Bible, it is. So sometimes I've got to be willing to say, I'm gonna let my feelings come up against the truth. And guess what? I may have to really look at myself. I may have to wake up in the morning and say, God, search me for anything in me that's not of you today, any thought I have, any feeling I have that is not of you, anything that's in me today that is making me look at myself in a way that you never created me, get it out of me. I rebuke it today. All that means I stand against it. I come against it. Any feeling of feeling inferior to anybody else, any feeling of depression, any feeling of anger, any feeling of suicide, any feeling of whatever, I come against it in the name of Jesus. And Father, I know what your word says, and your word says this about me. And whatever you pick out, whatever words you come up with, use that. That is truth confronting your feelings. And I'm telling you, truth's gonna win every time. If you're honest enough and you're honest with it, truth is gonna win every single time. But feelings are strong. Feelings are so strong. But when I look at this, there's people out there right now. There's probably people in this building right now, hopefully not, but there's people around that they feel distance from God right now. And I'm gonna be honest, I believe there's people right now who are distant from God. But listen to this distance is about perception, it's not about location. If I see myself as just an old sinner saved by grace, ain't worth a dime, ain't never gonna amount to nothing, ain't worthy, then of course I'm not gonna see myself in an intimate union with him. That's the perception that don't mean, and it don't change anything Christ done. That is still true. What Christ done on the cross is still absolutely true and sufficient, but I don't see it in my life. So the separation is not about positioning or not about location, it's about perception. How do I perceive myself? How do I perceive the father? A lot of people, and I opened up with this and I said it's the way that people look at the father. A lot of people look at the father and they perceive him as a bad father, as an angry father. And if I perceive him that way, then I won't get close to him. Because I'm always waiting on him to whoop my tail about something. See, this makes me take a closer look at the word uh repentance. Because when we look at that word, we talk about it all the time. We talk about repentance. Repent, repent, repent. Jesus preached that. His disciples preached that. If union is already true, and we're already one with him, not because of anything that you did, because of what Christ did. If union is already true, then what is repentance? I believe that's just a question that you have, you know, you should wrestle with a little bit and ask yourself. If it's true, if union is true, then what is repentance? Look at what it says in Luke 15 and 17. We're not gonna read the whole verse here, but I want you to see one part. This is talking about the prodigal son. First line. But when he came to himself, when he came to himself, y'all know what he did right there? He repented, he changed his thinking while he was out there in the mud playing around, doing whatever he was doing and wherever he was at, he came to himself and he said, I do not belong here. And he started thinking, how many of my father's Howard servants have bred enough and despair and I perish with hunger? And you can go through and read the rest of this, but I just want you to see that one part because that is what we're talking about. We're not talking about him going home and saying, Daddy, I'm sorry that I wasted all your money or all my inheritance. That's an apology. I'm sure he probably did that. Great. Probably needed to do that. But the repentance was when he changed his mindset. He didn't change it after he got out in the mud. He changed it while he was in the midst of the situation. He said, This is not who I am. Not me. I belong in the father's house. He didn't find his father. He awakened to the one who what he had always been to begin with. He awakened to the fact that he was a son. He didn't go back and find a new father. He awakened and said, I'm the son, I've always been a son, he's always been my father. He actually woke up to that. He was that the whole time. When he was there blowing that money, when he was there doing all that ungodly stuff, he was still a son. He was still his father's son. But he didn't, he didn't, his perception was different. He didn't see it that way. And then all of a sudden, boom. For whatever reason, I don't know what happened, but something happened, and it said he come to himself. The light bulb came on. The Greek word for repentance is uh metanoia, and it simply means change of mind. I see it. Change of mind. I changed my mind. I can't tell you how many times it's been taught. Going this way, going this way, going this way, boom, I found God. Repent, turn around, and go. We teach it as a change of direction. It's not a change of direction, it's a change of mind. When I change my mind, my direction may shift. But it ain't just changing direction. You know, I can change direction and have the same mindset, and why go back over here and end back up in the same place that I was? You see, the prodigal son could have left that town, went to another town, and done the same thing. He just changed location. But this day, he changed his mind. And it convinced him to change his location and go back home where he belonged. So it's not necessarily a change of direction or a change of location, it's changing the way I think. Repentance isn't running back to God, it's awakening up to the God already within us. I read you the scripture. He's in us, he's one with us. We're one with him. So what if repentance isn't about earning forgiveness, but embracing inclusion? That we're included in Christ. What he did on the cross, he didn't just do for me, he did as me. I was included in that. A whole different mindset, different way to look at it. We repent not to become loved, but to remember we've always been loved. Let me end with this one right here. 2 Corinthians 5 and 17. Y'all know this one, but I want you to see it. If anyone, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. This verse, I love it. But one of the things, and I'm just telling you from my experience, I'm not putting this on you. From my experience, the more I study, the more I start looking at stuff from a finished work from an inclusion standpoint, this verse can be confusing to some people because we start thinking that everything becomes new. Well, did it become new, or did I just wake up to something that already was? That makes sense. He chose me. He loved me from the very beginning. He knew me before I entered into my mother's womb. He loved me, he chose me, he created me from the very beginning. So what happened here was not a necessarily always, I think this word is a different word, and I'm gonna study this out and get a better understanding of it. But it's not always new, it's just waking up to what's always been there. It's a little bit different. And you're okay to disagree with me on that. I'm gonna study this out some. That's just when I read this, it just hits me because we're looking at it as not always something different, but just the awakening of. I'm awakening to what Christ has already done for me. I'm awakening to who the Father is to me. So here's a question. Have we reduced the gospel to sin management instead of image restoration? When we're talking about the gospel, I think we have. I think we've looked at it too much as manage the sin. Stop doing that. Stop doing that. God knows stop doing that. You know, we all we start pointing out what people's doing and we try to manage it and say, stop it. You know God wouldn't be pleased with that. And we just try to manage it. Instead of really getting to a point of saying, let's help somebody restore their image. And that's what I love about restoration. Anyone, I don't know if you've ever done it or seen anybody do it, restore an old vehicle or restore an old house. It's not a new house. It's not a new car. You're not going to restore a 1965 Mustang and get a new Mustang. You've got an old 65 Mustang that's restored. What is brought back to its original? That's all he's doing here. It's not new. He's bringing you back to the original state that you were in before the sin entered in, before the messed up mindset came in. We often focus on doing better, but transformation isn't about behavior modification. It's about our identity. It's about the revelation of who we are and the revelation of who He is. One more verse right here. Second Corinthians 3 and 18. I think this is the last one. Might be one more. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, or being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. I want to put this verse in there because transformation doesn't happen by trying harder, it happens by seeing more clearly. And that's what I pulled this up because it talks about the beholding as in a mirror. When we look in that mirror, when you you look in a broke mirror and you look in a new mirror, you get a different image. You look in a mirror that's all cracked up, it's still the same image. It's just distorted now. And I think that's the mirror we're looking through sometimes in the church. It's like we're preaching on things and we're holding up a broken mirror up here. And what is people receiving? What's the perception? I said it earlier. What are you perceiving out of what I'm saying? I think a lot of times what people's perceiving is a broken image. Why? Because we're teaching something that's bad news and we're calling it good news. And it's it's making people walk out with a broken image. That's not the gospel. You were never discarded. You are only distorted. That's it. You were never rejected, you were only deceived. He's never rejected you, he's never uh discarded you. And Jesus came not to start something new, I said that a while ago, but to restore what was never truly lost to begin with. We were deceived. Humanity was deceived. Humanity was moved into a place of distortion. It's amazing when you think back about the story in the garden, you know, with Adam and Eve. I don't know how long Adam had been walking with God. I can study it and find out. I don't know, but he'd been walking with him every day in the garden. They knew each other, they had intimate moments, they communicated. And then just all of a sudden, one day he hid. Because he now had a distorted image. He no longer saw himself the same as the Father because of one thing that happened. One simple thing changed everything in the garden. So let's bring this home right here and finish it. One more verse. I gotta read you this last verse. John 17, 23, because this this ties it together. It says everything I've been saying. I want to use scripture to support what I've been saying. I in them, you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. I probably shouldn't say this because this is just one of my you know thoughts that I have when I read this. But when I read that, read that last part, and you have loved them as you have loved me. It makes me ask a question to myself and say, what did Jesus do to earn God's love? What did your child do to earn their love? Nothing. They're your child, and it don't matter how bad they get or what they do, everybody else may not like them, but you always gonna love them because that's your child. So if he always loved me the way he always loved him, then I didn't do nothing to deserve it either. I didn't do nothing to earn it either. I'm loved just like Jesus is loved because he was a son and I'm a son and you're a daughter. That's it. That's the way I start reading this verse, and I start seeing it differently. I didn't do anything to earn it. He chose to love me. I in them and you in me, and they may be one as we are one. That's not future tense. I want you to see this too. That is not future tense. That's finished work right here. This is talking about finished work. We're not trying to achieve oneness, we're awakening to it. So maybe, last question I'm gonna ask you. Maybe this is the question. Or maybe this is the question we shouldn't ask. How can I get closer to God? Maybe we need to deconstruct that. Take it and throw it out. When people say, How can I get closer to God? Maybe we need to say, what lie made me think I that he ever left me? That's something that'll get you really studied and get you really thinking. I mean, sure, we can tell you ways to get closer to God. I think was it last week, one of the Wednesday nights, we actually had a conversation about that very thing, I think. But it's not about how to get closer to Him. How do you get closer to somebody who lives on the inside of you? That's what's always amazed me is how do you tell somebody how to get closer to somebody who is already one? But that's your opinion. No, no, no. It's right here in the scripture. How do you tell somebody how to get closer to somebody that they're already one with? It's impossible. The only way we can do it is to start coming up with things. Go to church. Don't miss a Sunday. Make sure you're there on Wednesday. Make sure you dress right. Make sure you don't say any of those old ugly words. Make sure you don't go out drinking on Saturday night. Make sure you don't do this and do that. We start putting regulations on it. That is the only answer of how to get closer to God that we can come up with because you can't do it. You're already one with him. Now, can we open ourselves up and come to an understanding of who we are and increase intimacy with him? Absolutely. But it's an awareness. It's not changing anything, it's not changing God's position. God's not saying, oh, we're, you know, cherry. Sherry woke up today and realized something, so I'm gonna go down there and be with her now. He's already with her. He's not waking up one day saying, Oh, now he's getting it. He's already here. But I think that he is waking up and saying, Oh, yes, Sherry's getting it now. Sherry is awakening who I really am. Sherry is awakening to the fact that I've never left her. She's awakening to the fact that even during her worst times I never looked down on her. She's awakening to the fact that I've always been there through the hard times, through the good times, that I've always loved her. I've never left her. And she's always been in union with me. She's waking up to that. And see, when she wakes up to that, it's not that God is getting closer. It's that we're waking up to the relationship. And the relationship, of course, it gets better because we're waking up to some things. I might preach this again next time. There's just so much in here that, man, we need to we need to see. We need to get. We'll talk about it Wednesday night. You stand. We can get out of here. My goal is to be finished at 12.12. It's 1212. We will be here Wednesday night at 6.30. We're going to talk about some of this. If you have questions, write them down. Bring them. Ask them. If you have disagreements, bring them too. We'll make sure we leave you outside. You're welcome to come. No, seriously, come ask questions. If you can't be home Wednesday night and you do, maybe you get home today and this is just on your mind and you're thinking about it. I'm on Facebook. Shoot me a Facebook message. Got my number, shoot me an email. Ask the question. You're not going to get an answer if you don't ask. I might not know it. I'll tell you, I don't know. I'll find it out for you. I'll study. But we need to get an understanding of this because it is. Deconstruction is hard. And it bothers people. You don't believe it? Turn on CNN right now with them tearing part of the White House down. Those folks are going crazy. Because he's tearing part of the White House down so he can rebuild. You got to tear it down to rebuild. You can't just build around it. It don't make sense. But I'm just, I'm using that to say this. It messes with people because that's something that's always been there. Our thoughts have always been here, so it messes with people. When you start trying to say, wait a minute now, jerk that down. Let's tear it down. Let's deconstruct it. Deconstruction is a word a lot of people don't like to hear. But I believe it's a necessary word. I believe it's one that we need to we need to pay attention to. We need to say, uh question. What lie made me think that he ever left me? That's one. I challenge you, we'll leave you with this. I'll challenge you to go home and answer that question. What lie made you think he's ever left you? And just see what you come up with. Write a sentence or two down. Just see what you come up with. And then pray about it. And then after you write them down, say thank you for not actually doing that. Thank you for not actually believing it. Thank you for not actually abandoning me. I was at my worst.