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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
FROM THE FIRST ADAM TO THE LAST
We trace how a wrong view of Adam distorts how we see ourselves and the cross, then show how Jesus, the last Adam, reveals the Father and restores our true identity. The distance many feel lives in the mind, not in God’s heart, and the Spirit leads us back to union.
• misunderstanding Adam produces a fallen mindset
• the fall introduces alienation of mind, not divine rejection
• tradition of “sin nature” challenged by Paul’s language of sin entering
• Jesus as last Adam reveals the Father and our identity
• righteousness and union as present reality, not future hope
• feelings versus Scripture and the role of the Holy Spirit
• moving from sin management to identity restoration
• practical repentance as changing the mind toward union
Study to show yourself approved
As we get ready this morning, I was thinking about I was reading over this this morning before we come here, and uh I'm starting to say this more often, but I'm uh and I'm not saying it I don't know, you take it how you want to take it. But we're teaching some things lately that is is really, really important uh in moving forward. It's kind of you know, it's kind of like when you was in school when you do math, you know. If you miss a few days of math, you kind of lost, you know, because it it builds on each each you know on each other. Uh and that's sort of the way some of this stuff is starting to go lately. It's it's sort of, in my mind, it's kind of like we're going backwards a little bit, but it's things that I'm seeing now that we need to grab on to, we need to understand to really be able to grab on to this, you know, this mindset that we're trying to get to of truly understanding uh what the finished work is, truly understanding how important uh the cross was and and what it really meant. Uh I believe it was totally sufficient. I believe what Jesus done was was complete. Uh I don't I don't believe that he did anything halfway. And there's a mindset that we get in into sometimes and that we hear other people say, and it almost has to you almost have to stop and say, well, wait a minute. Did he did he did he actually complete this? So you're saying it covered this, but it don't cover this? You know, and it just gets me thinking about different things, you know. So uh this morning we're gonna go all the way back to the very beginning. If you want to go back and see where something started, why not go back to the very beginning? And I believe this is a mindset that started not just in the church today, but it's a mindset that started all the way back in the garden with Adam and Eve. And I want to break this mindset down a little bit. How did it get started? Uh, what lie was told, or more better, probably better said, what lie was believed, that moved not just Adam and Eve, but humanity into a place of believing something that just was not the truth. So I named it this morning from the first Adam to the last. Now that's really important too when you read this and you and you we know who the first Adam was, obviously. Okay. And if you've never really paid attention to it, it didn't say, I've heard people say it before, and then they would maybe correct themselves because it never said we don't refer to Jesus as the second Adam. We refer to Jesus as the last Adam. And that's important. You may say, well, that's just semantics, that's just words. No, it's really important because if I call him the second Adam, then that means there could possibly be a third Adam. But if I say the last Adam, there's not another one coming. That was the end. It was complete through him and in him. So uh pay attention this morning. Write down some questions if you have them. Uh I've gone through this thing I don't know how many times to try to uh make it a little bit easier to understand. Not just not talking about y'all, I'm talking about for me, for myself, because I want to be able to really grasp what this means. If we grabbed onto a lie in the garden as Adam and Eve did, how does it have anything to do with us today? Because I believe this. If you misunderstand Adam, if you go back and you look in Genesis and you start reading the story in the garden, if you misunderstand Adam, then you're gonna misunderstand yourself. Think about that. If you misunderstand Adam, you're gonna misunderstand yourself. If you misunderstand the fall, what we call the fall in the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned and they fell. If you misunderstand the fall, you'll misunderstand the cross. Now I'm gonna explain this a little more, but I just want to put your mind in that direction. If you misunderstand the fall, you will misunderstand the cross. Now, what does that really mean? It means that your understanding of humanity's problem, the fall which happened in Genesis 3, that was the big problem. That's what uh took humanity on a whole new path was the fall in Genesis 3. If you miss, you know, if the misunderstanding of humanity's problem, the fall in the garden, directly shapes, now listen to this, it directly shapes your understanding of God's solution. And what was God's solution to the fall? It was the cross. That was the solution to it. But if you misunderstand from the very beginning, if you misunderstand the problem, you will misunderstand the solution. So it's important that we go back. And I think really grab on to this fall, this this sin, this problem that happened in the garden, and make sure that we understand exactly what happened and why it's important to us. Because I truly believe what I just said. I believe a lot of people are misunderstanding, have a wrong interpretation of what happened on the cross simply because they're coming from a mindset that was developed because of the way they look at Adam in the garden. So we're just gonna say, okay, let's forget about the cross just a minute, and let's go all the way back to where it started at. Because what was the purpose of the cross? It was the solution to what? The problem. So we got we're gonna go all the way back. We're not gonna talk about the solution today. We're gonna go all the way back to the problem itself. Dig around in it a little bit, break it down some, and hopefully, when you get out of here today, when you walk out of here today, you're gonna understand a little bit more about what truly happened in the garden and why it's important to us today. The fall was not about God rejecting humanity. I don't care how many times you're told that, you've got to see this. It is not about God rejecting humanity or sin changing God's heart toward us. It was about humanity losing sight of who they were. It was about Adam walking one way every single day, and then all of a sudden something happened, and and his whole mindset shifted. He seen himself completely different than he did the day before. Something shifted. So think about it like this. Adam's sin did not make God his enemy. Okay, Adam's sin did not make God his enemy, it made Adam see himself as alienated. Think about what he said in Genesis 3, verse 10. He said, I was afraid, so I hid. He alienated himself from the relationship that he was having every day with God. He was walking in the cool of the day with God every day. That was I don't know how long they walked. I'm just that's what the Bible says, okay? So we just have to take it for what it says. And then one day something happened, and all of a sudden, God came into the garden and said, Adam, you're not here to meet me for our morning walk. Where are you? And it says in verse 10 of Genesis 3, I was afraid. So I hid. Something shifted, and it was not God. And we're told that so much, and we're going to get into this a little bit more, but we've got to change our mindset on how we see this. The fall simply introduced alienation into the mind. What is alienation? Separation. That's all it is. So it introduced alienation into the mind. In Colossians 1 and 23, 1 and 21, it says that we were alienated. Those who were alienated, and I'm paraphrasing it, are now reconciled. Those who were alienated in the mind who felt like they were separated from God because of the cross are now reconciled to him. Or what? Brought back into relationship with him. It was not a change in God's attitude. Nothing changed in God. It was a change in that in our mindset. I was alienated, I was separated, but Jesus climbed on the cross and brought me back into relationship. It's as simple as that. Humanity fell into darkness, into blindness, into separation. But we they, you know, even beginning going all the way back to Adam and Eve, humanity never fell into a place outside of God's reach. I may see myself separated at times. I may have done things in my life where I know that I wasn't truly in a place with God where I needed to be. And I may have looked at myself as being far from God. I may have done some stupid things and thought, you know, God's not pleased with me, but it never changed my relationship. It never changed the way God looked at me. It only changed what I perceived the relationship to be. Does that make sense? It never changed, nothing I ever do changes how God feels about me. But it can change how I feel about our relationship. But it's not God, it's me. I can make myself feel separated. I can make myself feel alienated. So if you interpret the fall as God turning away from man, and that's the way it's been interpreted a lot. And some people say, well, wait a minute, now he kicked him out of the garden. Yes, he did, but there was a reason for that. But if we interpret the fall of man as God turning his back on man, then you're going to misunderstand the cross. What do I mean? Then you will now begin to see the cross as God needing to be convinced or needing to be persuaded in some way to love us again. Why? Because if Adam done something so horrible that God turned his back on him and walked away from him, and we, you know, you may say, Well, the Bible don't say that. Yeah, but church does. That's what the church teaches. That Adam sinned. Adam was walking with God, he had a relationship with God, and then he committed a sin. God turned his back and walked away from him. And then kicked him out of the garden, kicked him out of his home. That's the mindset that we deliver to people. And if that's the mindset that I'm believing, then when I look at the cross, I automatically think, what was the purpose that Jesus went to the cross? He had to go to the cross to convince God and persuade God that I was good enough to love again. That's not the reason he went to the cross. But that's what this teaching that we tell everybody that's the mindset that it puts in us that God had to be persuaded. God never stopped loving. He never turned away. He never changed his mind about humanity. He did not have to be persuaded or convinced to love me. But that's the mindset a lot of people have. Now, why is this important? Because if you misunderstand the cross, you will spend your life trying to become something that God says you already are. You will spend your lifetime on this earth trying to live up or trying to be the type of Christian that you think God wants you to be. And you will work every day trying to earn that love from God that He never took away from you to begin with. And we see it every day in the church. People work and strive and do good deeds and all this stuff. And again, nothing wrong with that. It's the intent behind it. If the intent behind my good works, if the intent behind my good deeds is to try to convince God to love me, that's the wrong intent. He already loves me. And that's simple. That's simply what we're trying to get people to see. We're not trying to change the stories of the Bible. We're just trying to read the stories of the Bible in true context. And when I believe that when you read them as they really are, I don't think you can walk away from these stories and not see that God truly loves me. Regardless of what I've done, in spite of myself, his love for me never changed. It never did. I'm not trying to convince him. I'm not coming to church every day in hopes that he will want to have a relationship with me. I'm not coming to church every Sunday and saying, well, as long as I go to church, then I feel like I'm in a better place with God. He's never left me. It's amazing how we teach that, but then we turn around next Sunday and teach he's living on the inside of you, he'll never leave you nor forsake you.
SPEAKER_00:And then a few Sundays later we say, Don't you mess up? Because sin will separate you. I mean, how do how do we how do we not see these kind of teachings as contradictory?
SPEAKER_01:And I'm not saying anything negative because I've done it too. But at what point are we gonna stop and say something ain't making sense here? And I want to figure it out. I want to figure out why this don't make sense to me. If he's on the inside of me, if he loves me, if he if he lives on the inside and he's made his home on the inside of me, and he said in his word, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Why do I keep having this mindset that I can do something bad enough to make the Bible a lie?
SPEAKER_00:Because that's what the Bible says. Scripture says that.
SPEAKER_01:But if I walk and live every day with this mindset that if I keep messing up and he's gonna keep getting further and further away, that's not lining up with Scripture. That's a feeling, and I can't argue your feelings. We all felt that way, I'm sure. I'm sure every person in this room has done something at some point, and you felt like you were you were distanced from God.
SPEAKER_00:We've all been there. But your feelings don't change what the scripture says.
SPEAKER_01:So all we're really saying is let's forget about the feelings and get back to what scripture actually says. And believe and live what scripture actually says. It really is. And I say that a lot about these messages, and that's what I meant while I go. I'm not saying it to pat myself on the back or anything. I'm just saying, God is showing me that these messages are so critical to our understanding of the truth. We've got to go back and we've got to work through some of these misconceptions that we've been taught, these misinterpretations that we've been taught. We've got to go back and work through some of these. It's a critical message because we have we've spent centuries in the church teaching people to fix what Adam broke. Think about it. We teach that so often. Fix what Adam broke instead of awakening them to what Jesus already restored. He did something on the cross or he didn't. It's really that simple. Do I believe what he did was sufficient? Do I believe what he did was complete? Do I believe what he did was finished? Either I do or I don't. I can't have it both ways. I can't stand over here and say it's finished, it's complete, it's done, and then quote something that totally contradicts that. I have to get in the word and let the word build upon the word. Let the word, let scripture interpret scripture without being without being changed because of my feelings. See, we let our we get, you know, we've all heard this said and sometimes it happens when we say get out of your feelings. We all let our feelings guide us sometimes, probably too much. Feelings don't change truth. Feelings don't change what scripture says. We got to get out of our feelings as Christians, as believers. We've got to not let our feelings dictate our theology. Because you're gonna come up wrong every time if we allow our feelings to dictate it. The gospel is not about sin management. We've said this so many times. It's about identity restoration. How do I restore myself to the truth of the identity that God created me to be? Until we stop living from the first Adam and start living from the last Adam, we're never really gonna fully experience that freedom, that sonship, and that union that Jesus died to reveal. He died for this. And we're not now, it don't change what he did. It's complete. But I can live the rest of my life never recognizing the truth of what happened on the cross, never coming into alignment and agreement with what happened on the cross. It don't change the cross, it's just it changes what I believe. I want to believe the truth. I want to know exactly what the purpose of him going to the cross was for. So today we're gonna talk about moving from the first Adam to the last Adam. We've spent so much time over the years uh learning about Adam, the first Adam. And honestly, I think that's been one of our problems. We focus so much on the first atom that we develop a fear-based mindset. Because when you major on the first atom, you end up developing and living from a fallen mindset. Why? Because we automatically look at the first atom and we say, He fell. I mean, that's what we call it. We call it the the fall. He fell. And we end up living from a fallen mindset when we focus so much on the first atom. But when you made your own the last atom, everything begins to change. There's a shift that happened. There was definitely, and I want you to hear me right here because some people will misinterpret what I'm saying. There was definitely a tragedy that happened in the garden. We can't deny that. The Bible tells us all about it. I'm not trying to minimize the importance of what happened in the Bible. I'm just trying to bring more clarity and understanding to what actually happened. So there was definitely a tragedy that happened.
SPEAKER_00:We're not denying that at all. But the tragedy wasn't sin. The tragedy was forgetfulness. The tragedy wasn't that Adam sinned.
SPEAKER_01:He ate an apple or an orange or whatever you want to call it. We always say it's an apple. The tragedy wasn't that he ate the fruit that God told him not to eat. The tragedy was that he forgot who he was. The tragedy of the of the uh of the son, of the prodigal son, was that he forgot who he was. He lived a life, I don't know how long he was he was out there living in the world, but he experienced that simply because, not because his daddy kicked him out, but because he forgot who he was and he left the father's house. And then he came to himself and said, I gotta get back. I gotta get back to that. Now, granted, he still didn't come into a total agreement with who he was, he struggled all the way back and said, I'm just gonna go back as a servant. Okay, so the problem itself is not sin, the problem is forgetfulness. When you forget who God created you to be, and forget your true identity. So the first Adam went from walking in perfect union with God to running and hiding in fear.
SPEAKER_00:Think about that. Genesis 3 and 8. I want to read that with you. I want you to look at what this says here, man. It says, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
SPEAKER_01:And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. You've read this probably hundreds of times, but I want you to see it again because I want you to just be able to kind of put yourself right there a minute. Can you imagine walking, waking up and walking every day in the cool of the day with God and just having conversation and just hanging out and just talking with God? And then one day you just decide to go and hide. Forget who you are, you forget your identity, and you go and you hide. He forgot not just his own identity, he forgot who God was, and in doing so forgot who he was. That same fallen mindset that happened right there in the garden, that same mindset has been passed down. Listen to this, because we're fixing to crush some tradition right here that's been passed down from generation to generation. That mindset, that fallen mindset has been passed down, but not through DNA.
SPEAKER_00:Not through DNA.
SPEAKER_01:It's been passed down through church doctrine. What do I mean it hadn't been passed down through DNA? You are not born a sinner. Disagree if you want to, but I'll take you to many, many scriptures. And then you got a choice to make. Am I gonna agree with what I've always heard, or am I gonna agree with what scripture says? It's been passed down through church doctrine that you are just an old sinner, you were born a sinner, and we've got to fight and strive and do everything that we can to try to get into the identity of Christ. We've been told from pulpits for generations that when we were born, we are just like Adam. We are born in Adam. How many times have you been told that? That we inherited Adam's nature.
SPEAKER_00:How many times have you been told that you have a sin nature? Many a times. But look what it says in Romans chapter 5, verse 12.
SPEAKER_01:Now keep in mind, you were born with a sin nature. That's what you've been told. You were born in Adam, that's what you've been told. But look what it says here. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because all sinned. Okay? This is where it comes from. This is it. This is where the teaching that you were born in Adam, that you are an extension of the first Adam, that you are born into sin, and that you have a sin nature. This is where it comes from. Now, did I just deny that the Bible said this? No. It says it. That's why I wanted to pull it up. Because it says right here, just as one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men. Now, the most people's gonna interpret that as because of what Adam happened to Adam, it happened to all of humanity. Right? Come on, y'all scare me. Some of y'all sitting here like this. I'll start this thing over and do it differently if I hadn't done it well enough now. We'll go back to the very beginning. I can scroll back down. Traditionally, this verse is taken to mean that Adam's sin brought a sin nature into humanity. That we are all born sinners by inheritance. We inherited our sin nature because of who? The first Adam. Right? Does that make sense? That's what tradition teaches us. But let's look a little bit deeper at this. Paul isn't saying humanity became sin by nature, he's describing the entrance of sin and death as realities that dominated human consciousness during this time and experience, not as the essence of human identity. I'm gonna break this down a little bit more in a minute. You're gonna see what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00:You got to notice the wording. Sin done what? What's the next word? Entered. Sin entered. That's key.
SPEAKER_01:You gotta see that. Sin entered into the world. Paul does not say that sin became humanity. He says sin entered into the human story that was already there. It entered into it. Sin is portrayed as an invader, not the true nature. It is not part of the human nature, it's something from the outside that was never part of what God created. It was never part of what God created, and it entered in from the outside. Humanity's true nature remained the image and the likeness of God. The image that He created remained the same. It never changed. The fall caused a lot of awareness of that nature. A false identity shaped fear and different things, shame and separation come in. But this is so important to see right here. This never says that humanity's nature, that sin was a part of the nature. It says something from the outside entered in, and it began to distort what the perception of Adam. Just like if something enters into you, a new thinking or something happens, a new experience. You might change the way you think.
SPEAKER_00:But does it change who you are?
SPEAKER_01:It changed the way Adam thought, but it did not change his identity of how God created him.
SPEAKER_00:It never done it.
SPEAKER_01:Jesus came to remove the false identity and reveal the truth of our inclusion in him. I'm gonna make this a little bit easier by adding one verse right here because we can't read this verse right here that we just read in verse 12 without reading verse 9. You gotta see where these two come together. So when you go to Romans 5 and 19, for as by one man's disobedience, that one man was who? Were made sinners. Okay? Again, and when you understand it, it didn't change the person, didn't change, all it changed was the mindset. It made them sinners in their minds. So also by one man's obedience. What man is that talking about? Jesus. By one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. It's always instilled to this day, continues to amaze me how we can believe with everything in us that one man, Adam, changed all of history and all of humanity. But we struggle believing that the other man, Jesus, changed all of humanity.
SPEAKER_00:Don't make sense. We can believe we're all born sinners, but we can't believe that we're all made righteous. Which man is more powerful?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, we're giving more power and more authority to the first Adam than we're given to Jesus through the church.
SPEAKER_00:This right here is the other side of it. That's why I said, let's go a little deeper into it.
SPEAKER_01:This is the other side. Adam's act brought sin into the human experience. Jesus ended sin's dominion and restored right standing. He said, I'll do away with it, bring you back into right standing, back into righteousness, which is right standing. I'll bring you back into an understanding of who my Father truly created you to be. It says the sin nature, okay, was crucified with Christ. And then in Romans 10, 4 it says, the law that gave sin the power was fulfilled and removed. Therefore, sin no longer defines our nature. It only survives as a deception. It does not change who I am, it only changes the way I see myself. It's a deception. It's not my truth, the truth of my identity. Sin nature was crucified with Christ. That's Romans 6 and 6. Maybe you need to write that down. Maybe go back and see it. It was crucified, it died with Christ. So many people have lived their lives believing they were born wrong. And we're not just talking about the LGBTQRFT. No. We're not just talking about the alphabet community. We're talking about Christians. Okay. So many people believe they were born wrong. Now you look at the LGBT community, you'll see people that say, I was born in the wrong body. I was born a female, but I really am a male God messed up. We see that all the time.
SPEAKER_00:Is that any different than a believer saying I'm a sinner? You're calling yourself something that God never created. Now we're quick to rebuke it when it comes to LGBT. But why won't we rebuke it in the church?
SPEAKER_01:We'll be quick to jump on somebody and say, no, no, no. My God was not wrong. My God knew what he created. And then we'll turn around and say, Oh, I'm just a sinner, I'm just this, I'm just no, no, no. You, I know what my God created. He created you in the image and the likeness of himself. He did not create dirt, he did not create trash, he did not create a loser, he did not create a sinner.
SPEAKER_00:So why can't we be just as forceful with that as we are the other side of it? It's something to think about.
SPEAKER_01:I used to teach this stuff too, so I I mean I really I'm not I'm not bashing other. I used to teach this stuff as well, and I taught it with passion too, because I believed it.
SPEAKER_00:I was ignorant, which means I didn't know. That's all I knew, so that's all I was teaching.
SPEAKER_01:And then revelation started coming, and I got away from some of it. Because I've come to see something greater, I've come to see something deeper than just that. We did not inherit a sin nature, we inherited a false mindset.
SPEAKER_00:That's it. That was agreement. Look at Ephesians 4, verse 17 and 18. This I say, therefore, in testify in the Lord that you should no longer.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes we got to slow down and read these verses, word for word. You should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of what? Their ignorance. The ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. What is blindness? Is darkness is not being able to see. What brings darkness? Ignorance. Not knowing brings a darkness.
SPEAKER_00:He wasn't talking about they were evil people. He was saying they was blind to what the truth was. It wasn't this right here.
SPEAKER_01:It wasn't divine rejection, it was human forgetfulness. They weren't rejecting God, they were forgetting who they were. The same thing happened in the garden. I poured this verse up because I want you to see the same thing happened here as well. Okay. So think about this. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they didn't suddenly become sinful creatures. They became confused thinkers. That's it. They became confused about who they were. Genesis 3 and 7, we don't have to go there, but it says, Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. The eyes were opened. Okay. They began to perceive God as someone he never was. Fear, shame, separation entered their minds. Now I'm saying that because I want you to see the difference here. Fear and shame and condemnation and separation entered their minds. It never entered God's heart. Separation was never a thought for God. Shame and guilt was never a thought from God. It was a thought they were having. And it talks about that in Genesis 3 and 10. You can go back and look at it. Their darkened understanding didn't happen because God cursed them. It happened because they lost sight of who they were and who he was. Their perception of God shifted, it changed. One more verse I want you to, a couple of verses I want you to see right here with me too. Romans 1, verse 21 and 22. It echoes the same thing I'm saying. That's why I want you to see this right here. Because although they knew God, now let me stop just for a minute. Paul was writing a letter to the believers in Rome. Paul was not in Rome. Paul was in Corinth, but he was writing a letter because he was hoping to go to Rome, and he was writing a letter beforehand to prepare them, to talk to the people that was there. He was writing the letter to believers. And this is what he said.
SPEAKER_00:Not their behavior.
SPEAKER_01:Now, I'm sure their behavior followed their thoughts, because it always does. But he didn't condemn them by their behavior. He condemned them about their thinking. They become futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.
SPEAKER_00:Verse 22. Professing to be wise, they became fools.
SPEAKER_01:Professing to be wise, they become fools. How many people do we know like that?
SPEAKER_00:Don't call their names out. We all know a few people like that. It wasn't God turning from them.
SPEAKER_01:This is what you got to see. It wasn't God turning from them. It was man turning inward into confusion. Why do I say inward? Because the mind's in. It's in here. They were going and relying on their own thought process. So it wasn't God walking away from them. It wasn't God abandoning them. It wasn't God rejecting them. It was them doing it to themselves.
SPEAKER_00:Inwardly. Why? Because they were fools. And then we'll get ready to close it. And then Jesus stepped on the scene. This changes everything.
SPEAKER_01:The last Adam. In 1 Corinthians 15 and 45, calls Jesus the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. Jesus didn't just come to rescue us from sin. He came to reveal who God really is and who we really are in him.
SPEAKER_00:That was the purpose of coming.
SPEAKER_01:He pulled back the veil of deception that had started all the way from the garden. He poured back that veil of deception that began in Eden and said, This is not who you are.
SPEAKER_00:I'm going to show you your true identity. How did he do that? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father.
SPEAKER_01:If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. He came to show humanity that God was never distant, God was never angry, God was never withholding. All of these things that people were believing, that wasn't God. And he said, I'm going to come and I'm going to show you because you have been deceived. That's why he walked up to the religious folks and he says, You brood of vipers.
SPEAKER_00:You snakes. He starts calling them all these names. Why? Because they were deceiving people.
SPEAKER_01:All these people had been deceived. They were living in a place of deception. And he said, I'm going to come and I'm going to show you. I'm going to take the veil away, that veil of deception, and I'm going to show you who my daddy really is. All you got to do is watch me. Because when you've seen me, you've seen the father. So the angry father that you've been told about, you ain't going to see that in me.
SPEAKER_00:All this stuff that you've heard about the Father, watch me and see if you see that. A condemning Father.
SPEAKER_01:One that's just ready to just cast me down into hell. They never seen that in Jesus. They seen a Jesus who sit with the people who they didn't want to sit with. They seen a Jesus who would walk up to the prostitute and protect her. When everybody else says, no, we got a stone her.
SPEAKER_00:That's a different picture of the Father than what they were getting.
SPEAKER_01:He said, I'm going to show you who he really is. Now you don't have to go to this verse here, but I'm going to summarize it for you. Colossians 1, 15 through 20. This reveals Jesus as the visible image of an invisible God, the creator, the sustainer, the reconciler of all things. In him, the fullness of God dwells. That's what these verses say. In him, the fullness of God dwells, and through his cross, every part of creation has been brought back into the harmony with the Father. Because of what he did on the cross, the veil was torn, it was removed, the deception, the blindness, the darkness, the ignorance, everything removed so that we could see the Father again. And in showing us the Father, he also showed us ourselves. Jesus is not merely an example for us, he is the revelation of us. How do I know that? Because he says, I've created you in the image and the likeness of myself.
SPEAKER_00:But you can't see it. Why?
SPEAKER_01:Because you're blinded to it. Because you're looking at everything and listening to everything people saying. But I sent my son to pull back the veil so that you could see again. He came to cure blindness because you could not see yourself as the way that I created you. I never created you like you think.
SPEAKER_00:Your thinking totally distorts the Father. In Romans 8 and 29, I gotta add this one in because you gotta see this.
SPEAKER_01:For whom he foreknew. Everybody, most of everybody can probably quote this verse. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined. Now, who did he foreknow?
SPEAKER_00:I created you and chose you before the foundation of the world. You were foreknew. Every one of you.
SPEAKER_01:So for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to what? The image of the Son. But only the, listen now, the only ones who has has access to be, have the image of the Son is the ones he foreknew.
SPEAKER_00:And who did he foreknow?
SPEAKER_01:Everybody, I chose you before the foundation of the world. Now I know the church teaches us that the addict out there, he ain't like me. That girl out here prostituting herself out, she ain't like you. We separate, we divide. But this verse right here says, all that he foreknew, which was all, was predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. In Christ, we see that humanity was always, we see what it was meant to be through Christ.
SPEAKER_00:Let's get ready to end right here. Because I want to talk about one last thing here.
SPEAKER_01:A new reality. We're getting out of the blindness, we're getting out of the darkness, we're getting out of the ignorance, and we're stepping into a new reality.
SPEAKER_00:What is that new reality? Brace yourself. This is deep. We are just like him. We are just like him.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, he's calling himself a God. Oh, I'm I'm reading exactly what was said right here.
SPEAKER_00:He was predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son. That's the Bible. We're not calling ourselves gods.
SPEAKER_01:We're just saying exactly what the scriptures say. I'm in the image of the Son.
SPEAKER_00:We are just like Him. We are not in Adam. That lie died at the cross. The lie that you are in Adam died at the cross. Nobody after the cross is born with a sin nature. Think about it.
SPEAKER_01:Nobody after the cross is born with a sin nature. And I think all of us here was born after the cross.
SPEAKER_00:So there's no sin nature in here. Romans 5 and 17.
SPEAKER_01:There's only two more verses I want to show you. You gotta see these though. You gotta read them with me. Romans 5 and 17. For if by one man's offense death reigned, and we know that happened by one man's offense, we're talking about Adam.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, death reigned through the one. It only took one.
SPEAKER_01:He did it right by himself. Much more those who received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one.
SPEAKER_00:It only took one. If Adam could do it by himself, I just believe Jesus could do it by himself. It only took one. We are in Christ. When we see and believe that, everything changes.
SPEAKER_01:1 John 4 and 17, you ain't got to go there. It says this. We see it, say it all the time. As he is, so are we in this world. As he is, so are we in this world.
SPEAKER_00:Not later, not one day, not someday, and by and by.
SPEAKER_01:As he is, so are we. Not so will we be, but so are we.
SPEAKER_00:Words matter, they're important. We have the same spirit, we have the same relationship, we had the same divine image that's been restored.
SPEAKER_01:See, the gospel isn't about fixing what Adam broke, it's about awakening to what Jesus has restored for us. We spend too much time on Adam and not enough time on Jesus. We focus too much on the fall in the garden and we build a theology off the fall. And because we build a theology on that, we misinterpret the cross.
SPEAKER_00:We misinterpret the more important things. The good news. We turn good news into bad news so often. So the gospel is not about fixing Adam.
SPEAKER_01:We got to remember that. Our message should no longer focus on the first Adam's fall, but on the last Adam's victory.
SPEAKER_00:The awakening of humanity back into the union with God. This is more than just reading the scripture and trying to make sense of it.
SPEAKER_01:That's what we're taught to do. Read the scripture. How important is it?
SPEAKER_00:This is more than just about reading scripture. This is about making sense of what scripture is saying. What is scripture actually telling us?
SPEAKER_01:It's also allowing room for the Holy Spirit. We got so many focusing just on scripture. There was a Facebook post the other day. Somebody was, I went on there, one guy I know, and he was posting on there, and he caught a lot of he caught a lot of flack about what he was saying. But he was basically just talking about that the book alone is not everything.
SPEAKER_00:You can't just read the Bible. Jesus is the word. The Bible's a book. 66 books. It's inspired by God, but it's a book.
SPEAKER_01:Jesus Christ is the word. He caught a lot of flack on that. But that's what we're talking about here. You got to allow room for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is cleansing our understanding, washing away all the misconceptions that we've been taught over the years. Last verse here I want you to see. John 14 and 26. Ronnie's not back here, and I don't have it pulled up right here, so let me pull it up real quick.
SPEAKER_00:John 14 and 26 says.
SPEAKER_01:We forgot them. We were blind to them. And the Holy Spirit will bring them back to our remembrance. That is so important. He's whispering truth into the hearts that have been long, that had long believed they were distant. And his message is really simple. We've got to allow the Holy Spirit to come in and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us on these things. His message is real simple. You were never separated. You were never outside. You were never in Adam. You've always been mine. Always. Romans 8 and 16 confirms that it says the Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. Holy Spirit bears witness with my spirit.
SPEAKER_00:In closing, I want to challenge you. I want to challenge you to tell people the truth. That don't sound like it'd be difficult, but in the church it seems to be difficult.
SPEAKER_01:I want to challenge you to study. And you have to study to show yourself approved. You got to study to be able to show people the truth. You got to get in that word and say, and allow the Holy Spirit to bring some things back to you and open this thing up to you and see something a little bit deeper than just what you've always been taught. The veil that some think separates us from God, it's gone. There's not a veil there anymore. That veil was torn at the cross. I don't have the scripture poured up, but I could pull the scripture to show you that. It was torn at the cross. The truth is the distance between you and God. If there is distance, it's only in your mind. And the people out there that feels like there's distance between them, it's only in their mind. So let's tell them the truth to bring the to take that distance away from them. So that they can come back to the understanding of who they really are. You're not a sinner trying to get close to God. You're his child.
SPEAKER_00:Already loved and already at home.
SPEAKER_01:But sometimes we fall asleep to it. Sometimes our minds go off in different places, and we have to be brought back. We have to repent. We have to change our mindset, and we have to come back to the truth of who we are. Jesus didn't come to fix what Adam broke. He came to show us who we've always been all along. From the very beginning before the foundation of the world. God's not way up there somewhere shouting from a distance, trying to get my attention, hoping I'll listen.
SPEAKER_00:He's whispering from within. So it's not some loud, booming voice. Usually it's just a soft whisper from within. But can you hear it? Can you hear it? Are you listening to it? Do you recognize it? So walk out of the guilt.
SPEAKER_01:Walk out of the fear, walk out, quit striving and step into truth. And I'll even go this far to say the same thing. Let's quit preaching people into guilt. Let's quit preaching people into fear. And let's help them step into truth. Who they really are.
SPEAKER_00:In Christ, you are home, you are whole, and you are his. And we've got to help people realize that.
SPEAKER_01:We've got to help them realize that there's this is not some journey that they're if they're that they're just struggling to try to stay on. We just got to wake them up to the truth. Show them who they are.
SPEAKER_00:Give the truth to them, not tradition. Tradition is going to blind them.
SPEAKER_01:It's going to sound good and it's going to tickle the ears, but it's going to blind the eyes. They're not going to be able to see who they truly are because tradition is going to tell them you got to do this and do this and do this and do this if you want God to love you. Truth is going to say He loves you now. He loves you now. And He just simply wants you to open up your eyes and see it.