THE GOD JESUS REVEALED

We talk about how distortions don’t just affect how we see ourselves, they reshape how we see God, and that changes everything about relationship. We challenge familiar assumptions with the life of Jesus, because He is the clearest revelation of the Father’s heart. 
• the lens metaphor and how pain and fear scratch the way we see 
• why small words in worship reveal big posture shifts 
• how desperation language can contradict the finished work of Christ 
• asking where our image of God came from and who shaped it 
• bringing every tradition and belief back to Jesus for clarity 
• Jesus revealing the Father’s love through John 3:16 and John 14 
• why religious leaders missed Jesus while defending their picture of God 
• “you have heard that it was said, but I say to you” as an invitation to relearn 
• making it personal, letting God search our own distortions 
• praying for God to remove distortion and open our eyes 
So go back and listen to them, read them, print them out, whatever.

Transcript

Why Your Lens On God Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Um, I'm gonna try to go ahead and jump straight into this because when I start going through these things, man, it's I I try my best to to cut them down and get them in a you know, in a so I can get it in in a reasonable amount of time. But sometimes that's that's difficult to do, so uh I don't want to spend too much time talking about it and leading up to it. But I will say this just to uh make sure we're kind of all on the same page here, uh just as a reminder. The the last couple of weeks, possibly three weeks, we've we've been talking about distortion. And we've talked about the the lens that that shapes the way we see ourselves, uh the way we see other people, uh, the way we see the world around us. We've talked about allowing God to clean those lenses when we recognize there's areas that it needs to be cleaned in, uh, you know, allowing God to do that. But today I want to take this uh to a different place. Uh and I actually believe it's probably one of the most important places we can go with it, uh, with everything that we've talked about so far. Because if the lens through which we see ourselves is important, then the lens through which we see God has to be everything. It's even that much more important. Uh, because I believe we can, you know, we can misunderstand ourselves at times and still eventually find the way, you know, find our way through. But if we misunderstand the heart of God, every part of your relationship with Him will be affected in some way. So it's important that we understand that not just the distortions in our own life and how we look at ourselves and how we look at others, but really important in understanding how those those distortions affect how we look at God and

Words In Worship Shape Posture

SPEAKER_00 2:00

how we view Him makes a big difference. I was sitting here thinking about something. I've got to say this because it just caught my attention. Uh, when Monica you know stopped and it was telling us about the song and changed the words of the song, and then uh Cynthia even made a comment too about you know being in shackles and that we're not in shackles anymore and we're not in chains anymore. You know, sometimes a lot of people would look at that and you know and say, well, there's nothing wrong with that song. And in and of itself, there's not. But I love it because when when when we get to a place and we realize that words matter, that the things that we speak matters, and it makes a difference in our life. Why? Because life and death is in the power of our tongue, and and and it shows, to me, it's more than just words, but it shows the posture that we're taking towards something. And we're not taking a posture that we're begging for something. We're not taking a posture that we're in desperation for something. And I believe when we can when we can get to that place, and I and I believe that we're there as a church, and when we can get to that place to where we start identifying little things, but they make a big difference in how we move forward, how we how we respond to God, how how we view God. Little words like that make a big difference in a song. Now, again, some people may look at that and say, that is that is absolutely no big deal. Well, maybe it's not to them. But it is when you get to a place to where you start looking at it as more than just a song. When you start looking at it as more than just worship, when you start looking and saying, you know, these words that I'm speaking during this time of worship, they actually mean something. Why? Because they're positioning me in a certain place. They're positioning me in a place of saying, of being thankful for the finished work, or they're positioning me in a place to where I'm a beggar and I'm in desperation and I'm trying so hard to get God to give me something that He's already given me. That's desperation. And to me, we're in a place now of we're recognizing we're not looking down on that, we're saying we want people to recognize we're not in a place of desperation. We're in a place of finished work. And when you get that and your mind begins to wrap around that, it's those little moments like I was just talking about, that it really catches, and you're like, okay, that one word does matter. That one word really does make a difference in how I position myself. To not just worship God, but actually position myself to hear from God. It makes a difference. So that I want to see more of that. I'm not saying we got to go through and change every song, don't get me wrong. But but I love it when we begin to start noticing little simple stuff like that and how it positions us. Because it really does.

The Old Photo That Still Tells Truth

SPEAKER_00 5:24

And I was thinking, uh, I was trying to think of a way to start this out today, and something came to me. Cindy was looking last week. We were sitting there looking through some of the old annuals and all, and looking at uh you know, some of the pictures when back when we was in high school, and that's kind of what I thought back to. Um if you've ever come across a picture, an old picture, old photograph that's been sitting untouched for years, maybe it's been through in a box or through in an old photo album and just put in the attic or put away somewhere. And then you pick it up years and years later. You pick it up and you notice something. The picture has changed. Okay? The color may have faded a little bit. There may be a few scratches on it now that wasn't there before. There may be a crease in some pictures where somebody folded it up and stuck it in an old album or something. So what you notice is the picture itself has has changed over the years. But here's the fascinating thing about that. The people in the picture haven't changed. Okay? The moment that was captured in that picture hasn't changed. The story behind the picture hasn't changed. The only thing that changed is the condition of the picture itself. Time has affected the surface through which we're viewing the image, and I look at it as the lens. It's not the moment. The moment captured never changed at all. But it's it's the image itself. And sometimes I begin thinking about that, and sometimes our lives are like that as well. The experience we've been through can leave scratches and creases and faded places in the lens that we look through, which, you know, we we see ourselves and the world around us. And anytime I'm thinking about that lens, that's I I'm repeating that because I want you to get that. When we hear the word lens, we're looking through a lens. I want you to think about how I'm viewing God, how I'm viewing myself, and how I'm viewing the world around me, the people around me, because that is the lens that we're looking through. But those marks don't change who we are at the core. Don't matter what you've been through, don't matter if they might be a few dents in there, they might be a few scratches on you, they might be a few things that you've had to deal with in life. It does not change who we are at our core. They only affect the way we see the picture. It don't change who I am internally, but it will change how I begin to view myself if I'm not careful, and how I allow other people to begin to view me. And that's what we've been talking about throughout this whole series, uh distortion. A distortion doesn't necessarily mean something was completely false from the very beginning either. That's something else I want to make clear about a distortion. Actually, some of the most dangerous distortions actually begin with truth, with a lot of truth to it. It might be something that was really good, it might be something that God was actually doing. But somewhere along the way, something happened. Fear got involved, pain, tradition gets involved, our experiences get involved, and before we realize that we no longer are seeing the original picture anymore, we're no longer seeing it clearly as the original, we're seeing a distorted version of it. And I believe one of the greatest places that this happens is in our understanding of God. Because every one of us has a specific image in our head. You don't, I'm not gonna go around and say, tell me what that image is. But if I was to ask you a question and say, what is the image in your head that you have of God? Everybody has a specific image in your head of who God is? So my question today is not whether you've got an image or not, because we all do. My question is this: where did that image come

Where Your Image Of God Came From

SPEAKER_00 10:30

from? Who shaped it? What experiences influenced the image that you have? What voices help create it? Do we have assumptions that we've carried our entire life? Assumptions that we've taken on as truth just because somebody was passed down to us and somebody said this is the truth, and we just assumed that it is. So now we've taken on these assumptions and we've carried them with us, and we've never stopped to examine if they're really true or not. That's the place as a church we're in right now. If I had to just sum it up, put it in a nutshell, that we're examining truth. We're taking scripture and we're examining does this really reflect what God intended? Does this really reflect who I am and what my identity is in Christ? Because I put a, when I was read putting this down, I was uh used a couple of things here on a Facebook post because it just stood out to me. And this is what I said because if we are not careful, we can spend our entire lives protecting a picture of God that Jesus actually came to correct. And we're gonna get into that in just a few minutes and give some examples of where we do that so often. But before we do, I want to make one thing clear.

Bringing Tradition Back To Jesus

SPEAKER_00 12:14

We are not attacking tradition. It comes across that way so many times. But we are not attacking tradition. Tradition is not automatically bad. We are not saying that. Many traditions have been have been passed down from people who meant well when they passed it down. It's been passed down from people who had a great relationship with God. They wasn't trying to fool anybody, they wasn't trying to get one over on somebody. They meant well with the information that they were passing down. But I believe that every generation has to be willing to do something really important. Not just our generation, but you can go back and you can see that this has happened in just about every generation. Each generation has to bring its understanding of God back to Jesus. Now think about that. Because Jesus is not simply one voice among many, but he is the clearest revelation of God that there is. And sometimes the greatest act of faith, I've heard it said so many times, I'm sure at some point I've even said it myself many times, that we feel like the greatest act of faith is to hold on to all those things that's been passed down to us. We think if I if I hold on real tight to them and I don't let them go, that I'm showing some act of supernatural faith because I'm holding on to something. But I don't believe that that's really the act of faith. I believe the act of faith today, and especially with us, is not holding on to those things, but allowing Jesus to show us something that we've never seen before. Are we willing to let go? I'm not even gonna say let go, let loose a little bit, and allow Jesus to show us something that maybe we've never seen. I believe that takes more faith. I believe one of the most important things we need to understand about Jesus is this. He did not come to convince God to love humanity. He came to reveal the God who has always loved humanity. And you may say, well, that sounds very similar. Well, it's actually really different. Sometimes people imagine God as angry, as distant. Why? Because I've messed up in

Jesus Reveals A Loving Father

SPEAKER_00 15:12

my life, I've had some battles, I've gone through some stuff, I've backslidden in some areas, and I look and I say that God must be angry with me. He must be distant from me. I'm not going to go into this because we've talked about it so much, but it's a mindset and it's a distorted mindset that we've taken on so often that if I'm doing something wrong, then God can't be in the presence of wrongdoing, so therefore he has distanced himself from me. And now my job is to work my way back to it. That's a distorted thought. Now, some people would disagree, and that's okay. But I don't believe that's the truth, and I believe we can we can show that with the word of God. And therefore, if it's not the truth and it's something that is not aligned with the truth, then it's a distortion. It does not align with God's true character. So when we start believing that he's distanced from us, he's angry, so therefore he's moved away from us. But then Jesus is standing there saying, He's with us, he'll never leave us, he'll never forsake us. I'm just saying when we look at them, we have to start saying, okay, one of them's got to be right, and one of them can't be right. Because they're different. And if you take that picture of him distancing and angry and upset, and God Jesus had to come in and save today and jump between us and God, the problem with this is that picture don't line up with Scripture. It really don't. It sounds good, and it and it and it kind of sort of portrays Jesus as this hero who jumps in to save today. And he is a hero. But the picture that we're creating there of the Father does not line up with Scripture. Jesus said, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So listen to that. God was not standing at a distance waiting for Jesus to swoop in and convince him to love us. And that's where the distorted mindset comes in. That I done something wrong. He's distanced himself from me. Jesus had to swoop in and correct God and say, no, no, no, you need to love them. I went to the cross for them. And he did. But if I go back to what Jesus said here, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Notice a couple of things here that's really important. Now, we all know that's probably the first verse that most of us learned when we were coming up in children's church. The father was the one who loved first. He was the one who sent his son. He was the one who pursued us. And he was the one Jesus came to reveal. All of that is identified in the one verse that we know so much, John 3.16. We know that verse. But it's become such a familiar verse that I think we miss some of the really important stuff in it. Look at another verse with me, John 14, verse 8 and 9. I want you to see what it says here. Philip says to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, Have I been with you for so long, and yet you have not known me? Philip. He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, Show us the Father? This is a powerful scripture. Jesus was not here to show us the softer version, a nicer version of God. He wasn't trying to show us parts of God that was easy to, you know, easy to accept, easy to understand. He said, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. So if you want to know what God is like, we just simply look at Jesus all through Scripture. He welcomed the broken, he forgave sinners, he touched the untouchable, he restored the rejected, and ultimately he laid down his own life for the very people who rejected him. In every word, in every miracle, in every act of compassion, in every sacrifice, Jesus was revealing the heart of the Father. And one of the most fascinating things about the Gospels is when you really

If You Have Seen Me

SPEAKER_00 20:55

stop and look at who struggled the most with Jesus. Now, granted, think about it, his ministry-wise, he only was ministered for three and a half years. Okay? So when you go back and you really look through scripture and you say who struggled with him the most, it wasn't always the people that was far away from religion. It wasn't always the people that didn't know anything about God. Many times it was the one who knew scripture the best. The religious leaders, the gospel, the people who studied the gospel, the people who studied the scripture, the people who prayed all the time, the people who knew the traditions that had been passed down. The people who spent their lives learning about God. And yet, when God showed up in human form. They struggled to recognize him. That's crazy. That right there alone should get our attention. Because it tells us something really important. It's possible to know a lot about God and still miss him. It's possible to know Scripture frontwards and backwards and still miss the heart of God. We can be a defender of God and apologetic. Where it don't matter what's said, I'm always on the side of God. I'm always defending God against other religions, against whatever. I'm a defender of the gospel. That's a lot of people will stand up and they will tell you. But I believe we can be a defender of God and still misunderstand him. We can still miss him. The religious leaders were not rejecting him. They were protecting a picture. Listen to this. They were protecting a picture of him that they had in their mind. And the amazing thing was that when Jesus came, he challenged that picture. He went straight up to them. Just about every single time, and everything that they would say, everything that they would hold on to, every comment they would make about who God was, he would challenge it. Now you kind of have to look at that one of two ways. Jesus was just somebody who was always trying to stir up trouble, or the picture that they had of God was wrong. And Jesus was coming to correct it. Because, see, Jesus, when he was here, he did things that most people did not expect. And you can go back and you can read all through the scripture. He touched people. I've already mentioned this a little bit, but he touched people that most religious folks said he should not be touching. He should avoid these people. He welcomed people that they felt like he should have rejected. He forgave people that the religious people said he should have condemned. He sat at a table and ate with people that the religious folks said God would never sit with. And every time Jesus did something unexpected, I feel like he was forcing them to ask a question, a really important question. Does the picture you have of God look anything like me? I think the whole time Jesus was coming against people and he was condemning people and he was talking to people and preaching, he was forcing them every single time to ask the question Does the God that you're preaching about, does the God that you're talking about, does it look like

Protecting A Picture That Misses God

SPEAKER_00 25:42

me? Because I just gave you example after example where it didn't. They didn't expect Jesus to do the things he did. Why? Because the picture they had of God was saying that's not who he is. And then Jesus came along and said, Let me reveal to you who the Father really is. Jesus used opportunities to clear up the distorted lens people were viewing God through. And I don't know about you, but I've had this happen many times, especially in the last few years, where there's moments that I realized that something that I believed my entire life to be truth was not the truth. Have you ever been there? And see, at the time you didn't realize it because the people who were telling you these things were people that you trusted. People that you had a lot of respect for, people that you loved. And it's not that you were just being stubborn at the time or hard-headed. You simply didn't know there was another way to see it. Because this is what you've always heard. And then one day somebody comes along and they show you something. They help you notice something that you've never seen before. And suddenly you can't unsee it. That's happened many times with me. Once you see it, it's kind of like you just sit there and wonder, how did I ever miss this? How did I not see this in all the times of reading this, in all the times of hearing messages preached on it? How did I not see this? I think that's exactly what Jesus was doing through his entire ministry. He was opening people's eyes up. He was bringing their focus into what the truth was about the Father and getting it off of the distorted image that had been created. See, sometimes we read the gospels as though Jesus came primarily to start a new religion or to establish a new set of rules. But the more I read the life of Jesus, the more I'm convinced. And the more I become, get to this place where I think he spent much of his ministry just simply opening eyes up. Spiritually, not always physically. Think about who Jesus was talking to again. He wasn't talking to people who were atheists, who had never heard of God before. He was actually speaking to people who had spent their entire life believing they already knew God. And that's what makes this story of the gospel so fascinating. Jesus wasn't introducing them to a God that they had never heard about. He was reintroducing them to a God that they had misunderstood. And can you imagine what it was like for the disciples during this time? Can you imagine what it would have been like to be a disciple as all of this stuff was unfolding during that three and a half years? At first, you can read back through the scriptures and see it in there many times. At first, the disciples were just as confused as everybody else was. That's why they would go in when they would leave the multitude and they would go back in the house and they would say, What were you saying? Explain to us what you were preaching. Because they were just as confused. But see, you've got to remember, they grew up hearing the same sermons being taught that the religious folks was hearing. Carrying many of the same assumptions that everybody else was carrying. And then all of a sudden, they begin to follow Jesus. And I began to think about that, what it was like to grow up around all these religious folks, to hear the same preaching time after time, to have this image in my head of who the Father was, and then had the opportunity to walk with Jesus. And imagine what a shock it was to them. When they began following Jesus and almost daily, he was saying something that was making them just shake their head and say, should he really be saying that? Or I can imagine he was doing things in the ministry, and the disciples were getting together saying, I don't think he knows that he's not supposed to be doing that. Why? Because he was breaking tradition. He was going against what the religious folks were teaching. And I can imagine the disciples, because they wanted to protect him, probably, if I would have been there during that time and I would have been a disciple, I can imagine I would have probably pulled him aside and said, Hey man, you know you ain't supposed to be saying that. You know, you're not supposed to be doing some of these things that you're doing. And I can imagine that Jesus probably would have looked at me, smiled, and said, I know you believe what they believe, but you've been looking through a dirty lens. And all of a sudden, he would have started correcting. He would have started showing me something and telling me something that I had never heard before, and teaching me things that the religious folks were not teaching. He healed on the Sabbath, he touched the lepers, he eats with tax collectors, he speaks with Samaritan women, he forgave people before they done anything to earn forgiveness. He healed sins before we went to the cross. He would look at people and lay hands on them and heal them and then say, Your sins are forgiven. Who is he to forgive sins?

You Have Heard It Said

SPEAKER_00 33:10

So can you imagine what I was like being a disciple during that time? That's why I love the words that Jesus repeated in the Sermon on the Mount. He said, You have heard that it was said. I'm gonna stop right here a minute because listen to those words. You have heard that it was said. Let me paraphrase that. I know what you've been taught. I know what's been passed down to you. I know what everybody in your circle believes. But I say to you, I mean, he messing people up. In other words, let me show you what the Father is really about. I don't think that Jesus is being rude here by doing this. I think he's being compassionate. I think he's looking at these folks and saying, like I said a while ago, you've been looking through this distorted lens, through a dirty lens, and you have no idea who my father really is. So rather than let you go on and keep believing and teaching this lie, I'm gonna correct you. I'm gonna show you who he really is. I'm gonna tell you who he really is. As a matter of fact, I'm gonna make it really easy for you. Watch me. Because if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Listen to me. Watch me, see what I do. So I think he was being very compassionate. He's trying to free people from a distorted picture that they had that has kept them from seeing the Father so clearly. He's trying to take away that distortion and say, no longer do you have to look at my father through a distorted lens? I'm gonna clear that up for you. Because I want you to know who he really is? What if the greatest obstacle to seeing God clearly isn't rebellion? What if the greatest obstacle is simply being too familiar? Now think about that. What if we've become so familiar with certain ideas about God that we've stopped asking whether they actually look like Jesus or not? That should really make us stop and think. What is it that I'm holding on to?

When Familiarity Becomes The Obstacle

SPEAKER_00 36:10

What idea, what concept am I holding on to in my life that I have heard of for so long that I don't even stop to think and question, does it reflect Jesus? That's all we're saying. That's all a distortion does. So all we're saying is, can we stop and compare it with who Jesus is? Let's make it even more personal. If Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father, and I believe that he is, what picture of God is he still trying to correct in me? I'm not perfect, and you're not perfect, and we still probably have some images that we've had built up over the years that probably still need to be corrected. And I'm willing to let him do that. Now, notice I said let's make that personal because I don't want you to look at your neighbor. We're not talking about the other congregation, we're not talking about the other church down the road. See, it's easy to look at a dirty lens in somebody else. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about me. I'm talking about getting personal and saying, God, will you search me? And if there's any distortion that I have, any distorted image that I have of who you are, show me. And let's clear it up. Let's clean it. Maybe some of us have spent years believing God is just really just tolerating us. When all along he's been delighting in us as his children, he's excited that we're

Replacing Fear Based Images Of God

SPEAKER_00 38:20

children of God. Maybe we've believed he's waiting for us to just fail and just we're trying our best to get by, but more often than not, we're failing, according to what a lot of people think. But Jesus has been showing us a shepherd who leaves the 99 to pursue the one. See, the fault and what Jesus actually showed is different. Maybe we've imagined God keeping a record of every mistake that we've ever made. But when we read about Jesus, what he spent his time doing is revealing a father who runs to embrace a son before the son even had a chance to apologize. Different story. The image we have and the truth of what the Father done is totally opposite. So I have to say one of them's the truth and one of them's not. Which one am I going to grab on to? Which one am I going to believe? What if some of the fears that we've carried about God never came from God in the beginning? Let me repeat that. What if some of the fears that we have about God never came from God at all? So many places I would love to go right now. So many scriptures that we could pull up. What if those things came from disappointment? What if they came from religion? What if they came from shame and guilt and pain and life experiences? And those life experiences became my lens and I'm looking through. And now, because of that, I have a distorted image of God. And yet, Jesus, the whole time in Scripture, the whole time we've been believing all this, listen to me now. The whole time we've been believing all that stuff, Jesus has been in scripture the whole time saying, Look at me. Look at me. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. That's why this matters. Because the way you see God determines the way that you relate to Him. So in closing, think about this. What if we just ask God to do two simple things for us? Two very simple things. Remove the distortions and open our eyes. Remove the distortion and open our eyes. Open our eyes to places where fear has painted a picture of God that Jesus never revealed. Open our eyes to beliefs that we've carried simply because that's what's always been taught. Open our eyes to areas where we've mistaken tradition for the voice of God. And open our eyes to where we can see God in Jesus with greater clarity than we've ever been able to see before. Some people still struggle to see God in Jesus. But it says right there in the Word, it says he was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. He was always in Christ from the very beginning. If there's anything in us that resists what Jesus is trying to reveal during this time, during this season, I pray that we don't simply set back and defend false assumptions. And it's so easy to do that. But instead of defending false assumptions, I pray

Staying Teachable And Letting Go

SPEAKER_00 42:55

that we become disciples. Still willing to be challenged and still willing to be taught. There's a lot of Christians that have lost the ability to be taught when it doesn't line up with what they believe. Anything that you say that contradicts what their traditional belief system is, I don't want to hear it. Man, I want us to be a people. It may not even be the truth, but guess what? I can hear it out. And I can decide whether it's truth. The Holy Spirit will help me dissect it. I'm not so weak minded that I need somebody to tell me what truth and what is truth and what is not. Why can't I allow the Holy Spirit to do that? But can I be willing to let go of some stuff that God God is showing me, he's opening some things up to me, and he's showing me that these false assumptions that I've always held on to is not him. It don't reflect his character, it don't reflect who he is as a father. And that's what I want. I want us to be able to be in a place to do that. Because I believe when we're willing to do that, I believe the Holy Spirit will begin to bring truth to us and show us things that we've maybe we've looked over. We've read over in Scripture. We've just missed it. And it's been there the whole time. It's not anything new. I say this all the time. What we're teaching and what other people, it's not a new religion. It's not new stuff. It's not a new gospel. It's been there the whole time. And I joke about it, but I mean this too. It's actually older than what they're teaching a lot of times. There is new stuff out there. There is new age stuff out there that people are teaching. This is not new age. This is going back to original stuff and saying, who is God according to Jesus? Because he's the pattern. Because he said himself, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I think we gotta stop looking to man to define God. And go back and let Jesus define him. And be okay. If I'm wrong in an area, guess what? I'm it's okay. I'm not going to hell because I've been wrong about a certain tradition or about a certain theology. It's okay to be wrong. And it's okay to relearn. It's alright to let

Go Back And Listen Again

SPEAKER_00 46:20

the Holy Spirit come in and pull some stuff out and throw some more stuff in. But I think that's the hardest thing. And when I say Christians, I'm including us with that. That's hard for us to do. Very difficult. But I believe that's where he's got us at. And I believe the more that we hear this and the more that we begin to see it, the more the little things that don't mean a lot to some people will begin to challenge us. Like one word in a song. All of a sudden, that word that you've sung a thousand times never bothered you before. But now all of a sudden, there's something on the inside saying, I'm not a beggar. I'm not desperate. We're not Christians in desperation. And all of a sudden, that one word just something on the inside just says, I can't agree with that. I can't keep going along with that anymore. And I believe that's when the Holy Spirit is really beginning to move, and we're allowing. Holy Spirit's always moving, but we're allowing him to move in some areas of our life. Show us some things, open some things up to us. And just like the word says that we're moving and advancing from glory to glory. God wants everybody to do that. And the only thing that can stop that, I think, is ourselves, is our unwillingness to move. To learn and to truly understand who He is so that we can understand who we are. And I almost want to go back and just get this whole series and just re-preach it. I mean, because there's there's so much stuff in it that just builds. Week after week it just builds on top of each other. So go back and listen to them, read them, print them out, whatever. But listen to them and see if you can find some patterns in there, some areas where God has just taken us from one place to another. And see what the Holy Spirit will speak to you as you go back and just kind of get down in this. I know it's one thing hearing at one time today. You're not going to get as much out of it in one sitting. You're just not. But if you go back and listen again, read again, play it in the car, I believe the Holy Spirit

Prayer And Closing

SPEAKER_00 49:20

will open some things up to you. So let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word, for the truth that's coming, for what you're showing us, for the season that you have us in right now, Father, we thank you. We thank you that we're disciples, that we're willing to learn, that we're willing to be challenged, Father, that we're willing to let go of some things, to be able to allow some other things to come in. We thank you that you're showing us so much, that you're revealing things to us that maybe we've never seen before in Scripture. Maybe we've read that Scripture dozens of times, but all of a sudden there's things coming out of it that we've never seen. So, Father, we thank you for what you're doing. I pray for every person in this room right now, Father, that you begin to speak to them, that you begin to show them things uh in the scripture, that you just begin to uh take them to a new level, take them to a place they've never experienced uh spiritually, even physically, Father. So we just thank you and we'll be careful to give you the praise, the honor, and the glory for everything. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.