Practicing Your Innocence-and why Jesus' call to Nathanael matters to you.

This morning our conversation orbits around the often overlooked spiritual practice of rekindling our awareness of love's persistent presence. We navigate the transformative power of Epiphany, Together, we consider how the light of Christ beckons us towards living renewed with hope and a sense of beloved identity.

Through heartfelt narratives, we contemplate the profound impact of forgiveness and the practice of viewing others through a lens of innocence, mirroring Jesus' grace. We discuss how to shift our perspective away from shame, and towards one that welcomes with open arms, drawing parallels to biblical stories like the disciple Nathanael's encounter with Jesus, and the powerful transformation that can occur when we truly follow His path. It's an invitation to see the world and its inhabitants with fresh eyes, recognizing adversaries as brothers in disguise and extending the epiphany of belovedness outward.

Lastly, we explore the awe-striking process of spiritual awakening with the help of personal stories, including that of a close friend whose near-death experience led him to a life of healing others as a physician. These narratives serve as a catalyst for our own encounters with God, encouraging us to share our transformative experiences—our "limps"—as living testimonies of faith. So, as you tune in, let these shared journeys inspire hope and guide you towards embracing your true purpose, holding fast to the divine guidance that shapes our paths.

#Ocala #Ocalafl #Sunday #Jesus #Jesuschrist #hope #love #spirit #spirituality #grace #truth #bible #love #lovewins #beloved #podcast #egalitarian #peace #nonviolence #christian #apostlescreed #epiphany #lectionary #belovedcommunity

This podcast is made possible, thanks to the generosity of our donors. If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church you can donate at https://www.firstlovechurch.org/giving

In the service of LOVE,
Pastors Dennis and Heather Drake

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the First Love Church podcast. This is a collection of Sunday teachings inspired by the revised common lectionary and recorded weekly in Ocala, florida. For those of you who have braved the cold I say that very tongue-in-cheek, and we are grateful this morning all of us that none of us had to shovel our driveways to get here this morning. That is a gift. And to those of you who are watching that are shoveling your driveways, we speak peace to you, don't do too much. Be mindful of that. We're grateful again for everybody who watches and for those of you who watch from very cold places, we say may the grace of our Lord, jesus Christ, be with you, stay warm. And for the rest of us here, we pretend that we're cold by putting on coats and sweaters and I guess you just get acclimated to whatever your environment is, and so that's really important for us in remembering why we come back to church every week, we need to re-center ourselves and re-acclimate ourselves in love's presence. She can make anything in church.

Speaker 2: 1:02

Sounds good, church it up. I don't know if they noticed that, but that was impressive.

Speaker 1: 1:06

Here's the hope for all of us, though, that we would come to this realization that who we are, where we begin is beloved, where the very center of us is beloved, and sometimes we have to come for our weekly amnesia therapy. We come back to church and we're reminded I am loved by God. I am one made in the image of God. God is with me and God is for me, and those are the things that we rehearse every time that we're here together.

Speaker 2: 1:34

That's good.

Speaker 1: 1:36

That is real good. You're right, and it's not because we made up. This is the good news. The good news that Jesus came is that God will never abandon us. This is grace, that the presence of God is with us always, and that is such good news to share that good news this morning.

Speaker 2: 1:51

We all have a great job. We get to share the good news. Yes, yes we heard it and now we can share.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Yes, yes, we're excited this morning. In the second week of Epiphany, we talked about Advent and Christmas, and in Advent we watch the light, or for the light, we sit in the dark and pay attention to that. And then Christmas, we celebrate the light has come. And then, in Epiphany, we celebrate this fact that now the light is here. How do we live differently? How that we've seen the light of Christ does it influence us? How, now that we've seen that we are loved, does it call us to another way of living?

Speaker 1: 2:25

And in this season of Epiphany, we encourage you to open your eyes. In fact, the text that we have this morning allow the Holy Spirit to reignite, or allow you to reimagine things, and there is hope for us in the reimagining of this world. Can you imagine with me this morning a world where there is only peace? There is no peace, but we have a Prince of Peace among us, and though everything else is telling us that there is fighting all around us, with our hearts we can imagine a way of peace, because Jesus showed us this way.

Speaker 1: 3:04

And so one of the things that we do together as we gather, as we allow the Holy Spirit to re-enchant for us the text, so that we can remember. One day there will be a day when no mother will turn her son over to the machine of war, where no longer will we send our sons to be trained by war. There is for us a plan Jesus came and showed it to us where, one day, no child will go to bed hungry. One day, every family will have everything they need to provide for their families, and this, for us, is the hope. This is why we tell the better story, this is why we hear the good news and then go out, lived as ones who have heard it.

Speaker 2: 3:48

You know, one time I had a surgery where they were removing some of my teeth and I remember waking up in tremendous pain and people I didn't know were slapping me and they were going. You got to wake up and I'm like, leave me alone, I want to go to sleep, and they go, sir, you have to wake up and they go. He's not waking up, he's got to wake up, cause if you don't wake up, out of that thing there could be some problems. But I got to tell you I was cozy in my sleep and there was pain in the waking up. They were literally slapping me and they needed to.

Speaker 2: 4:30

But I needed to be awake if I wanted to survive the surgery and live in love and go on with the rest of my life, and I often think that when we come to church, there can be and should be for you a slap of awakening, and sometimes it stings a little, but I'm telling you that there are so many zombies on this earth that are walking around asleep.

Speaker 2: 5:00

They're dead inside and God is calling us to this awakening. But sometimes it's painful to face some things that we don't want to face and to wake up to what's really going on in the world. But I want to remind you that that is what this is for. This is, these services aren't just for you to get together cause there's nothing else that you could possibly be doing on a Sunday but that we would hear the message of the gospel and it would stir within us an awakening of our spirit that we'd rise up out of our slumber and become the people that God has called us to be, to live the life that is offered to you, and I amen. But it does provoke something in us and it does call for a discomfort. But if you want to be a little back to sleep, you can, and sadly many people choose that path. But there is an awakening. God is calling these people. Will you rise? Will you awaken to what he's calling you to?

Speaker 1: 6:05

This morning's text is from the gospel of John and we've been here and in the gospel of John and listening to the very beginning of the story. In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. This is the promise of Emmanuel, god with us, god with us. And we've heard, you know, we celebrated and rehearsed the Christmas story and even the story where the baby grows and is nurtured and the story where his parents take him to Egypt to escape a tyrant. And then we have this large passage here of time and Jesus is. This is like the very last of the Christmas story, but the beginning of the church's story, and so it is with excitement. Today I remind you of this beautiful story.

Speaker 1: 6:58

The next day, jesus decided to go to Galilee and he found Philip and said to him come, follow me. And Philip was from Bethsaida, andrew and Peter's hometown. And Philip went to look for Nathaniel. You gotta love a guy who has seen Jesus and then has to go find a friend. He is like you know, who really needs Jesus. It's Nathaniel and he's.

Speaker 1: 7:23

I don't know how Nathaniel worked out at first, but Philip met the Christ and then was like we gotta get Nathaniel to him. And so this beautiful hope, um, okay, philip went to look for Nathaniel and told him we have found the very person that Moses and the prophets wrote about. His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth. His name is Jesus, the son of God. There is so much revelation in this particular verse, but I just wanna remind you that what he did was introduced him to somebody that he met, who was astonishing, and so I'm so grateful this morning for friends who will find us and say I've met a man. I've met the person that we've been studying about. I met the person that we've been longing for. I met the person who is God with us.

Speaker 2: 8:21

You know, and I wanna remind you too, when you meet Jesus, he's not gonna ask you what your credentials are, or he's not gonna say well, listen, you can follow me if you'll fill out these papers. One of the things that I kinda find funny is or not funny. It's really sad, but you know, all of our tax money goes to the government so that they can have services for us, and then when we go to get those services, they tell you why you can't have those services and they have all this red tape, and if you can figure out all this jumble, you might get some of what is yours, you know. And so we get to kinda living in a system and understand that that kind of system is what Jesus came to destroy. Yes, amen, and.

Speaker 2: 9:10

But we get sometimes so accustomed to that system we assume approaching anything, we have to approach it with that a system. And so I just wanna remind you that when Jesus approached him, he just said simply follow me. That's what we need to do. Just follow, don't try to figure everything out, don't assume you have to do this all yourself. Don't think there's a whole lot of paperwork you have to fill out, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be chosen to follow him. But you are the select, you are elected, you are invited on this journey, and so don't overcomplicate it. You have the goods because you've gotten the invitation, amen. And so that's just. I just wanna remind you of that, the simplicity of how you approached it, so that there isn't some that are left out because they can't seem to fill out the paperwork well enough, or some that don't qualify.

Speaker 2: 10:07

I heard something recently where somebody made on their little part-time job, made a little too much to get back the money that they're supposed to be getting from their retirement, that they paid into their entire life for, and so those kind of systems. I'm so glad he came to destroy that and I'm so glad that you and I are not dependent on that for our source, amen, and that that is not how we get fed and how we get provided for what trickles down from there, but that we serve the King, amen. Oh, I might just get excited, heather, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 10:41

Would you go to the next verse for me please? Verse 47. As they approached, jesus said now, here is a genuine son of Israel, a man of complete integrity. Verse 48. How do you know about me? Nathaniel asked, and Jesus replied I could see you under the fig tree before Philip found you. Now, I don't know how far away that fig tree was when Jesus saw him. I don't know if Philip was doing something that he thought no one was looking at and Jesus saw him there. But fig trees are important in this beautiful metaphor that we are being told in this story. A couple of things about the trees.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Now, this is a retelling of a Genesis story. This is John's big thing all throughout his gospel, he's gonna retell the Genesis story. He's gonna retell the stories in such beautiful ways. But you remember, in the Genesis story there are three trees. There's the tree of knowledge, of good and evil, there's the tree of life and then there's the fig tree. The fig tree is where Adam and Eve end up after they have sinned, and they begin saying this is where I'm hiding from God. And so what we see here is when Jesus says to Nathaniel I saw you under the fig tree. What Jesus is really telling him is I saw you in your shame. I saw you in your disappointment. I saw you in your uncertainty. I saw you. Would you go to the next verse for me, please? And then Nathaniel exclaimed Rabbi, you are the son of God, the king of Israel. And here we see.

Speaker 1: 12:28

The first thing that Jesus does when he meets this man, nathaniel, is he said you are a genuine son of Israel. He declares for him an inheritance, he declares for him that you are the real deal. And he goes when did you, how do you know this? And he said because I saw you there. And this is a claim that Jesus has for Nathaniel, but for all of us that he sees us in our belovedness first, in our inheritance first. And he calls us out of that state of belovedness and says come out of shame, come out of uncertainty, come out of anything that tells you that you are unauthentic, that you don't belong. Come and see, come and follow me. Would you go to verse 50 for me, please? And Jesus asked him. So Nathaniel makes a proclamation. And again, we don't know what Nathaniel was doing. But Nathaniel was astonished that Jesus saw him under the fig tree.

Speaker 1: 13:30

I love the imagery of trees in the scriptures, for lots of reasons In fact, jesus goes to another tree later and curses the tree, and so there's a lot to be said of what happens under these trees. But Nathaniel is there and he is in some place, uncertain, and in some place has shame. And Jesus calls him and says that is not who you are. I see beyond that. I see your belovedness, I see your belonging, I see your connectedness. You are a son of Israel.

Speaker 1: 14:01

And then Nathaniel says you are the Lord and you are also my rabbi. You're the one who is gonna have to teach me and for many of us, if we are gonna come out of shame, if we're gonna come away from the fig tree to the tree of life, we are gonna need Jesus to teach us. We are gonna need to learn new ways of thinking about ourselves and about the world around us. And Jesus said do you believe this? Just because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, you will see greater things than this. What are the greater things? I've heard lots of people talk about this, but Nathaniel found that what was happening to him is he was learning to see himself the way that Jesus saw him. For many of us that is the key for the rest of our lives. To learn new things is to learn to see ourselves the way that Jesus sees us.

Speaker 2: 14:58

I'm gonna tell you a story and I'm not very proud of it, but it's just my truth and my experience in my walk and I guess, maybe because I grew up where I did with the friends, that I had going in any garage door that was open. When you're walking down the street just going in and stealing some Coke bottles or whatever to go cash them in or just kind of the behavior. I did that, the scheming and the stealing that I grew up kind of suspicious of everybody and as I had sons in my house, I had accusation against them from the time they were little. I just thought they were up to something and I thought they were constantly pulling the wool over their mom's eyes. Oftentimes I would have horrible accusations against my sons and Heather would say to me they're innocent. Why would you assume that? They thought, well, they're probably just, they did that because they did not have this accusation.

Speaker 2: 16:08

And Heather would talk to me about their innocence and looking for that and why look for this thing, the way that I do this, the way that I've done this? And in my conversation with Heather I said I don't understand how you can love me the way that you do. And she said, dennis, I practice your innocence. Oh Lord, yes.

Speaker 2: 16:37

And something that profound is changing my life because I look at my sons differently and I practice their innocence and I understand that as this choice that I make.

Speaker 2: 16:56

It's changing me, it's changing my heart, it's changing that bitterness and that distrust and it's changing that spirit that clinging onto me from childhood and I'm beginning to see how God sees me and because of that filter, I could never see the filter, I could never see me the way that God saw me, because I know me, I spent a lot of time with me, and so it's really hard unless you can let God do something in your life, unless you can maybe have a takeaway.

Speaker 2: 17:44

Today, do you practice the innocence of people around you? And Heather and I have begun to have that as our language and there are certain people that pull stuff right in front of us and we'll sometimes say it's not always easy to practice innocence, is it? And I'm not saying that it's as easy as pie, but I'm telling you it's a discipline that is doable and as it is, it is heart changing and it's life changing because we begin to, in a fraction, behave like God Almighty, we start to have, in part, a heart that is pure. I got Almighty. That is a transformation church that I desperately need, and if I didn't need it, my family certainly needed me to, because they were suffering under the weight of it.

Speaker 1: 18:45

We pause here for a moment to thank you for joining us today. If you're finding this episode meaningful, would you take a moment to share it with a friend? This podcast is made possible thanks to the generosity of people just like you. If you would like to support the ongoing work of First Love Church and the continued work of our podcast, visit us online at FirstLoveChurchorg, reminding you to like, follow and subscribe.

Speaker 2: 19:15

So what can we take away from this? When we see that Jesus is just inviting and letting us know how he sees us, we can either believe it or not, but there is some liberty and freedom in you, allowing yourself to see yourself and others.

Speaker 1: 19:39

And others, and you will see greater things than this. Even more than seeing his own self free from shame and free from things, he would begin to see others welcomed, just like Jesus did. I remind you that Jesus did this very thing that Dennis mentioned. He was on the cross between two thieves and he said forgive them, father, because they don't know what they're doing. Not really true, was it? Those people were really good at what they did. They knew exactly what they were doing, but did they? No, they did not.

Speaker 1: 20:11

The narrative, the story that they were telling, that somehow this is what would be the right thing to do, would be to kill, crucify, murder, perfect love. They had wrapped themselves in such a story that it made sense to them. The religious leaders of the day had been so involved in one particular story that it made sense to them to crucify Jesus, and so it is important that we reexamine the stories that we tell about ourselves and the stories we tell about others, and the practice of someone else's innocence does not mean that they will not have consequences for their behavior. Those consequences are already built into a choice. There is not a judgment or a gift in those things, but it's already built in. And so if someone makes a particular choice, there will be a consequence, not because they are being judged, but here's the consequence of that choice. And so the practice of someone else's innocence is really a practice of where I stand. Can I stand, like Jesus, and say to Nathaniel and say to the world I see you from your source, I see you from belovedness, I see you, and the story that I will tell myself is that you are innocent, that you are made in the image of God, that everything about you is designed in love, and I will speak and I will direct my thoughts and my attention toward the love, that you are Beloved. Only love is real. Everything else is an illusion, everything else doesn't matter. I mean, we even go back to the Genesis story. Only love matters. And John is telling us this, this wisdom that we're all looking for, the highest wisdom is love, and God is inviting us to let him heal the way that we see ourselves.

Speaker 1: 22:04

Nathaniel saw himself a certain way and sat under that tree, and maybe his friends saw him that way. That's why Philip said I need to introduce you to a guy. I mean, I don't know exactly. The rest of that is in the story. You know, that is a way that we read the stories and we should. It's called Midrash, where you kind of look at the in between. Where are the voices that aren't being heard? Where are the people that were around? It wasn't just these two individuals, and what could have happened.

Speaker 1: 22:32

And while we won't rehearse Nathaniel's failures, what we will do is learn to practice exactly what Jesus did when he said I saw you under that fig tree and you are a true son of Israel. You are a man in whom there is no deceit, and began to affirm the goodness of this man. This is what Jesus said. Now, the first thing that he says when he says to Philip, he says come and follow. And I want to tell you something that really understanding this, seeing Jesus for who he is, requires us to follow, and everyone is following, whether you believe it or not. A lot of us are following our ego. A lot of us are following, you know, a golden calf. But if you can find, if you can fix your eyes on the awesomeness that is Jesus, and we begin to follow Jesus.

Speaker 1: 23:20

Who said that the way of Jesus is not a set of beliefs? The way of Jesus is a path. It's a following the way of Jesus is I am the way, the truth and the life. And there is a coming to Jesus that we're all so beautifully invited to in verse 51. And then he said I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth. I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open. This is reference to Jacob's ladder. This is reference to a dream or vision that their ancestor had that they all took as truth. This is reference to Jesus, who is to us Jacob's ladder. The way that heaven comes to earth is through Jesus. The way that we come to heaven is through Jesus. And he begins to say the way that you look when you look at yourself and this is the beauty of epiphany it allows us to look at ourselves with clarity, not with shame.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Have you ever looked at yourself in a mirror long enough and then thought I got to look away? I have done with all the things that I can look at. And then I mean have you looked at yourself lovingly? Have you looked at yourself as beloved child of God? We had an acquaintance. We knew who had just gotten married and they were on their honeymoon and the woman was getting ready to go out to dinner and as she was passing the mirror in the hallway, she began to talk about all her flaws and he came up behind her and put his hands over her eyes and he said from now on, I will be the one who describes who you are.

Speaker 1: 25:14

Sometimes we need other people in our lives to say I will be the one to tell you that you are a true son of Israel. I will be the one to tell you that you are beloved. Sometimes the eyes we have need healing, and that's what Jesus has come to bring us, that's what epiphany comes to bring us. And because beloved, once you see yourself as innocent, and belovedness is where you begin. You begin to be able to see the world that same way. You begin to be able to see your neighbor with that same belovedness. You begin to be able to see enemy with that same belovedness. And remember, they are not enemy, they are brother. Now, sometimes they are brother in distressing disguise. I will just tell you sometimes people are hiding their belovedness. But it is the power of Christ, and Jesus was even saying this. You're going to see even more things than this, and this is the truth. Heaven will open and the angels of God going up and down, and the son of man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.

Speaker 2: 26:14

You know, I was kind of presented.

Speaker 2: 26:15

The gospel of the way this whole thing works is that you just respond to the altar call, you walk up and you pray a prayer and if you believe then you're transformed. And so I tried it and I believed really hard and I believed often and, if I'm being honest, almost none of the stuff that was promised to me in my brochure came to pass Almost none. If I'm just being honest with you right now. It seemed like, if you look at it that way, it was kind of a rook. But the problem was, I think, that maybe they were presented a false idea, because I don't genuinely believe that it's about you just having done an action, that there's something to really believing in Christ. That's different than just saying it out loud it's. Are you following the path he's inviting us to come? Now I'm not splitting hairs with you, but I wonder if maybe we've missed the invitation that the altar call was. The altar call was coming. Allow him, as you follow him, that he will change your life. And so when we let it hinge on belief, then it's very ambiguous and maybe you just don't have enough faith. But when you begin to understand that Christ is a path and you begin to walk on that path, there becomes things in that path that your choices, that you have to make on that path, is that you actually have to do. Amen.

Speaker 2: 28:11

I'll tell you something this morning that happened to me. I'm coming to make my right hand turn to get on 441 from the back road there, from where we live, and this truck had flown up and tailgating me on my bumper. And then, as I made my right turn and then put on my blinker to get into the left lane so that I can turn to get to the church, he's tailgating me and then he flings out into you know, so that I can't get over. And then there's an opportunity for me. This morning, before I ever asked for it, I wanted to see if I could race him and get ahead of him. I mean, all kinds of thoughts swerve over anyway. Many vans got enough dents on it. It could take one more. All these thoughts coming ahead. But a choice has to be made and in that choice I felt so much better and I thought to myself. You know, all this went on in my head.

Speaker 2: 29:11

Nobody knew anything in the car, they weren't looking at the rearview mirror, they didn't know what transpired, but I used to bring an energy to my car at a rage and everybody now spilled over on everyone in the car. What's going on? This son, son, son, you know, look at him, drive, you know, and all of a sudden the whole atmosphere, the car changes, the, the, the, you know. So what am I telling you? On my path, my personal path, I reach a fork in the road and I have a choice to make. Am I going to continue to behave that way and bring that into my home and into my family, or am I going to choose the path of Christ? This is what it means to be a follower of Christ, because they're going to be awakenings. They're going to be tough times when you're slapped awake on these things and choosing that.

Speaker 2: 30:06

I was thinking to myself there. He sped off in victory as he got ahead of me and I thought who really won here? I'm not upset right now, you know, I can just take the, the before I could not take second place. I would have done whatever it took. Now judge me or whatever.

Speaker 2: 30:26

Or maybe some of you are with me, I don't know You're with me or against me, but I'm just being honest with you that there was a. There was a choice and I was going to make one choice, and being a follower of Christ has led me to a place where I chose a different way than what was natural to me or what I wanted to do, and, as a result of that, I'm finding God. Do you understand what I'm saying? It wasn't about me confessing God and standing at the altar that I found Him. It's in. It's the beginning of the path. Don't get me wrong, but I'm not criticizing this. But what I'm saying is that if you think that that's where it's going to end up, you're missing all these points where, when, in those things, you recognize it's God knocking on the door of your heart and you open it.

Speaker 2: 31:15

I can tell you there is a joy, there's a peace that my family and I are experiencing as we travel in a car that did not exist a couple of years ago. God is showing up in a tangible way. That's what I want for you. I want that for all of us that we would not just have this idea and be promised this thing that we never experienced. But how do you go through that doorway, into that? It's really following a path that he has set before us, and it's not a path that is so difficult. You can't walk on it, because he has, in fact, given you the power to do it. Oh, wake up, o sleeper.

Speaker 1: 32:03

Two things. I do not disagree with you and that sometimes we do need to be jarred awake, but I promise you every time that that person is the first invitation is probably a gentle whisper Probably wake up. Or maybe someone called your name. It is only after a series of ignoring someone do we have to. So maybe their gentle whisper of God is with people telling them to wake up, to come further.

Speaker 1: 32:34

And what I want to remind us of is we saw the video this morning and it said don't miss the slow work of God. Very often we are interested in the quick movements of God, but the slow work, the creation work of God. We were talking about this because we were talking about the fruits of the Spirit this week, and I want to remind you that they are slow ripening fruit. It takes a while for this fruit to ripen in us. But I want to tell you, beloved, leave the fruit on the vine, leave it on the vine and let the Spirit of Christ bring a ripening to this gentleness and tenderness and mercy. The only time that it is not going to work is if you leave the vine. If you just abandon the vine, then the ripening doesn't happen, but the ripening will happen for you. These evidences of the Holy Spirit are an invitation into another way of living.

Speaker 2: 33:22

I would piggyback on that what CS Lewis said the miracles of God are nature and fast forward, and so nature itself is a miracle and God is doing something, and sometimes at a pace that we want the miracles, and they happen from time to time. But you can trust that in that nature, in God's nature, that a miracle is just in fast forward what God is already going to do for you and I amen. And in trusting that, I can trust the slow work.

Speaker 1: 33:51

Yes, if we know that God is with us and that God will not abandon us, then I tell you the truth. You'll all see heaven open in the angels of God going up and down, and the Son of man, the one who was standing in the stairway between heaven and earth, and he reminds them of this vision. But I remind you, beloved, that this vision happened after a night of intense wrestling, because sometimes, when you practice your innocence, when you look inside and see the good, it will cause you to wrestle. And many people have tried to say who was Jacob actually wrestling with? Was he wrestling with an angel? Was he wrestling with God? Was he wrestling with a pre-Bethlehemic appearance of Christ Beloved? It doesn't matter, and I just want to tell you God didn't say its own name. I love that part. If you go back and read it, jacob's demanding tell me your name, tell me your name. You identify yourself, you label yourself right now, and God will have no part of it. God will have no part of the labeling. God will have no part of that. But he wrestles with him all night long and I was thinking who teaches us to wrestle with the angels in our lives? Who teaches us to wrestle with deep questions who am I? Where do I belong? What am I supposed to do? These kind of wrestlings? This is what Jesus said After those kind of wrestlings you're going to see heaven and earth open up to you through Jesus. Through this way, through this practice, there is for us, all of us.

Speaker 1: 35:16

I remind you further of the story. Maybe you haven't read it in a while. Jacob and his brother were not getting along, in fact not getting along. They were at literal war. They were going to kill each other if they saw each other. As a mom, I can't imagine that kind of horror, these brothers at odds. And depending on where you are in life, you might side with one brother or the other. But I tell you, since the beginning of time, beloved brothers have been fighting and Jesus is the way out of this brother. Fighting, wrestling with God and changing is the way to find peace.

Speaker 1: 35:53

So Jacob wrestles with this angel and spent the night wrestling with the angel, and then God blesses him and changes his name, and God puts his finger on him and then he, from then on, walks with a limp. Now I don't understand that part of the story, and you know who's to say. Maybe he had a swagger that was part of his ego and God stopped that. I don't know. I don't know why there was a limp, but from now on he had a limp. But so he goes after he has this encounter and he goes to his brother and his brother, who is going to kill him earlier, looks at him and says I have seen the face of God, and he throws his arm around him and forgives him.

Speaker 1: 36:42

This is the invitation for all of us that in our wrestling with the deep questions, in our staying abiding, waiting for the slow work of God, in our realizing that Jesus is the one who revealed the path to heaven, jesus is the one through whom heaven comes to earth. In this revelation, in this revelation, people will begin to see God in us. And isn't that our hope for the whole world? Who are the Nathanials in your life that you would love for them to meet Jesus? There are some people, even I don't know them personally, but they're in the news and I am praying for a daily encounter with Jesus.

Speaker 1: 37:24

I'm like, lord, you have shown up before. I would just love for you to show up in their bedroom. Could you do that? You know like or when they're driving a car. Is that possible? Now? I just want to tell you. I have such confidence in this because there was a man named Saul of Tarsus and he was breathing murderous threats and I feel that there are people around the world who are still breathing this particular murderous threats toward the world and Saul has the light show up. First he's blinded, there he is wrestling, and then he recognizes Jesus and he's forever changed. For each one of us, that is the light that we may see, that we may see ourselves the way that Jesus sees us, that we may see the world as Jesus sees the world. This is the invitation to Epiphany's light to change our perspective.

Speaker 2: 38:12

You know you're talking about. You know Saul's experience, or Jacobine's I was thinking about. I have a really close friend, one of my closest friends. When he was young he was on a bad path of drugs and stealing and motorcycles and all this stuff. He was driving well over a hundred miles an hour down in Miami and he wrecked his motorcycle and he ended up being in the hospital for six months, about 17 years old. Six months, nine months anyways, in the hospital, a long time, and in there he started to look around at the people in there and the difference that they were making in people's lives and kind of looking at his own life and having a lot of time, quiet time, to evaluate the time that he had wasted. And he committed at that time that he would become a physician.

Speaker 2: 39:00

And he came out of that, turned his grades around, finished school, went off and, long story short, my friend's, for almost 40 years, has been a doctor and but because of that motorcycle crash he has a limp in the way that he walks, you know, and that limp is, represents and reminds me, and him certainly, of an experience, you know, and that experience has changed his life, you know, and I don't wish a limp for you, but I want more than anything for you to have the experience with God that causes you to live differently.

Speaker 2: 39:44

Amen, and he has probably already done that. But we fall asleep on those things, we forget them, and so I urge you to stir yourself, share that testimony, share that limp. You know that experience, why you follow him, why you know that he's certainly going to provide in this next situation, because what he's done in the past. Those experiences are vital, and if and if you can honestly say that you haven't had that experience, I assure you that if you will keep your eyes open and you will look up, he will reveal himself to you in a way that will cause you to limp for the rest of your life. And that I'm saying remember and move through this life differently because of the encounter that you had with him. Amen, and so look for that, trust him for that experience and let him be God and do what God says God will do.

Speaker 1: 40:52

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