SPEAKER_01: Let's just pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we want to know you.
SPEAKER_01: We want to know you and the power of resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: We wanna know you.
SPEAKER_01: We wanna know your heart.
SPEAKER_01: We wanna know your thoughts.
SPEAKER_01: We wanna know your will.
SPEAKER_01: We wanna know your emotions.
SPEAKER_01: We wanna know your desires, Father.
SPEAKER_01: Father, I ask that you'd pour out the spirit of wisdom and revelation of Christ, of what was accomplished, what has happened, what is available to us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I ask that you would catapult us into new measures of truth, new measures of your love, new measures of your glory, new measures of our inheritance that you prepared for us.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we want to know you and love you and be with you.
SPEAKER_01: The resurrection morning, the morning of surprise, the morning of wonder, the morning where everything changed.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to turn to John 20, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Now the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Then she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and said to them, They've taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.
SPEAKER_01: And I want you just to imagine that scene.
SPEAKER_01: Put yourself in that scene.
SPEAKER_01: For a start, it was incredibly brave of Mary to go.
SPEAKER_01: The place of tombs was distressing.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just distressing, but it was where they put kind of wild people, demonized people, people who were violent, people who couldn't live in normal places.
SPEAKER_01: They lived among the tombs.
SPEAKER_01: And there she was, was dark, and she was alone.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the stories say the other Mary went with her.
SPEAKER_01: Regardless, it was two defenseless women in the dark going to an intimidating place.
SPEAKER_01: And to choose to go there shows a certain degree of courage, but also a certain degree of desperation.
SPEAKER_01: It shows a certain degree of longing beyond natural reason, longing for the one that they were missing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said that the one who's forgiven much loves much.
SPEAKER_01: And here's Mary, so aware of the forgiveness that she'd received.
SPEAKER_01: So aware of what Jesus had actually done for her.
SPEAKER_01: And many times in the gospel it talks about how long before dawn, in the dark, Jesus used to go away into the wilderness to be alone with the Father and to pray.
SPEAKER_01: So many times it tells us that.
SPEAKER_01: It went from the routine of Hebrew culture that at this time there would be prayers, this time there would be prayers, this time you would go for prayers.
SPEAKER_01: It went to a longing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus showed us a longing and a needing of the company of the Father, a need to just be alone with Him to pray.
SPEAKER_01: And here is the first whisper of the same longing, the same cry, the same going away in the dark long before day to be with Him in Mary.
SPEAKER_01: And these disciples, they'd lost everything.
SPEAKER_01: We know the end of the story, and they didn't.
SPEAKER_01: All they knew was that they'd lost their Lord, they'd lost their friend, they'd lost their teacher, they'd lost their way, they'd lost their sense of purpose, they'd lost their community, they'd lost the one who made everything right, the one who healed, the one who delivered, the one who showed them what to do and what to think, and they'd lost him.
SPEAKER_01: And Mary is looking and longing for that connection.
SPEAKER_01: So while it was still dark, she went out.
SPEAKER_01: And when you've lost everything, if you've seen someone who's like lost everything, they start clinging to straws.
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly, even things that other people would count as rubbish, it's like, no, no, we've got to save that.
SPEAKER_01: We need that.
SPEAKER_01: We might need that.
SPEAKER_01: And here she is clinging to a dead body, clinging to the routine that she knows that you go and embalm this body, you honor the process of grief that's expressed in embalming someone who's died.
SPEAKER_01: But she gets there, and even that possible comfort, that possible solace of I know this routine, I now know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: These are the spices, this is what I do when someone's died.
SPEAKER_01: Even that has suddenly been taken.
SPEAKER_01: This shock of the body's gone.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes God disrupts what we're clinging to.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes God disrupts our desperate herding around what we once had.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes what is lost, what seems devastating, it's actually a doorway into the new.
SPEAKER_01: And so she does the only thing she knows to do is to run to Peter and John.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing in this shock, in this horror, they've even taken away the body.
SPEAKER_01: What else can they take from us?
SPEAKER_01: What else can they hurt us with?
SPEAKER_01: What else can be go wrong?
SPEAKER_01: Nothing more can happen than even the body's taken.
SPEAKER_01: And she runs to tell them to somehow verbalize this grief and this shock and this pain and the anger.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3, Peter therefore went out and the other disciple and were going to the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And they both ran together.
SPEAKER_01: And the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first.
SPEAKER_01: And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying there, yet he did not go in.
SPEAKER_01: Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb, and he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself.
SPEAKER_01: Then the other disciple who came to the tomb first went in also, and he saw and believed.
SPEAKER_01: For as yet they did not know the scripture that he must rise again from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Then the disciples went away to their own homes.
SPEAKER_01: It's just empty cloths there.
SPEAKER_01: And the only thing that remained of Jesus there was his blood on those cloths.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that continued to contend with death forever is the blood of Jesus left in that tomb.
SPEAKER_01: And they see the cloths and then they see the handkerchief that had been around his head.
SPEAKER_01: And I know some of you have heard us talk on this before, but it's so important I have to say it again.
SPEAKER_01: It's noted that there's all the cloths and the handkerchief that had been over his face, placed over his face.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't lying with the other cloths.
SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't just thrown there where all the other cloths were, but it was folded.
SPEAKER_01: It was set aside separately.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because God wanted them to see and notice and understand.
SPEAKER_01: And it's named differently by John because it's not just a cloth.
SPEAKER_01: He says it's a handkerchief, it's a napkin, it's what was put on the table as a napkin.
SPEAKER_01: And as many of you may know or not know, in Hebrew culture, when there was a business deal, when there was a tension to resolve, when there was a discussion, when there was a debate, when there was a matter of ownership, they would sit at a table and they would go back and forth and back and forth.
SPEAKER_01: And when the discussion was finished, when the matter was settled, what was done was this.
SPEAKER_01: The men at the table would take their napkin and they would fold it and they would put it down and place it as a statement.
SPEAKER_01: The discussion is over.
SPEAKER_01: The discussion is over, and it's not being opened up again.
SPEAKER_01: When that napkin was folded, it was never to be brought up again, it was never to be debated again, it was never to be risen and contended for again.
SPEAKER_01: It was finished.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus took that napkin and he set it aside, folded, placed in the tomb, and said it's finished.
SPEAKER_01: The discussion is over.
SPEAKER_01: The debate is over over ownership, over love, over people, over redemption, over the earth.
SPEAKER_01: It's finished.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a sign of finality to the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a sign of finality to us.
SPEAKER_01: It is done.
SPEAKER_01: No more discussion.
SPEAKER_01: No more debate.
SPEAKER_01: No more wondering what the outcome's gonna be.
SPEAKER_01: It is done.
SPEAKER_01: The napkins fold it.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus took that handkerchief that had been given him on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: The wrestling against Satan on authority, on ownership, on access, the keys to death and the power of sin over humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And he took it and folded it and said, discussion over.
SPEAKER_01: Final.
SPEAKER_01: Death has lost its sting.
SPEAKER_01: Sin has been dealt with.
SPEAKER_01: I have authority.
SPEAKER_01: I've opened up heaven to humanity, never to be discussed again.
SPEAKER_01: Colossians 2, verse 13 says this, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he is made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that stood against us and argued against us.
SPEAKER_01: And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross, having disarmed principalities and powers.
SPEAKER_01: Everything written against us, everything written against you, every reason why you couldn't be in the presence of the Father, everything that you'd done wrong, everything that held you back, everything that was done against you.
SPEAKER_01: He took it and he nailed it to the cross and he made a public spectacle of the power of sin.
SPEAKER_01: It is finished.
SPEAKER_01: It's not up for discussion.
SPEAKER_01: The victory over shame, the victory over guilt, the victory over sin, the victory over separation, it's finished.
SPEAKER_01: It was folded, the handkerchief by the Lord of heaven and of earth.
SPEAKER_01: His blood speaks, it still speaks.
SPEAKER_01: His death and resurrection settled the matter for every person in every generation, in every culture, in every situation.
SPEAKER_01: It's finished.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe if we listen, we can hear that cry resounding still now round the earth.
SPEAKER_01: It's finished.
SPEAKER_01: Sin has no grip.
SPEAKER_01: Death has no sting.
SPEAKER_01: He disarmed the enemy and triumphed.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11, John 20, but Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping.
SPEAKER_01: And as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Peter and John had seen the empty tomb.
SPEAKER_01: It's shocking.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's overwhelming.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's their heads spinning.
SPEAKER_01: And they go home.
SPEAKER_01: They just need to get space.
SPEAKER_01: They need to think.
SPEAKER_01: They need to go, what what does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: But Mary has to stay there.
SPEAKER_01: She has to, she just can't leave this mystery.
SPEAKER_01: She can't leave this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And she doesn't just stay there.
SPEAKER_01: She's weeping.
SPEAKER_01: She's probably howling.
SPEAKER_01: She's just so overcome.
SPEAKER_01: But she can't look away.
SPEAKER_01: And she bends down and she looks into that tomb again.
SPEAKER_01: And she sees, she saw the two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had laid.
SPEAKER_01: Then the angel said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_01: And she said to them, Because they've taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
SPEAKER_01: This is this beautiful interaction in the place of grief with angels.
SPEAKER_01: We can skip through this, but something just got opened up.
SPEAKER_01: I know there've been angelic encounters before all through the Bible, but when there was conversation, it was usually the pre-incarnate Jesus communicating.
SPEAKER_01: And here, a person just got brought at that empty tomb into an open discussion with the angelic.
SPEAKER_01: Heaven just bust open.
SPEAKER_01: This is our full inheritance to access God and to access heaven on earth.
SPEAKER_01: This is part of what we receive from the resurrection of Christ, the overcoming of every line of separation, every line of separation between heaven and earth.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_01: And whom are you seeking?
SPEAKER_01: You know, in pain, in loss, in difficulty, in those moments of wrestling.
SPEAKER_01: It's always the Lord's question to us.
SPEAKER_01: Why are you weeping?
SPEAKER_01: What is what is it?
SPEAKER_01: What's the pain?
SPEAKER_01: What's the grief?
SPEAKER_01: What's the deep longing?
SPEAKER_01: And what are you seeking?
SPEAKER_01: He wants us to be able to verbalize to him what is the grief, what is the root issue, what's been taken from you.
SPEAKER_01: Identify it.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of our healing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus knows why she's weeping.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that she's only seeing in part.
SPEAKER_01: But part of the healing comes when she verbalizes to the Lord, I'm missing the body.
SPEAKER_01: Telling him what's hurt us, what's confused us, what grieved us.
SPEAKER_01: Taking time to find out what the weeping really is, is part of restoration.
SPEAKER_01: And he asks her, What are you seeking?
SPEAKER_01: What is that you really, really, really long for?
SPEAKER_01: What is the actual longing of your heart?
SPEAKER_01: We can cover it.
SPEAKER_01: She was busy just wanting to embalm with spices, go through the motions, have a project.
SPEAKER_01: But he's like, What are you seeking?
SPEAKER_01: What are you actually looking for?
SPEAKER_01: What's the cry of your heart?
SPEAKER_01: And we can cover up the deep cry with many things to do, with busyness, opinions, pursuits.
SPEAKER_01: But the deep cry is there, and the Lord is asking, What are you seeking?
SPEAKER_01: Sit with him.
SPEAKER_01: What are you seeking?
SPEAKER_01: What are you seeking from him in this season?
SPEAKER_01: What are you really wanting?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: She, supposing him to be the gardener, said to him, Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.
SPEAKER_01: You know, sometimes we need to understand.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus doesn't always show up like we expect.
SPEAKER_01: She thought she knew what she was going to see.
SPEAKER_01: She thought she knew.
SPEAKER_01: It was sad but controllable.
SPEAKER_01: It was powerless, but she knew what to do with the Jesus she thought she was going to meet.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is there, she is talking with the resurrected Lord, and she thinks it's a gardener.
SPEAKER_01: Can you believe that?
SPEAKER_01: It says in Hebrews 13, 12, don't forget to entertain strangers.
SPEAKER_01: For by so doing, some have unwittingly entertained angels.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we don't know.
SPEAKER_01: God steps in, and it's not always what we think it will look like.
SPEAKER_01: Allow him to stretch your understanding.
SPEAKER_01: Allow him to draw you into wonder.
SPEAKER_01: Allow him to draw you into surprise, into the unexpected.
SPEAKER_01: Do we want Jesus in the tomb or do we want to be surprised?
SPEAKER_01: Do we want to be shocked?
SPEAKER_01: Do we want to be led into wonder?
SPEAKER_01: Because there's a whole lot of people who want him in the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Understandable, predictable, controllable.
SPEAKER_01: We understand Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He's there in the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus, he's asking the questions.
SPEAKER_01: He's here seeking Mary out.
SPEAKER_01: He's here confronting the deep cries in our hearts, making things new, leading us into new paths and new hope.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 16, Jesus said to her, Mary, can't wait to see that in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: She's there weeping, loss upon loss, totally confused by the situation, disoriented.
SPEAKER_01: And she finally thinks this gardener might know where the body is.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Mary.
SPEAKER_01: And the way he said Mary, she knew it was him.
SPEAKER_01: The way the Lord speaks your name, you know it's him.
SPEAKER_01: Because he speaks your name with perfect love.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks your name like nobody else speaks it.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks your name and there is perfect embrace.
SPEAKER_01: There is perfect hope.
SPEAKER_01: There is perfect knowing.
SPEAKER_01: There is perfect understanding of every strength, every weakness, every need, every joy.
SPEAKER_01: When he speaks your name, you know it's him.
SPEAKER_01: And she turned and said to him, Rabbini, which is to say, teacher, let him call your name, let him draw you aside.
SPEAKER_01: Stand in that moment where he speaks your name, and suddenly things change.
SPEAKER_01: Suddenly possibility changed.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Mary was in the garden when the others had left.
SPEAKER_01: She lingered.
SPEAKER_01: She wanted something.
SPEAKER_01: She was searching for more.
SPEAKER_01: She was restless till she had more.
SPEAKER_01: And then she heard her name.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17, Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my father.
SPEAKER_01: But go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what I heard resounding all week for today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm ascending to my father and your father.
SPEAKER_01: Don't cling to me in this limited version of what you know.
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't to be held in that earthly form.
SPEAKER_01: He was to ascend into the heavenlies, resurrected life, not just overcoming death, but opening up heaven for us.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to show us the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He came to make way to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus for calling God his Father.
SPEAKER_01: It was the one thing, as soon as he referred to God as his father, up came the stones to kill him.
SPEAKER_01: It was an abomination to them that someone would dare to call God Father because to be a son means everything.
SPEAKER_01: When you're a son, you have access to all that is the Father's.
SPEAKER_01: Again and again, Jesus talked about the Father, about doing the Father's will, about seeking the Father's will, about listening to the Father, about the life that was in the Father, about this relationship of intimacy and closeness and power and yet obedience and yielding to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: And he taught his disciples constantly about the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He taught them to pray, our Father.
SPEAKER_01: At the Last Supper, he said, it's not, you're not going to ask me things now.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: But here in that garden, just the two of them.
SPEAKER_01: Something exploded on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: One conversation, one believer longing and seeking.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus explodes the revelation of the Father for all of history right there in that garden.
SPEAKER_01: I love this moment.
SPEAKER_01: I love that Jesus found the person longing and waiting and lingering and seeking and refusing to give up in the pain and go home.
SPEAKER_01: I love that Jesus doesn't let Mary settle for her current understanding, the current revelation, the current joy.
SPEAKER_01: But he tells her there's so much more.
SPEAKER_01: I love that he reveals mystery for eternity right there in a garden with one person.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't gather a crowd, he found her.
SPEAKER_01: Love that it's a message to the others.
SPEAKER_01: Go tell the brethren.
SPEAKER_01: The revelation was ever for everyone.
SPEAKER_01: The spillover effect, the river pounding out to the others.
SPEAKER_01: Go tell the brethren.
SPEAKER_01: I am ascending to my father and your father, to my God and your God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what happened in that moment when that shock wave, those words went out?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus unveils on the earth righteousness that we are going to the Father, our Father.
SPEAKER_01: His Father is our Father.
SPEAKER_01: His God is our God.
SPEAKER_01: And he brought us in to equal communion with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: This is the term for righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 21, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Don't gloss over that, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: You are the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: You're not a little bit washed up.
SPEAKER_01: You're not like a little bit made pretty before God.
SPEAKER_01: You're not a little bit, you know, better.
SPEAKER_01: He made Jesus sin.
SPEAKER_01: Not carry sin.
SPEAKER_01: He made Jesus sin.
SPEAKER_01: He made Jesus an abomination.
SPEAKER_01: He made Jesus every sin you can name.
SPEAKER_01: He made Jesus that.
SPEAKER_01: And in making Jesus that, he made you his own righteousness, shining like the sun.
SPEAKER_01: He made you a son or daughter.
SPEAKER_01: He made you come into his presence equally valued, equally belonging, equally accepted in the throne room.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Paul was saying something so outrageous you wouldn't believe it if it was not again and again in the word.
SPEAKER_01: We have the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know what the word righteous means in Greek?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't just mean cleaned.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that.
SPEAKER_01: It means equal.
SPEAKER_01: You have been given the righteousness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You have been given equality with Christ before the Father.
SPEAKER_01: You're not off-cowering in the corner of heaven going, I hope God doesn't remember this one.
SPEAKER_01: You have been given equality with the esteem of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: How the Father looks at Jesus, he looks at you.
SPEAKER_01: That same pride, that same glory, that same delight.
SPEAKER_01: Don't diminish the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Don't trample it underfoot, making it some small thing that somehow you can creep in.
SPEAKER_01: No, you have been made righteous, equal with Jesus before the Father.
SPEAKER_01: It's so profound, it should shock you.
SPEAKER_01: It should take your breath away.
SPEAKER_01: It should arrest your life into going, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_01: This is resurrection power.
SPEAKER_01: Everything Jesus has access to, you have access to.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that he's been given, you've been given.
SPEAKER_01: Every possibility of intimacy between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you've been given.
SPEAKER_01: The Father does not clench his teeth when he sees you.
SPEAKER_01: His shoulders don't tighten, he doesn't twitch, he doesn't wince, he celebrates.
SPEAKER_01: He sees you, and his heart bursts forth.
SPEAKER_01: It's the victory of grace and it's the glory of the cross that we have been made righteous, holy, completely, transformed.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the mystery that we're discovering.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus' voice there in the garden, going through history, I'm going to my father and your father, my God, your God.
SPEAKER_01: Everything I have in relationship, in union, in wonder, in connection, in love, in intimacy with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: It's for you.
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: And my question for us is this Is Jesus' Father your Father?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you have a twisted, small, wrong image of the Father that's time to go?
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus' father was perfection.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus' father was glorious love.
SPEAKER_01: It was power.
SPEAKER_01: It was close.
SPEAKER_01: It was healing.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is inviting us to his father.
SPEAKER_01: He was going to our father.
SPEAKER_01: And he invited us there.
SPEAKER_01: In John 3, way back at the beginning, verse 13, Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says, No one has ascended to heaven, but he who came down from heaven, that is the Son of Man who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure their minds were like, wait, what?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: Was in heaven?
SPEAKER_01: Came down from heaven, is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: And what Jesus is doing is he's telling them right there at the start of his ministry.
SPEAKER_01: He was living in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_01: He was engaged with the reality of heaven while he was on earth.
SPEAKER_01: It was both.
SPEAKER_01: He'd already come down from heaven to earth, but he's still in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He's still engaged with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He's still aware of what's going on in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul talks about it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether I was in the spirit, not in the spirit, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But I went to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He tells us that we are seated now.
SPEAKER_01: It's a current verb, present tense verb.
SPEAKER_01: We are seated in heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, that's not when you die.
SPEAKER_01: That's now you are already seated in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
SPEAKER_01: For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
SPEAKER_01: Says he was lifted up so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that that word for eternal means no beginning, no end?
SPEAKER_01: When you believe, you get brought in to the unending kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: You get brought in to something that is not a future tense.
SPEAKER_01: You get brought in to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: When we believe, we step into our Father.
SPEAKER_01: We step into heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: It just depends on you how much you want to see, how much you want to know.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's been opened up.
SPEAKER_01: My father, your father.
SPEAKER_01: Make it your intent, make it your pursuit.
SPEAKER_01: That you live with the same reality, the same closeness, the same intimacy with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: Make it your intent that you learn how to walk in the same power, the same glory, the same breakout as a son.
SPEAKER_01: This is the invitation.
SPEAKER_01: This is the call.
SPEAKER_01: This is the message that Mary got told to go tell the brethren.
SPEAKER_01: For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world.
SPEAKER_01: Do you know that word condemn is actually to separate?
SPEAKER_01: Every line of separation is restored in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Every line.
SPEAKER_01: Every line of shame, of guilt, of sin, of brokenness.
SPEAKER_01: It's absorbed into Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In Ephesians 4 10, Paul says this he who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus ascended with a very clear plan, which was to fill all things.
SPEAKER_01: He ascended so we could be filled.
SPEAKER_01: He ascended so earth could be filled with heaven, with the shout of heaven, with the joy of heaven, with the wisdom of heaven, with the reality of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And he calls us to ascend into that reality with the Father so that we can fill things.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we are to pray on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrews 10, verse 10, it says, For it was fitting for him for whom all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering.
SPEAKER_01: For both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
SPEAKER_01: He who sanctifies Jesus, and we who are being sanctified are made one.
SPEAKER_01: And he is not ashamed to call you his brother, his sister.
SPEAKER_01: He's not ashamed before the angels of heaven, he's not ashamed before the throne room, he's not ashamed before the whole earth to go, they're one with me.
SPEAKER_01: They're one with me.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll remember in John 17, Jesus prayed for us before the cross.
SPEAKER_01: I hold fast to my absolute belief that on that night in the garden, when he prayed for every believer, he saw our faces.
SPEAKER_01: Wasn't some generic prayer.
SPEAKER_01: I believe the father showed us, showed him us, showed him all that would believe.
SPEAKER_01: And he was there on his knees in the garden, yielding his life for the Father's cup and his will for the father's.
SPEAKER_01: And he prayed and he said, Father, as you are in me, and I in you, may they also be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't want a slightly better relationship with the father than you or I have.
SPEAKER_00: He said, What we've got, give it to them.
SPEAKER_00: Give it to them.
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, it's the only way that a needy world is gonna know and believe in Jesus is when his beloved church knows oneness with him, knows what it is to be in the Father and the Father in them, and to be in Christ and Christ in them.
SPEAKER_01: And that we stop holding God at this arm's length and come in until his breath is in us.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus prayed, verse 21, Father, I'm desiring, I'm longing that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, and that they may behold my glory.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to see, stop settling for the Scarric and behold his glory.
SPEAKER_00: No, the world is hurting right now.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of people with a lot of questions, a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty.
SPEAKER_01: There's one answer to that, there's one way forward with that, which I feel such a weight, such a call for, is to step into that fullness that Christ died for, what he ascended for, to come and embrace his father as our father.
SPEAKER_01: Deeper, closer, getting rid of all the wrong images of the father, getting rid of all the limitations, all the stuff that holds us cowering in the corner and go, my father.
SPEAKER_01: We commune, we behold, we share in a glory.
SPEAKER_01: The world doesn't need a powerless, silent church right now, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: It needs people who know the realities of the glory of the Father, that know how to walk with angels, that know how to walk in the power of the Spirit, who know how to walk in authority from before the throne.
SPEAKER_01: This is the cry of Jesus for us.
SPEAKER_01: It was the cry of his resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: My father, your father, my God, your God.
SPEAKER_00: Now go tell the brethren.