1. Introductory Materials/Getting It

Before I start let me just thank you all. I just just sitting here this morning thinking it was 10 years ago probably to the Sunday when Sarah and I were here on a Sunday morning at a pretty painful moment in our lives and it's been 10 years that we've been life streaming it around the world helping all kinds of folks do all kinds of things and getting to all kinds of trouble. It's been fun and it's fun to come back now and then and sit with good friends and let you know a little bit more about what God's doing in our lives and teaching us and hopefully it's an encouragement to you as well in the work that God wants to do in your life so it's kind of amazing to me it's been 10 years already it really is. All the things that we're doing now we couldn't even have conceived of 10 years ago even some of the things that I get to do on the internet and touch people's lives that wasn't even available 10 years ago and it's amazing what we can do now to put things in the hands of people and we're talking about taking one of the books that he loves me and putting it on a PDF file so that people can read it all over the world they don't have to buy a book and we're doing a new thing with some of the teachings that I've done many of them I've done here but we're putting all the audio teachings I've done on one mp3cd so that people don't have to spend so much to buy so much and it's just exciting the kind of technology that's available at the same time we're coming through a moment I'm coming through a moment in my life I've been home this fall I've only done three trips this fall and only very clearly I felt like God told me to go on those because pretty much I felt like he said I want you home there's some things I want to redoing you and I hoped by the time I got to the board meeting we had yesterday I would have some answers as to what the next chapter of our life is and I don't I do sense everything could change I do think everything could change by the end of this year and we could be doing something entirely different January than we're doing today but I have no idea what that is it could be that we'll just keep doing the same things we've been doing a while but with a really different heart we talked yesterday about not a life stream not being a thing we try to propagate it's just simply a tool the real deal is being where God asked me to be being with who he asked me to be with encourage him in ways that help free their journey and what I want to share with you this morning actually derives out of something that's been part of my life the last year or so in terms of a vehicle to share some of this life about how does God transform us and set us free scripture we probably all know well romans chapter 12 do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds even when I grew up fairly religiously oriented one of the things that stuck in my life is somehow every day virtually not every day because there's some that I'm getting up way too early and getting on a flight away I don't get there but virtually every day I spend some of my time in the scriptures just reading bits and thinking through with God and what's come interesting about that in my life at now at 51 is that I read scriptures like Romans 12 do not be conformed to this world but be I remember reading that as a younger man and the weight of that passage do not be conformed but be transformed it's like particularly in that season of my life where I was really trying hard to be a good Christian and scriptures like that just way heavy ah so much work now I read scriptures like that particularly in the aftermath of this fall and it's not Paul giving us a new burden and obligation it's it's Paul giving us some excitement of hey don't be don't be conformed to this world because the whole emphasis of Romans is you can't transform you when we take a verse out of context do not be conformed this will be transformed by the way you might we're like okay I've got to do that but in the whole context of Romans Paul never asserts that you and I have the capacity to change ourselves that's going to read a bit of I want to rewrite in the middle of this Romans today roman chapter five is where I want us to to take a look at today and we're going to see in this passage where Paul says at the right time Christ died for us it was the right time when we were helpless and Paul's whole theology not not the day you got saved and not in your 50th year inside this kingdom do you ever have the power to change you you just don't have it but he does here's the power to change you and then when you get now I get to roman chapter seven I read it and it's not okay you know here's what we should be doing it's father's the greatest thing in the world if you could transform me more today to be like you just to hear some of our sharing this morning as we began our time in song and praise together and and here's someone it's you must be 55 years old or so but someone at your age who can still yeah you're welcome you can wake up in the morning and still think about has the love of God penetrated me enough that I'm loving people around me the way God want me to love them I think that's fabulous I think it said to us that the only people that love change are wet babies and diapers and I know sometimes it seems like that's true Sarah taught at a higher work at a high school last year as a counselor they went through some major transitions this summer and we run into different people that she used to work with I ran into one of her co-workers at jury duty not a couple months ago and she runs into them sometimes I'm and they had to change the whole structure of the school because of needing to bring up some of the performance tests and some of the people who are working I said oh man it's been the best thing ever it's great but most of the people that we talk to you from there is not something horrible this is different that's bad we just whine and whine and whine about change but I think it's not just wet babies that won't change I get people who are uncontented with the status quo whatever that is won't change I first got in touch with a little lady from Texas a few years ago she wrote me about some of the tapes she wanted to hear and she was living in the aftermath of her 24-year-old daughter committing suicide and being in great depression about possibly being a cause for that or as most bombs do a blame for that and she'd as I've learned later as a story I've never met her though we've exchanged some email and we're now a livestream hosts a community email list which means whoever writes to the list gets email from everybody else who writes to the list so it's a way for people all over the world to have a discussion about God's transforming life in us it's not live chat it's with email and there's probably 220 people on it now from I mean people from the Philippines from Japan from South Africa all Ireland from all over the world and she's one of the ones on there that when she speaks out of her life and out of what God's transformed in and I've watched her transform over the last three years I think she writes me things she says on this list God has absolutely brought her back from the threshold of despair and set her in a place of redemption and liberty and freedom and she writes things to other people in the midst of struggles that I sit in front of my computer and I weep when I'm done reading I just sit there and say God what you've done in Nancy is so incredible to me I watch it every few months in something she says I read Sarah an email from a fellow I met in West Virginia a couple years ago and I read I read an email he sent me he didn't actually send to me he sent it to someone else on the list but it was about me and he was sharing some things and I told Sarah if you knew this man three years ago you you would not believe what he's saying now what God has done to transform I feel that about my own life I look at the last 10 years and see the incredible things that God has changed in my life some major things that God's gotten to this fall that things that I've asked God to change for at least 40 years things I've tried to change on my own for at least 40 years things that I could repress but things that I could not change somehow and I could I could say it happened in a moment I woke up one morning different I couldn't explain it and it's been five six weeks ago and I keep looking for it to not last because it's just too different it affects the way I think about so many things that go on around me affects the way I think and I've been reticent to share with people because I just I don't want to share then I'm going to feel trapped into a healing that I don't have yet so I don't want to do that and and yet as the days have unfolded and I've been asking God why now my goodness for 40 years ago and I was just coming to some sense of who God is in the world and that I wanted to be his this would have been first on my list of things to fix it wasn't on God's or maybe it was and maybe it wasn't that he just fixed it all see I think what happened that morning few make a few weeks ago is the fruit of something that's been going on for the last 10 years because I don't believe Wayne changes Wayne I believe God does and I think God changes us out of the relationship that we have with him and somehow my relationship with him has grown enough to displace that and yes it was a big thing and it took a lot of relationship to displace it now see that's not how we're taught to think religiously religiously that's a big thing you got to get that fixed tomorrow because you can't be a believer and struggle with things like that oh yeah you can I say to people I teach HIV aid school for YWAM in various locales back going to South Africa I think this summer to do it there and one of the things I've taken to say because they were dealing with how do you deal with people who have sickness and disease that their own bad behaviors brought on and sometimes strictly from a religious mindset it's almost contemptuous of people that are in need because of their own sin and as one of my board members said yesterday and I was sharing that one of said but who of us is not in that club and that's what we don't often appreciate as God's people together we are all in the club I say to groups like that when they first introduce me I get up front say hi I'm Wayne Jacobson and I'm a recovering Pharisee and everybody laughs I think it's funny and I'll say you know what I've just confessed something worse to you and if I told you I was a male prostitute in New York and the fact is we don't believe that Phariseeism is a safe sin to confess it's safe because we all get it but those sexual things oh no that's really horrible stuff the fact is Paul as a Pharisee said he was the chiefest of sinners the foremost the worst because Pharisees are the best manipulators in the world they manipulate people they rob people's free will they dispense guilt in the name of God and even death in the name of God if not physical like Saul did before he came to Christ then at least spiritually Phariseeism kills the life of God and his people because it bases our life in him on performance instead of relationship Paul writes out of all that transformation and transition I've come to a place now where I absolutely love change I can't wait to see what God does next the more I hang out with this this one we call God the more I want to be like him as he is in the world and the more aware I am that I am helpless to change myself is the greater joy I have in letting him change me I want to just read you part of this through Romans 5 the problem with Sunday morning talks like this is I can't do the whole book because what I want to tell you is from the whole book of Romans and if you're not familiar with Romans read it again in the next week or two just grab it and do it in the message or New International something current and or something you're not used to if you're revving the new international read it in something else because we get we get programmed in a certain language that gets common to us so that's why I like reading different translations we have them in America we have far more in English than anybody else in the world and sometimes it's nice to just shake up the way it looks to us but and the way the message does Eugene Peterson we talked about the righteousness that comes from God by faith and he uses language like God those who believe that God sets things right instead of setting themselves right I think that's that's what we come to now in chapter five because chapter four is the whole Abraham he believed God and that was his righteousness it wasn't he was righteous he just believed that God was who he said he was and because of that God made him righteous God made him and as Eugene Peterson says it in his translation God didn't choose Abraham because he was a somebody God chose Abraham because he was a nobody and he was going to make him into a somebody and that's what you and that's how you and I qualify for this kingdom first Corinthians very clear on that point we qualify because we're noble because we're wise because we're the greatest treasures on the planet we qualify because he loves us he finds us in our broken state and he wants to make us more like him every day that we live and that will never end not in this age it won't end here every this corruptible body will not take on full incorruptibility until the day I see him face to face this mortal will not take on immortality till the day I'm with him face to face so every day in this world I get to be a bit more transformed to be like him now that's not pressure I put on me I don't wake up tomorrow okay I gotta be transformed today I've done that I've done that for years and it didn't work it made me a better pretender it didn't make me a better believer let's read Romans chapter 5 and I want to comment through it and and use some use a tool that I didn't bring your copies of because I knew you would read it and I didn't want you reading it while I was trying to talk so it's on the website you can download it later if you want to and print them off for each other but Romans chapter 5 therefore and I'm reading new international therefore since we have been justified through faith see and even when I grew up that was a performance thing I had faith and I trusted God and it's not what Paul's saying Paul's saying we've been set right before God because we trusted him trusted him to do what we could not do it's not we did it no he did it we just believed him enough to let him do it we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we now have access by I'm gonna use the word trust I just like it better than the word faith we've gained access by trust into this grace in which we now stand does grace sound anything do you like performance the grace I stand in today is Wayne today even after some amazing things I've seen God transform my life this fall is Wayne one bit at a place now where he earns some aspect of God's grace today I don't I live with me I know Sarah lives with me she'll tell you she doesn't mind telling you at all and I wish you would a little bit so he said we've gained access in this trusting him to the grace in which we now stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God what is that saying we rejoice in this hope that the glory of God we see in him is the glory of God he's going to bring in us that's the hope of the glory the hope is that what I see in him he's going to do in me in this age yes and beyond this age in ways that today we can never found I couldn't fathom a year ago what freedom looks in my life today I hope I can stand before you a year from now and say a year ago I could not fathom what freedom means today I am so excited about this ongoing reality of transformation instead of how I used to feel I'm 50 years old you think I would have got this by now you know the dummy moron I am no it's oh my goodness look what God's getting to we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God my hope is that God's glory is going to live in this flesh in ever-increasing measure second Corinthians 3 talks that way not only so but we also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance perseverance character character hope and this hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by his holy spirit whom he has given us so I'm not a suffering guy I you know I never fell for that prison to praise stuff you know you you thank God for every trial you're in I gotta tell you don't like hurting I've got to have a little minor surgical thing this week not thrilled about it particularly because it's to go and do something that I already had surgery for seven years ago and they didn't get it all so a little skin cancer thing on the back of my head they're gonna go back and get it again leave only anyone shocked stuff my head I don't enjoy hurting I don't sit around say hey you know it's great to hurt and I don't think it's what Paul's saying either what Paul is saying is this though when you're in moments of extremity realize what's changing something now doesn't say God's causing suffering I think there's a lot of suffering it just comes because we live in a broken world and a lot of it falls on us just like the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous it it's not a matter of if you're good enough you'll never hurt so when you're hurting it's obviously you've done something wrong broken this is part of the world we live in and we get caught in circumstances situation that causes pain and what Paul is saying is hey here's we we can now rejoice not for the suffering but in the reality that God's at work in suffering and what how's he work giving us endurance that's not much endurance means I just can't do this you've been through stuff stuff in your life stuff you did life stuff you couldn't fix stuff you couldn't change I'm watching my wife go through right now with some job stuff she had a great job last year it was temporary she was supposed to get be a permanent counselor this fall it didn't work out so she's back in the counseling center that she was at before and this part of the job she likes but there's part she doesn't and there's other things that and I hate watching Sarah not have what she's very qualified to do and did incredibly well and she did it temporarily and I'm sure will at some point still do but I also know underneath all that is that God's building some endurance just by persevering just by getting up every day and going through it like she did with her parents when they were dying in our home and like you and I do I meet people all the time saying you know what all I can do is get up every morning and just put one foot in front of the other and get through this day and Paul says when you're there realize this God's doing something in your character you don't have to do it you don't have to even necessarily see it God's just shaping something more that's going to bear fruit in ways that you can't even fathom and one of the key ways this transformation bears fruit is what we were talking about this morning in our in our praise time and that is God makes it the end of the process I'm going to describe to this morning is that you become a better lover of broken people not because you're better at pretending that you love them but because you actually do whether they're people caught in homosexuality or whatever just broken lives mother and despair over the suicide of her daughter to to whatever that God will just give you out of this transformation in your life when you're not so me centered when I'm when Wayne isn't so focused on Wayne we read a piece of a book coming up here in the car this morning about a guy was talking about his whole with with the x billion of people in the world he spends 90 percent of his attention focused on one himself that describes it doesn't it and when God sets us increasingly free of ourselves then we get to be lovers of people in ways we'd never conceive so you see so he talks about then this this go through moments of pain is I'm gonna get lost in exegeting this passage because I'm gonna I want to kind of give a more of a a macro look at it and a micro look at it but it does say that God this hope for glory when I go through tough stuff and I just hang in there with God he's producing character in me the freedom I experience now in my life has come from past moments of enduring through difficult things and I've got plenty of my life too and that endurance produces some character and he says that character produces hope what kind of hope if God's changed this and he'll still get to this the hope that God's big enough to keep doing in me and that hope doesn't disappoint because this what this whole what what the currency of this entire process is this emphatic love of a father for us for you see verse 6 at the right time when we were still powerless Christ died for the ungodly very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man though for a good man someone might dare to die but God demonstrates not demonstrated demonstrates present tense God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners Christ died for us Paul speaks this when Jesus died on a cross Paul was in junior Pharisee school or ab graduated from junior Pharisee school Paul was the chiefest of sinners on the day Christ died so when Paul says that he's not looking back 2000 years like we do he was alive the day he died on the cross Paul was all caught up in his little religious stuff thinking he was just God's greatest gift to the world and he turned out to be God's greatest tormentor in the world and God saved him out of God loved him enough to go get him I love that bit and Paul says god damn when we were helpless in sin I couldn't change me that's when God makes himself known and since since now we have been justified by his blood how much more will we be saved from God's wrath through him for if when we were God's enemies we were reconciled to him through the death of his son how much more having been reconciled shall we be saved through his life not only this but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation again the words of renewal and relationship and bringing together what was broken and Paul answers here at the end of roman chapter five I think one of the great dilemmas of religion I've been meeting with a group I'm going to talk to you a little bit about them because the I'm going to talk about this little brochure thing that we went through with them this is what I didn't print for you because you'd read all the details and I only want to go over the high points the details you can get later group of about 15 to 20 late 20 some things early 30 some things these are kids for the most part that grew up in religion and grew up in and going to a religious college and grew up with a lot of religion and not much relationship and all of them spilled out of that about three or four years ago and they've been drifting and been kind of haven't not not going anywhere to hang out with God's people but they're still a hunger for God and we we just found a group of them a brad a friend of mine and I guy we're going to do a radio show with together that hasn't sorted out yet but he and I just said hey let's let's just meet with these guys for seven weeks let's just see how many of them want to get together let's talk to him about this journey let's talk to him about how God changes people and we had the sixth one last Wednesday night we'll have the last one coming up this this Wednesday coming we have had the most incredible conversations we didn't we haven't taught we haven't done this we haven't done the lecture thing we just sat with them we brought this brochure and we said listen when we talk about five things we want to discuss together five things number one your security and father's affection let's talk about this great love that God pours out in our hearts and that because I think everything this passage seems to underscore everything starts there everything starts with this father has great affection for you this not see and I wasn't even I mean this is something that I'm I've been enjoying it started two months ago I was reading song of Solomon I'm sorry but I was the eroticism of that book's kind incredible and the erotic attraction and this man and this woman and their affection for each other and getting married and I mean song song was incredibly is an incredible book and I was reading it and I was just struck with this thought could God delight in me as much as I delight in Sarah when I come home from being gone a week or two and I can't wait to get home and then Sarah gets home from work and we get to be it's got to feel that way about me and what it was I don't really think he does theologically I'm convinced he does but practically I sometimes even though I talk about God loves me it's kind of like God loving a teenager it's kind of like a parent loving a teenager you know that roll the eye and I love them that kind of thing not the euphoric delight over I mean that's that's what song of Solomon speaks to it speaks to that that delight of erotic love and and that God delights in me the way that bridegroom delights in that bride in that book and then yesterday we were talking about actually Jim one of our board members was praying about our new granddaughter and and he was somewhat as helpless as a baby our god we just we're that helpless in your hands and I I love that that's true and then what hit me as he was praying that was then can God delight over me as much as I do I'd over a little Amy I get little Amy in my hands they're two week old granddaughter I'll Amy in my hands and I'm this is the coolest little thing does God delight over Wayne like that he does scripture says he does but we always live like he does we look like well it's tolerated the dilemma of religion is we really get God's love and God's grace and God's freedom when we get saved the day we come to Christ it's not by any works that we have done God's grace in God's mercy come as you are God loves you we get that right for about 24 hours then after that we start with follow-up and what it is to be a good Christian this is what you should do and shouldn't do and God do this and God do that and immediately we jump off that euphoric enjoyment of God's love that will if we let it roll change everything in our lives that needs to be changed and we substitute it for religious rules and regulations that never change anybody it just makes people pretend so one of the things we want to talk about was this euphoric love of God living in father's affection and what does that look like and how do we deal with this and one of the questions that came up in this wonderful real dialogue of people what I loved about is because that we weren't a group that normally got together there was no posturing in the group at all no one had to pretend to be there were any further on this journey than they were and so one guy just said you know what I don't I haven't sorted out between I know this God loves me and all this stuff and then there's the God vengeful wrathful judge and that's in there too and I haven't sorted that out and the only way we can sort it out in a religious way of approaching these things is well yes God's a loving God the Abba father he's also the wrathful judge but then that kind of that depends on your performance if you're a good person God will love you and if not he's waiting to whack you that does not lead to the kind of relationship that we're talking about we got a chance to crawl into that over a night or two and sort that out because I think all of us coming to the reality of this father's affection what we wrote in the book he loves me is a big piece of us learning to live in father's affection the next step in that is the more I'm convinced that God loves me the freer I am to trust him I've said this before here I think trust is the natural byproduct of relationship I will trust you to the degree that I'm convinced that you love me and I shouldn't trust you one bit more Sarah and I have 30 years of loving each other if 30 years of practicing doing that some days we're pretty good at it some days we're so working at it but you know what there's nothing I wouldn't trust Sarah with now nothing I trust her with my life my possession that you came and tried to tell me Sarah was contacting an attorney to divorce me I'd laugh in your face I think you don't know Sarah believe me if she wanted to leave me she's had better times and better reasons than she does now Sarah has so demonstrated her love for me through 30 years that our trust level in this marriage is incredibly high at the moment incredibly high my trust level in God grows every day I used to see faith as an on off switch I either trust God or I don't I don't anymore trust is a continuum hopefully I'll trust God more today than I trusted him yesterday more this year than last year more next year than today that the more I grow to know his love for me the more that naturally produces well I don't want my agenda here then I want God's agenda Wayne's agenda even Wayne's good agenda for God has never been as good as God's agenda for Wayne and he keeps winning me to the more he wins me to that the more you just trust him the more you get in the middle things there was so many things I wanted there's about five things going on in my life right now professionally that could change where I go in terms of direction for how I spend my days and I wanted one of them resolved before Saturday yesterday so we could and none of them did and you know what I'm content in that because if God needed one of them to resolve it would have resolved that it didn't was and something I learned yesterday just being with the the folks who pray with us about what we do that it really isn't about doing anything it's about being his and being where God puts us and doing it's not a matter of vocation and figuring out what the institution should be doing next that's not it and it's been wonderful to say God has an amazing ability as I as we just learn how much he loves us trust is the growing byproduct that remember what Paul said about love and Ephesians 3 20 I pray that you would know the height and breadth and depth of the love of God in Christ Jesus Paul had no sense that love was something he would get to the end of in this age that there's always something about God that expands in the love in our hearts every day love leads to trust trust leads to freedom the more I trust him see I think the saddest thing in the world there's two people around my life these days that I have watched for a number of years believers they do the church thing all the time and I I gotta tell you I don't see them being transformed if anything I see the bondages in their life deepened and there's nothing sadder to me than that and it's not that they're not good Christians and ever since you would measure that I said I don't think I have an idea who father is and rather than them being increasingly freed from the things that hold them in bondage they become increasingly captive I've talked to them about it I don't want to say that about them and not say that to them I said that to them and what I get back is I'm just that way I'm sorry I just thought that so I say I don't think it's true I don't think you are what fear makes you I think you are I think who you are is defined by what you're like when you don't fear anything when you when you don't want anything that isn't what God wants for you I think that's who you really are and everything else is what sins twisted us to be and God's amazing at untwisting us I'm more convinced of that today than ever he's amazing but how he does it he does it through the relationship the more we know his love the more we'll be free to trust the more I'm free to trust the less restrained I am by Wayne's needs and Wayne's agendas and Wayne's hopes and Wayne's visions and Wayne's dream even I'm very young age I got all those I got all my visions tied up with everything God people tell me God wanted to do with my life and some of the things I heard God say about my life and God's vision in my vision got all mangled up in there and it got to be a mess I don't live by any of that anymore whatever was God's vision for my life if I love him today he'll fulfill it he just will I don't have to worry about fulfilling it I just live in him today I that has left me free in some areas I'm still I'm just describing a process I'm in the middle of enjoying and I don't think well I've got the love down so I've moved on to the trust I've got the trusting now so I moved on to the freedom no what I've learned about love manifests itself in trust that manifests itself in freedom and there's more I'm going to learn about his love tomorrow that'll that'll go into a different sense of trust I don't mean tomorrow I will learn something specific and see the fruit by the end of the day it's not like that it's over time I grow to experience his love I see that trust growing I see that trust growing I find myself free see 10 years ago I wouldn't know how to live this month because I don't know how we're paying the bills to the end of it I don't and I'd have gone nuts right now I don't care I've got 10 years of God paying all of my bills I just know he will I don't know how we'll get through it this month because I haven't been doing a lot of travel this fall we are behind in some areas of our life together our life is in life stream is almost like but you know what I I don't lose a bit of sleep over I haven't got to provide may not provide the way I want to you may not provide all that I would love him to provide he'll provide he'll take care of us he he always has he always will it's his nature to do it that frees me to do what God's called me to do even if it doesn't bear some kind of financial fruit and that opens doors and in way I could just tell you stories of how that's open doors to things that would never have opened if I've been worried about can I financially meet this before I commit to doing something out of that trust I think comes the one thing we've put usually first in this process of transformation body life I think it comes in now I think the freer I am to live in God and the more I'm on this journey the freer I am to be with brothers and sisters and share the reality of my journey what we've enjoyed in the six seven weeks with these people we've been gathering with on Wednesday nights is the absolute reality we're not trying to do anything together so no one's trying to manipulate this or that or we're just having a conversation about the journey people are opening up in the real struggles where God's been beating them over the head where the enemy has sin and failure in life we've gotten to talk at a very long honest level because you know what we're all struggles the pretenses we're not the pretenses most people in here have it figured out and I'm the only one so struggling when the reality is every one of us are still struggling with some things I'm struggling with different things now that I struggled with five years ago but I'm still struggling I still want to know him better I still want him to change it with all that he's changed this fall with all that I get to see that he's changed I think the fruit of it is just this falling it's been changing long before I saw it but there's still so much more I want to see God changing me still so much more of the way I just want to be around people and I think now and this little getting it brochure that I said you could pray it kind of takes this progression of things from living in father's affection to growing in trust to embracing freedom and then when you embrace freedom now you can participate in the best that is body life not obligation and not burn burden and not while I have to but we get to and I get to share life with brothers and sisters in ways that when I come away from a gathering of brothers and sisters whether it's in a setting like this or 10 or 12 of us in a home or 30 of us this or 20 of us this Wednesday night thing when I walk away from a group loving God more and wanting to be closer to him that's body life when I come away from a gathering of God's people more condemned more guilty that I'm not working hard enough that's not body life body life is oh I want to know this Jesus more I picked up something from Nelson I didn't know wow that is that really puts a piece together over here they got that and you go away from that kind of body life you don't have to obligate people to that that's just the best we're going to end this thing Wednesday night I just don't know how we're going to do it I have I've loved it but we're going to end it because we said we were we're going to do seven weeks I'm going to let it go and whatever God wants to do next he if he wants us to do something else we will if he doesn't then all of us will be doing something else because he'll lead us to that but the value of being with brothers and sisters who are on this journey of not pressuring each other to be better Christians but encouraging each other to live in God's delight more and more that's that's the sharing of body life in a way that is non manipulative I think so much of the way I used to do body life was incredibly manipulative obligation based in fact I could say concretely we've been converting a lot of our audio series to digital I was listening to one that I taped over 10 years ago this is back when I was involved in things I'm not involved in anymore and it was it was some of the lessons on the vineyard seasons in the vineyard coming out of the vineyard book and I haven't done that teaching sense and I get asked I get people ask me for and we haven't been selling that series because one of the tapes was damaged well by converting it to digital I was able to resurrect that tape so we could have the series again but as I listened to the series just to edit things out make sure it was good if I gotta tell you I kept going who is that arrogant no good for nothing sharing this stuff my voice on this tape and you may not catch it as much as I did but I tell you I even wrestled with whether I want to make these available because I wasn't talking to people I was talking to people and it was just here's the expert know it all dumping it on the poor peons in the body of Christ now none of that is said but in the voice is this I hope isn't there today and I hope I'm recognized because I wouldn't have told you 12 years ago I was an arrogant son of a gun I wouldn't have said that I thought I was just a wonderful god doing ministry person kind of guy but oh and I'm still going to make it available I think the content's worth it even if the idiot who's saying it's not that not that grace filled yet and I it was so hard to listen to on the one hand on the other hand I'm sitting there saying god however you got that out of here I'm not sure I always I'm not sure it's all out but as much as you've got out of it I'm so grateful I didn't even like that part of it and now you all want to buy it just to hear how arrogant I was but it's amazing what god does but when we learn to see if you if we learn to share his life as the people of god in a way where none of us felt the need to perform none of us felt the need to pretend I was I think I've shared this before I was in Australia with a group 10 years ago and they had a real honest thing when somebody shared a prophecy you were sharing they would just stop and say this sound right to everybody and then talk about it there was one guy that had shared a couple of things and every time they said does that feel right to everybody people would say no I'm sure that sounds right to me and I felt so bad for this guy I think this poor guy he's getting killed so I went into lunch and he was sitting at the where the camp and he was sitting there there's a seat vacant next to him for lunch a couple seats so Sarah and I said let's sit by him I sat down with him and we talked through lunch and then people began to leave I just got a few questions he said well yeah I said I know it's kind of personal if you just want to tell me to get lost I don't mind getting lost I said I noticed that you had something you shared last night and kind of got shot down you shared something this morning and people kind of got shot down I said I want to know if you're okay are you okay you said oh my goodness yeah I'm fine I said really he said oh he said wings like this I got saved a year ago I don't know the first thing about listening to Jesus and if my brothers and sisters aren't going to be honest with me in times like this how am I ever going to learn how would you like to have grown up in a body of cracks like that if my brothers and sisters aren't going to help me I'm never going to learn this he was not defensive he was not feeling pushed down he was feeling helped by brothers and sisters who weren't judging him and looking down to say you know what I'm not sure that's quite what fits today and he was receiving it in a way oh that's body life that's body life like God wants us to live it and in the sense of we've got this journey we're all being honest no one's having to pretend I'm struggling you're struggling there's more of God's love we don't know that we're looking for tomorrow to experience and the more we find the more he'll change us and then we celebrate those changes because we're not having to pretend to be what we're not we're not having to pretend to be arrogant when we are and we don't pretend to be anything other than where we are in this process and the last of these five things the the living and affection growing in trust embracing his freedom sharing his life in the body the last of those is and I think this happens when we're least aware of it is that we incarnate his love into the world I don't think that's a matter of I'm going out to witness I think it's a matter of just how you treat people on a bus on a plane in store just how you treat people co-workers across the the way how you treat people not when you're pretending to be a good Christian because don't we know how fake that is if you haven't done it have you had people do it to you people are pretending to be these loving Christians when they're manipulating the daylight that he said was on a jury duty last year a year ago murder trial she was on it five or six weeks the most obnoxious woman in the group in fact she was going to have her way on this jury no matter what sir was telling me horror stories about this woman she called one woman a drug dealer just because she disagreed with her you drug dealers a Hispanic woman and just attacked her and this was a an older white woman and she was Sarah said treat everybody in the room like dirt absolutely obnoxious to everybody and as they're breaking up the woman says oh by the way and she passed out flyer I want you to come to my Christmas musical at my church because we know this stuff and she passed me out these flyers Sarah just said the most obnoxious person in the room switches all that off when she's done manipulating the room but now I want you to come hear me sing in my church musical see that's what the world perceives about Christianity what you are in the world as God makes you more his kid I have the greatest conversations now people in the world absolutely love it this transformation is what God's called us to I read all over the New Testament now I can read all of Romans and we could see this the more you know he loves you the more you'll learn to trust the more you live in trust the freer you'll be not to have to be anything other than you are and what God's making you to be you'll find freedom from fear from anxiety from despair from all the things that make you different than who God made you to be and as you find increasing freedom from that you're going to get to share life in the body of Christ in ways that absolutely is the best thing in the world no more pretending no more hiding just let's talk this let's talk the journey talk the struggle see God more clearly go away just boy every engagement with the body more encouraged to be closer to God and not not push to it not condemn to it just do it and then living in the world free then I'll come to just really treasure this journey and God changing us and I think people on this journey as I travel around the world I get with people who are not on this journey people who are just trying to do church together trying to do religion together I find it tedious I can get off of playing with a group people I've never met before and if they're on this journey I don't care if they're one day on it 200 years on it by having anybody 200 years on it I don't care it's just the best we can't stop talking about what God's doing and done and what we see and what we know what we don't know and we put it all on the table and watch God change lives and there's nothing more encouraging to me about what I still want God the hope of his glory in me than seeing the hope of his glory in Nancy she writes me from Texas I want to read you a thing and I'm done with this I forgot it I was actually going to read it earlier but it's going to be in the new body life so you don't have to write it down but I just brought a copy of it she listened to a tape series I did called will the real you please stand up and it's about freedom and being real and here's a woman who grew up in a religious environment where everything what was about pretending to be what you're not so she wrote a little paragraph on what it means to be real and she adapted it from this tape series that I had done so a lot of my words are in here I noticed but she's written into just a marvelous way she says what is to be real and I've seen her do this now in the list that I'm on with her as she helps other people struggle with things and makes her struggles known too she's still dealing with some as you would imagine some very key things in her life it's okay to question what I need to question to ask what I need to ask in the struggle where I struggle I've learned that I'm not rewarded for pretending to be better than I am that but that experiencing the life of God means that I am loved through my ups and downs hurts and joys doubts as well as triumphs instead of exploiting people shame or need for approval to try and make them better Christians I encourage them to go to God for healing and restoration from shame so that they can experience so they can experience for themselves the love of God instead of loading others up with a list of shoulds I tell people that God is working by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus and his greatest desires to communicate with them I talk about learning how to listen to God and follow what he puts on their heart even if that means they make a mistake doing so instead of trying to change people I urge them to get to know Christ's life because it's so much fun and far more effective watching him change them instead of manipulating others to do what I think would be would benefit me and my definition of God's will for them I'll share as much of your journey as I can to help lighten your load if you're in pain or in despair I'll be there for you as Father sorts things out I don't know what I'll that I'll always have what you need but I will at least be there with you so you won't have to go along isn't that great this is the life God's advice to me I am I am so odd give me a feeling of odd ODD but I need AWED I am just odd by how this journey has sorted out for us I'm so much in wonder at what the next few years might bring I can't even imagine that God's dealt with the things he's dealt with in my life for this moment and so I just thought it'd be fun to maybe talk that over with you if you want to download that getting it under each of those five points or some sub points of discovering God's love and trust and you can download that and maybe talk about it someday if you want to with others but the important thing is that God's at work in us he's at work in you the world still awaits a free people of God living his glory in front of each other and in front of them and I pray I get to see it on my day I pray you get to see it in yours Father thank you for your goodness just I just I really want all this to just harken us back to you God I want to know your love better than I know what I do I want to I want to trust you more in days ahead than I've trusted you now I want to keep changing me I want you to make me a lover of people your your people and people who don't know you yet I want to love the most broken people in this world and the fullness of what it is to be your kid and I want to enjoy that too and I want that for these brothers and sisters as they continue to share your life together as a body of believers in this area thank you Lord for your great mercy and grace to us in the name of your son amen