We serve a God who from the beginning of time has come to reach into humanity, to have a relationship with us. A God who has our hairs numbered, who clothes us, who comes and sends his own son to bleed, die, to save us from our own actions. And he wants us to know him as we have been fully known, but not all people know him. And so I want to ask you guys, as we start here live tonight, opening up this conversation about relationship with God, what that truly is. And I want you to think about if you've ever stood in a fellowship, looked around and noticed something. Notice that there aren't many youth here. You know, when we look at our families and we look at our children, it's an ancient fact that children have a decision to make one day. Are they going to serve the God of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob? Or are they going to go another way? We saw this with Jacob and Esau. We saw this with Joseph and his brothers. We saw this with Cain and Abel. They all had decisions to make in life. But tonight I'm not really speaking about those personal decisions. But what if when our children decided to rebel against God, they didn't rebel against him, but dead religion, a presentation of God that was not from him, but from man. See, when you start falling away from God in great numbers, when we see in our fellowships that the cry of the baby in the aisle is no longer there, that there is no longer a need for a youth group, and that the average age is 60 years old, it's time then to take an account and evaluate if there is something that can be done. So this conversation, brothers and sisters, actually, I know we're talking about children, but it's not just about our children. It's about what our children say or may say about us.

Some people in this world are religious and pride themselves in it, but yet they have no relationship with the Father in heaven. And so today we're going to be speaking about this. How religious overreactions, trauma and man made rules can drive our children and us farther from God. The difference between knowing about God and knowing God, why passion for God often fades. We're also going to look at the next slide.

One overlooked reason some in the next generation are, are leaving and how to lead someone back to that genuine meeting with Christ. And so joining me here tonight is my friend and brother, John Diffenderfer from Mercy Collective in Franklin, just outside Nashville. He has been pastoring there. John, thank you so much, brother, for joining me.

Thanks for having me. It's always a blessing to be with You, Petey?

Yeah. I want to jump right in, John. Talking about relationship with God. What is it to have relationship with God? There are people who think that the study of God's word fully represents the substance of that relationship. Now, God's word is important. We agree on that. We love God's word. We speak about God's Word, and we're going to quote it tonight. But what is God's relationship with God supposed to be?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of these things. It's like if you know the presence of God, if you've heard his voice, if you have a relationship with him, it's. It's undeniable. But there's. It's also one of these things where it's like, if you don't, then you don't even know what you're missing. And I think that there's a lot of people out there who have been shortchanged by their congregations, their Bible studies, their experience.

And they think that sort of what they've experienced religiously or culturally or perhaps spiritually, that somehow that that experience is all that God is offering them. And if that experience wasn't generally positive, or if that experience wasn't drenched in the actual Holy Spirit, if that wasn't fruitful in a really scriptural, biblical, beautiful way, then they're left and we preach to them. We're like, this is. This is what God has. This is the plan. This is the purpose. This is everything. This is what Abraham had. This is what Peter had. And you're like.

If that's it, then okay. But if you actually know him as a. As a being, then like, all the other stuff matters. But it's so far downstream that, like, give or take a church service or a Bible study or a person or a ministry or what, like, all those can be fruitful, can be helpful, but they're not the cornerstone of our faith. You actually know him, so.

Right. And so, you know, I think about the Pharisees in the first century. They're oftentimes a good example of what not to do. The certain ones who came against Yeshua and rejected him, of course, they knew so much about God. They were the experts of their day about what to know about God according to the Scriptures, right? So they studied the law, they knew the law, they kept the parts of the law that at least mattered to them, but at the expense of knowing God, I mean, it seems incomprehensible. How could you know so much yet when the Messiah that the Scriptures speak of walk before you, you are blind and you do not recognize him. No, no. You know, perhaps we.

Sobering, right?

Yeah. We would all though perhaps say, oh, well, if Yeshua walked, I would recognize him. But the Pharisees would perhaps have said the same. Oh, if I saw the real Messiah, I would recognize him. And so let's be careful and ask ourselves, have we met him? Have we met Yeshua? Because it's what happens when we meet him that matters. The Pharisees met him, they had a certain reaction. And then this other group, his disciples and his followers met him, but had a different reaction. And so, yeah, who is that?

Sobering, Right. Like.

I think one of the central issues of our era right now, this, you know, last hundred years or whatever, is we've been so heavily indoctrinated by our culture, by everything around us that like, the key to success in life and the key to being a good human and the key to like, flourishing in all the ways that God may have created for you is the acquisition of knowledge. And this, you know, starts from the time you're a little kid. It's like everything's. We go to school, they get graded based on how well you can regurgitate data and how many books you read and whether or not you can recite the textbook. And, you know, the culture just breeds that into us. And it goes on throughout your entire career for most people into their family life. And we live in such an academically minded culture that we unfortunately like the risk of that is we can make knowledge and information are God. And we think that, like, just reading the Bible is how I'm going to somehow experience God. And you can. There certainly are people who have and do and absolutely, certainly do all the time. But our God is not the Bible. He's the author of scripture. He's the one that all of the scriptures are talking about. All the stories we read about in Scripture are stories of men and women who had real personal encounters with a living God, not just a book. And I mean, there's tons of atheists that read the Bible. They don't know God.

Yes. And I think Yeshua shows what you just said beautifully when he comes and doesn't walk up to the most learned men, but he walks up to fishermen, some of whom were illiterate, and he says, follow me, you are going to be my disciple. Which is again, another very shocking thing for him to do even today. And yet somehow he thinks that that's his best choice. He sees something that some of us, I think, don't see. And Again, like John just mentioned, we are not speaking down on knowing the scriptures. We should, we are destroyed for lack of knowledge but at the same time we should also not see it as something that it's not and think that the more I know, the more spiritually mature I am. Because spiritual maturity comes from meeting with God. And yes, the word of God is one way of doing that. But what about worship? What about prayer? What about drawing nearer through fastings? What about Lord, I need you, I need your presence. I need to meet with you through your word, but also meet with you through your presence that is real, that is with me, that I know I can experience like those who I read about in the Bible experience. It's not just for me to read about know John. I mean I love reading about it but I know that it's for me to read about so that I can also experience what they've experienced.

Yeah, and you see like Yeshua says explicitly, he says that my sheep know my voice. He doesn't just say that my sheep know my words. It means that not only are you going to like, you can read scripture and read the words of God, you can see what he said throughout time. You can learn bits of information about his character and all that. But what Yeshua says is that his relationship with us will be so intimate and so personable that not only will we know what he said, but we'll actually know his voice. Which means that we can actually learn the tone of how he expresses himself. We can understand the subtle nuances of his character. We should know the difference between whether or not he's the one speaking to us or it's our own thoughts or it's just some doctrine or I mean it's far more intimate what he calls us into rather than just this academic pursuit.

And the crazy thing like as you were talking that strikes me is because we're so like progress oriented and we're like well if I, once I memorize all the commandments or once I, you know, figure out all the apostles names or figure out the history of the Bible or figure out, figure out where these towns in Israel were, whatever our subjects that we're studying are, that then I will have earned the favor of God or somehow I'll have a closer relationship with him than I did before.

Or I can boast in that.

Yeah, it's works based and the reality of the scandal of the gospel is that like a four year old is able to love the Lord with all of their heart, with all of their soul, with all their Strength.

Every bit as much as a 40 year old or a 80 year old. And they may not actually know any scripture. If you ask them to recite a Bible verse, they might not know any of them. But I know four year olds that know the Lord. He speaks with them, he talks to them, that he meets them in dreams and visions. And there are small children who are full of faith and actually know God. And it's the same thing like Abraham. And I mean, there's so many people throughout Scripture that never actually read the Scriptures. But what they had was something even better. They had an actual relationship with the one who would ultimately author the Scriptures. So not to discount it, I mean, to the extent that we have the ability to think about complex things and learn things like we're supposed to love the Lord with all of our minds. So yes, we have to engage in those things. But we're not getting more of him as a reward. From the moment you had him, you had all of him. We're not earning more Brownie points as we go along. A four year old isn't more in or isn't more loved by God than a 40 year old who studied the Torah for the last 20 years. They're both equal.

And he tells us to become as those children.

And if you do not, you cannot enter the kingdom. So you have to become so humble, so childlike, it's full of faith. In terms of faith, right? I believe, I know you're there. All the things you've written is for me, it's something I can participate in, right? This is what a child believes, whatever you would say to a child. And so whatever the Lord tells us, we should believe just because it's coming from him. I want to read just for, just to bring in some scripture regarding this, the story of Nathanael. And we read in John 1:43 how Nathanael meets God, right? We're talking about meeting with God, that relationship with God. And I want you to see how it develops with Nathanael. So first we see Philip comes to.

Yeshua, comes to Philip and says, well, follow me. Right? And then we see Here in verse 45 how Philip finds Nathanael and says to Nathanael, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Nathanael said to him, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And Philip said to him, come and see. And you know, this is a little humorous. Nathanael is certainly skeptic, skeptical of this thing Philip is saying. Basically Philip is saying, we found the one that the Scriptures speak of. Now, Nathanael believes in the Scriptures, but he's not fully convinced that who the Scriptures are speaking of is who Philip thinks it is. Yeshua. Right. And so what we see is that Nathanael doesn't just want an intellectual encounter with God through the Scriptures, through the law, through the prophets, but he wants a true heart encounter with the one it's speaking of. And this is what Philip then says, come and see. And so this says to us, God's heart is what Philip's heart is. Yeshua is walking and he is meeting, and people are declaring, come and see. God is coming through Yeshua and meeting with the world in person, in the flesh. This speaks of his desire to meet all of us, even today, even right now, even after the resurrection, because the Holy Spirit is still with us. God is still with us, just like he was through Yeshua.

Yeah, it's wonderful. Like, when you read through the Gospels and it really is the fulfillment of the promise that, like, if you seek him with all of your heart, you'll find him. Because all throughout the Gospels, you see stories of people that literally seek him. And when they seek him, whether it's Zacchaeus up in a tree or it's, you know, the apostles coming to him, the people who really want him do find him. But it's not just by, like, hey, go back to the synagogue and read the books, or go back to the temple and kill enough sheep and then somehow you'll, like, earn him. He never walks in on someone else's, like, moment like that, where they're pursuing him in indirect ways and just, like, introduces himself instead. It's like he purposefully positions himself to be available to people who are actually wholeheartedly seeking him. He never runs away from a crowd in that sense.

And that's what we see in the story. If I might just read the last two verses here. In verse 47, it says, Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him and said of him, behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael said to him, how do you know me? Jesus answered, before Philip called, you were. When you were under the fig tree, I saw you. And Nathanael's response is beautiful. He says, rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Yeshua comes and presents himself as the Messiah who saw him under the fig tree. We don't know what Nathanael was doing under the fig tree, but likely he had cares on his heart. Likely, you know, maybe he was crying out to God, whatever was happening. Yeshua, saw it and made sure that Nathanael understood that he loved him, that he loved what was on his heart. He loved him while he was there. And so he loves us wherever we are in the same way. And so, you know, I invite everyone to have that Nathanael moment, that moment where we can recognize, Right, Rabbi, you are not just a rabbi. You are the Son of God, the King of Israel. A revelation of.

Reminds me of the Hagar story, too, right? Yeah, it's the Hagar story, like, which is the first time that Yahweh is ever named in that sense. Like, we have this tradition of, like, you know, Jehovah Nisi and like, Yahweh, Rapha and all this stuff, but the first one that ever was was Hagar. And she's like, you're the God who sees me.

That's cool.

Which is strange because it's coming from an unlikely character. It's coming from a, you know, someone who's not of the covenant people per se. It's the wrong type of person, always gets these revelations. But.

But it's the same thing Nathaniel's acknowledging in that moment. It's like, there's a God who sees me because he goes from saying, like, the Son of Joseph, you know, that's how he's, like, introduced. And then within, like, just knowing that God sees him and knowing the power of God, that Yeshua is revealing the glory of God, like, he instantly escalates that. And he's like, this is not just the Son of Joseph. This is the Christ. This is the anointed one. This is the King. This is the Son of God. And it really is, I think, as you were talking about in the introduction, like, as we're getting into hearing about our generational, you know, handoff of the Kingdom of God, it really is that, like, the necessary piece is an acknowledgment that he is present and that he's with us in a positive sense, not just in a physically present sense, but he's actually for us, because that is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is wherever Yeshua is.

And so if we're introducing a religion that's devoid of him, or if we're introducing, like, a church service or a program or a Bible study or a Torah study or whatever it is.

But they don't find him in the middle of it, then, like, there's nothing. There's nothing there to convert them. There's nothing that will win their hearts in a way that, like, Nathaniel or Hagar, everyone else, throughout Scripture experienced Like you have to know that he's with you, that he sees you, that he wants you, that he's calling you. And you only get that through like a real personal encounter, not just by someone throwing another Bible verse at you.

Right, right.

Sometimes the Lord speaks that way. But you know, if someone is yet to be convict, convinced or convicted of the truth of scripture, throwing another scripture at them probably is not going to win their minds.

But. Well, that's what exactly what happened in Nathaniel's case. Philip threw a scripture at him. Right. This is the one who Moses and the prophets spoke of. Nathaniel's skeptical. Okay, well show me. Right, and so God hears that, experience something. Yeah, God hears that, God sees that. Obviously Nathaniel's saying this, God hears it and God shows him, God encounters him. And so we see that Nathanael encounters God in this way. But the Pharisees who rejected him encountered him too. Yeshua walked among them all, but the response was completely opposite. And also what is then produced in those men, both in Nathanael and say the Pharisees, for example, respectively, they produce something completely opposite. The one starts producing true religion following the Messiah, the other one starts producing false religion. And we see a big thing in the life of the Pharisees that Yeshua often points out is that they started.

Relying on these man made burdens that they, it's almost like they were compensating. It's like.

There'S something in their hearts that's lacking, of course, because I don't have this relationship with God. And so they start leaning and relying on things that they just start making up half the time. And then they start placing it on the shoulders of men. But a lot of it comes from good intentions. You know, if you think about even today, a lot of the.

Walls built around the law, the laws upon the laws that we see in rabbinic Judaism today, it's this. Well, we don't want to break down.

Every denomination has them.

Yes, and that's the point. Right, but it's from good intentions. But yet that's not an excuse for those certain Pharisees. And they end up hurting people's relationship with God. They don't draw people closer to God through the man made burdens, but they actually push them further away.

I think it's kind of like this human nature thing maybe or something. I mean, it seems to be inherent in every tribe of people. But it's like we find a way that works for us in some capacity. I mean, this is how paganism works and how let alone Christianity or anything Else that's just a religious structure. It's. We find something that satisfies something in us. So it's the first time some pagans slaughtered a pig and then their crops were good. The next year they're like, hey, it must have been because I did the pig. And so they make a rule that every year you got to do that and the same thing in Christianity or in actual, even spirit filled, like genuine encounters with the Lord. Oftentimes, like the religious trap is to take like the steps and the path that we went on and then to credit ourselves, like in a works based way where we say that the reason this produced good fruit, or the reason that I encountered God, or the reason that whatever I wanted to have happen, happen was because I did it this way, met at this time, sang these songs, listened to this type of Bible study, had this approach, wore these types of clothes, whatever it is that we thought we put on ourselves.

And then we build a whole religion around that and we require it of others. And every, like every religion, every denomination, every, every church service, every gathering of believers has a liturgy. We may not acknowledge it. Our liturgy might just be like, we sing three songs and then we preach for 20 minutes and then we go home. Like that may. But that's still a liturgy. It may be an informal home Bible study. Like, we read the Torah portion, we say these prayers, and we do a potluck afterward. You know, whatever it is, that's still a liturgy. And we've created a structure that can be useful to reach God. But if we ever get to the point where we're no longer pursuing him through that structure, and instead we are just building the altar without inviting the fire upon the altar, checking the box, then it's kind of pointless. Yeah, like, I mean, we're about to come up to Hanukkah. Like, if they had just dedicated the temple, but the presence of God had never come, they would have just had a really clean building. Like, that's not bad. It's better than a dirty one. But if the presence of God doesn't show up in his own temple, it's not really his temple. And so like, if we're doing all the religious structure without the presence of the one that all of these are supposed to bring us to.

Then we've really missed the point.

And then if.

I think the risk to your point earlier is like, if we take this structure and we're like, well, we did all the things, we executed the program and the calendar and everything according to our best effort, and this is how we've experienced God in the past. We did it all right again this year.

And then someone comes in, or our own children grow up in this, and they're like, but I'm doing all the same things and I'm not experiencing God.

And, like, the religious thing to do would be to, like, sit back and stone them for their lack of religious maturity or whatever, which is what the Pharisees were famous for.

I mean, I'm even thinking and. Sorry, go ahead, I'm interrupting you.

No, I mean, or like, what we're doing all of that at the expense of the actual presence of the one that we're claiming that this is for.

I'm even thinking, if the structure, like.

The wine skins don't fit, right.

A common thing I've seen in. Even if I may go this way for a second in Deliverance Ministries, right? The ministry of causing our demons, one of the big pitfalls have been that someone has done something. And then the demon laughed. And then they say, oh, it must be because of what I've done, how I did it. And so that becomes a rule. This is how it must be every time. Just recently, I spoke to someone who said that they have a loved one who's struggling with demonization and they want him to get help, but the Deliverance ministry is not going to help them until they can identify every name of every demon oppressing this person. Until then, they're not going to try and cast anything out. And so. Because that's the rule that they're following, because somewhere, some historical thing happened somewhere, and now we are sitting with someone who is in bondage because of that idea, which is not in the Bible. It's not from Yeshua. Yeshua, his disciples never taught it. Of course.

Now it's a modern issue, but it's the same thread that even the Pharisees struggled with.

It doesn't fit our wine skin. So it can't be good wine. If we don't like, if it doesn't fit our box or our program or the way we've been trained, then we just have to dismiss it. And I mean, that is the. The same religious spirit that we see in the Pharisees or in the Essenes or in all these different groups throughout history. Like we could. It's easy to point to the Catholic Church and point out the flaws of their religious system, but every single one of us has an equal amount of the ability to do the exact same thing. I've been to countless, like, hyper, informal, you know, prayer meetings, home Fellowship, that type of thing. And they're like, we don't have any religion here. But it's like, but you do everything exactly the same every single week. And you think that your approach to God is superior to everyone else's approach to God.

That is the same thing, it's just in a completely different shape. But you have the same principles there, same pride is still there.

Right? We're not against structure, right? Neither of us. We're not against structure, but we are against when our structure takes precedent over what the Holy Spirit wants to do and whether we are open to whatever the Holy Spirit wants to do. That's the key. And that's why then if we're talking.

About like.

Yeah, if we're talking about like generationally.

And we're mad or disappointed or whatever, because the young folks, however we determine that to be, aren't interested in what we have established as our structure.

Like, we have to, we have to question ourselves. Like, what is our motive here? Is our motive to execute the perfect Bible study plan based on our previous 20 years of history? Or are we actually coming together for a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good that will transform hearts and minds and lives and give us a revelation of Yeshua and somehow actually through all of that produce fruit that feeds the sheep? Like if the 13 year old is disengaged because they're like, I just don't. Like this does not meet anything where the Lord currently has me. This doesn't, does not satisfy my soul with him in any way. Like is our goal to execute the worship service or the Bible study or is our actual goal, our mission to host the presence of Yeshua so that she can actually experience him?

Because if we're just so dogmatic about the topics we're going to talk about, the issues we're going to approach and how the structure of our services are going to be, what kind of music we're going to sing and all that kind of stuff. But we're doing it at the expense of actually feeding the sheep and we're doing at the expense of being in unity with other people who are genuinely like seeking the Lord. They want him, they just haven't encountered him yet. Then.

We'Ve fallen back into just an empty religion.

I mean, it's sobering.

I mean we all see it, but.

Like another way this can manifest is also in overreactions. So I think any one of us can have a way. We can all see how that we've done this perhaps somewhere in our life, especially the first Stages of coming to faith. You know, if you look at someone who was in their old life before Christ, heavily into, like, horror movies or bad types of entertainment, and they repent and they come to Christ, then there's this tendency to swing so far to the other way, to overreact and to say something like, well, you know, all movies, by nature of it being a movie is demonic, is evil. Even Bible movies. Right. Or maybe it's someone who was into ungodly music. They repent, they come to the Lord, and then, you know, any contemporary song that has a beat that's demonic. Right. We've certainly seen some of that before, or even we get that a lot is it. And even my American friends would understand the concept of the prohibition that, you know, you guys had where, you know, there were these families who were sincerely hurt by drunkenness in the family. Right. Drunkenness is an ugly sin that causes so much hurt and destruction. And yet, then, you know, many came to repentance. And now wine itself is evil. And we are going to, you know, make that unlawful by its very nature. So all of these extra fences out of fear, with good intention often, but out of fear are created. And so we are back with what happened. The Pharisees tied up heavy burdens, hard to bear, laid them on other people's shoulders, but they themselves were not willing to lift them with their own fingers. And what happens then to our children in such an environment when it's things that affect them directly that are not sinful, but we've made sinful.

Yeah, I think too, like, if you. If you talk to people who have, you know, all their traumas and their church hurt and all that kind of stuff, I mean, that's a big topic. You can go in a lot of different directions with that. But the majority of the folks who walk away from the faith, from my experience at least, they. They don't walk away because of theology or philosophy or even a new religion. It's not the revelation of some sort of greater truth. For the most part, they get disillusioned and they fall away because of the extra things. It's the religious ways, or it's the ways in which people may have been claiming to do something right and godly, but the fruit of the spirit weren't in it. The presence of God wasn't in it. It was something that was literally being done.

In division and strife. I mean, all the works of the flesh. They may have been verbalizing a Bible verse or trying to demand that someone uphold a biblical value, but they were doing it in the flesh, not in the spirit. And you know, one of the issues with especially young folks, when they start to walk away.

They actually, that process starts a long time before they ever leave the building. It's the same thing like at work, if you have a day job and you work in an office building, like if you're going to quit, odds are you began the process of quitting months or years prior to actually submitting your resignation. And the same thing is true in people, especially second generation type believers, the ones who don't make it into their adult lives. They left before, back when they were still teenagers or maybe even when they were children. And it's these wounds that accumulate over time.

That come largely from these like pharisaical traditions. And I think the real hazard of it is if we present.

Our religious expression, our pattern, our rhythms for how we approach God, for how we understand Yeshua, for how we practice our walk in a very specific way. If we say that like it's only our church, it's only our Bible study, it's only this community that has figured.

It out.

And they're going through the motions, participating in that, but they don't experience the Holy Spirit, they don't have an actual meeting with Yeshua.

Then we've kind of cornered them into a place where they're between a rock and a hard place because we've told them that this is the only way that it can be true.

And they're not experiencing the one who is truth. And so then the end result oftentimes is they don't go from like the Hebrew walk or the Messianic walk or the Pentecostal walk or the Charismatic walk or whatever stripe you're in. They're not going from some sort of.

Branch of Christianity to a different branch of the faith. Instead they're like, well, they told me that was all that there is. And now I guess my only choice here is to jump ship completely. And so they don't just walk away from, you know, one particular home group or gathering or church or whatever. Instead they just, they step straight off the boat into atheism and they, they get wrecked. And they're not necessarily responding to like religion.

Most of their grievances aren't how someone interpreted a Bible verse, it's the wounds that they experienced from religion.

And they think that they are giving up on God. But actually, and sometimes, of course, guys, there's many different reasons that this happens. So we are focusing on one tonight. But you know, sometimes they think that they're giving up on God, but actually that they've been giving up on a man made tradition. And then they, like you said, they have no choice. I feel like, well, I'm going to go and seek my identity somewhere else. But I love how, you know, Yeshua comes for this very reason. For the sinners and tax collectors, the people who were rejected and who felt rejected by the religious world of the day. And because all of these burdens and these hoops were set up that everyone needed to jump through and they were just like honest, they said, well, I'm not gonna pretend that I can do all of this stuff that not even the Pharisees themselves are doing. So oh well, right. I'm going to go the other way. We see a lot of that today. And yet what if, you know, when we've called it rebellion, which sometimes it just is plain rebellion, the child just plainly rejects God for who he is. God's been presented. Well, okay, that can happen. But what if it wasn't rebelling against God, but against the God that we presented? And so, you know, this is why this is so important for our relationships with the Father to be so pure and right. Because if it's not, then we will inevitably present a version of God to our children and other people who is not pure. Because we will compensate when our relationship with God is not where it's supposed to be.

And we are not the word of God. Like Yeshua is the word of God, so He is the full expression of God. The final statement. Like he, he's everything that you could ever want to know about the Father. Everything you know of the Spirit was exemplified through his life. Like he is the full expression. He's the word of God. I'm not, you're not. No human who's watching this is.

Yes.

And so it's kind of tricky because if I say like there's many streams to God, we'll instantly like be offended and we'll say like, oh, he's preaching some sort of weird hyper spiritual ecumenical New Age stu.

Yeah, we're not talking about the New age religions.

Yeah, but there are many, many moves, gifts, acts, fruit of the Spirit. There are many streams of living water that come out of those who are in Christ.

That together, when we look at the entire body of Christ worldwide, it does exemplify him, it does manifest him here on earth. And so like if, if your child leaves your immediate, like Sabbath gathering or Sunday church or whatever, however you worship, whatever your rhythm is, if your child rebels, quote unquote, and like steps away from that, but finds themselves radically in love with the Messiah in a different stream of Christ. That's great. That's a win.

You know, they may not be as academically minded as one group, or they might not be as emotional as another group. Like, they may be inclined in certain ways, but we're supposed to train up our children in the way that they should go, in the way that they're inclined, in the way that they're bent is actually the meaning of the Word, and not try to force them to experience God strictly in the ways that we have experienced God. Within this bounds of Scripture, there's tremendous leeway. Within the ministry of the Spirit, there's tremendous leeway. Like there's countless gifts of the Spirit. Scripture itself dictates about two dozen of them. But that's not a finite list, right?

We're not talking about righteousness and unrighteousness. We're not talking about doing sin or we are talking about the gifts. We're talking about someone who is a creative person, born creative and will always be creative, made to be creative for the Lord, whether that's to worship or whether that's to draw, whether that's, you know, we each have a gift and callings. And it's so important for us to have grace on one another and on our children and not expect them to. Well, you know, we may have you very intellectual and academically minded, and that's a gift in of itself. To be a scholar is a gift in itself. But there's also people who really want to be evangelists and share just the simple gospel of who Jesus is with someone today. They don't have all of the revelations figured out, but they. These are just simple examples. But this is what we are talking about here today is facilitate that in other people as well. And yeah, you know, we see this.

I think it gets into, like, our structure, you know, where it's like we build a structure, we get in a pattern, we get in a habit, a custom. Every week, every month, you do certain things. And like, and I talk to a lot of parents. They're, you know, they're in these weird circumstances at times, and they're. People reach out from out of state even and contact us. And they're like, well, you know, our kids, you know, we got young children, they really, really encounter the Lord through dance. They want to worship the Lord with their bodies and actually use their strength. And they're like. But our groups up here don't do any of that. And so instead we're Going to like this, you know, more Bible study oriented, small group kind of kind of thing. And it's like, why not go to a church where your kids can dance if that's the gifts God's given them, if that's how they encounter the Lord, like you can actually, is that less important than whether or not they cover the whole Torah portion in a year? Like, the Torah portion a year is great, but it's an arbitrary man made doctrine. It's a religious approach to God, but it is certainly not God himself. And even like in our fellowships, like we pastor a congregation up here in Nashville. And it's a question I constantly am asking myself and trying to reevaluate as often as I can. But it's like.

If we woke up one day and we had, you know.

50 people, especially young people, who wanted to experience God in a particular way, maybe it was by feeding the poor. Like, is the building that we rent? Are the resources that we have been given being allocated to facilitate the ministry that the Holy Spirit is calling them to? Or am I caught? Am I demanding through my own efforts that they resist that? And instead we're going to keep meeting in a church building that doesn't have a kitchen or doesn't have the means to facilitate, you know, people coming and going and eating a meal together.

And I would just say to anybody who's got a group or a church or a family or anybody you're responsible for, and with that, you're trying to help them experience God, like figure out how they are inclined to experience God and then put your resources into making sure that that happens rather than being like, well, I always experience him this way. And so the only thing I'm ever going to pursue is the one thing that I'm good at and everyone else is just gonna have to deal with it. And I mean, that's kind of what the Pharisees were doing. They were academically minded. They had the synagogues. If you were academically minded and a Pharisee, like, it was great for you. But if you're a Galilean fisherman or if you're a poor virgin or if you're, you know, all these, if you're the sweet little old folks that just hang out in the temple all day long waiting for the Lord to prophesy over, like, these people were not in the synagogues generally, they did other things for the most part. But.

So just got to look at the systems we have.

I love what you're saying, John. I think for anyone who's now Perhaps listening to us, and they're thinking, you know, okay, you know, there's someone who's. Who I know, who has now fallen away, perhaps even for some of the wrong reasons, even though they think it's been God. How do I get that person to meet Yeshua for who he really is? Now, we've spoken about a few things like that already, but I also want to bring again to light what we read earlier in John 1:46. Remember, Nathanael said, you know, can anything good come out of Nazareth? And how did Philip respond? He said, come and see. And so we must invite people. And the best way for one of the best ways for that to happen is by us first and foremostly making sure that we are the light that we are supposed to be for those people. I just want to read a few verses in 1 John 4:19 for us all. It says, we love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God but hates his brother, he is a larv. Or he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, whoever loves God must also love his brother. So our love for people is a reflection of our relationship with God. He's saying, you cannot say that, well, I don't love people, or I hate my brother. And then at the same time claim that you have a good relationship with the Father, because you would be lying. The one who's truly in a relationship with the Father loves first and foremost. And so that witness of love must come out of us. Otherwise no amount of anything we've been saying so far is going to mean anything if we don't have that sorted. And so this comes down to especially how we come towards people who are new. And I mean, John, you're a pastor. I'm sure you've seen this, right? If we have a new believer coming into the fellowship, or not even a new believer, a lost person, perhaps they are not dressed the right way, they do not speak the right way, they do not clap hands at the right moment, stand or sit at the right time, whatever, they are not doing it the right way in accordance to whatever church they may find themselves in.

How do we then approach them? Because I think a lot of times people in fellowships have this tendency to want to walk up to that person. I mean, I'm just recalling one example where there was a lady who really needed God and she walked into a fellowship and an old lady walked up to her and said, why do you wear so much Makeup, Are you trying to get the men's attention? And, you know, that was just not the right way, the right time. John, what would you say to a situation like that?

I think we have to humble ourselves.

Like, someone may only be a believer for one day, it might be day one for them.

But they don't have any more or less of him than we do.

Like, and just because from our religious background, we can look at someone oftentimes external, internally, and we judge and evaluate and we're like, well, obviously, you know, they don't know about not cussing, you know, or whatever. We, we make all these rules about, well, obviously that woman doesn't know how to dress or that person. I saw when the pastor said flip the Bible, it took them, you know, 30 minutes to figure out where the book of Revelation was. Like, and we sit here and we judge and we judge and we judge. And as though somehow we have achieved a greater grace than they have, or that somehow we are more beloved sons and daughters than they are. As opposed to understanding that, like, if these people are believers, there's kind of two categories, I guess there's the believers and the unbelievers. But if these people are believers, they've also received the Holy Spirit. They may not understand much, but.

If.

The Holy Spirit has led them to us today, it's not just so that we can be the blessing upon their lives to. It's also that the Holy Spirit who lives inside them has brought them to us. And somehow we are going to learn of the Spirit. We're going to be students of the Spirit through this person. And he's messy from our perspective, but it's going to be awesome. It's going to be great. But if we don't humble ourselves, then, like, we're always going to mess up. Like, in that regard, we're always going to be on the wrong side of judgment if we think that somehow we've obtained more of Yeshua than they have.

Because ultimately even the most learned person here isn't, is ignorant compared to the wisdom of God. Like, people are like, well, I've studied the Bible for 20 years. That's nothing. Like, we're just scratching the surface. We're barely getting started.

We got all of eternity to learn all of the rest of it. So humble ourselves.

Like, humility is key. And if we see something that's wrong, right? Like if we see someone who's wearing immodest clothing or, you know, whatever situation it might be, for example, be a voice of encouragement, first come to that Person love them. You know, we see In Romans 5, 8, it says God shows his love for us and that while we were still sinners, he died for us. So Christ loves us. He sees us as sinners. Not because we are righteous and perfect and dressed the right way or speaking the right way or whatever, but despite that, he is still coming in love. And that love draws our hearts. That's the reason we believe. And so we have to think, how would someone else come to faith for the same reasons we did, by the love of God that we are supposed to show to others? And then if we come and show that love to them, will they not then also be inclined to listen to any real true words we might have to say? Any corrections we may have to bring corrections good and holy and from the Lord when it's done in the right way. Right in the way that Christ did, by loving and then showing correction. I think that's the thing. Sometimes we want to show correction without having the love. And then we should just rather be quiet because we'll just make things much worse.

Yeah.

And if you observe something in someone that you're like, well, that's not conformed to the image of Yeshua yet.

It doesn't mean you have to address it. Like, if you already have the awareness that, like, this person has a certain vulnerability or a mistake in their life or something, like, if it's not a sin unto death as scripture talks about, like, the fact that you're aware of it, hallelujah, now you know what you're dealing with. You know what you're up against. The sin has already been brought to the light or whatever it is. It's not. It's not. The odds of it causing you harm are almost not nil at that point.

And so, like, are we willing to be patient even if it means that that person keeps coming to service or keeps participating or keeps doing something that makes us kind of uncomfortable, but it's a genuine, like, sin of ignorance, not a sin of rebellion? Are we willing to just abide in that understanding that we too have sins of ignorance in all of our lives and actually just be okay with it until the Holy Spirit convicts them? Because, I mean, I've rarely seen anybody change their behavior because they were confronted. I've often seen people, their minds, their hearts, their behaviors get transformed just in time. Like, if someone comes to visit your church and they're not dressed the way that most people in your church dress, give them about three weeks, and without anybody saying anything, if they actually experience the love of God and they want to be with you guys, they're going to start changing. That's just what humans do. We become the average of the people we're around. So, like, even in our congregation, like, we. We embrace the Torah, we try to obey God as best we can. But, uh, I rarely, if ever have. I've never had to teach a sermon on, like, dietary laws or paganism or all these other things. We don't talk about that. Instead, we just talk about Yeshua. We experience his love and his presence. And I can point to dozens of families over the last couple years who have come in who had no clue about any of that. It wasn't on their radar. It's not why they came and found us. But within six months, within a year or whatever, they're like, they'll come up to me randomly and they're like, hey, I don't know if you know anything about the dietary laws, but we've decided that we're going to start changing how we eat. And you're like, well, hallelujah. Like. Or they'll come up and say, like, do you guys know anything about Passover? And it's like, well, yeah, we're actually doing one in a couple months. Like, and it's amazing. If you actually let the Holy Spirit teach and lead.

He doesn't fail.

And just for anyone in the comments who may be like. Who may misunderstand what John is saying, John is not saying that there is no place for correction, because there are certain moments where something is needed to be said. Sometimes it is, but there are also sometimes where it's not the time, it's not the place. And you should really ask the Father, Lord, is there something I should be saying? And if so, when? And. And Lord, if so, how do I love this person so extraordinarily well the way that you did. And of course, you know, we're not going to get into all the specifics because there's channels and ways of doing all of this stuff. But I hope that everyone listening gets the heart behind what we're saying, that the Holy Spirit is the one who must change them. You're not going to be the one to change them.

Yeah, you can't write the law of God on someone else's heart. Only he can do that. And you might have someone that comes into your life and they are literally three days out of severe alcoholism, and God is writing his law on their heart regarding their sobriety. And instead of encouraging and embracing and celebrating God for that, a lot of times Religious minded people are like, well, you didn't do the one thing that our denomination preaches, or you haven't checked this box yet, or.

And we have to be really sensitive to the fact that it is very possible and it's probable that you will be instrumental in teaching them holiness and righteousness and helping them to mature in the faith. That's very possible. But what is absolute is that every one of us is commanded to love them. We're commanded to humble ourselves. We're commanded to seek the unity of the Spirit. We're commanded to do so many other deeper things that whether or not we get the opportunity to teach them something good, we'll see. The Holy Spirit will make a way if it's his will for you to do so. But we can't sacrifice the things that we're absolutely required to do in the pursuit of something that we feel like we might have an opportunity to do.

So.

What would you say to someone who's saying, well, you know, I don't, this is an email that we get now and then, right. I don't feel God's presence. You know, when we're speaking about relationship with God, there's, there's a lot of expectations that come in with people.

What would you say to someone who comes to you says, pastor, I don't feel him the way that my brother or my sister does when they put their hands up in worship.

Yeah.

I think it would have to be a long conversation because I believe if my first question would be like, do you sincerely believe that Yeshua is Lord, that Jesus is Lord? And if the answer is yes, I mean, I'll take them at their word. Unless they prove otherwise.

Then it is true that they have already experienced the presence of God. Because you wouldn't be able to believe that if he had not manifested himself in your life in some way. It might not be a way you're able to understand or know or articulate. It might not be verbal. It might not be a tingling sensation down your spine or whatever other people might have experienced. Your experience is probably unique because he's a living God. He has unique relationships with each one of us. But if you have that, then there's already there's ground to go forward and we can start to explore. Like, so what do you experience? When do you, if ever, when do you experience the fruit of the Spirit? Because that's universal. It's this overwhelming feeling of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, you know, all the things all at once. And do you experience that in reading Scripture? Do you experience that in musical worship? Do you experience that in solitude, in fasting, in acts of service, in caring for others? Like, how is it that you experience that? Because that is the fruit of the Spirit, which means that God has been present with you in that experience. So you do know the presence of God. I think it's kind of like. Like, we're like little babies. And I use this metaphor a lot. But people will say, like, I don't know if I've ever heard the voice of God. You have. If you're a believer, you have. He says, my sheep know my voice. So it is true. But you may not have ever recognized his voice or discerned what he was saying. And it's the same thing with, like, a newborn child. From the. The moment a baby is born, they already know the sound of their mother's voice because it was their mother who brought them to that point all along.

They may still have no clue what their mother's words mean. They may not understand what her emotion, her tone, her inflection, all the different things. They don't have the vocabulary, but they know her presence, and they know her, the sound of her voice. And I think as we grow in the Lord and as we do study Scripture and as we do abide in the Spirit and get edified by other believers, we're like little kids. It's like, I've always heard articulate that.

And we don't walk by feelings, we walk by faith. We walk by this belief in who he is. And so, you know, I also want to encourage anyone who's. Who says, I want to see more of God's power working in my life. I'm just. I want to read Acts 1:8 here. Very popular verse. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Now, you know, all of us look at this, we're like, oh, yeah, I want this, right? Like, I want what they are talking about. I want to receive the power of the Holy Spirit. But notice the context. He says, and you'll be my witnesses, right? So when Peter is speaking and the Holy Spirit falls on the 3,000, and, you know, they get baptized, and it's a powerful move. It didn't happen while he was watching Netflix. It happened while he was busy with the gospel. And so it's also important for us to make sure that we are actually busy in being, specifically, in this case, a witness of the Messiah and his Gospel. Because that's the context whereby at least I can just say, personally, I have seen the Holy Spirit show in, show up most powerfully. And if you look at Scripture, it's not that he can't show up in other contexts, but when you look at Scripture, you see that's also a very common pattern that we see. And so let's make sure that we see that we also see in the midst of trial, right? Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, they are thrown in fire, and that's where they meet God's presence. That's where they feel, experience his presence, if you will.

Same with our.

I think some of it is too, like, so on. Yeah. On our language, where it's like, are we looking for his presence? Because it is presence, like his manifest presence is. It means that he will show up in spiritual form, probably, and in that experience, we will come to know him better. We will have spent time with Him. But then there's also the glory of God, which is every time that he manifests his presence in a way that we have something that we can witness, observe, experience. And that's like the signs, wonders, miracles, gifts of the Spirit, all that kind of stuff where you're like, the glory of God has shown roundabout and something wonderful has happened. And so I think partly, too, in that conversation, it's like, are you seeking the presence of God, the glory of God, the voice of God? Like, what of him are you attempting to behold? And honestly, I mean, in my life, I'm kind of satisfied with any of the above. Like, if he chooses, you know, signs, wonders, miracles, hallelujah. If all that I experience, as though it's all like, if all that I experience is the fruit of the Spirit, and it's just such an overwhelming emotional release and response from my spirit to his, like, hallelujah. Like, what else would I need?

So, like, it could be any of the above. But he. If he shows up, something happens, right?

And the key is, no matter what he says, he is always with us. So no matter what you feel, no matter what you think, no matter what he says, I'm with you. I'm with you. In fact, I'm inside. I pour out my spirit to come and make home in your temple. And so that is something that we must live by, breathe by, understand, and from there, live not in. You see, if. Like, if we live from there, then we can see the greater things. But if we're always running after something we already have, we're walking after something we already have, and we won't be going after now, the things that we are empowered to go after by what we already have. If I feel like I need something more from him now first before I can go out and be a witness. Well, it's actually when you went out, when you go out and be a witness, when you see him show up in the ways that you desire. So we're, you know, the enemy loves to tell us, well, you still, you first need someone to pray for you. You first need to get over your depression. You first need to, this, this, this, this, this, these check boxes, then God can use you. Then God can show up. Then you will experience him or whatever. No, he said, I'm with you.

The manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit are primarily for the testimony of Yeshua.

As you said. Like, if you want to experience miraculous power, start sharing the gospel everywhere you can. And if you go tell 100 people about Jesus Christ dying on the cross for your sins, if you go do that today, I guarantee you you will see miracles happen today. That's like, the Holy Spirit cannot wait to testify to Christ. That's his. That's job number one as far as he's concerned.

But even in that, like, the crazy thing about the incarnation of Yeshua is it proves the point of what you're saying. Like, we don't get to choose how he shows up. Like, Moses didn't get to choose a burning bush or a fire on a mountain. The Israelites, the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes and the Samaritans, like all the big groups at the time of their day, they didn't get to choose how the Lord showed up in their midst. Second chapter of Acts. The apostles didn't get to choose the fire that would come upon their head. All that they could choose was Him. And if he chooses to show up in a particular manifestation, hallelujah. Regardless of what it is. So if we're getting back to kind of our earlier point, if our. If we narrow it down and we're like, the only way that we will have experienced the presence of God is if we cry while singing a song or if the only way that we will know that we've experienced the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is if you come to understand Leviticus 3 in today's Torah portion, or, like, if we narrow it down to, like, the only way that it will be him is if these two or three, four things are accomplished.

He's probably going to defy our expectations. It seems to be his pattern because he wants to Test us. Like, are we going to hold to our religion at the expense of him? And if we insist that, like, Lord, the only way that we will have you is if you show up and perform the way that we want you to perform, then we have taken ourselves and put ourselves on the throne and we have made him a servant to us in a way that he never intended to be.

Certainly he serves us.

Yes.

He loves us. Yes. He makes himself readily available to us. And oftentimes he does do the things that we ask of him.

But if we insist with a religious fervor that we will only be satisfied in him if he does the very thing that we demand of him.

He'S not going to do it any more than you would if your wife asked you to or anybody would. If, like, if someone is insisting, the only way that you can have a relationship is if you are perfectly subservient to them in every whim according to their demands of the moment.

That's not a healthy relationship. And our God is only capable of good things. So, like, he's not going to allow us to facilitate our own idolatry and just make a religion that he's going to keep endorsing with his presence. He's going to like, he destroyed his own temple. He's going to do the same if we allow the system and the structure to be preeminent over his presence.

That's cool. That's good. Okay. There are people listening, brother, who are, you know, perhaps convicted. Perhaps they are thinking of others who need to hear what we're talking about. Maybe they have fellowships, families, friends, where there is structure that has come in and it has taken precedence over the works and ways of the Holy Spirit.

Can we pray for those? I'd love for you to. May you pray for them here. Yeah.

Yeah.

Holy Spirit, we need your guidance.

Lord, we just ask that for anyone here.

Who in this moment.

Is joined with us in the spirit, Lord.

For anyone who feels the clawing.

Of their hearts or just the craving of their souls. For you, Lord, I just pray that, Lord, that you would be what satisfies them. That their hunger that you have instilled within them the hunger and thirst for righteousness, Lord, that they would find it satiated only in you.

Lord, I pray for every spirit of idolatry. Every time that we've established a religious structure or system without your presence, Lord, I pray that we would have the wisdom to see what those moments are and the grace and humility to turn from our wicked ways, Lord, that the repentance would start in our hearts first.

Lord, that every log in our own eyes would be removed.

And, Lord, I pray for those.

Who.

Have yet to experience you.

Yeshua, I ask that you would interrupt their lives, just as you did for Saul on the road to Damascus. Lord, that whether or not they are actively seeking you, I pray, Father, that you would intercept them, that they would be blinded by the brilliance of your glory, Lord, that they would have no choice.

But to choose you.

Lord, I pray for anyone who's listening to this message.

Anyone who's sitting here wondering if they've ever actually experienced you. Lord, I pray that you would slow them down.

Lord, that you would stop them in their road.

That you would knock them to the ground if need be, that they would be utterly interrupted from the path that they are currently pursuing. And, Lord, in the midst of that, that they would experience you. That all the distractions would go away, that every other mission and agenda that is not from you would just be broken off of them. All of their religious pursuits, which is exactly what Saul was doing, Lord, that every religious pursuit would be surrendered because of you.

Lord, I pray that they would rest in you until their eyes are fully open.

Give them the faith to hear your voice, to know that the thoughts, the feelings, the emotions that they're experiencing, Lord, that all of this is actually you.

That you're the one who's been calling their name all along.

That even the desire to watch you is you.

Lord.

Hold them so close. Heal the wounds.

Of every idolatrous religious system that we have held up against you.

Lord. Set them free.

In Yeshua's name, Amen.

Amen. All right, guys, thank you so much for joining us here live. John, thank you for joining me, and this was really a beautiful discussion. I really hope it helps people in their relationship with the Father.

Anyone who's in the Franklin area or Nashville area, please go check out John's congregation. Mercy Collective. John, anything you want to say to someone who may want to join you guys?

Yeah, just come find us. We meet on the Sabbath. It's wild and it's wonderful, but the Lord keeps showing up, and as long as he does, we'll keep doing it.

I would just say to you, to anyone out there.

Who.

Has been trying to understand God.

But just doesn't yet have the assurance that his presence is with you or for you, or that you can actually experience him the way that people in the Bible seem to have experienced Him.

Keep trying, keep waiting, keep pressing forward. Identify those around you who are carrying his presence, who are operating in His Spirit. The testimonies are true. He still works miracles. He still does signs and wonders. He still speaks in miraculous ways. Keep pursuing him and I can assure you beyond a shadow of a doubt, if you seek him with all of your heart, you will find Him.

Amen.

Just be patient.

I would love to just end it with this Revelation 3:20 behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and eat with him and he with me. So this is our Father. He is knocking. He wants to come. And of course the speech of coming to eat with us, that is him desiring to meet with us. And so that was what he is calling. This is the call of this message here tonight, brothers and sisters. Share this message with anyone who may need to hear it. Thank you for joining me. Subscribe to this channel if you're new here like this video and can't wait to see you in the next one. Blessings to you and Shalom.

Sa.