Jamie Winship - The Journey of Knowing - Part 1

This is my uh staff right here, Matt. He travels with me with that stand. Thank you very much. Yeah, appreciate that. Thank you. It's hard to get on the plane with that thing, but you do it so well. I need to think of something else for you to do.

Um, thanks for having me, man. I love this venue. This is like a really cheap comedy club venue. I like this. Like if you're just starting out, this would be a room to store in. Um, and a handheld mic, that's even better. That's like, whoa.

And it's funny because we we uh um this I'm from Seattle. Hey, I lived in Houston, though. Where's our Houston lady? Have you ever been to Rudy's Barbecue? >> Oh my gosh. When people say, "What do you love about Houston?" That's what you say. Rudy's Barbecue. Oh my gosh.

Um, sorry about that. Uh, anyway, I we were we went to see the Handel's Messiah, you know, the opera over Christmas to as a surprise for this particular person who lives in I live in Seattle currently and she is Yeah. Seattle. And um this woman uh she's a really well-known psychologist. Really well known. And so it was her birthday, so her friends were going to surprise her. when we went to uh Handel's Messiah. But this woman, you know why people, you know why people go in to be psychologists, don't you? Because they're crazy. That's why they do it. And so this woman is like that and she's she's hilariously funny. So I challenged her. There's an open mic club in Seattle and she's a very funny person. So I challenged her that I would go with her and we would go to this open mic club. We haven't done it yet. We're going to do it. But I imagine this kind of venue when we go in that place and we're just gonna we're gonna dare each other to stand up and just like, you know, do a bit or something like that which reminded me. So I'm standing back there watching that amazing worship and I'm thinking like this venue and and listen, everything that you are currently doing is based on memory. Did you know that? My psychologist friend told me that. I remember her saying that now. And uh which verifies her statement. And uh but yeah, everything you're doing is based on memory. That's really important. That's an important concept in scripture is remembering. Remembering um but only remembering in a way that your memory pushes you forward into the future. But memory that holds you in the past is called condemnation. That's not that's not what we're talking about. Memory in the present that moves into the future. We're going to come to that tomorrow. But um anyway, so I was standing back there and I was just remembering times I've been in a venue like this.

So, um, in my background, I grew up in Washington D.C. and, uh, when I was in 8th grade, I was in a movie theater that I was not my my mom didn't allow us to go to movies, um, because they were evil. And so, I was at a movie and, uh, snuck into this movie, R-rated movie, which is even more evil. And I didn't know what the movie was. I just wanted to do it. And I went in and this movie was a very actually a very good movie. And in the movie, it was a movie about a police officer. A true story about a police officer in New York City. And in the movie something I was watching the movie and it just like moved me. You know, you know how that happens? You're in you're watching a movie or you're in a play. You're at a play or a musical or listen to music or something and something inside of you just goes, "Oh my." It's we call it naming. The thing names you. It calls your name. All humans know this and experience it. And so this is my first really clear understanding of wow, this movie is like calling me. [snorts] And um and what was weird about it was movies are bad and yet it's calling me. How like there that's called cognitive dissonance. It's like I think that's true and yet it doesn't seem true. Like singing some of these songs we say the words like we believe them but we actually don't. And it creates conflict like I wish that was true what I just sang but Monday I don't believe it right? [snorts] So so that was going on but in another fashion I was like wow this movie this bad movie this evil movie is somehow reaching inside of me and calling me forward and so I started to cry. I was crying. I was by myself. I was crying and then when the movie was over I knew I had to take some kind of action and so because because my family, my mom and was I was raised independent Baptist. That's why we didn't go to movies. But independent Baptist church service, the only time anything really counts for God is if you go forward. Like God doesn't work in the back row. You have to come forwarder. Doesn't count. You know how God is. He's pretty tough on the regulations and you have to follow him. If you don't, he doesn't show. Um but and so uh so anyway, so I thought, "Wow, I didn't know it was God because it was an R movie. God obviously couldn't be there, which is weird because he's omnipresent. Except in R-rated movie theaters, he can't show there or bad people's houses or in bad countries, but he is omnipresent, but we don't believe it, but we say it. But anyway, I wasn't up to that point of theology yet. I just knew that something was calling me that was outside of myself. And so, crying and weeping, I got up and I went forward at the end of the movie. I was the only one that went forward at the end of the movie. [laughter] And I went forward at the end of the movie and the and so like I was standing in front of the screen. This is in 1980 something three. No, I was '74. Wow. My memory. Oh. Any I was so so it was an actual projector, you know, and it was I could see the guy up there who was like, "What is this? Why is this kid even in here? And why is he gone forward? And why is he crying? And why is he facing the projector?" [laughter] And some very dramatic commitment. And I made a very dramatic commitment to the God I didn't believe in who I just thought told you you couldn't go to movies, that one. Uh, not the one that actually called you in movies, that one. A new one. Um, and I'm standing there and I'm crying and I commit my life to being a police officer. And it was like amazing. And I left 14 and I never changed my mind. And so by the time I was 23, I was in the police academy. Um, so it's a venue kind of like this, kind of like this where there's these lights and this projection and it calls that memory forward into me. But it's a very beautiful memory that moves me forward even in the present. Which reminds me that a place like this, if [snorts] I come forward in a place like this in my memory is a place of transformation, right? And so this place is holy to me just standing in the back like I recognize this place. This is a place where God pursues me.

And then I started thinking because we were singing it. Does God pursue us or do we pursue him? Which is it? Are we running hard after God? You ever say that? We sing that I'm running hard after God. Really? Is that what Jesus says, Peter? I need you to run hard after me. He doesn't say that. He doesn't say that. He said he what is the word he uses? I want you to follow. That's not running hard or chasing down. That's a different idea. But so does we do we pursue God or does God pursue us? I was wondering about that. H but that one beautiful song, it sounds like he pursues us. If he pursues us, that's a whole different thing than us trying to pursue him because one's our responsibility and the other's his. Huh. So hm. So I was thinking about that and then I was thinking about So I went to the police department. I got recruited by the CIA in my fifth year in the police department. We'll tell you about that another time. And um because the CIA wanted to know how I was closing the cases I was closing. And my answer was to them was much to their consternation was that I could hear God. Say that to a federal operations employee because I can hear God. And he said, "I don't believe in that, but here's the result of what you call hearing God." See, Jesus said this, too. "By your fruit they know you. Not by what you say. By your fruit, right?" So, that means it's way more experiential than blah blah blah. You know, so uh anyway, so I so I told him specifically how I could hear God. And he said, "Can you hear God in a counterterrorism strategy living among a terrorist organization?" I said, "Yeah, because God can speak anywhere." Even I had learned in R-rated movie theaters. If he can go there, surely he can go in the Muslim world, right? See, that memory moves me forward. Like, where did you meet God? In a place he's not allowed to go and I'm not allowed to go. Does Jesus meet people in places you're not allowed to go? It's mostly where he meets them. But you know why? Because he's pursuing them. So anyway, CIA offers me a job scenario. I say, "Hm, I know that job scenario is not you calling me. I know it's God calling me into the Muslim world because that's my identity, which we'll talk about tonight." And so I said to the CIA, "Yes, I want to do what you want me to do, but I don't want to do it with you. So I'll do it for you, but not with you." And they said, "Wait, you're confusing us more. [clears throat] Besides hearing from God, which we've just dismissed, now you're saying you will take the job, but you won't let us pay you for it." Correct. Right. Because Jesus said, 'If you seek first the kingdom, all that other stuff will come. Don't make that the condition. Right? And so I said, 'Yeah, because the way I will come up with how to do what you just said will be better than what you just said. It'll work better and but I can't do it getting my authority from anyone but God himself. So I'll do it, but not you don't have to pay me. And they're like, "All right, you're hired." sort of. And so I did the project with them to infiltrate counter infiltrate terrorist militant terrorist. This is what they asked me. Can you infiltrate militant terrorist organizations and pacify them without violence? To me, that's the gospel, right? Isn't that what we're doing? Isn't that what we're supposed to be doing? I'm like, "Yeah, sure. I'll do that. Yeah. Where do you want me to go?" And they said, "This little island right here. You have to get on this little island right here. If we're not going to put you there, who can put you there?" And I said, "Oh, God can put me there in better strategy than what you thought of, but I need time to listen to him to get his strategy so I can enact it." And so, and then I'll do it. So, it took three years to put that strategy together and to end up right exactly on that island, right in the middle of that terrorist organization. Got there and um failed miserably in that um because God had to teach me some stuff that you don't learn by sitting around reading books about other people or listening to podcasts about other people. You have to go do it yourself with him, right? Because he's pursuing you. He's not pursuing other people talking. He's pursuing you. You. [snorts]

So Jesus, if you watch Jesus as he models what it means to be truly fully human connected to God, Jesus is demonstrating this fact that God isn't asking you to be responsible for anything. He's given you the ability to respond when he invites you into something. Do you understand the difference between that? It's not your responsibility that it works or happens. Your job is to respond with yes when he invites you into something and he's responsible for it. Wow. We're going to get this really clear by the time we leave because that will take away 90% of the fear that will prevent you from really being what God has made you to be. Right? So that's we're going to work on that. So went to do that. That didn't work. I got arrested, put on trial in Islamic court. [snorts] So I'm sitting in an Islamic court 10,000 miles away from the United States by myself. I notify the government, hey, I just got arrested. I'm getting put on trial in Islamic court. It's 10 years in prison. Our government says, good luck and hang up. So back then, no internet, no crusade to get Jamie out of prison in a Muslim country. None of that stuff. Just me, my wife, our three kids who were 6, five, and three years old. Uh, on this island, can't get off the island. I'm not worried about going to prison for 10 years myself. I think I can survive there, but I'm concerned about leaving my Jewish wife on a Muslim militant island by herself for 10 years. I'm worried about that part of it because here's what I don't believe then. That God is more powerful than me being in tried in an Islamic court by myself where I'm not allowed to speak. I'm not allowed to defend myself and that God can protect my Jewish wife on an island where there's nobody but God. I don't think he can do that. I didn't believe that he could do that. Now, I could say I believed it, but when I was in the situation, here's what I learned. I don't believe it. That's why he wants you in that situation for you to do this. Tell him the truth. You know what? I don't think you can do this. I'm pretty sure you're not omnipresent and omnipotent cuz where are you right now? So, how would I learn that he is? I would have to go through that. So, [snorts] we went through that scenario. I'm standing here. So, obviously he showed up. I'll tell you about that sometime. Got through that. Spent five years on that island then move to another location when that job is done to another location for another five years 10 years in Indonesia altogether. And in our second five years there because I have a master's degree um in English and intercultural studies so my work with the CIA was always through educational venues so I took a job in an international school me and my wife she has the same degree we took a job in an international school and in the international school, I decided because I'd learned all this stuff by that time I was 30. I I learned and I was I still actually work with uh the US government in different situations to this day. We're working on a little project together right [laughter] now. Um but so we get to the international school and I decide the key for me has been that I know my identity in the kingdom of God. Like that's was the secret. Two things. I know my identity and I can hear from God. If I know my identity, if I know who I am, me uniquely in the kingdom and I can hear from God, what would I be afraid of? What would we be afraid of? So I decide, I wonder if I can teach this to high school kids. So, but not just any high school kids. High school kids that are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, and Christian, all of them at one time, the same time. Is that possible? Can God do that? So teaching an a very expensive international school. So I um taught all the languages and other stuff. And so I took a group of ninth graders, a class of ninth graders from those backgrounds, atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, some missionary kids, that group from ninth grade all the way through to graduation. And in those years, my goal was that each one of them would come to understand that you don't pursue God, that he pursues you. And he named you in your mother's womb. And he wants you to know what he calls you and live it out with you. Like that's the best news I know you can ever tell a person. So I figured, let's try and see if we can do it. So we just tried. You just try and pray. God, how do we do this? What do we do? We don't know how to do this. Teach us how to do this because we can hear God and we have the word of God and the spirit of God and the people of God and we just try and you just try. Why wouldn't you just try? Because you're afraid. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? That you're going to fail. You cannot fail. You cannot fail. Here's a here's even a bigger thing Jesus said. You cannot die. Do you believe that? I don't. You cannot die. I I'm worried about dying in a conversation because I look stupid. I'm worried about dying because someone thinks I dress the wrong way or I look the wrong way or I don't get into the right school or I don't get I'm afraid about dying in those places. Forget actually somebody trying to really actually do something. I mean as Hebrew said, you haven't shed blood yet and still you're paralyzed in fear. Why? What are you afraid of? So teaching these high school kids was ter I was like, put me back with the terrorists. Like these man I had this one French. Is anyone here French? It doesn't matter. I'm saying this anyway. Like I had this one French student Melissa. Melissa. And uh she was very atheistic. Yeah. She was so proud of her atheism. And every time I would say something, she would go, "That's what she would do, you know, in what an American does when someone does that is this kind of motion, you know, that's like what you want to do. But um anyway, so there was a and so I had Muslim students and Buddhists and Hindus, it's like crazy. Um and sometime I'll tell you everything we did with them, but in their 10th grade year they started to really get it. It was really beautiful [laughter] watching the God pursue them. And so you know when God is pursuing you, the secret to the pursuit of you working is you looking at him and going, yes. That's all you ever say to Jesus when he comes to you. Yes. Before he says anything, just go yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Whatever you're going to say yes. In fact, I'm saying yes now because when you say what you want, I'm going to want to say no. But I want to have already said yes. Right? So, so these 10th graders and they were 11th grade. They got into 11th grade and they come to me one day, this little group of them that were kind of became the leaders and they said, "Uh, we've been working with meeting with students in another city in Jakarta in a bigger even bigger school and we've been teaching them about identity and how to hear from God." So the Muslim kid was teaching the Muslims in that school. The Hindu kid was teaching the Hindu. The French, she wasn't quite there yet. Uh she was coming, she was back going, you know, and then and then and they were doing that. So they were receiving and then turn around and giving like this. And so they said in Jakarta there's a very famous nightclub, a two-story, no, a three-story nightclub. And the lead the most famous singers in Indonesia were these two Muslim brothers who were um like jazz musicians, really phenomenal, very secular Muslims, but they were Muslim. And the high school kids had led him to Christ. Guess what we did last weekend? What? We led the two most famous pop singers in Indonesia, Muslims, to Christ. Oh, really? That's it? Is that all you did? Like that's all you did? Like those should be normal for that? Those should be normal. Can you imagine going up to Jesus and going, "I have someone that believes in you now." Like how he would be like, "How many? One." Like it's so unusual for us. It's like what do we we must not be saying the right thing actually. Anyway, so they say and so these two brothers have said that they will let someone stand up in the nightclub on a Friday night and share the gospel in some way. um if we can find someone that will do it. But here's the rules. When So, the nightclub is an actual crazy um wild alcohol party nightclub and it's big and it's super popular. And so the guy said, "When we sing, everyone will be quiet, but as soon as we stop, that place goes wild because they've been drinking all day and you know, all this, but if you can find a speaker that'll stand up at the intermission and try and talk to them, and if they'll listen, we'll we'll make it so that can happen." And so they were telling me that I'm like, "Wow, where are you gonna find someone that's stupid that would try and" and they're like, "Well, we were wondering if you would try and do that." And I'm like, "So this is so he they're just going to walk off the stage to take a break and I'm going to walk up on the stage to this massive crowd of alcoholics and try and say something about the kingdom." Yes. Yes. Would you do that? And if you did, what would you say? Because they won't you're not they won't stop anything like the waiters and waitresses got to serve and nothing's going to stop. You just have to start talking and hope they listen. What would you say? So I said, "Well, yeah, I sure, why not? Why?" Well, the only reason I would say yes to that is because I saw Jesus show up at an Islamic trial where no one else showed up, but he he did and he ran the whole thing. I didn't know he could do that and he did it. And I've seen him show up. I've seen him show up in so many places. The only reason I'm saying yes to going to this nightclub is based on experiential knowledge of Christ. Not like I think Hudson Taylor did something like this or somebody. Not like that. Not like I heard a podcast of somebody that did it in Walmart. Not that. That's not you. You should be listening to a podcast of yourself. Actually, that's who Jesus is interested in. You. You. You're the only identity he made that's you. You're He'll never make another one. You're it. Like, you want to live that thing out? And so I said, "Well, yeah, I'll try it." Yeah, why not? So, we go, we meet with the brothers. They were cool. They were And they're like, you know, it's going to be a crazy crowd, but we'll sing and then we'll introduce you and good luck. You know, that's what they said in the Islamic court. Same thing. Good luck. Good luck. So, but here's the thing. If God still speaks, I think Jesus said something like this, right? When you stand before people in a nightclub, don't fear about what to say. Didn't he say something like that? Cuz who's going to tell you what to say? Yeah. The spirit. Do you believe this stuff? Like, I think he'll speak to me in my quiet time when I'm listening to praise music, but in a nightclub full of drunk people in a Muslim country, can he speak there? If he can, why aren't we there? So, I don't know. The only way to find out is to go try and see if he does. And what if he doesn't? [clears throat] What happens? Do I look stupid? Am I a failure? What happens to me? Do I die? So, what? So, we go. So, we we prime our team, our our high school kids, because there's no laws there to prohibit anyone from going anywhere. So, we prime our team. We bring chaperones in there with us. We divide up among the three floors. The guys come on and it's it's a mad house. It's a crazy place. It's unbelievable. Packed and hot and like this stage and these guys are amazing and they play and everyone's screaming and yelling and then they go off the stage and they're like and we like to our friend to come on and then they just walk off. And so I just walk up [snorts] and everyone just starts doing what you do during a break of a of the band you came to. to just start drinking and partying and laughing and screaming and the waiters and waitresses are moving about. And I was like, "Okay, Lord, now would be a good time to know what to say because what am I going to do? Preach a three-point sermon out of the Bible? I I don't It's not that can't be that because as as soon as I use the Bible, the Muslims will be alienated immediately. So, it can't be that. It's got to be something sort of beyond what I would just come up with." And so I'm standing up there and I just said, 'Lord, go speak. I'm ready. Let's go. And so it's like a producer with a microphone in their ear, a news anchor with the producer talking to them. Like you can just hear it, but you train to hear it all the time. You train, you train, you listen all the time. And so just because the room's louder, I can still hear just as clear. [snorts] And so I It's like scare 'em. Like that's what I hear. Scare 'em. I'm like, "Yeah, that would that makes people quiet when you scare them." If you make them laugh, it just gets crazier. But if you scare them, especially if if they've been drinking and partying and you scare them, wow. And so, okay. Yeah, scare them. Scare them. Scare them. So, I think, okay, how what do I know about scaring? And so because I was a police officer, uh I worked a case that was nothing but demonic ritual murder in this whole case we were working. And um so I'm going to tell them that story. So I just start so one I don't I don't introduce myself. to say. So, one night, um, I was a police officer in the United States and we were working this case and I described the crime scene with this slaughtered, you know, bloody and it just and the and the waiters kind of stopped and they're like, "What now? What?" And as loud as I can and it was, oh, it was gruesome. It was terrible. It was awful. And it was, you know, was clearly uh demonic and, you know, evil spirits were involved and they did this and they chopped this person's head off and everyone and right in front of me are these two Australian guys that have clearly been drinking since they were a teenager. I mean, at least all day. And they're and they're like staring at me like they're like right there and it was awful. It was brutal. And the Australian guys are going like this. Who's this guy? Who is this guy? Who is he? Who is he? Who is this guy? And like they're, you know, the alcohol is like affecting them and it's like surreal to them and they're like, "Hey, is he talking about demons? Did he say demons? What's he who is this guy?" Like that's what they're doing back and forth like I got I I may not get anyone. I'm going to get these two guys right here. I'm going to get him. But the whole and I the further I got into this story about who this person that was doing these murders and how we were tracking them and how we caught him, it's a good story by the way. Really good story. Um we did catch him. um into the whole thing and the place got quieter and quieter and I go and then YOU KNOW WHAT WE DID AND people were like what and and these guys who hey who is he who is he who is he [laughter] and and I and so I tell the story and I only have like 10 minutes to do the whole thing and so now it's quiet and I can see my wife she's standing is back at the very end of the room talking to this uh woman and they leave and that woman was the first one to come to faith out of the night. She was the beginning of the movement that came out of this little experiment. And so I so I tell her and then I go and and so we caught the guy and and and that's and that's what happened. But let me tell you about tonight. Let me tell you about tonight. Out those doors right there is is the demonic sh Thank you very much. The demonic. Oh my gosh. And uh [laughter] and so I said they're out there. The demonic are out there tonight. And if you walk out there, you're going to die unless you have the power of God inside of you. The the I spoke Indonesia in that part. The spirit of God is in you. If you go out there without the spirit of God, you're going to die and there's nothing you can do about it. Thanks for having me. And I just sat down and it was just silent. I was that guy. Well, who's going to die? A week like that. And then I just let the students take it wherever it would go. And it was remarkable because you know what it did? It made the people confess. Now, here's the definition of confession in the Bible. Confession in the Bible is not saying you're sorry. There's nowhere in scripture where Jesus looks and goes, "I need an apology right now, please." He never talks like this. Where do we get this stuff from? Peter, you need to say you're sorry to John right now. Like that's he never says that kind of half the stuff we say about Jesus. He didn't say. Confession means this. Tell the truth. That's what it means. Tell the truth. In the Greek, it means to to agree. I confess I live in Seattle. That's a confession. Am I sorry I live there? Some days yes. But most of the time, no. But that's not confession. Confession is just truthtelling. When you get with God and go, "God, I'm so sorry." He's like, "I know you're sorry." You're ever going to tell the truth, though? Are you ever going to say the truth about what you believe about me that's false? Like, I can't go to Muslim countries. Like, I only show up if you beg me long enough. These things that I never said that you think I only come if you say the right words. That's called animism. Tell the truth. Say the truth. If you speak truth, truth will always liberate. Always. We're going to practice that tonight. So confession is so what it made the people do in the room is confess that a lot of their life is built on fear. That that's what united the whole place. It wasn't like I'd like to talk about love tonight. A lot of us don't actually know what love really is. It love doesn't unite us because we don't know. We've never really experienced real love. It's always conditional. But I'll tell you what we all know. We all know fear, guilt, and shame. Every human being, when you talk about fear, guilt, and shame, they know what you're talking about. In every country I've ever been in, in every religion, in every group, if I talk about fear, the room is united. That's why Jesus starts with pain. [snorts] He's speaking to the thing that unites us as humans. We are all afraid. All kinds of different things. And so that room unites around fear. And so in that place of they were in a rare moment of open confession in the room. Confession isn't calling out the name of Jesus. That's called calling out the name of Jesus. Confession is telling the truth. So I have a son that's an FBI agent. If he brings someone in and says, "I need you to write your confession." and they write 300 times that they're sorry, nothing happens. Nothing is resolved. We don't need you to write 300 times that you're sorry. We need you to tell the truth about what you did and what you believe and what you said. Tell the truth and we can go forward. Right? So in that room they were like, "We are afraid almost the whole you could just feel IN THE ROOM. WE are afraid of the supernatural. We're afraid of the night. We're afraid of dying. That's what that whole nightclub was doing at one time. So beautiful. And then when confession comes, then comes the opportunity to change your mind, which is called repentance. Mind change. Repentance is mind change. It's not I'm sorry. All of our things are I'm sorry. We need you to confess right now. I'm sorry. and then repent and I'm sorry again. Like that's all those words mean to us. Sorry. Sorry, God. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. We're sorry. We're all sorry. Is anything going to change? No. Do you believe anything different? Nope. We're just all sorry. That doesn't bring any healing. So truthtelling leads for the opportunity of that truth as you see it to be transformed, to be changed, and you realize, "Oh, guess what? I'm totally wrong." in what I think is true and then your mind changes and then form changes transformation confession metaninoia change mind metamorphe change form then the whole system changes we're just trying to change the systems without ever ourselves telling the truth right here so that was a that was a Friday night Saturday we followed up on people it was really interesting Sunday because we were in Jakarta. So the Jakarta International Church, people knew that we were doing this because they were praying for it. And so the pastor there said, "Hey, Jamie D, would you just come and speak Sunday?" I go, "Sunday to speak." And I stand up to speak and right in the front row are the two Australian guys and their wives of the church. And I stand up to speak and I start speaking and they're looking at me like, "Is that the guy?" Cuz they can't quite remember. like it was hazy. Is that that guy? Is that that demon guy? Is that him? Is that him? And and and their wives are like, "Sh." And I do this thing on Jesus and the love of Jesus and all. And when it's over, I walk down and they the wives come over to me and they go, "This is going to sound so stupid. We're sorry. We apologize for this right now." But our husbands came home drunk and they said they were really at a meeting where [snorts] there was a guy speaking about demons and how they need the spirit of God to protect them. And of course, we didn't believe him, but they insisted we come to church this morning. And now they're saying, "You were the guy." Like, "This isn't true, is it?" And I've said, "Yes, it's true." And that's how those two guys and their wives came to faith. Can you plan that stuff? Nope. Can you miss it? Every day you miss it. Every day we miss those chances because we're afraid. How did we get afraid? What happened? So we did that and then at the end of when those when that class they all knew their identities and they all because as you move towards your true identity, you meet Jesus. That's what happens because you're never going to learn it without meeting him. So, they all became believers. At the graduation, I spoke and I washed all of their feet, which for for Asians and Muslims to have a professor wash your feet is horrifying. They screamed when I knelt down and took off their shoes. They were so mortified that I was going to wash their feet. Very beautiful. All of them today, we we follow them all through university and grad school and they're all in the business world. They're all heavy duty players in the world. Very powerful people in the world. What if we were doing that in high schools all over the place? And the thing is, no parent in that school complained. None. They were all super grateful. Why isn't that what we're doing? What are we doing? What are we doing?

Okay, so here's what we're going to do. Um, I guarantee you we won't have enough time. So, that's just the way it is. But, we'll try. We We're going to start and we'll go into it tomorrow. Get it get in your groups, okay? Just get turned into your groups, however you are. We're going to do this. You have to do this in community. God didn't make people to be alone. So, one thing he despises is being alone. We're community where he Jesus is the God that's never been alone. So, we want to be in our groups. I think it's good. If you don't know the group, that's even better. Okay. Go. I'm gonna the goal of this the goal of everything we're doing together is is with our theme to be to be empowered to be greater to be as Paul says my favorite verse I labor according to his energy which energizes me when you're when you understand identity and you move in your true identity you I'm telling you right now you have limitless energy the way we know our people are not walking in their true identity is they're exhaust exhausted and they're afraid. That's how we can tell. They're exhausted, they're anxious, this sort of thing. Um, so there's lots of ways we can do this. Just think here. Um, so I'm a very big believer obviously in the scriptural text. I love the Bible and so it's very important that what I say is from scripture, right? Dangerous not to be that way. So, it has to be based in the scriptures. So, if you hear me say something that you think is extra biblical, come come challenge me on it. And if you're right, I'll ignore you. And then if you're But no, please. Everyone feels free to challenge me. Trust me, every time I say something, I try and find some weird science and say something about it. There's always that expert is always in the crowd. I don't know how they're like I was at this doing this thing, Matt. I think you were there and I was I got into this thing about epigenetics. I'm like, nobody knows what this is. I'm talking about epigenetics. And of course, there's a doctor of epigenetics and she's in the back going, "Uh, I'd like to." And I'm like, "Sh, are you an epigenetist?" "Yes." Sh, you know, [snorts] like that. But no, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. Um, so what So here's what we're going to do in your group, in your community. This cannot be done alone. This is so important. [clears throat] God made us to be in community because God is in community all the time. There's father, son, and spirit. is the communion of God with the son and the spirit. God's always in community with himself and he draws us. He pursues us to bring us into that community. That's what he's doing. Uh he's opening the way so that we can come into that community. Why do we love God? Why does the Bible say we love him? Why? >> Because he first loved us. He pursued us. He's pursuing you all the time. We'll get more into that tomorrow. Um, it's very easy to share the kingdom with a person if you're convinced that God is already pursuing that person. Because if God is already pursuing that person, then the goal is to locate where God has been pursuing that person and join right into that. It is so simple and exhilarating to do this. It's like a game. It's not a war. The war is over. It ended at the cross. >> It's over. The only strate The only weapons the enemy has against you, we only have one enemy. We only have one enemy. Muslims are not our enemy. The bad people are not our enemy. We have one enemy, Satan. That's it. And Satan only has two weapons. Let's keep this real simple because it is simple. Satan has two weapons against you and me. Deception and accusation. That's it. That's all he accuses and deceives. And wow is he good at it. The only person in the Bible he didn't get was Jesus. He got everybody else. So don't think he's going to miss you. Don't think you're the one that's going to stump Satan. You're not. But the spirit of the living God inside of you in the mind of Christ wins every time. Yes. True. >> [snorts] >> So it when when we're talking about these things and uh I'm going to refer to scripture. We're going to walk through them in community and we're going to do them because so much of how I was raised in Christianity is just blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Does everyone agree? Yeah. Go out and don't do it basically. now and I yeah that's a generalization but so without getting too far into it so so in in Hebraic thinking and language Old Testament but even Hebraic thinking which goes into the New Testament in Hebraic thinking there's no separation between the mind and the body none and because of that in Hebrew and in Arabic there are no abstract nouns in other words anything you say in Hebrew or Arabic is something that has to be something you can touch, taste, feel, sense. There's no nouns that are just that thing out there. But in Henistic Greek, there are there are abstract nouns. And unfortunately, this is what we've bought into. So, I can talk about faith all day long, but never does it have to actually be something that's done. We have lots of words. Love. Oh, I love them and I'm never going to see them. Like, you can't do that. You can't do that in Hebrew and Arab Arabic. If you say that, it's because you're doing it. So, faith is a verb. It's not a noun. It's a verb. So, so in what we're going to do is concentrate on experiential knowing God tonight. So, experiential doesn't mean that you cut the mind out. It doesn't. It means that the mind and the heart are joined together. The mind and the body are joined together. In Hebrew, if I say something like God is angry, if I say that in Hebrew, the word in Psalms where where it says God is angry, it actually means his nostrils are flared. There's always an image like, oh, God's mad at you. We don't even know what that means. We don't believe it. We're not really that interested in it. God's wrath, whatever. You know, but when you say it in Arabic or Hebrew, it's like, no, man. Like, he's really upset. It's like your dad when his nostrils are flared, you know? [clears throat] It's like that. Like, they can see what you mean. So, we can talk about these concepts all day long and they never mean anything. So, we want to bring those things through the intuitive mind down into the rational, into our heart, and do it right. Everyone understand that? Good. [laughter] Okay. So, what we're going to walk through is every you can do this with any person in scripture. This is all throughout the Bible starting with Eve and Adam onward. Um, everyone in scripture goes through experiential encounters with God. Can you think of anyone that's just sort of laying out there and someone tells them something, they go, "I got it." someone let me explain the incarnation to you using apologetics and pmics and they go okay yeah I'll die for that but that's what we try and do all the time to people oh no there's evidence for this what is it well I read that the maseretic text like I'm already out forget it like I don't care um so but it's Jesus it's God inviting you into this life with him as the lead says Follow me and I will make you to become fill in the blank. That's what he says. Follow me and I What's your job? To say yes and receive. Yes and receive. And he it's his responsibility to make you to become whatever it is the identity that he gave you in your mother's womb. That's the that's the relationship. I don't know a better relationship than that one. It's like it's all on him. We love him because he first loved us. How do we know he loved us? Because I read it in a book. No, because he demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were separate and his enemy, he died for you. Not because you were awesome and had amazing quiet times. Because he loved you. Do you know when HE DIDN'T LOVE YOU? NEVER. Do you know when he was disappointed in you? Never. Who says that God's disappointed with you? You know who says that? The enemy. You know who believes it? We do. He's That song we sang, it was so beautiful. He's never disappointed in you. He always loves you. He never goes, "Wow." Oh, brother. Did you see them drop the ball on that one? Oh my gosh. Jesus only rebukes the disciples for one thing.

Do you know that he only gets upset with them about one thing? Do you know what it is? They don't believe what he's saying to them about themselves and himself. That's what he gets upset about.

He doesn't look at him and go, "Peter, what's your thought life like right now?" Like, where do we get this stuff? Hey, what are you thinking about right now? All right, that's got to come out. We're holding you accountable from now on. John, hold him accountable to that right now. From now on. That's not what Jesus is doing.

Where do we get this stuff? Here's the kind of questions Jesus Peter, do you love me? Boom. What a question. Oh, what a question. Not like, "Tell me what's wrong with you right now. How have you fallen in short of the glory of God right now?" He doesn't do that, man.

Who's in charge of this thing? So, if Jesus is never disappointed in you, God's never disappointed in you, he's always loved you, what's the issue? Here's the issue. We're separate from him. We're separate from him. But here's a problem with that. Can you be separate from an omnipresent God? Do you ever wonder about that? How can you be separate from a God that's always everywhere you could ever be or go? David says, "If I ascend into sh you are there. I'm going to separate from go myself from God. I'm going into hell." Oh, he's there. So, how can we be separate from him?

Even the garden separates herself from God. Is she separate from God? She would say yes. What does God say? Is she separate from him? Could he find her? Where what happened to Eve? Where did she go? He knows right where she is. [snorts] He goes right to it. He goes, "Where? Why are you hiding? Like you you can't hide from me. You can't be separate from me. So what is the separateness then? What is it? It's sin. Sin is the word. Sin is to miss the mark. To miss what you're supposed to be. You're over here. You're separate from the target. And when you're separate, you go down the drain morally. But the moral degradation isn't causing the separateness. It's the result of the separateness.

But what is the separateness? What happened? [snorts] Eve didn't what did she do? She believed something about God that wasn't true. That he was holding something back from her because maybe he didn't love her as much as she thought. And maybe he wasn't really telling her that truth about the things as they really are. That whole faith thing. Yeah, God's really strong here, but boy, you better you better be careful. You better self-protect. You better protect yourself because God, you know, he's not everywhere all the time. If we believe that he was everywhere all the time and that he always loved us and was always for us, we would be living a lot different than we are. Right? So, I'm going to just offer this to you and you can wrestle through it. I had too when guys challenged me on this. being separate from God's sin. Sin, the wages of separateness, the danger of separateness is eternal separateness. That's the danger of it. On into separateness forever.

Are you ever really separate? No. but you believe you are and you will not participate in the invitation because you're convinced you are now separate from it and can't get back who Paul says this WHO CAN SEPARATE US FROM the love of God in Christ Jesus what does answer that question who can separate us from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus who nothing just nobody nothing neither height nor depth Nothing can separate you from the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. I don't know better news than that.

You know, when when Jesus walks on the boat with Peter, you know, he he's pursuing Peter, Peter's just a fisherman. He's got an amazing career going there. His fishing. It's an exciting future ahead of him. He's washing his nets, which is a sign of the future. Wow, man. If I could just nail down that job where I'm doing this all day or this that job. Boy, if I could get that, wow. And and we have such a legacy ahead of us of people that have achieved all this and said, "Yeah, this is it. You really want this." And then they shoot themselves. But so Peter's got this job. And Jesus is calling him into world changing job. And he does it gradually. He gets on his boat. Doesn't ask him. He just steps in his boat. Peter has two options. Get out of my boat. continue with this the rest of your life. You have that option tonight. Jesus wants on the boat. He's on there. He's on your boat. You can tell him to get off. He won't. But you can act like he's not there. You can act like he's not there. He is there. He's always there because he always loves you and he always wants you. But you can believe that he's not and act like he's not. You can be so convinced that he's not that it becomes real to you. That's what lies do.

Jesus gets on that boat. Peter's like, "Okay, you can stand on my boat." Boom. Peter's whole life changes. Jesus says, "Push it out in the shallow water." See, he doesn't want to just stand there. Let's move it. Let's move your boat. Let's go in the shallow water. Peter can say, "No, just stand on my boat and go to heaven when I die and stop talking to me, Jesus. Just get in my heart. Stay there and be quiet and just I'll see you when I die." You can do that. You can. That's not that exciting. It's okay. You can ask Jesus into your heart. Good. And then what changes? Uh, you go to heaven when you die. I mean, now, uh, not really all that much. Do you still have fear, guilt, and shame? Yeah, pretty much. Well, what's the advantage of asking Jesus in your heart then? Well, you just struggle like everyone else. But in the end, like that's not that compelling. H, I don't know why the world's not run into that one. But, so, but that's not what Jesus is doing. He's in the boat. Okay, let's go. Let's move the boat. Move it. Can we go in the shallow water? Yeah. Okay, let's go in the shallow water. Peter gets involved. He pushes that boat in the shallow water. In the shallow water, Jesus in the shallow water, he teaches the people and he goes, "Hey, hey, hey, do you want to try something kind of crazy?" That's what he's saying to you tonight. Do you want to try something crazy? He's probably asked you this question in your past and you've said no. Or he's like, "That's stupid. That's stupid." You didn't know it was him. It's a stupid idea. Crazy. Hey, let's go out in the deep water together. You want to shallow? Come on. Anyone can do shallows. Go deep. One, two. Ah, [sighs] you can come into my heart and you can move around in the shallow part of my life, but don't go deep. I don't want you to go deep because that's kind of scary down there. I don't know what you're going to do down there. And I don't even like going down there. Honestly, I'm afraid of the past. So, I'm terrified of the future. So, let's just kind of just keep this thing calm. Let's stay shallow. You could say that. And Jesus is like, "I'll wait for you. I'll wait. I'll keep asking you the rest of your life because nothing can separate me from you. But we can't go any deeper until you say yes." Do you want to go deep with me? Okay, let's go deep. WHOLE LIFE CHANGES AGAIN. SEE THIS? See this ascension? Boy, when Jesus comes in, here's what he does on straight up into eternity. the whole time reconciling you to himself, reconciling you to yourself, reconciling you to people around you. And it starts this incredible movement. And here's what you have to keep saying to keep it going. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And tell the truth. I'm I'm I want to say yes, but I'm so afraid of that. That's beautiful confession. What are you afraid of? I don't think God you can go there. Okay, I'm going to change your mind on this. Let's go and see if what you think is true or what I'm saying is true. Faith is the substance of the things you hope for. Man, I hope that's true. Let's go see. I wish that was true. Let's go. The evidence of things you can't see yet like that. And so they go into the deep water. He goes, he goes, Jesus goes, "Okay, now that we're out here, let me show you how to do your vocation by listening to Jesus." We don't listen to Jesus in our vocation. There's a separation of church and state. We just try and be models of ethics. Oh, like Mormons? No. I mean, they're really good at it. We're not that good. Uh, like a Jehovah's Witness? No. Cuz they tell the truth. Like, doesn't make any sense. What's the beauty? What's the difference? Transformation. Transform life. And not only do you have it, you can you can give it away. It's not about religion. Throw down your net right there and watch what happens. I've already talked to that person. They hate [snorts] Christianity. That's because you're throwing down Christianity. Throw down what I say to throw down. Scare them in the nightclub. Scare them. They didn't teach that in seminary. I know. They ought to have a class called scare them. Not by you're going to hell. You're going to hell. You're going to hell. They give him a murder scene. Come spice this thing up. Stop saying the same old thing. You don't need the Holy Spirit if you're just going to say the same old thing someone else said like that. THROW DOWN YOUR NET THE WAY I say and do it in the PLACE I DO. WATCH WHAT HAPPENS. If you will follow me, I will make you to become the greatest police officer, CIA, whatever it is. I WILL MAKE YOU TO BECOME YOUR identity in that place. If you will tell the truth to me and you will listen to what I say and you will say yes to me and the whole thing will be transformed because you're being transformed. No transformation here, no transformation there. Conflict here, conflict there. These are the rules. Peace here, peace there. So where do we have to start? Right here. Wow.

Then Peter watches the miracle happen. They pull in and this is what he says to Jesus. That's incredible. Now walk away from me, Jesus, right now. Walk away. Get out of my boat. Get out of my life. What? Get out. You know why he says that? Because I AM A SEPARATED MAN. THAT'S WHAT HE SAYS. I am a sinful man. I am a man that will separate from you and let you down. That's what he's saying. That's what he's afraid of. I will fail you. He doesn't mean, I look at pornography at night, I can't go. That's not what he's saying. He's saying, "I I'm a separate one. I'm like I will I will walk away from you. I walk away from everything. I talk a big game, but when push comes to shove, I'm down. I'm really I'm afraid. Walk away. I can't I can't do this." And Jesus doesn't say, "I'll make you morally upright." He doesn't say that to him. He says he's what he's saying to us tonight. Don't be afraid. That's what he says to Peter. Peter, don't be afraid. What are you afraid of that you'll separate from me? You will, BUT GUESS WHAT? NOTHING CAN separate you from me. Nothing. The lie is what separates you. But it's not real. You You can deny me. You can do all those things. You I I I will be with you. We will do this. Follow me, Peter, and I will make you a fisher of men. You don't have to make yourself into it. And they leave everything and follow him. Wow. And does he separate? Yes. But guess what? Jesus is right there with him if Peter will tell the truth. Confession and repentance and transformation. I don't like that.

So, here's what we're going to do in our groups. We're going to walk through this little exercise. We call it identity exchange. That's what we call it. Um, some of you have done this. Uh, but we're going to do it together. And so what I want you to concentrate on is truthtelling. Truthtelling, confession, truthtelling. Um, uh, I want to like, so from a biblical standpoint, I want you to remember Jesus is not trying to get people in groups and tell the most horrible details of their life to him. He's not doing that with people. That's not what he's interested in. He's interested in you telling the truth about what you believe about him, yourself, and the world you're in. That's what he wants you to tell the truth about. Okay? We're we're this is what we're going to do together. So, don't be afraid like, "Oh, no. I'm going to have to tell the worst things in my life to my group." That's that's not helpful. We don't need to know that stuff. What we need to know is what is it that you actually believe way down here in your heart about yourself? We're going to start with that.

So when Jesus sends out the 12 and the 70 and he says go out and find the people of peace, this is what he means. In the Arabic world and in the Hebrew world, like in the Middle East where we worked, if you say assalamlaykum to a person, you're saying, "I'm offering you my peace." And they can say, "I receive your peace." Or they won't respond to you, which means I don't receive your peace, which means walk away. So Jesus is sending his people out and he's saying, "Offer your peace to people and if they receive it, stay with them. When you're with them, heal their sicknesses and diseases, cast out their demons, and teach them about the kingdom." Do that. If they don't receive your peace, what should you do? Walk away. That's nice and simple, isn't it? I like to offer you my peace. I don't want it. Okay, I'm going to figure out nine ways to get you wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. And you come back to Jesus. Well, he had to go. Well, we had this one guy, man. He was not receive our peace. But we wrote a book on how to beat these guys. We made a movie about it, too. We'll get him. Jesus like, "Wait, you mean you just disobeyed what I told you to do?" Like Jesus like, "Oh, that's awesome. I wouldn't have thought of that." It's like, "You didn't do what I told I didn't tell you to do that. I didn't tell you start a war with them, did I?" I said, 'If they receive your peace, stay with them, and if they don't, walk away. Whose responsibility is this thing? Is it on you to convince everybody? Wow, that's hard. Or do you have the ability to respond with Jesus when he says, "Let's talk to this guy." So much better. So truth tellers are people of peace. That's how we decide when we're talking to people.

Anyone? I was talking to the my Uber driver this morning at 3:00 a.m. and uh all I want to know is how much truth will this guy tell me when I ask him a question. Here's my question to him. Hey, how long you he was from uh Somalia. I said, "Oh, are you Muslim?" "Yeah, he he looks back at me like older white guy, huh?" Offering me his peace. He goes, "Ah, good. Now, let's get to your sicknesses and diseases." That's the next step, doesn't it? How do I know what dis what's the disease in this guy? Disease. Sickness is physical. Disease is interior. Disease. What's producing disease in you? So, I ask him like, "How long you been in the US?" He tells me. I go, "What are you mo what's what's the what are you most afraid of here? What are you afraid of?" because whatever he's afraid of is where the disease is in him. Because perfect love casts out all fear. And if God loves you like he says he does, then you should have no fear. So what does it mean if we have fear? We don't believe he really loves us. That's what that means. Not really. Not in every situation. Not all the time. So I I asked him that. He tells me. And as long as he would tell me the truth about what was in his heart, I just chased him. I just went with him. We had this amazing [laughter] conversation. Um, he invited me over for dinner. This is how complicated it is to talk to Muslims in your community. By the way, he knows I'm a Christian. He asked me right away, "Are you a Muslim because you saidalam alalaykum?" I said, "No, no, no, no. I'm a follower of Jesus." Yeah. Good. Okay. Well, let's keep going like that. Like that.

So, identity. Identity. Okay. This is the definition of identity I want you to remember for the next the rest of your life. For the next rest of your life. Okay, this is really important. So the biblical definition of identity versus the world's definition of identity because Satan, listen carefully. Satan cannot create. Oh, we got to pay attention to what the Bible says. Satan cannot He's not a creator. You are. He's not. Demons are not. Angels are not. You are God is. We can create. We can't create from nothing, but we can create. Satan's not a creator. He's an imitator. All he can do is imitate. So, he's a counterfeiter. So, what Satan does is takes something that's very valuable because counterfeits only counterfeit really valuable things. and he he takes something very valuable and he counterfeits it so that either we misuse it as believers or we throw away the real one. Oh, I wish we had a whole day to talk about that strategy. We have lost so many words because Satan comes and counterfeits them and then we won't use them anymore. Oh, that's a new age word. What does that mean? What is the new age? Is that a person? Like the new age got that word? Where are they? Like we're just give words away. We can't use that anymore. Why? They have it now. Who them? Like we don't even know who it is. That's how deceived we are. And we can't celebrate that day anymore. Why? Because evil people do it. Oh, evil people go to football games. Oh, that's okay. You know, like, oh. Oh, okay. That's clear. [snorts] But we can't. So this word identity, believers are throwing this word away because the enemy has counterfeited it and we're afraid of it. Now that's how he does it. Oh, it's so frustrating.

So here's biblical identity. Identity is received. Key word received in community. Stay with me on this part. through the imagination. Define that word for you. We've lost that word, too. From God. Identity is received in community through the imagination from God. Now, that's not my definition. That's Tim Keller's definition. So, I was surprised to hear him say that, but that's his definition. And I think it's exactly right. He's exactly right. speaking at Weaton last year on identity. Okay, that's God. So, so the idea when, okay, think of this. Jesus when he comes on the scene, right, he gets baptized, comes up out of the water, and he's given his identity by God, right? What's Jesus's identity? Son. That's it. This is my beloved son in whom I'm pleased. The beloved pleased son. That's Jesus's identity from [snorts] God. He receives it in community through imagination means through the intuitive. It's like not a rational like hm I'm going to take a test and see what my identity is. It's received through the intuitive mind through like wow what is God? Prayer isn't prayer is not magic superstitious Harry Potter. Prayer is use of the intuitive mind like every inventor and creator has ever ever invented or created anything in the world is done through the imagination first brought down into the rational. That's what it is. So prayer is accessing the intuitive mind which is absolutely the right thing to do. Here's a little quote about that just to show you. I think I have this. The intuitive, this is Albert Einstein, the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. That's what happens when you try and use apologetics and palemics to explain God to somebody. You're using the rational mind and making the more powerful intuitive mind some kind of slave. Um, all human knowledge thus begins with intuitions, proceeds then to concepts, and ends up with rational ideas. That's the process of all humans thinking of new things. That and you know where we know that from the Bible. That's what prayer is. We've lost it. We've lost track of these words.

So, [snorts] here's what the the world says identity is. identity is selfgenerated and subjective. That's what the that's what and it's called radical individualism. Radical individualism is just me waking up going you know what I am and just telling the world what I am and saying I don't care what you think about it. I don't care if you affirm it or not. I'm being that thing. [snorts] And when I do that I cause separation. That produces separation. That's what it does. Does everyone understand that if I walk into this room and go, "Hey, oh, so the Seattle Seahawks are playing the Dallas Cowboys Saturday." If I walk into this room and I'm in Seattle and I go, "I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. That's my identity." What am I doing? I'm producing conflict in the room. That's all I'm doing. If I just wear a Dallas Cowboys jersey, I'm just saying, "Look, if you're not on this team, you're not on my team." Do you know how often we do that in a day? All day long. That's what our whole country is doing right now. Everyone's just announcing what team they're on and we're against you. And the way we're going to Matt and I were talking about this in the back. We're going to beat you. That's what we're going to do. We're going to beat you. Is that what Jesus said to do? Go out and beat the other teams, man. So, that's counterfeit. That's false radical individualism. I'm generating my own identity within myself. It's subjective and it causes conflict inside of myself. That's what it does. All right, we can talk more about identity later.

So, what we're going to do right now is we're going to walk through the identity process together. Okay, so in your groups, we're going to do this and I'm going to walk you through it because we're going to be done here right on time at 10 and I'm going to walk you through it. What I all I want you to do is tell the truth, not to me to God. I just want you to tell the truth. Just speak the truth. Don't be afraid of what's true. Okay? Um, because perfect love takes away that fear. He loves you. God loves you. He already knows everything about you. You're not going to tell him anything. He goes, "I thought so." He's not going to do that to you. I always wondered about you on that one. Like he already knows. So the joke, the deception is that you think he doesn't know. That's the funny thing. The person that doesn't know is you, actually. So we're going to trutht tell and we're going to walk through false identity into true identity. Okay. Doesn't that sound fun? Great. You look excited. Great. Uh, and then I'll tell you the actual murder story and what happened. No, I won't. [laughter] Yeah. Oh, that's in the later session. That's right. There is a midnight session. Yeah. No, just kidding. All right.

Okay, now, listen. When you access the intuitive mind, i.e. pray, the reason I'm saying access the intuitive mind is because when I'm talking to my friends who aren't Christian, this is how we talk about prayer. Let's use our intuitive minds. That's how we talk to them. Okay? Everyone's no one's we call them mental experiments. whatever you want to call it because because Jesus isn't an animistic God where you have to use special sacred words to get him to do stuff. He has other words about praying besides the word prayer. He didn't say prayer. God can't work unless you say P A R Y. But God's not limited to English for one thing, you know, or one word. Either God is every word there ever was said or you can't even say what he is. But he's never ate English words [snorts] ever. Right. Ah boy, we got to get off this. So So the intuitive mind. So we're going to access the intuitive mind. We're going to pray. So we're together. We speak Christian language. So I can use that language with most of you. You get it. If you don't, it's actually the intuitive mind. We're going to go transrational up into the intuitive to things that we believe but we don't know exactly yet how all science works. In order to do this well, we have to do a couple of things. Number one, we have to bind our mind to the mind of Christ. [snorts] Number two, we have to shut down the voice that's been telling you what to do. your entire life every day. That voice, the voice that accuses and deceives you every day. That voice is so familiar, we can't even tell anymore what's true and not true. So, we're going to shut that one down and listen to the silence when that voice shuts up. And then we're going to listen to the other voice that's also been there all along. The problem is that when this voice talks, the voice of the enemy, what this voice says takes no faith to believe. When the enemy whispers in your ear, this is what he says to you. You know, you're hypocritical. You know that, don't you? Do you know? You know, you're not going to make it. You know that you're not really good enough to do this. You know that, don't you? That voice, that voice, you didn't share your faith enough. How many times they shared their faith a bunch of times? Did you hear that podcast? Those guys are walking through Walmart healing people. You're not that voice. That's what you would be doing if you really believed that voice. That's the voice of the enemy. And it takes no faith to agree with that nonsense. I know. I know. I know. Like when the enemy says, you know, you're a bad husband. I'm like, I know. I know. You know, you're you read that book on Christian parenting? You're worse than anything they've ever seen. Like, I know. I hope that book made you feel bad. It did. That's what Christian books are for. [laughter] Those like me and my wife went to one marriage conference and fought the whole time. Okay. So, that didn't work. Uh, so that voice you got to but the voice of the spirit of God, this is what this voice says to you. And the problem with this voice is everything it says is hard to believe. You're the best father. Really? Were you here today? Like, yeah. I'm so proud of you. Really? Like, you're an idiot. I know. I'm staying with this voice. Boys is a lot more verifiable than that. And then this voice is like, I'm so proud of you. Yeah, but I totally failed. I know. Beautiful. Well done. Nobody's filled with that kind of finesse. It's unbelievable how well you fell down on that one. Good. Let's do it again. Come on. Let's do it again. That voice is like, you know. Yeah. So, this the voice of the spirit is it takes faith to believe it. It says things that are too high about you. And this voice is like, "Yeah, I know. I know. Yep. Yep. You don't even have to say it. I already know I'm a loser. I get it. I get it. I get it. And when we listen to this voice, we separate from this voice called sin. We sin. We step away from our true identity with God and we sin. He's not gone anywhere, but we act like, "Ah, well, I'm like this. He's right here with us, but like boy, wow, he's right here." Hey, come on. Come on. Let's come. [clears throat] Come back. Come on. Like that. He's pursuing you. So, we're going to So, again, when you're [clears throat] praying with people, and we'll talk strategically when you're sharing your faith, how to do this with a person, another person that's not a believer. So much fun. I love this stuff. And so, so number one, you're shutting down the enemy and you're going to appeal to the truth in the intuitive mind. So, one other thing about shutting down the enemy. So, when I was a police officer, I learned um that if you that you can shut down the enemy in rooms, you know, yeah, you probably know this stuff, but it actually works. So, like we would go into these fights, you know, there'd be a fight in a room and I the only way you can do this is practice. You just try. So, I was in a room with a big fight going on. I was like, you don't have to yell because Satan can hear you whisper, but he can't read your mind. So, you got to say it out loud. It's important little scriptural thing there. And so you just I just said, "Okay, all right. Okay. First of all, in the name of Jesus, I just command the enemy to shut up." And I mean, the room went quiet. And I was like, "My gosh." So half the conflict in the room was spiritual. And you are the kingdom of God. BUT YOU don't believe it. Do you have the authority to shut down the enemy in places? Where the light shines, the darkness can't win. Do you not believe that stuff? And so then I real and I just kept experimenting with it. Like how soft can I say this? Be quiet. They did it. And so then I started training rookie officers. You want to win a young police officer to Christ? I go, we'd be walking into a fight and I go, "Wait, hey, wait. Let me show you something. Don't sh wait before we go and stuff." They're fighting. I know. Wait, watch this. Watch this. And I don't let him hear what I say. I just kind of make a motion, you know, make it more dramatic like what? Watch this. In the name of Jesus, be it gets quiet. He's like, "What did you do? How did you do that?" I'm like, "Oh, well, do you want to be able to police like that?" Yes. Well, you got to be in the kingdom. Okay. That's what they say. Okay. All right. Well, I'll have to show you how to do it from the Bible. Uh, yeah, uh, we can see that you can do it. Okay. Okay. Isn't that better than let me explain prayer to you like that? Just do it. Show it. So then then people rookies when they would, you know, get cut loose and they'd be working a case with another officer from another squad and they go into a domestic dispute go wait a second. And it gets squad they go, "Were you trained by Jamie? Did he train you?" That's what he does with his rookies. He does that. That's how the kingdom spreads. That That's how it spreads, right? So fun. So beautiful. And [snorts] then your sergeant co said, "Don't do that anymore." And then that's a different battle. But uh Okay.

So here's what we're going to do. So we're going to do that. Okay. So first thing we're going to do, I'm going to do this. I want you to feel what happens when we do this together. And then when we get to that quiet space, I'm going to ask the Lord a very specific question. So imagine that Jesus is with us, sitting next to you, and you're just looking right at him. And you're going to ask, we're going to ask him a question right to his face because he is sitting right here. He is here. He's right here. He's right here. He's closer than right here. He's right here. That's how he doesn't even have to say it. He You can feel it. That's how close he is to us now. That's why he said it's better that I leave because if I don't leave, I'll just be standing here. But if I leave, I end up here. Wow. Amazing. It's like Tolken. Oh, no. Tolken got it from him. Oh, yeah. That's right. Okay. Okay. All right. Here we go. Ready? Okay. The question I'm going to ask Jesus is about your and my false identity. Okay. That's the question I'm going to ask him. Here we go. So, Father, thank you for the people in this room. Lord, the people in this room, you knit together in their mother's womb. You did it. You're the only one that can do it. You decide where people are born. You determine families and places and all of that. You do it. This is what we believe. I confess that I believe this. That you knit each one of us together in our mother's womb. And when you did, you gave us identity, unique identity. The [snorts] Apostle Paul says, "In my mother's womb, I was called to the Gentiles." Not later in my life. In my mother's womb, but later in my life, I discovered it. He said, "So Lord, you knit me together in my mother's womb and you gave me identity. And this is what we're appealing to right now, Lord." So Lord, right now, would you and and if if this is new to you, just just try and go with it. Just think of it as an experiment. See what happens. Lord, would you bind my mind to your mind? Think of binding your mind to something greater than your own perspective of things which is so limited and puny. God, bind my mind to you, to your mind, the mind of Christ, and bind my heart to your heart. Not my little cold, bitter, decepted heart. Your heart. Expand me right now, Lord. take me up and out of my little frightened little limited world to all these incredible things that you have for us to do and be that we'll never know on our own. So Lord, bind my mind to your mind and bind my heart to your heart and my spirit to your spirit so that we are one, Lord, that we are one because it's by grace we have been saved through faith and not of ourselves. It's a gift of God, not of works. That none of us can brag about being spiritual. We can only receive this from you. So bind us with you, Lord, we pray. And Lord, as you do that, as you fill my mind as we boldly approach your throne of grace in time of need, because you invited us there, we're not trying to work our way there. You asked us to come and so here we are right in your presence. By your invitation, you opened the way through the cross. Here we are. We're grateful. We don't get it all, but we're here. We want to learn. So Lord, standing in this place with you in this space with you. Lord, would you shut down the enemy in my mind? Lord, would you shut down that accusing, deceptive, fear, guilt, and shame voice that's always chattering in my mind? We say, "The Lord rebuke you, Satan, in the name of Jesus. The Lord himself rebukes you in the name of Jesus." And that as we submit to you, God, and then resist, not just resist, submit to you and then resist, the enemy has to go. That's the rule. It's not by our strength. It's not by our willpower. It's by submitting to you. And in the submission is resistance to the enemy. And so we say, Satan, be gone. Shut up. Be muzzled in the name of Jesus. Stop talking, Lord. We just want to hear what you say. Just you. What do you say? We want to hear the truth. We want to live in truth. Truth is the only thing that sets us free. So Lord, right now I just want to ask you a question, Lord. Just write to you and and this is the question. Just ask. Just be as honest as you can. Lord, what are the names that I call myself? What are the names that I call myself that I believe about myself that are not from you? And if you have a piece of paper, you can write it down, but we're not going to keep it. But it's I want you to somehow you don't have to shout it out, but I want you to acknowledge it. Say the truth. This is what I call myself. These are words or identities that I say about myself that I know are not from God. They're from the world. They're from the enemy. They're from me and they hurt me. But these are things I believe about myself that are not from you, Lord. But Lord, would you search me and would you know me and would you help me tell the truth about what I really believe about myself that's not from you? Just let those words come to your mind. Don't dig for them. Just let them come up. We [snorts] all know things that lead us into discouragement and depression and fear. What are those names, those identities that you call yourself that that you learned from somewhere else that aren't from God? What are they? Let them come out. This is confession. Just let those identities or words or descriptors come out. Just whisper them just in acknowledgement to the Lord that you aren't going to tell the truth about these words. I'm not good enough. I I'm lazy. I'm whatever. I don't like the way I look. I whatever. Say them. Tell the truth. Let's get rid of this stuff. Just let them come out in a in a smaller group. We would write them down in our teams. We do this every week together until there are no more false names, till they're no longer there. But you got to start somewhere. Lord, what are the names I believe about myself or I call myself that are not from you? Let them come out. Okay. Now, when you're finished that, this is what I want you to do. I want you to fix your eyes on Jesus. This is what the scriptures say. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith. We fix our eyes on Jesus because we can't see God. He's beyond that. So, we have the image of Jesus is the exact representation of the invisible God. So, we fix our eyes on Jesus. I want you to look at Jesus and however you see him. Lord, would you just sanctify our minds? Lord, would you protect our imagination and aim it at you? The ability to image things is a beautiful, powerful, creative gift stolen by the enemy to predict failure. Lord, we fix our imagination on you because we trust in you. Lord, would you show me a picture of Jesus before me? Just however it comes to you. It doesn't matter. Just look at Jesus in front of you, however you see him. And I want you to do this. I want you to hand the names that you said or wrote down or think about. Hand them to Jesus. Hand them to him. Give them to him. Just picture that in your mind. You're handing them to Jesus. Okay? And I want you to watch what Jesus does with your list. Watch what he does with them. Hand them to him and watch what he does with them. Okay. Now, in your group, I want you to do this just and we're only telling the truth. We're not trying to impress anybody. Just telling the truth. I want you to take I want you just to say out loud in your group, tell everyone in your group what you saw Jesus do with the list or the names that you gave them. Tell your group what you imaged or saw Jesus do with the list when you handed it to him. Just briefly, just say it. Everyone in the group start. If you got a group leader, group leader start. If you didn't say anything and we're truthtelling, here's what you say. I didn't see anything. That's what you say. We don't care. We just want to tell the truth. If you didn't see anything, I'm I'll talk with you when we're done here. Well, that's perfectly normal. Okay. But if you saw something, I want you to say to the group what you saw. Ready? Go. question like [laughter] a background. Make sure everybody participates. You all done? >> Okay. Who's done? >> All right. Almost. Make sure everyone says Okay, we done. Okay, let me just ask this question. Did anybody see Jesus take the list and start going through it and going over each false name with you and talking to you about it? Anybody see that? No. No. We have done this in groups around the world with believers, unbelievers, mo you, whatever it is. Nobody ever sees Jesus take the list and go, "Yeah, I know. Never." How many of you saw Jesus somehow just get rid of the list in whatever way he did it? Just he just got rid of it in some form or fashion. Pretty much everybody, right? Okay. Why do you think Jesus does that? Why doesn't he look at it and discuss it with you and point things out to you? Why not? >> Right? Because it's not real. It's not there. It doesn't exist. It's all a deception in your mind that you and I make true. And when we believe it, we separate ourselves from the God who calls us by the name that's real. We separate from him and we separate from ourselves. That's called sin. And the wages of that is death. And whatever you do in that separate state will hurt you. Whatever it is, I know workaholics. I know guys that are in the gym every day because they're separate from their self and they hate themselves and they're going to work it out and no one Oh, they're like, "You're so disciplined. You're sick. You're ill. You're so successful at your job. You're sick. Workcohol is all these things. They're just trying. You're separate from yourself. There is no joy there because you're separate from God. That's what sin is. It's separation because Jesus is about reconciliation, bringing things together. The enemy is about separating things, right? Okay, here we go. One more thing and then we're done. Okay. Um, once you've confessed, never, never, never stop there. Ever. Once you empty the house or say the truth, God, this is what I really believe about myself right now. I feel like I'm just a complete idiot. I look so stupid in front of these people. This is what I believe to be true about myself right now. That's beautiful confession. Say it. Don't apologize for it. Say it. Confession. You're sweeping the house clean. But Jesus said, if you sweep the house clean and don't fill it, what happens? It comes back stronger because you puke it out. Oh, I feel better. I said it. And then you leave and it all comes back Monday. And then you become really discouraged like I confessed. But don't stop at saying what you believe about yourself that's false. You have to exchange it for what's true to fill the space. So now you have this empty space here. So let's ask Jesus to fill it. Here we go. Ready? Let's pray together back into the intuitive. Okay. You gave those names to Jesus. So just go back in that picture in your mind. Lord would you just show us again? We hand these false identities, these lies to you. [snorts] We confess them to you. Now, Lord, is an act of repentance and an act of mind change. I want you to ask Jesus this question, Lord Jesus. What do you call me? Ask him what he calls you. Ask him what he calls you. And the very first thing that comes into your mind, I want you just to grab hold of it. Okay? Just look Jesus in. Say, "Lord Jesus, what do you call me? How do you refer to me? What do you think about me?" Just ask him what he wants you to know to fill this space that's been filled with all this false stuff about yourself. Lord, what do you call me? Okay. Whatever he calls you, say yes. I receive it in the name of Jesus. Tell him yes. Yes. Yes. It's an act of faith. You'll learn to know it's true. But right now, just say yes. Whatever he calls you, say yes to it. Or whatever he wants you to know, just say yes. Receive. Yeah. He thinks so highly of you. Yeah. Now you can keep pursuing that in Jesus name. Amen. When you do that later, when you get a chance, ask him, "Lord, what do you want me to know about what you said?" Just keep asking him. Just like you're walking with him and he goes, "I'm so proud OF YOU." SAY, "WHY are you proud of me? What are you proud about?" He wants to tell you. He wants you to receive from him all the time. What he thinks about you, not what the enemy thinks about you, not what other people think about you. What does he think about you? And you learn to live in that love. The shadow it's called actually the glow the penumbra of the presence of God surrounds you and your identity comes from that and not from what people think about you what you have and what you do. This beautiful identity that he died to give you. Okay, here's why that's so important. Because when you're communicating with the Lord, he will only speak to your true identity. He can't speak to a false one. It'll change your entire prayer life when you realize this. If you come to God, oh God, I'm such a sinner. He's like, who's talking? Who's talking? Who's talking? It's Gideon. It's Gideon. Get Where's my mighty man of valor? Where is he? Where is he? I'm just a coward. Where? I'm not talking to you. Where's my mighty man of I don't make cowards. I only make men of valor. Where's my man of valor? You. Why is my man of valor hiding in a cave? I don't get this. He's not a coward hiding in a cave. He's a man of valor hiding in a cave. That's what's wrong with it. Cowards should hide in caves, but God doesn't make cowards. Cowards are from lies. Can conquerors fall? Yes, they can. But Jesus will always lift them back up. Can victims ever get back up? No, because God doesn't make victims. You come to him like a victim, he's going to say, "Who's talking to me? Who's talking to me? I don't make victims." Jesus was never a victim. Even though they killed him, he was never a victim. He was the conquering king, laying down his own life. Never a victim. The enemy is like, "You're a victim. You can't win. I'm so sorry. You're going to lose. We never lose. We never die."

Tomorrow when we get together, we're gonna dig down into this identity. Because when you understand identity, the doors that will open in front of you because God can't lead Gideon until he knows his own identity. Once Gideon knows it, God's like, "Let's go. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Man of valor. Here we go." One guy. That's all he needs. One person in their right identity. Not a bunch of people sit around commiserating how it's all such a struggle and a battle. That's not right. You are more than conquerors and nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Go win this thing. Go. Go. Father, thank you for these people. Lord, would you just be with us tonight? Jesus, as we understand identity that you gave us and we stand righteous, upright in it. And [snorts] tomorrow we start to think about what does it look like to walk upright in my true identity. What happens? It makes the whole Bible jump to life. jump to life because this is real stuff. This isn't a dream where this is real stuff and it can be and has been lived out. It can be done and this place can be transformed with the people in this room as we are being transformed. Lord, it's not hype. We don't need hype. We don't need candles and all that stuff. We just need truth and we can do this and I'm excited about it. And when you come and say, "Hey, can you go talk in a nightclub full of drunk people?" Our answer is, "Oh, we would love to do that. We would love to do that in Jesus name."