The Truth About Human Nature: Flawed but Redeemed

TRANSCRIPT

 I have been looking forward to, uh, beginning this, this series called The Ripple Effect, uh, because I think it's gonna take us back to the basics of something that we have forgotten, and pretty much everybody has forgotten, and it, it's getting back to what is our, what is our fatal flaw. So, in order to grasp this ripple effect, we're going to have to go back, and we're going to have to look at a bit of a document that's several thousand years old, and God inspired some guy to write some things down so that we would understand the very, very beginnings.

Now, the document, of course, is the book of Genesis, if you know anything about your Bible. Uh, it's, uh, authorship is accredited to Moses, which incredibly looks a little bit like Charlton Heston, if you want to put that photo up. That photo, there it is. I didn't know that Charlton Heston was back there, but, uh, that's of course not really Moses, in case you think that's Moses, that's not, that's, that's an actor, that's the movie Ten Commandments, you know, like, let my people go, or that kind of thing, you know.

So anyway, that is the fatal, we want to get to this fatal flaw, this ripple effect. Now, let's talk a little bit about ripples. Ripples come from one of two places. They either come from outside, from above, and they penetrate the surface, and that causes a ripple. That could be raindrops, it could be leaves, it could be stones, it could be human beings just leaping into the water, and that causes a ripple.

Or, the ripples can come from below. They can come from underneath, sometimes with, uh, shallow swimming marine life or underwater plants and tides and currents that can cause that, or it can go down even lower to thermal activity and to underwater springs, and of course we've all seen what happens if there's actually a shift in the tectonic plates and you get an earthquake underwater.

It can create a massive amount of power coming from underneath. So you have above. external influences that cause ripples, or you have below internal influences that can cause ripples. So my hope is that over this series we're going to discover where the first ripple started, where a second ripple started, and what was the consequences of that immediately taking place.

So the, the, the imagery behind the ripple effect is this. It's the mystery of expanding influence of your life, either for positive or for negative. So let's get, let's dive straight into this document. Genesis, and if you're gonna do, you gotta do what it says to do in the Sound of Music. Start at the beginning, very beginning.

I'm not gonna sing it, don't worry about that. Genesis 1 1, it says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So God is making a statement here. Now keep this in mind, when he was making this kind of statement in the beginning, well that's even before any human beings began. So he's not writing, Genesis is not a workbook on how this world was created or anything about it.

It is a thesis statement. God is saying, in the beginning, I created the heavens and the earth. So what is he saying to us as human beings? Don't waste a lot of time and energy trying to figure this thing out. It's all me. It's just all me. I'm the author. I'm the creator of everything. That is where it is starting.

And then he goes through six days and then there's light and then there's sky and then there's dry land and vegetation, sun, moon, stars, land, sea creatures. And after every time and every day he says, Hmm, it is good. It was good. Each time it's good. But then at the very end of that process, he creates the masterpiece to rule his creation.

His masterpiece. Someone in his image and in his likeness that's gonna work with him and rule and reign over this creation that he's got. So we pick that up in verse 27 of Genesis chapter 1. That's what it says. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.

Wow, okay. So this is interesting. He's saying you don't fully get an expression of the image of God without the combination of male and female. And you can see this in any way you want to look. You have a worksite full of all men, it's not a great representation of God. You get all women, it's not a great representation of God.

It doesn't work that way, it's only in collaboration that these two together will bear the image of God. So this creation continued to be ruled and reigned by, alongside him with these wonderful people. But then he did that, once he created them, he doesn't go, oh it was good, he goes, it is very good. He said, it's very good now.

So, Adam is the first one to be created. I mean, and that's because he had some work to do. So, um, let's have a look at it. 2 7, the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He breathed into him. Now, scientists know that our bodies, they're made of just a bunch of elements.

You're nothing but a big pile of dirt. That's all you are. That's why people say at funerals, Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, where you come you go unto, that's it, they know that, that's what it is. What makes the difference for Adam, God breathed into him the breath of life. He had the breath of life and this bunch of dirt came to life.

Now, Adam had a busy time ahead of him. So he had to actually, and you can read this Genesis 1, 2, 3, this ancient document, you can read this for yourself. He had to name all the animals, for starters. Now, I don't know about you, but I reckon that's going to take a while. I reckon it's going to take a while to name all the animals, and particularly, I don't know whether he, like, had indecision or anything like that.

Like, if, if God was asking me, well, what are you going to do with this animal? I don't know, big pointy nose, long thing with a big back. And Adam goes, I'll call that a rhino. Rhinoceros for you kids, you know. But he had to name all of the animals. This is going to take a while. He's also got to work and build a garden before his bride turns up.

But something else happened in this phase. And God set the parameters of the relationship between him and Adam. And this is what he said to him. The Lord God took the man and put him to work in the garden to tend it and to keep it. Then the Lord, what'd he do? Commanded Adam. Not a request, not a suggestion.

This is a command, Adam. This is it, right? So the nature of our relationships, we're not equal. We're not co equals here. I am still God. I am bigger than you, smarter than you, I created you. There is a dynamic and there is a There is a way this relationship is going to work. So, of every tree in the system, every tree in the garden, you can freely eat.

So I can eat of every tree. Awesome. Great. What else? But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. So he's saying to Adam, It's not, this is not complex ethics. He's like, here it is. You can eat of everything, just don't touch that one. Just don't touch that one. Now isn't that an interesting human thing that we have?

You can have whatever you want, but you can't have that. And what do you want? I want that. It's an interesting thing. The very thing you told you can't have, you somehow want. But then he goes on, For the day you eat of it, you will surely die. You will surely die. This is not hard. And I don't think God's being unreasonable.

One tree? You can have the rest. But he's testing Adam to see how he will respond. See whether he'll work with him. Now the Ike got a lot of grace for Adam. Because he said, In the day you eat of it you will surely die. He was crowded out of dirt. He's never experienced death. He doesn't know. He's probably going, Death is another part of creation.

This is going to be awesome. I wonder what death is. He's got no concept. But shortly, shortly he's going to be very, very clear about what death is and it's not going to be very, very pleasant. In fact, it's going to be extremely bad. So now we reach the place where God says, I need to finish this masterpiece off.

I've got to finish this masterpiece. So, uh, he puts Adam to sleep. Which wouldn't have been hard, I mean if he's named all the animals and made the garden, the guy's knackered, he probably just fell asleep. You know, like, he's completely stuffed. And he says, I'll just pull a rib out of him, and I'll go and I'll create woman.

And it says, then God brought the woman to Adam. I don't know how he woke him up, but it was like, Hello, Adam, Adam, get up! I don't know what it was, but suddenly he woke up. And he goes, Holy shnikes! No, he didn't do that. He goes, Wow! That's not in the original text either. I inserted that. Um, he said, This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.

She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. So, wow. And it goes on. Therefore, the man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And they shall become one flesh. Here you see God. Once again, he's defining the parameters of relationship, first for Adam, and now how it's going to be here, he says, he's performing the first wedding in the garden.

First marriage, and he's saying, this is the context of how this is going to work well. And so they would have been so blessed and there was such humility and such trust going on between them and God. He's the provider, they're the receiver. This is amazing. And they'll work with God and paradise, the garden will grow and eventually fill the whole earth.

And they would live forever, ever. Why? Because in the middle, very middle, was this thing called the tree of life. And the tree of life was the medium by which they're partaking of it. They would live forever. They would receive this eternal life. This is the, this is kind of like the fountain of the eternal spirit, the creator of the heavens and the earth.

That is coming through this tree. So they had eternal life. So a ripple of eternity had begun. That is the first ripple. The ripple of eternal life coming through the tree of life. However, this euphoric state would not last all that long because God gave human beings something called a free will. He gave them a free will.

Which means there is the potential that they could say, I don't want to work with you and go somewhere else. So, but that's what it's got to be. If you can't force love, love is a free will thing. You cannot make someone love you. Then it's not love. It's not a relationship. So he gives them the gift, the free will and Adam and Eve are manipulated by an external source that saw paradise lost.

Everything came crashing down in this moment. And a ripple ceased. So here's what I want you to do. I'm going to ask Anita to come down. We're going to read, she's going to read the whole of chapter 3 of Genesis. She's going to read it and I'm just going to interject a little bit. He's going to interrupt really.

He just wanted a different voice, didn't you? Because it's a long Cause it's long. I just thought it'd be good. Cause then I can just, cause if I get another thought, then I can just sort of like, Interrupt. Yeah, so. I promise I won't, I won't do too much. Okay. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.

Alright, let's just stop right there. One sentence everyone, one sentence. Let's just, let's just stop right there. So, now think about this. So, the serpent is in the garden. God has made him. Let's get the elephant out of the room. Where on earth did he come from? Where did he come from? And what's he doing in the garden?

I thought we're making this perfect creation. What's he doing there? Well, it's a big, big journey but I'm gonna try and wrap it up in a couple of sentences. Essentially there are other ancient documents within the Bible that talk about things pertaining to this serpent, which most theologians agree on, they feel like this serpent was once an angel in heaven called Lucifer.

And Lucifer had a lot of influence in heaven. And the angels adored him because he adored God. And so he was very influential. But somewhere in the middle of this, Lucifer then became very proud. And he felt like, I don't, I don't, I feel like you guys should be just worshipping me and not be worshipping God.

And I feel, I don't know, I, I think I could do a better job. I think I could do a better job than what you're doing, so I, I think that's what it is. We never hear that, of course, in the workplace anyway. But we, you know, I think I can do a better job. So the seeds of this sin in heaven is going on. And then he decides to action it.

He organises a mutiny. He thinks that he can actually defeat God. How stupid is that? That's like me building a guitar there. I've just built it. I've just created you and the guitar thinks I know what I think I could take him on and overthrow and build my own guitar. It's stupid. A created thing cannot take on and beat that which it was created by.

But he does it and there's a massive mutiny in heaven and he loses his position and he's cast out along with a third of the angels. And when they're cast out, they're cast out to earth. Hmm. So, if this is the case, he was there before any of this. So he's already there. Because he lost his position in heaven with a line or third of the angels.

And now, Anita's gonna keep reading and I won't interrupt, I'll try not to. But you're gonna see him do , the same kind of tactic he did in heaven that lost him his position.

He said to the woman, did God really say that you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman said to the serpent, we may not eat from the trees in the garden, but God did say, you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must not touch it or you will die. You will not certainly die, the serpent said to the woman, for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

He's twisting things. When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to man, where are you? He answered, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. Isn't that the scripture? Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? The woman said, The serpent deceived me and I ate.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, Curse to you above all livestock and all wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity, I can never say that word, enmity, between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman, he said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe. With painful labour you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. To Adam, he said, because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it.

Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground. Since from it you were taken, for dust you are, and dust you will return, and to dust you will return.

Adam named his wife Eve, because she would come, become the mother of all things living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever.

So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove man out he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden the cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life. You didn't interrupt. Good job.

You were doing such a good job. I was mesmerized. I hope you listened to that and I want you to go home and read that because Every issue we struggle with as human beings, thank you, Anita, finds its roots in that chapter.

Here's how it went, and it's the same today. They were listening to an external voice that perpetuated the lie that life could be better without God. Life will be so much better if you just decide for yourself what's right and wrong. God is holding out on you. He doesn't have your best interest at heart.

And so they abandoned the worship and the rule of God in their life for self rule and for self governance. And the results were catastrophic and they were instantaneous. Listen to some of the things that happened through there. As soon as their eyes were open, they felt shame. They realized that they were naked and they needed to cover up.

They had no concept for that. The knowledge of good and evil. Fear. Suddenly, the very God that they had walked with in the garden, enjoying fellowship the whole time, they're now hiding from him. And they're now frightened from him. And of course when he comes to actually ask the question, Did you eat from the tree?

I command you not to eat. Well then the blame game starts. Well this woman that you gave me. But he's not really blaming the woman. Who gave it? God this is your fault. This is your fault God. But then he goes to the woman. And she says, Well it was the serpent. It was the serpent. That's, he's the one, he deceived me.

And by the way, you made him. So it's actually your fault, God. Isn't it amazing how everything that goes wrong goes bad, somehow it's always God's fault. The only thing I love about this is the only person that's not trying to get out of the thing is the serpent. He's just there smiling. I reckon the little bit just looked at him and go, That's what I do, man.

I did it over there, I'm going to do it down here. Do you think it's going to be any different? He's actually taking responsibility. He's not trying to get out of it. But the, the, the consequences are swift. And that whole thing about, You'll bruise the heel of humanity and bruise the heel of the Savior, but He'll take your head.

That's imagery gonna, gonna happen in about 4, 000 years time. That's gonna take place when Jesus will go to the cross and will disarm Satan and take his authority, take his head. Eve immediately. She's now got to have painful childbirth. All of you should be lining up to talk to Adam, when you get into heaven.

I want to talk to you about that Adam, because this is real not funny. But the other thing is, did you notice it? The dynamic was, the two would be one before God, and he would be ruler. But it switches now, unfortunately, your husband is going to rule over you. It's going to be a battle now in your relationship for control.

Because God's no longer in control of everything. So now you're gonna battle it out. And I cannot tell you, that is the seed of every marital dysfunction I ever have to deal with. What's the problem? I got my rights, I want this, I got this, and I want that, and this, and you should do that, and I shouldn't do this.

What if you just laid down your lives for each other? Just loved each other, and let God be in charge. Heaven forbid we're not doing that. Let's go to a 100 an hour. Adam, of course, he has to now work the land. The land is not going to work nicely for him and it's going to be very, very difficult. It wasn't even good for the animals.

Up until then, they were living happily. God has to actually kill animals to create clothing for them, but the shedding of blood would be covering their sins. Wouldn't take it away, but it just covers it for now. And that'll be a system that they'll go on with for a few thousand years. Until Jesus comes.

And Jesus is referred to, John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. This is where this comes from, it's right back here in the garden, saying, hey listen, he's gonna come. There'll be one sacrifice, the one shedding of blood, for all who want to get free from sin. All that want to get back, it's amazing.

It's amazing. The destruction was just so bad and if you think that's our fatal flaw there but if you think it can't get any worse it actually can. It's kind of like the next statement God does is kind of like the nail in the proverbial coffin for humanity. The Lord God said behold the man has become like one of us to know good from evil now lest he put his hand and take up the tree of life and eat forever.

Therefore we can't have that happening. Let's send him out of the garden to Eden. To till the ground from which he was taken, so he drove the man and placed him on the, he placed the man out, cherubim, east of the garden, flaming sword, means there's no way back to the tree of life. So the consequences of that act, the rejection of God's rule and self governance, resulted in not being able to partake of the tree of life, the eternal spirit.

They lost it. That rippled through. stopped right there for humanity and then all we've got left now is self governance and God had to do that because if God would have allowed Adam and Eve to have gone back to the tree after they rebelled, after sin and death had come, he'd have actually corrupted the heavens.

So there's no way he could allow them to go back there and separation plunged us into darkness and brokenness all for Adam and Eve's poor choices. They used to live forever in the garden. After this, the tree of life's taken away. Now, what's happening now? Well, you watch, if you read through Genesis and watch it through, you'll see they lived for about eight, nine hundred years.

But after a few generations, they're down to a hundred and twenty. And then it gets down to God saying, I don't think I'm guaranteeing, maybe three score year and ten, which is seventy. Why? Because there's no longer a connection to the tree of life. So the ripple of eternity stopped. And the ripple of self governance of the tree of knowledge and good and evil, it began.

But God's not done. He's not done yet. It'll take him about 4, 000 years, but it's not done yet. It's going to take a while. He's going to start with a couple of guys and then he'll turn them into a couple of families and then the families will turn into a nation that he will use, he's picked out of the nations to lead, until he can get the Messiah, until Jesus comes, the one who's going to take the head, until he comes.

And at that point in time, through Jesus death, burial and resurrection on the cross, not just a theological statement, but an actual, uh, historical fact. From other sources, you can go check this out, you know, at that point in time, those that choose to surrender their life to Christ actually get the connection back to the tree of life.

So the two ripples, the two ripples that are going on is the tree of life and the eternal deep string that would, deep string that would give them life eternal. They would never die. But because they listened to an external voice and disobeyed God, they broke everything. And the tree of knowledge of good and evil, this external thing came in by the serpent and relationship was broken.

And now they had to decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong. And if you read a little bit further on, he says, and everybody did whatever they thought was right in their own eyes. And eventually, a few more chapters down there, God says, I am done with this race. I'm over my creation. I'm going to bring a flood and I'm going to wipe them out.

Everything I have had enough. Now, fortunately, there was one dude called Noah and his family that. Had a little bit of righteousness in there and God thought, well, maybe I'll just have one more crack at this. So it's never, us deciding for ourselves has never worked out well. Never worked out well in any circumstance.

And the reason for that is, because when you embrace that second ripple, you move to faithfulness of self.

Faithfulness of self. over faithfulness to God. And faithfulness to self actually equals unfaithfulness to God. It actually equals unfaithfulness to God because in order for you to usurp your thoughts and ideas above his, you have to move into a place of unfaithfulness. Now, eventually Jesus will sneak in a few thousand years later, come here born of a virgin and sneak in there and then grow up to be a man, show us what God is really like in human form and eventually go to the cross, you know, be that sacrifice, that lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world for your sin, for my sin.

But then he also went to hell, took our punishment. But that's where he did business with the devil, the serpent, the devil. That's where he took his head That's where he took the keys of hell and death So we no longer need to fear that because he holds that now and then when he rose He rose in that power of the eternal spirit.

He says now anybody who wants to can come The door is open back to the tree Anybody can come but you've got to stop trying to fix yourself and you've just got to surrender The tree of life is back in action. So you've got the ripple of the tree of life again now, which is the eternal spirit, or you've got the ripple of self governance.

The tree of life is a ripple of holiness. Because it has to be, because it's the Holy Spirit. But here's the deal. Even though this is all transpired, a lot of history for you today, we still have, what's this next one? Free will. Somewhere there. Something wrong with my finger. Free will. We have free will.

You still have it. You can choose, even though you might have made the connection with Christ, and you're living out of that tree of life, you're living out of what the Holy Spirit says to you, and anytime you can decide, I don't think that's a good idea, God, I think my way is better, and you can bounce up into self governance, and you're now back in that destructive ripple, and everybody around you ends up paying the price for it.

It's terrible. Now I'm laying a foundation for this, which we'll open up over the next few weeks. But I needed you to see the historical context of this. I needed you to see the beginning, and you need to understand where these couple of ripples came from. Because the ripple, it's the mystery why things are going for you the way they are.

Why you're having the kind of expanding influence you are having, either for good or for bad. This lets you know where you're actually bouncing in off. I dunno about you, but it always helps me to understand now myself a little bit. 'cause I now, I look at myself and I go, oh man, okay, I reason, now I know why I'm stuffed that up because I really didn't listen to God.

I really bounced out up here. That's helps me understand why suddenly I, I have these great friends and then you go into what, you know, that's ridiculous. Why could you even possibly do that? How could you think that that was going to be a good thing? That it's easy just. Listen to a voice and say, that's not that bad.

It's not really a big deal. I'm not hurting anybody, really, but me. They're all lies. They're all lies to convince you of the lie that you own, you driving your own life is going to be better than what God's got for you. And it's an absolute lie. Unfaithfulness to God always leads to unfaithfulness to people.

And faithfulness to God always leads to unfaithfulness to people. But here's the other side. Faithfulness to God always leads to faithfulness to people. Has to. Because if you're faithful to God and the Holy Spirit, the eternal spirit is within you, and that is the Holy Spirit, the ripples are going to come out, and that ripple of holiness out of faithfulness to God, you're going to be faithful to people.

And I cannot tell you the amount of times I hear people so frustrated with Christians. Oh, they say they go to church on Sunday, but I know they're doing this, this, this, this, and I go, ah. And I have to apologize, I'm really sorry, they shouldn't be doing that. But unfortunately, God still gives them free will, and they could do that, and, so you can do this.

But, it ruins your credibility, it ruins your witness. I mean, you guys all experience this? You guys all experience this at work every day, at school every day? You'll see it? It's like, what? One minute you're doing this, and then you're doing that? I don't, I don't understand that. It's because the two ripples are going now.

And you actually move between them. Not in a healthy way, but that's kinda what we do. To help you understand this, in Matthew chapter 16, uh, the, uh, Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says to them, okay, so, what's the word on the street, what are people saying about me, who am I? And then one said, oh, well, some say you're John the Baptist reincarnated and some think you're an old prophet and some think you're that.

And then Peter, Peter says, well, he says to Peter, well, who do you say I am, Pete? And he goes, you are the son of the living God, the Messiah. The one we've been waiting for. Jesus says to him, Blessed are you Peter, cause you did not get that from the flesh, from the human consciousness, you got that from the tree of life.

You got that from the Spirit. And I reckon Peter'd be running around going, Uh, uh, uh, uh Um, um, um. Check me out hey, check me out. Listen, four verses later. Four verses. I don't even have time to have a drink. I don't know. It's four verses later, Jesus starts to say to him, Okay guys, here's the deal. It's time.

I have to go to Jerusalem, and I'm going to be treated really badly, and eventually they'll, they'll murder me and they'll put me on a cross, and three days time, you know, I will be back. Pete didn't hear any of that. And so Pete pulls him aside and says, Jesus, like, but, but he can't do that. We've got a pretty good thing going on here now.

We've got a great band. We're going on tour. There's going to be lots of shows. You know, you really can't go. You really need to stay here. And listen to what Jesus says to him. He doesn't even address Peter. He goes, Get behind me, Satan. Now listen next. For you do not have in mind the things of God, but only human concern.

Tree of life, four verses earlier, self governance and working things out, four verses later. But I think it's interesting, that self governance, who is Jesus attributing that to? Satan. And where was he? Serpent. In the garden. The whole thing is linked. So, up to you. You can live from either of those. Your best life is if you live out of the tree of life.

Connected to the eternal spirit. Listen to what he says. He leads, I follow. He leads, I follow. Everything will well. The ripple will go out. It's a ripple of holiness. Great testimony for Christ. Or you can choose to mix and match and then you'll wonder, I don't know, why is God not blessing me? And why is things going wrong?

I don't understand. I've only got four girlfriends and my wife. Yeah, well, I don't know. There might be, maybe.

I'm trying to keep it a little bit light. Can you imagine what would happen if the tree of life, if everyone lived from that tree of life, from the deep well of the spirit, the eternal spirit, the Holy Spirit, if everything will shift, everything will change, everything, because you're tapped in to the eternal source.

I even journaled about it today. Paul's saying, you know, he's on a trip and he's doing all this kind of stuff and it makes perfect sense to go to Asia. Perfect sense. And the Spirit says to him, no, no, you can't go there, man. He goes, why? It doesn't make any sense. The tour's going great. That's the next destination.

No, no, you don't go. And then he has a dream. And in the dream some guy says, hey, listen, I need you to come to Macedonia. Okay, we'll go to Macedonia. And so they all go the other direction. It's about that Spirit led life. It's about obedience. So I've set the platform now. That's the foundation. Uh, next week we, uh, Taylor's going to speak for you next week.

Yeah, bring it on Taylor. Uh, he's going to be talking about addressing ground zero. What does that ripple of tree of life, and what does the ripple of self governance and the knowledge of good and evil, what does it look like practically in the 21st century? So he's going to deal with that. We're just going to look at between spirit.

flesh. So homework for you. I want you to take some checks and of your life across this week. Just tuck it in your mind to just keep a monitor thing going on and see when do you notice yourself obediently following Christ and you're being carried along and there's a really good ripple on this and when are you usurping your free will authority which is tapped to Satan and trying to say, Well, yeah, God, I know you say that.

I know you say I should love my wife, but she's not very nice to me. If she was nicer to me, I would love her. Well, Maybe you love her and then maybe she lies to you, you know, like, well, everyone's waiting, you know, there's this control thing that's going on. So, I want you to just spend time, I want you to look at your life and just do a bit of a check and just try and grab yourself and you realize, Oh man, I've just bounced up here to the, into self governance.

And also we're going to send out a link, I want you to download a, another YouVersion plan, it's only six days. And it's on how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's a, it's a good plan. We always use the, the Life Journal plan and we continue. That's our stable. But for six days, add this one in. It's only a very short bit of thing on there.

But it'll help you understand the Holy Spirit is the key. The Holy Spirit was in the tree in the garden. The creator, the eternal spirit. We need to learn to walk in step with the eternal spirit. It was interesting. I, I just feel like The whole term Christian at the moment is, doesn't really have a good rap because of the inconsistencies in the way that we've lived.

But originally they were called the people of the way. They were called the people of the way and the Jewish people were called the people of the book. The first five books of our Bible. So the people of the way, which way? The way to eternal life, the way to live, the way to live in such a way that the ripples of your life go out and become a blessing to everyone.

So a tree of life started in the garden. It was silenced by self governance of sin and death through the outside influence of the serpent. Jesus came through his death, burial and resurrection restored the ability to engage again in the tree of life through the Holy Spirit. And if you really want to go right to the end of your book of the Bible, you'll see there that is that spirit, that spirit, the tree of life is supposed to be the healing for all nations.

So our expanding influence will be for good or bad, depending on what ripple we're living out of. And that's our fatal flaw. But now you know it, now we can do something about it. Let's pray. Father, help us to remember that, uh, when everything went wrong for us human beings, uh, it was because we just suddenly felt like we listened to someone that told us that we could do, we could be better without you, you know, we could figure this out without you.

And, you know, somehow you're holding out on us, which you've never been doing that. And you've always loved us. But Lord, my prayer is that we would realize that. That to live from our own self is to limit your ability in our life. And Lord, would you just help us to catch ourselves when we go back to this self governance?

And Lord, just help us to realize that living from the tree of life, living from that eternal spirit, so the ripples that go out of us are ripples of love, joy, and peace. They go out and they're witness for you everywhere. So, Father, may we, may we catch this that you're doing and may we be a blessing to all.

Blessing to all of us so they would see the God that we love and the God that we worship. And so Father, I just thank you for today and laying this foundation in Jesus name. Amen.