Finding Our Way

[Verse]Winds howl through the narrow laneBut faith lights up the darkened plainMile by mile we bravely rideWith God’s goodness as our guide[Chorus]Oh we’re finding our way through this wild lifeHis love shines brighter than the brightest lightWhen we stumble and fall he holds our handTogether we’ll find goodness in this land[Verse 2]The road may twist and rivers riseBut hope reflects in open skiesEach struggle paints a sacred hueLife’s a canvas he’s paintingToo[Chorus]Oh we’re finding our way through this wild lifeHis love shines brighter than the brightest lightWhen we stumble and fall he holds our handTogether we’ll find goodness in this land[Bridge]Through valleys deep through mountains tallHis voice calls soft above it allNo fear can linger no shadow stayWhen his grace leads us day by day[Chorus]Oh we’re finding our way through this wild lifeHis love shines brighter than the brightest lightWhen we stumble and fall he holds our handTogether we’ll find goodness in this land

Welcome to Finding Our Way

From the transcript...We didn’t even finish chapter five. He talks about, “Do not think I will accuse you to the Father.” That’s a good one. We don’t have to—we’re looking at everyone. Oh well, verse 43 and 45: “I have come to represent my Father, yet you refuse to embrace me in faith. If someone comes in their own name and with their own agenda, you readily accept it. Of course, you’re unable to believe in me, for you live to enjoy the praises of others and not the praises that come from the one true God. I will not accuse you before the Father. The one who will incriminate you is Moses, the very one you claim to obey, the one in whom you trust.”Okay, so we know what he does with Moses’ law. Yeah—he nails it to the cross. He does. But if you want to keep living under it, you’re just going to keep condemning yourself. I don’t accuse you, but you won’t believe it. You won’t accept it. You’re insistent that this law of Moses is how it is. As long as you keep doing that, you’re condemning yourself under that system. I’m going to take that system out of the way—maybe you’ll believe. Yeah, that’s good.Did you find the next verse? I think after—I think then we go to chapter 6 after that. Yeah. Okay, chapter 6, we’ve got the feeding of the 5,000, the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. And following that, he starts teaching. And I will point out, I believe at the end of the teaching, most of them walk away. Oh yeah, out of that. So we probably have some pretty heavy teaching going on in that. Jesus says, “Will you too? Will you also go away?”

From the transcript...So you don't think when Jesus said have meat to eat you don't know if he found some musky dines on the side of the road like we just did. No, she was talking about the Father's will. It was the Father's will that I came down this road and ate those musky dimes on the side of the road, and they were good.This next passage—oh, what's your next one? Ought to be really good. John 5:17. I think he healed somebody. Yeah, he healed a man at Bethesda, and out of that comes a conversation because they want to know why he's doing it, because he does it intentionally on the Sabbath, and they get bent out of shape about it. And Jesus answered his critics by saying, every day my Father is at work and I will be too. And that was his—why are you working on the Sabbath? He's like, well, my Father was working on the Sabbath. I'm just with Him.John's also laying out the plot—why they killed Him—all the way back in verse 5. See, here it is again. Jesus is talking about His Father. He's going to talk about judgment. That's all. We finally get into, we finally get the revelation.

From the transcript...You were asking about John 3:34—the one whom God has sent to represent Him will speak the words of God, because God has poured out upon Him the fullness of the Holy Spirit without limitation. The Father loves His Son so much that He has given all things into His hands. Those who trust in the Son possess eternal life; those who don’t obey the Son will not see life—God’s anger will rise up against them. That’s John 3:36. He gives all things—is that what He’s doing? Yeah. Now O’Brien says that “all things” can be translated as all things, or all authority, or all people—all means all. I wonder if it’s the same phraseology used in John 12 or John 17. I’m thinking about John 12 where He says, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all to Me,” and in John 17 at the very beginning He says the Father has given Him authority over all flesh. So Jesus comes from the Father and He has all power—He is Lord, He has all authority. John 1 talks about Him becoming flesh, and we were talking earlier about everyone being included. What I’m saying is that when Jesus became a man, He inhabited humanity—He gathered up humanity—because Scripture says more than once that He tasted death for every person. This is the purpose of His coming: to save the world. So when I say Jesus became flesh, I’m saying He affected all flesh—every person, humanity as a whole. That’s the incarnation. I’m learning to think about the incarnation not as a single man who came and died to satisfy the wrath of an angry God for me, and if I do something right I can get in on it, but as God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—invading our sinful darkness and lostness and saving us as a man. Because sin entered by a man, life had to come through a man; resurrection had to come through a man. That’s how I’m beginning to understand it better. The significance of the incarnation is that in becoming a man, He related to every person—connected to every person, representative of every person—and every person is included in Him. By “man” I mean mankind, humanity, all of humanity.

From the transcript...Well, I’ve been reading the Gospel of John, looking for the times that Jesus spoke to or spoke of His Father—that’s a good one. And I’ve found in John chapter 8, there’s a lot of it; He talks a lot. It seems like when He talks about the Father, He talks about judgment. I don’t know if it’s as regular as I think it is, but I know it’s there in chapter 8, and I know it’s there in chapter 12—He’s talking about the Father, He’s talking about judgment. But anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing, and I haven’t finished yet. I might be about a third of the way through, just going through and looking at that—reading the Gospel of John, and any time He comes up talking about the Father, making a note of it. I think that’s a good way to read through John, a good emphasis, because when Jesus is talking to His Father or talking about His Father, it gives us insight into the relationship He’s given to us. Because He said, “When you talk to Him, say, ‘Our Father.’” He’s brought us into His family, and as such, we’re part of that relationship—that the relationship He has is the relationship we have. The same love the Father has for Jesus, He has for us. We have been made one, and that’s what He wants us to know: “In that day you will know—I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you.”When you mentioned John chapter 8, I immediately thought about John chapter 1. I’m going to pull a James Alderman and start with one verse and then go into another—you’re going to be discipled in my ways. I just follow the Lord; the Holy Spirit brings something to mind and I go with it. In the opening chapter of John, verse 18, it says, “Nobody has ever seen God. The only begotten God, who is intimately close to the Father, has brought Him to life.” That’s the N. T. Wright translation. He’s starting the whole book off with this idea. And in the Passion Translation it says, “No one has ever before gazed upon the full splendor of God except His uniquely beloved Son, who is cherished by the Father and held close to His heart. Now that He has come to us, He has unfolded the full explanation of who God truly is.” That’s pretty good—really good. God is a Spirit, no one has seen Him, but Jesus, God the Son, has come and unfolded Him, revealed Him.

From the transcript...But the first thing is, you’re talking about how He sees us in Christ. The reality is that we were created in Christ. That’s right—because in Him was life, and that life is the light of men. John’s right. So there was something created in Christ; there’s this creation—God creating something. It’s in Him and through Him and by Him that the Word created all that is. So that’s where we got started. Another scripture that came to mind is that one—I forget exactly where it is—but it talks about, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?” Now you know how we grew up on that, but what I’m understanding is that God created Adam in His own image and likeness, and that wasn’t and never could be altered. How are you going to take a child of God and make him a child of the devil? Well, they told me that’s what happened when Adam sinned—I understand—but can a leopard change his spots? So that’s another scripture that comes through. And then there’s this other one that’s very familiar, no surprise about it, but you’re talking about how He sees us. This is my understanding—what I’m beginning to see about this wonderful gospel, this gospel of God that is good news—that from before time, God planned this in Christ, and it included you and me. We were associated in Christ. That’s what I want to read about right here. Paul says, “Dear friends, my name is Paul, and I was chosen by God to be an apostle of Jesus Christ, Jesus the Messiah. I’m writing this letter to all the devoted believers who have been made holy by being one with Jesus, the Anointed One.” So that’s the question—how do you become one? “May God Himself, the Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, release grace over you and impart total well-being into your life.” That’s what we were talking about earlier—that kingdom of God that’s available.

From the transcript...So we were looking at, or talking about, how we’re coming to see God differently. And in understanding who He is, we realize He sees us differently than what we thought. Yeah—how He sees us is different than I used to think how He saw us. Exactly. He hasn’t changed His mind; it’s our perspective that has changed. Because under that penal substitutionary thought process, the idea is that He’s angry, Jesus is running interference, and He sees me “in Christ,” meaning He really doesn’t like me, but as long as I’m hidden here I can get near Him. That’s another scripture that comes to mind when you say that. The whole idea is that in that law-based, legal transaction, it’s like He marks out our sins and gives us a legal righteousness—and for years, that was my understanding of justification. And then I realized, no, that’s not it. It’s not limited to a legal transaction on a piece-of-paper concept, but He’s made me right with Himself in the entirety of my being. Who I am has been made like Him—that it’s the same love He has for Jesus that He has for me. That I can sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus and rest, because I belong there because of how He made me and how Christ has redeemed me. That through this good news, this is the life that’s available now and forever—we’ve been brought into that triune dance.

From the transcript...He’s just saying something about the love of God. No, but maybe we don’t want to look at that. That’s right—look, it’s something about holiness and justice, the wrath. Oh yeah, vengeance is mine, said the Lord. Let’s see here, Romans 1:1—what’s that say? I’m not sure, I thought you had a Bible. Passions, yes. Just verse one? Yeah, for right now, I might have to get to verse two. Paul, a loving and loyal servant of the Anointed One, Jesus—he called me to be his apostle and set me apart with a mission: to reveal God’s wonderful gospel. Okay, that’s it. Is that the end of the verse? I can’t tell you. No, it’s not—hang on. I write to all his beloved chosen ones in Rome. May his joyous grace and total well-being, flowing from our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, rest upon you. Son, that’s good. Yeah. All right, now he translates that to God’s gospel—is that how he said that? Yeah. You want me to read the New King James? Well, that’s God’s wonderful gospel—the gospel of God. I think New King James has “the gospel of God.” Speed limit, speed limit—I don’t know if that’s a motorcycle cop or not. You’re good now. No, but I need to slow down anyway. It’s cool, huh? Yeah, 20 miles here. Yeah. It’s the gospel of God, which is the good news of God. Yes. Okay, and sometimes I think that gets missed when we hear the word gospel—that it’s good news about a lot of things, but it’s primarily the good news of God, of who he is. Because when you see who he is, everything else gets taken care of. That’s right, that’s right. The good news of God comes with threats? No, it doesn’t—that’s just it. We thought it was good news because we were getting saved from threats, but that’s not true: you’re going to love me or else. That’s right—it’s the fire, eternal fire. But when you begin to, through Jesus…

From the transcript...There’s no more. The in and out and us and them is gone. Yes. You know, you think about what you were talking about—being in Him and incarnation and all that. Listen to this verse. It says,Through His creative inspiration, this living expression made all things. For nothing has existence apart from Him. A fountain of life was in Him, for His life is light for all humanity.But Jesus, the God-man that walked the planet, is the same one that spoke and brought it into existence. And in Him it is held together. And in Him, we have existed. There is nothing separated from Him. There’s nothing apart from Him.Can you imagine? You see Jesus, this man walking the shores of Galilee, and He’s holding everything together. That’s what it says. That’s what it says. He’s got it all. And so the One through whom the Father created the world became a man, and now He’s recreating it. Yes. A new humanity,

From the transcript...in Christ as he died for us all, with us all, as us all. There was such an inescapable union when the Word became flesh. And we all died.And then when He got up out of the tomb, He put to death everything that wasn’t right. And He brought to life all that has eternally been true of us—that we were deceived and confused and blinded and doubtful of—so that now everything we are is a new creation, and everything that, in the news of God from God, it is right, it is good, it is eternal, and that we now have life.And what I find amazing about the passage is He’s basically telling people, if you’re alive, you’re alive because you’re alive in Jesus. And if you ever get that, then you’ll take your one earthly life that is joined to Jesus now and begin to live it with Him, unto Him, for Him, as He lived His life.Yeah, you can live life and enjoy it. Yes. You mean what you’re saying is we don’t have to die and go to heaven? Oh, heaven has come—to enter into that.Well, see, that’s the problem. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And somewhere along the way, we begin to, at the church house, say it’s about heaven or hell when you die. Yeah. And we went from heaven and earth to heaven and hell. Yeah. Okay? And there’s a big difference. There’s hell on earth, boy, in the world you live in. I’ve seen this stuff right here. Hell is a human construct.And what happened was God made heaven and earth. He says it’s good. Then sin entered. Yeah. Okay. By Adam, sin entered, and death by sin. Okay.

From the transcript...Nor your ethnicity, education, nor economic status.They matter nothing. For it is Christ that means everything. As He lives in every one of us. So what he’s saying is, it’s not these physical things that we look at out here—where you come from, what kind of money you’ve got, or anything. It’s the Christ that’s in you. Yeah. That’s everything.Well, I think in the outworking of the gospel, I think everybody has difficulty as it works its way out into practical life, because we do live in a world where your nationality, your gender, your economics matter. In this world system, who you are, where you’re born, what you have—all that affects your status in this world system, because the kingdom hasn’t affected it.Yes, but in the kingdom of God, where God rules and reigns and how He relates and sees, it has no bearing. That’s right. It’s Christ. It is Christ, yes. Christ is all. And as this leaven of the true kingdom gets down in us and starts working its way out into the world, these worldly system distinctions start getting less and less over time, because we are slow of heart to believe.Well, I was going to say, because our belief affects the world in which we live.

From the transcript...He was a judge, all this kind of stuff. And Jesus says, yeah. He said, you've heard that. That's conclusion of the Old Testament. Then he said, but I say to you. He establishes a new order. The king steps up and says, yeah, that's what you've heard. That's where you've been until now. But now I'm just going to tell you how it really is. Then he says, I say to you, love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Yeah. Yeah. And pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. Okay. Totally different. I like God blessing everybody. Yeah, and then he says, because then you'll be like your father. Because here's what the Father was doing. He's blessing everybody.Look at it like this, he says. If you love those who love you, do you expect a special reward? Even tax collectors do that, don't they? Yeah.There's nothing special about you if you're loving somebody that loves you. Are you loving your enemy? Well, yes. It's easy to love those who are easy to love. But is that real love? I mean, that's the thing. Is it real love? It's love in its purest form, which is what you find in Jesus.

From the transcript...Myself, in particular, I feel like my theology and beliefs—not just biblical, but beliefs in life in general—I’ve always been in a flux, you know, because I’m experiencing life and hopefully I’m learning better. Yeah, that’s… but that’s always been the way.I think sometimes we think when we’re children going to school and we’re learning, there’s an illusion that when I get to be an adult, learning’s over. But then you realize, no, it’s not. It’s really just the beginning.And you’re learning how to be a good father as you raise your kids. That’s why you’re such a good grandfather—because you’ve already got one round under your belt, your children. But you’re learning all kinds of things.I guess this is kind of what I was thinking about when I was saying that. But when we get down to the church house, it’s cut and dried. It’s rigid. This is it. Yeah, we figured it out. This is it. Shut up and believe it. Don’t question it.

From the transcript...See that vintage cap I got? That thing had to be made in the ’80s. Zach got two big old bags of caps that this guy from Cotton Valley had collected over the years. That was one of them.I don’t like the way this cap wears.Yeah?But that’s not the reason I’m wearing it. You’re just rubbing it in—2019 national champions.You’re just rubbing it in.It gets kind of flat on your head.Well, it’s this curvature of the bill. I just don’t like it much. I’m gonna try that one later, but it clashes with this shirt.Yeah.Which might be good—just to clash. I don’t know. That might be a good way. I don’t say I want to view myself that way, but—an individual that clashes with the norm. Because people don’t know how to respond when you just love them.Well, the One who did that perfectly—they just killed Him.Yeah… saying I might want to reconsider my choice to clash.Well, no. Just don’t get shocked when it happens, I guess, is my point.Oh, I won’t. I’m learning, though, to not let it bother me—the response. Because that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m not doing it for a good response.I think we all want to be loved.

From the transcript...Here’s your text with all timestamps and markers removed:Is the spiritual union another union? A union in addition to our carnal union with Christ? Or is it a sharing in the one and only union between God and man brought out in Jesus Christ?This is a very important question, for if the spiritual union is an additional union, then our salvation depends not only on the finished work of Christ but upon something else as well, which has later to be added on to it before it is real for us.That was, in fact, the idea taught by Roman Catholics, for example, in their doctrine of baptismal regeneration and ex opere operato sacramental incorporation into Christ. But it is the same idea that is taught also by Protestants in their doctrine of a union with Christ which is effected by faith or by conversion, through which alone what Christ has done for us becomes real for us.Both these forms of the same error lead to a doctrine of man's cooperation in his own salvation, and so involve a doctrine of conditional grace.

From the transcript...In Ephesians 1 and 7, since we're now joined to Christ, we've been given the treasures of redemption by His blood—the total cancellation of our sins—all because of the cascading riches of His grace.Okay, the total cancellation of sins. Sounds like John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” Well, you know John preached that, but do we really believe that? No. “Oh, you’ve got to do something.” Well, even then, they don’t even believe when they do something, James.Okay, you may have to edit this out. No.I have pastored churches for almost 40 years. And for 40 years, I have continually had to counsel people about the forgiveness of sins. I have preached the total, complete forgiveness of sins through Christ and His shed blood—the finished work of the cross—that you are forgiven.And I’m telling you, James, even the people who would declare themselves as saved, born again, believers, baptized, active, faithful in church, tithers, Bible readers, and prayers do not experience the freedom from the guilt of their sins like they should.

From the transcript...Yeah, I was taught that He chose those whom He foreknew. He knew who was going to believe—that was His foreknowledge. Therefore, He chose those. I’m just telling you what I was taught.I’ve heard that before. Yeah, that’s an Arminian view of it.Yeah, it was a twisted Arminian view. But that’s so skewed.Well, I’m just saying—the whole conversation was that it’s because of His grace, but you’ve got to choose it.Yeah, I had to choose it. If you choose it, He foreknows you’re going to.The more Calvinist view was that He just made an arbitrary choice.Yeah—out of the masses, He picked. Out of His love, He picked these. So He had this arbitrary—I call it an arbitrary—choice.Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those were the only two ways to look at it.Yeah. And then you realize that, no, He’s chosen all of us in Christ. You know, when I’m coming to it with the thought of who’s in and who’s out, I’m not looking at it right—because that’s not what He did. He chose us all in Him.Now, this goes back to what you were teasing me about earlier. You’ve got to understand—He’s writing to a local church, and He’s only talking to those who have been chosen. So He’s not talking about everybody.

From the transcript...It’s like—we read through all these translations. We started with the New King James, of course, and I was raised on the old King James. That language, and the discussions I heard about these verses, shaped a whole lot of my original belief system.But as time has gone on, and I’ve studied and followed the Lord, I began to change what I was originally taught or believed about those things.By the time we get to the Passion Translation, it encompasses more of what I now think about those verses that I used to read in the King James. How I think about them now is much closer to what I’m reading in the Passion Translation than what I used to believe.And I say that because I want to promote another brother’s book here. That’s not the cover, I know—but James is in the process of writing a second book called The Gospel I Grew Up On. It’s still in its editing stages; this is just an early copy to work through and edit.The idea behind the book—and a little behind the conversations that we have, even in Finding Our Way—is that we’ve realized we have had a similar, shared journey of following the Lord. How we used to think about the Bible, the gospel, Jesus, and salvation has changed, grown, and gotten better and better over our lifetime.

From the transcript...I got William Barclay. I like William Barclay. Barclay’s good. Barclay’s good.Let me read it. I wasn’t going to, but—well, no, no, no, I got it. There was a reason I brought it. You’ve got to hear what he says.Ephesians 1 (William Barclay Translation)This is a letter from Paul, who became an apostle of Jesus Christ because God willed it so.To God’s consecrated people in Ephesus, the loyal Christians in the Lord Jesus Christ:Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for He, in the heavenly places, has blessed us with every spiritual blessing because our life is bound up with the life of Christ. It was through this connection with Christ that, before the creation of the world, God chose us to be His own consecrated people and to live lives faultless in His sight.In His love, He had already destined us for adoption into His own family through the work of Jesus Christ. For this was the purpose of His will. All this He did that men might praise that glorious grace of His which He gave us in His Beloved—and through no merits of our own.It is in and through Christ and the sacrifice of His life that we have been liberated—a liberation which means the forgiveness of sins. It all happened because of the wealth of His grace.This grace He gave us in superabundance to equip us with all wisdom and insight. He revealed to us the secret of His will and of the purpose which long ago He had in Christ.This purpose is finally to bring to their conclusion all the events in history and to make of all things—things in heaven and things on earth—one perfect whole in Christ.And we too have received a share in Him, for this was our destiny, in the intention of that God who works out everything as the purpose of His will directs. The purpose of all this was that we Jews, who were the first to set our hopes on Christ, should cause His glory to be praised.And it is through Him that you Gentiles too have heard the message of the truth—the good news of your salvation. It is in Him that you took your decision to believe and received the promised Holy Spirit, who marks you out as His— that Holy Spirit who is the first installment and the pledge of all that one day you will possess.That’s a good one. The final end of all this is the liberation of God’s own people, so that His glory may be praised.