Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're doing real good. Wonderful to have you with me for
this live session. Come with me, we're at the beach. Check this out. I'll just flick
this around. Choice. This is our new home. Yep. We live just a couple of minutes down
the road from here, so you'll probably see this beauty a wee bit more. Alright, cool.
Hey, so this is going to be session number one of a few chats that we're going to have.
Four chats in this series over the next four days. We're going to do a little study and
exploration into divine love. This series is called Love Unstoppable and it's awesome
to have you joining. So whether you are live or whether you're on the replay, say hello.
Just say hi there so I can see that you're with me and you're joining in. Now, it was
a beautiful morning this morning, but it was a bit chilly and I think I've gone over the
top right here. I've got a jumper on, so I'm just going to have to take this off because
I am cooking here. So give me a second to get this jumper off before I cook to death
out here. It's supposed to be winter, but I'm not feeling very many wintry vibes right
now. So yeah, let me know how you're doing. It's beautiful to have you with me. This is
going to be an exciting series. This session here is called The Broken Heart of God and
we're going to explore some of the dynamics of divine love. We're going to explore why
divine love would rather be lovesick and broken-hearted than compromise their values of purity, vulnerability
and freedom. How good is that? Oh, great to have people with us. I see Dawn there, Kerry,
Timsy, Elizabeth, Eli. Wonderful to have all of you guys here, you beautiful, beautiful
people. This is going to be a wonderful session. So let's take a moment to pray. Oh, let me
give you some of this. This is so beautiful. This right here is a picture of divine love
in itself. Look at this. It's supposed to be winter, but it's not very wintry. All right.
Hey, let's take a moment now to pray and then we're going to get into this. Let me bring
you right down by the water.
Wow, Papa, Jesus, Holy Spirit, here we are. Totally being immersed and baptized in your
love right here. Wow, the creation is exploding with the love of God. The creation is exploding
with the glory of God. I just feel so undone right now by divine love. Wow, how glorious
is this? Papa, Yeshua, Holy Spirit, we want to honor you as the source of love, as the
origin of love, as love itself. We give you all the glory that you are the genesis of
love. You are the beginning and the end of love. You are the author of love. You are
love in all its fullness, love in all its height, love in all its depth, and love in
all its wonder.
Now we come to a place, you've brought us to a place of perpetual adoration of you.
We lift our voices in delight and we lift our voices in adoration. We lift our voices
in love to honor you and to join you in the divine dance and to celebrate you, the wonders
of divine love. And as we go on this journey together for the next four days, I thank you
for taking us deeper.
wider into the bliss and the ecstasies and the wonder and the vulnerability and
the purity and the beauty and the brokenness and the suffering and the
glory of divine love in your beautiful name amen
all right family okay so we're gonna jump into we're gonna jump into this
session now and we're gonna we're gonna start with Luke 15 looking at the story
of the lost son but anytime you're going to talk about divine love really almost
anytime I think you're going to talk about the nature of God we have to start
we have to start with the beauty of the divine dance and if you followed much of
my message and training and and story and DNA over the you know over the
past many years as I've been talking about these concepts then it always
starts with the divine dance you know divine dance is perfect family divine
dance the divine dance is the fellowship of the Trinity in you know theologians
have spent centuries talking about it as perichoresis, peri meaning to go up and
down and choresis is the genesis the root word of the word choreograph so
perichoresis is this word they try to use to capture the limitless dynamic and
the it's it's a word used to try and capture the limitless dynamics of divine
love that are experienced in the fellowship of the Trinity so let me take
a moment to try and capture the wonders of this which so in the fellowship of
the Trinity you have the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit each experiencing
the fullness of perfect love so imagine the Father and the Son summoning all of
their force and take a moment here to think of the force of all creation the
force of the waves the force that created the heavens and the earth the
force that put the stars in the sky the force that spoke and there was Sun there
was light that created all that we know and see that force poured out all its
power the Father and the Son summon all their power and all the extremity and all
the glory and all the wonder to pour out the fullness of their love on the Holy
Spirit and the Holy Spirit receives this love perfectly and then the Holy Spirit
and Jesus they turn on the Father and they pour out the extravagance of the
wonder of divine love on the Father and then the Father and the Holy Spirit pour
out this unrelenting extravagant outrageous phenomenal baptism of love on
the Son and so it goes on and on forever each member of the Trinity trying to
summon the fullness and just summoning the fullness of their extravagance and
the fullness of their wonder and the fullness of divine love to pour it out
on one another and this is the fellowship of the Trinity that is perichoresis
that is the divine dance this place of perfectly receiving divine love and
giving perfect expression to divine love and it was out of that context that the
Trinity created humanity to participate effortlessly perpetually perfectly in
the divine dance and this is what Sonship is and the journey into Sonship is the
journey of discovering how to receive divine love perfectly and give perfect
expression to divine love so that we can participate in seamless union so we
can participate in the divine dance that we were created for so now we begin our
conversation around around the broken heart of God this is session one in a
series love unstoppable and we are going to journey on this and the idea in the
heart of this journey is that we will get to participate more perfectly in the
divine dance ourselves because the divine dance is the atmosphere of heaven
that's the genesis of heaven that is the very heartbeat of heaven right there is
the fellowship of the Trinity unbroken cycle of divine love constantly being
received and expressed and as we step into our Sonship we participate
perfectly in the atmosphere of heaven we participate fully in the atmosphere of
heaven we participate in it fully and it's through our full participation in
the divine dance that we are empowered to bring an authentic expression of
heaven into the earth and that's what we're called to do is we're called to
bring nothing less than authentic expression of heaven to the earth but
it's only possible as we are empowered to participate in this oneness of the
divine dance as we are empowered to participate in seamless union and the
beauty and the extravagance
of the wonder of the divine dance so let's uh let's get into Luke 15 I'm just going to have to
get um posited up and set up uh somewhere here so that I can um I can read some bible to you
look I see a log down there and we're going to make our way there to this log so uh join with
me as we stride through the sand to the log and we're we're talking about the story of the lost
son okay now the story of the lost son is in Luke 15 and in Luke 15 Jesus does three stories all
about the word lost okay so the word lost in the greek is apollumi okay it's the same word you
that's also translated as perish okay so when you hear people talking about someone's going to
perish or someone's lost it's the same word it's the greek word apollumi and Jesus dedicates the
whole chapter of Luke 15 to giving his definition of what it means to be lost what it means to be
apollumi so he does a story on the lost coin the lost sheep and the lost son and the story
Luke 15 the lost son is the single most beautiful articulation of the gospel that there is I've
written an entire book on Luke 15 called the good father uh if you go into um if you go into
the description or at the top of on the you know the top of this group you can get a free copy of
the good father that goes deeper into this but lost let's go now and we'll start reading it right now
so yeah just uh part of the dynamic of speaking to you from the beach is
struggling a couple things that are slightly different to when i'm normally at the desk but
i thought it's more fun who thinks it's better to come to you from the beach i reckon it's better
to come to you from the beach so um let me make this statement and then we'll read it even at
the expense of a lovesick and broken heart the integrity of divine love refuses to compromise
its value for vulnerability freedom and purity beautiful eh ha ha come on all right Luke 15 11
to 32 the parable of the lost son Jesus continued there was a man who had two sons the young one
said to his father give me my share of the estate so he divided the property between them not long
after that the young son got together all he had set off for a distant country and there squandered
his wealth in wild living after he had spent everything there was a severe famine in that
whole country and he began to be in need so he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that
country who sent him to his fields to feed pigs he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that
the pigs were eating but no one gave him anything when he came to his senses he said how many of my
father's hired servants have food to spare and here i am starving to death i will sit out and go
back to my father and say to him father i have sinned against heaven and against you i am no
longer worthy to be called your son make me like one of your hired servants so he got up and went
to his father but while he was still a long way off his father saw him and was filled with
compassion for him he ran to his son threw his arms around him and kissed him the son said to him
father i have sinned against heaven and against you i am no longer worthy to be called your son
but the father said to his servants quick bring the best robe and put it on him put a ring on his
finger and sandals on his feet bring the fattened calf and kill it let's have a feast to celebrate
for this son of mine was dead and is alive again he was lost and is found so they began to celebrate
meanwhile the older son was in the field when he came near the house he heard music and dancing
remember that music and dancing say that with me music and dancing
so he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on your brother has come he replied
and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound the older
brother became angry and refused to go in so his father went out and plead with it pleaded with him
but he answered his father look all these years i've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your
orders yet you never even gave me a young goat so i could celebrate with my friends but when
this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home
you killed a fattened calf for him my son the father said
You were always with me, and everything I have is yours, but we had to celebrate and be glad,
because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.
Beautiful. Okay, that is it, my friends. That is the story of Luke 15. And so we're gonna, um,
we're gonna pull a few of the different dynamics of this, um, out. And, oh look, here we go,
we've got some mates. Hey buddy, how you doing? No worries. Hey bud. Um, hey buddy.
Oh, we got, got a little visitor. Hey bud. No worries. See ya. Um, so, uh, we're gonna,
we're gonna, as we go through and explore divine love today, we're gonna pull out some of the
dynamics of this chapter here, okay, of, um, of Luke 15. All right, so what we're gonna start
with is we're gonna start with vulnerability, okay, the divine, uh, value for vulnerability.
So vulnerability, let me just rattle a few things off to you about the, about how divine love's
value for vulnerability actually expresses itself and what it looks like. So vulnerability
will never be fake or give false reasons or excuses. So I want you to imagine this,
you can imagine in any context you like, you can imagine this in the context of God with us seeking
to be that. And we have to remember as well, God's intent is, God's intent is to always bring us into
the fellowship of the divine dance and to the greatest, most extravagant, most outrageous
expressions of love that we have ever imagined or experienced beyond what you've ever experienced or
imagined. God wants to take you deeper into the divine dance on a daily basis than you have ever
been. Whatever you've ever thought you could imagine in the realm of goodness, God's got more
for you. He wants to take you deeper into this dimension of perpetually and effortlessly living
in the divine dance. And I want you to say that perpetually, that means 24 seven. So you never
take a break. It just becomes your normal, your default setting, your within, and it's, God designed
it to be effortless, right? God did not design it to be like, God did not design, the divine design
for humanity is not that it would be difficult to love God, right? The divine design that we have,
when we're operating in our identity, when we know who we are as sons, the divine design, when we
step into that place, it makes the ability to participate in the divine dance effortless and
perpetual and 24 seven, and it changes our entire state of being. And we start to participate in the
fullness of heaven on earth. So it's a journey worth going into, right? And so imagine this
dynamic of vulnerability being expressed in the context of God, trying to call you into the deepest
expression of intimacy possible. And God is like, he is a lovesick romantic. God is,
in many ways, a lovesick romantic. In many ways, God is, you know, like the father in Luke 15 here,
who, his son ran away, and his son's going through all sorts of exploitation. His son's in all sorts
of darkness, his son's in all sorts of states of lostness and oppression and self-hatred and,
you know, doing, you know, participating in destructive behaviors and addictions, and his son
is fully lost. And in that space, you see an expression of the broken heart of God, like,
here's God brokenhearted for his son, because make no mistake, the good father in that is Jesus
drawing a parallel between, exact parallel between the nature of God and the longing of God
for us in our lostness, for us in our darkness. And that son, that lost son, you know, he treated
his father as an enemy. And in the Jewish culture, there is no greater offense that the son could
have committed. There's no greater expression of dishonor that the son could have committed
against his father. That was seen as high treason. And the son was guilty of a, you know, he was
liable for the death sentence in that context. So there's God as a brokenhearted lover longing for
us, lovesick for us, but at the same time refusing to compromise on his own value system. And one of
those values is vulnerability. So one of the values of divine love is vulnerability, and God
never compromises on his value for vulnerability. So love, let's talk about vulnerability.
Vulnerability will never be fake or give false reasons or excuses in a relationship for how
they're feeling or what's going on. So you can think about this as well, you know, in the context
of a romantic relationship or a relationship where you want to create real intimacy, okay?
If you want to create real intimacy, then you have to have vulnerability. And it's always going to be
real. It's always going to be transparent because this is the nature of love. Love
never creates excuses, love, even when it is difficult.
to be honest, love is honest. Love is transparent. Love is vulnerable. Even if that vulnerability
and transparency is going to hurt someone else's feelings, even if that love or that
vulnerability or that transparency is going to put you at risk or put you at danger, the
nature of divine love is that it will never compromise vulnerability. It will never step
into the kingdom of darkness and exchange vulnerability for the compromise of deceit,
for the compromise of a half-truth. Half-truths belong to the kingdom of darkness. Vulnerability
belongs to the kingdom of light. Vulnerability is an expression of true love. So vulnerability
never hides itself, and vulnerability is not weak as well. In the kingdom of darkness and
in this world, sometimes vulnerability is considered a weakness, but not in the kingdom
of God. In the kingdom of God, vulnerability is as bold as a lion. If you actually look
at vulnerability, vulnerability is not a weakness. Vulnerability is the greatest force that
you could possibly have to make a stand. So vulnerability actually is a lion in a stand.
Vulnerability is a statement. Vulnerability says, this is who I am. This is what I stand
for. These are my values. There's nothing hidden. There's no guessing with vulnerability.
The goalposts never change. So imagine this in your relationship, where there's nothing
hidden. There's nothing that you never have to guess. You never have to wonder. You never
have to assume, because you've got all the exact, precise information at your fingertips
that you could ever wonder. How's that person thinking? How's that person feeling? Are they
changing or not? Well, vulnerability makes it absolutely crystal clear, and they make
a stand on the integrity of vulnerability. It makes a stand on, this is who I am. This
is what I value. This is what I feel. This is what I think, and it's not a place of shifting
sands. You never have to guess with divine love. The goalposts never shift. There's no
guile. There's no deceit. Like it or not, the vulnerability of divine love is an immovable
force. So someone might not like your vulnerable stance. Someone might not like your vulnerability.
Many times, and especially in the world we're in right now, vulnerability around your value
for love, around your value for Christ, around your value for the kingdom, that vulnerability
now, it's becoming very polarizing. People might hate it. So people might hate your vulnerability,
but this is where vulnerability is as bold as a lion. It's vulnerable anyway. So let
me tell you one story about vulnerability in a beautiful, powerful way, because here's
the thing. What does vulnerability look like in a crowd? What does divine love look like
in a crowd? Did Jesus make a stand in a crowd? Did Jesus compromise in a crowd? No, Jesus
wasn't weak. Jesus wasn't hidden. Jesus wasn't withdrawn in a crowd. This is the thing about
divine love and vulnerability, is that it's not withdrawn. Vulnerability is actually as
bold as a lion. It's outspoken. It takes a stand. It's not hidden away. It's put out
on display. So there was a monk. Do you know the monk Tally Marcus? Have you heard of the
monk Tally Marcus? Because this is a take on vulnerability that most people don't understand
or don't see, but this is the nature of vulnerability and how vulnerability is as bold as a lion.
So this monk Tally Marcus in 391 AD. So we're going way back. We're going into the times
of the Roman Empire. And at this point, Tally Marcus, what he does, he goes on a pilgrimage
and he walks all the way to Rome. I can't remember the village that he walked from,
but he walked a long way and he walked all the way to Rome. And when he got to Rome,
he was absolutely appalled at everything that he saw. He's like, wow, Rome is like disgusting.
The culture of Rome, it just, it was breaking him. The culture of Rome, everything about
it was just like, I hate this. This is disgusting. This is terrible because the culture of Rome
completely opposed his value system. The culture of Rome celebrated darkness and celebrated
evil and put evil on display as though it was something to be aspired to, something
to be championed, something to be celebrated. And Tally Marcus hated evil. He was like,
no, I hate this. I don't love this. I'm not going to celebrate this. I hate this. And
so Tally Marcus wasn't hidden. All right. With his feelings, Tally Marcus, you didn't
have to guess what Tally Marcus's feelings was because it all came to a point when Tally
Marcus went to the gladiatorial games and he went to the gladiatorial games and he saw
all of these people championing and cheering on and celebrating the death and the murder
of all these people in the gladiatorial games. And you'll hear, you know, there's a few different
renditions of this story. It's a wee while ago now, nearly 2000 years ago.
ago you know this happened in 391 AD in Rome and Telemachus actually jumped
into the arena where the gladiators were fighting and tried to stop them in the
middle of a full-blown gladiatorial battle and he was in there trying to
like stop them and this is this what you're seeing is the vulnerability of
divine love on display as Telemachus jumps in there and he's like opposing
he's trying to fight he's trying to he's actually trying to shut down he's
trying to stop the gladiatorial games can you imagine the boldness that's
where vulnerability is as bold as a lion it's not put it's not hidden this is
where it's at you don't have to guess and so Telemachus some people say that
the gladiators killed him but it seems I would say that in my research that a
more accurate interpretation is that it was actually the crowd that stoned
Telemachus to death but Telemachus died that day and it looks like you know some
people say that the gladiators killed him but the more accurate accounts look
like it was actually the crowd that actually stoned Telemachus that day but
his stance right even though his vulnerable stance of what his value was
his value for love his value for life and his his refusal to celebrate what is
evil caught the attention of the Emperor and you have to understand that at this
point the gladiatorial games have been going on for you know over a thousand
years so it's around about a thousand years that the gladiatorial games have
been unfolding and Telemachus after that point his sacrifice his death catches
the attention of the Emperor and that is the beginning of the end of the
gladiatorial games some people will say that after that there was no more games
but it would be probably more accurate to say that it took a process of about
15 years and that the last recorded gladiatorial games was on the 1st of
January 401 AD so but here's the beauty of that is that Telemachus's
vulnerability which is as bold as a lion his stance that wasn't being hidden it
caused the end of a thousand-year evil tradition where you celebrate the murder
of people and the shedding of innocent blood that's pretty wild right let me
know what you think about Telemachus so let's go on a little bit more about
vulnerability because it's not you know it's not like vulnerability is not about
aggressively just making stand to make a point as though there's no purpose to it
so the bone like the purpose of vulnerability is actually intimacy all
right the purpose of vulnerability that this is this is what vulnerability is
about vulnerability is about making your values and how you feel and how you
think absolutely crystal clear as an invitation to intimacy for others like
it's an invitation to relationship it's not about you know starting fights it's
an invitation to intimacy so I want to share with you how vulnerability is
always in the divine mindset vulnerability is always created as an
open door and an invitation to deeper levels of intimacy so the vulnerability
of love will let you know what it needs to feel safe and it will give you the
very best information that you need in order to create the opportunity for you
to draw closer in relationship and build deeper intimacy now the integrity of
divine loves vulnerability it won't allow compromise all right it won't
allow compromise that will create a shortcut or a cheapened version of
intimacy for you divine love is only interested in pure the finest heavens
finest intimacy and won't create shortcuts it won't create a cheapened
version of intimacy for you all right so let's explore this the vulnerability of
divine love it will keep us accountable to very to the highest standards of
divine love if you want to journey into the depths of intimacy here's how that
here's how that works so divine love basically says it gives you all the
information real clear real upfront you don't you don't have to figure it out
and the same with God you don't have to figure out how to have how to go deep
into intimacy with God it's real crystal clear he makes he gives you all the
information of how to do it and we'll explore that more in this as well like
that how do you have intimacy with God how do you build intimacy with God God
doesn't make that a secret so and this applies to our any relationship right so
here's how vulnerability could look like in a relationship with you and it could
be anyone this could be a work person this could be a family member this could
be a marriage this could be someone that you're dating this could be anything
right so vulnerability always gives the best information here's a few real
simple type of statements that give you a blueprint for how to communicate
vulnerably in a way that gives
information that actually invites deeper intimacy. So this I would say that, let me
just give you more about vulnerability. Vulnerability of divine love, so
divine love right, divine love, you have to understand that divine love is really
really happy to always give to anyone grace. Divine love and the
nature of love will always give grace to anyone. God will give grace to anyone.
God will honor anyone right. God honors everyone. God loves everyone and this is
this is our calling as followers of Jesus is that we're there to give grace
to everyone. We're there to honor everyone. We're there to love everyone.
Okay those three things, grace, love, honor, they are non-negotiables for us. If we
want to walk in the divine nature they're non-negotiables. If we want to walk in
the divine nature then those are unconditionals okay. Those are
unconditionals of the divine nature. So if we want to personify the divine
nature then unconditional grace to others, unconditional honor of who others
are that they're made in the image of God, unconditional love towards others
that they're as loved as love can be, those are unconditionals. But what we
have to be very careful to understand is that with divine love some things are
unconditional and some things are conditional okay. So love is love cannot
be earned. Love is not performance based acceptance but intimacy, trust and
respect are a process okay. So so get your head around this grace, honor, love
are unconditional in the kingdom but trust, respect and intimacy are always a
process okay. Trust, respect and intimacy you don't just throw those away. That's
why Jesus said don't throw your pearls before swine because
trust, respect and intimacy are a process okay.
And vulnerability gives people the opportunity to build and develop deeper
levels of trust, respect and intimacy okay. Some people with their boundaries, you
don't use boundaries, they use boundaries wrongly, they use boundaries as a
weapon. But divine love never uses boundaries as a weapon saying oh you're
not a safe person and cutting them off. In the context of divine love, boundaries
always point the way home and I got to thank my friend Ben Runciman for helping
me see and discover that. But in the kingdom, boundaries are not there to cut
people off but to show people the way home. And vulnerability is very very very
strong with boundaries. It will not compromise its boundaries but its
are not there to isolate, discriminate or cut people off or push people away.
Vulnerability has very powerful boundaries that will not be compromised
that are there to show people the way home to deeper levels of trust and
respect and intimacy and it's just exactly how God is. He refuses. He will
never compromise on darkness. He will never accept darkness. He will never
celebrate darkness but his refusal to celebrate darkness is not to push us
away but to draw us into the kingdom of light. How beautiful is that? Do you love
that or what? Discovering that for me is awesome and putting that in action in a
marriage is beautiful. Putting that in action in your relationship with other
people is beautiful. Putting that in action in your relationship with God is
beautiful. So here's a few statements of beautiful communication. So those
three elements, trust, respect and intimacy, divine love reserves those for
those who learn how to meet the vulnerability of divine love in the
place of beautiful communication and safe behavior. So those three, trust,
respect and intimacy are reserved for those who meet the vulnerability of
divine love in the place of beautiful communication and safe behavior.
It's the place of beautiful communication and safe behavior. This
is what vulnerability is refusing to compromise on. Vulnerability will never
compromise on communication and safe behavior. If you want to dance the divine
dance you're going to have to understand whether this is with God or an
in a marriage or in another relationship, if you want to build true divine trust,
respect and intimacy, you must master beautiful communication. So say this, say
beautiful communication, beautiful communication, beautiful communication
and safe behavior. That is what vulnerability is waiting for.
Vulnerability draws a line in the sand that says I'm not budging and I'm not
going to give you trust, I'm not going to give you respect, I'm not going to give
you intimacy until you meet me in the place of safe behavior and beautiful communication.
beautiful communication, okay?
But once you meet vulnerability in the place
of beautiful communication and safe behavior,
a world starts opening up for you.
And this is a world of deeper trust, deeper respect,
and deeper intimacy that you share beautifully together
as you participate in your own journey of divine dance
and sharing the beauty of divine dance together.
So let me give you one blueprint on some,
just a communication tool that's helped me a lot
in this process of communicating with somebody
if they're making you feel unsafe.
Because a lot of times people, you feel unsafe
and you trigger and you push people away, right?
And people just use that and say,
oh, I put up a boundary.
You didn't put up a healthy boundary.
You just isolated yourself.
You just rejected people.
You just discriminated.
You just pushed away.
And that's not the nature of the kingdom, right?
That's the nature of darkness to do that, all right?
That's like this whole concept of,
I saw a T-shirt as I was walking down the other street,
just down the street the other day,
and it said, F off with all your hate, right?
It's a self-righteous dynamic out there
in the world right now that kind of has this mindset
that if someone disagrees with you, you can hate them,
but your hate is justified and their hate isn't, right?
It's a mess.
It's a total mess.
But what vulnerable,
like the kingdom never steps into that messy world.
Vulnerability draws a line in the sand and said,
this is what I stand for,
but I want to meet you in a place of beautiful communication
and safe behavior,
and then let's go deeper into trust, respect, and intimacy.
But vulnerability, and in the kingdom,
the kingdom refuses to celebrate what is evil,
whereas the world right now is celebrating what is evil.
So this is the statement that's really helped me.
When I'm chatting to someone
and I wanna draw them into this place,
this is what vulnerability looks like.
This is what love looks like with skin on.
It looks like giving people really good information.
So I say to someone, if there's a conflict,
if there's a reconciliation in place,
if there's a broken relationship,
and I wanna mend that relationship,
and I wanna build, and I wanna invite,
this is what boundaries look like in action.
It's like, hey, and you create a safe place.
Don't do this in a place
where they're gonna feel vulnerable, insecure.
And I know with reconciliation and connecting with people,
I've had plenty of times
where I've tried to do this with people,
and they're just not interested, and it doesn't work.
And sometimes you have to wait it out for years
until they change or you change your approach.
And that's not always the other person.
Never assume that's the other person.
Always be asking yourself, what does love look like?
So you can become an embodiment of love in the process.
So here's the statement.
When you did this and give them real clear information,
never be accusational, never say stuff like you're this,
you're this, but just good, clear information.
When you did this and give the exact action,
and then this is where vulnerability comes in.
So you just give full transparency, full vulnerability
on exactly how you felt in that moment.
And that is giving them all the power
to choose how they're gonna respond.
And then you give them some even more beautiful information.
You say, if you want trust, respect, and intimacy,
I need to feel safe.
I feel safe when, dot, dot, dot.
So it starts with really good information.
When you did this, real clear information,
I felt like this, totally vulnerable.
And that's a moment to go 100% on vulnerability.
And then, if you want trust, respect, and intimacy
in our relationship, I need to feel safe,
or I need to feel, dot, dot, dot.
And you've gotta give them that information
of how you need to feel.
And then you give them more information.
You say, and I feel safe, or I feel like that
when you do this, dot, dot, dot.
And what you've done in that moment
is you've given them all the power
to determine the outcome of this relationship.
You've put all the power in their hands.
And that's vulnerable, right?
And we often avoid vulnerability
because it can seem like we could get broken in that space.
And you can, that's the whole point, right?
That's the whole reason why God has a broken heart
is because he's a lover who refuses
to compromise on vulnerability.
And listen, what we don't realize
is when we refuse to give people the information
that they need to make things right,
then we refuse vulnerability, all right?
When we refuse to be vulnerable,
we actually step outside of the kingdom.
When we refuse to give people the information
that they need to reconcile with us,
then we're refusing vulnerability,
and we ourselves are stepping outside
of the kingdom of light.
I understand that this is a real process
where many times people are unsafe.
And so you've gotta really use a lot of wisdom
and discernment, but you've also gotta trump
wisdom and discernment with this question,
what does love look like?
Okay, that has to be the most important thing.
You ask first, what does love look like?
And then get wisdom's direction
and discernment's direction off what love looks like.
Hope that's really cool.
We're gonna go now into the purity of divine love.
So let me.
Let's start with Isaiah 64 verse 6, which says all of us have become like one who is
unclean, and all of our righteous acts are like filthy rags.
Now the Hebrew on this is so nasty.
This is possibly the nastiest, most disgusting verse in the entire Bible.
And let me describe that, and I'm not trying to be gross, but this is exactly what Isaiah
wrote.
So if you want to understand what Isaiah wrote, you have to go to the Hebrew on this.
Very few people go to the Hebrew on this, because it is crazy.
Why would you go to the Hebrew on this?
It doesn't feel like that big a deal, but Isaiah is articulating the heart of God of
how disgusted God is with something.
So first of all, let's look at what he's disgusted with.
He's disgusted with all our righteous acts, okay?
So there's some righteous acts that make God feel absolutely repulsed and disgusted.
And the righteous acts, specifically that Isaiah is referring to here, is religious
action that is trying to buy the love of God, alright?
Let me put that another way.
Performance based acceptance, right?
Performance based acceptance.
This disgusts God.
When your religion is focused on doing something to earn God's love, that disgusts God like
few other things.
There's nothing, probably nothing in the Bible that God uses such disgusting language around
than when people try to buy his love.
Why?
Because when you try to buy God's love, whether you realize it or not, but in the context
of the kingdom, and if you try and go into the divine dance and there you are trying
to buy love, everyone who's participating in the divine dance will look at you like,
whoa, you're so out of step with the dance that it's craziness.
You are so out of step right now with the dance that we can't even, we're disgusted
because what it does is it cheapens divine love down to a thing that you think can be
bought and sold.
And ultimately turns God into the great big prostitute in the sky and we live our lives
trying to buy his love.
And this is where religion gets so twisted and nasty and we don't realize that we can
end up really living in a world that is actually disgusting to God where we have this false
mindset that love can be bought through our behavior.
Love is unconditional.
Love is not for sale.
The moment you put a price tag on love, it is no longer love.
And this is something of the purity, right?
So we're talking about vulnerability, purity, and freedom as natures of the divine love.
Purity refuses ever to cheapen love to be something that can be bought or sold.
So Isaiah 64 verse 6, it says, all of us have become like one who is unclean and all our
righteous acts are like filthy rags.
But the Hebrew of filthy rags is, word for word, used menstrual cloths, right?
Used menstrual cloths.
That is disgusting language.
Agree or disagree that that is disgusting language and how dare God put that in the
Bible.
Like that is crazy.
The modern day equivalent would be, like if we were to paraphrase that, you know, if they
did this, if they did an accurate paraphrase of this, you know, like in a modern translation,
the accurate paraphrase of this would be, all of us have become like those who are unclean.
All our attempts to buy God's love are as pleasing to him as a handful of used tampons.
Like that is so crazy, disgusting.
Okay.
So, and the reason why God is so disgusted on that is because his love is unconditional,
right?
And, and the moment that you think you can buy the love of God, you've just missed out
on the nature of God.
You've completely missed the boat of who God is and is, and the message that he, and
God will, God will not play that game with you, right?
God will not play that game with you.
So you will not reap the rewards of divine intimacy.
You will not reap the rewards of seamless union.
You will not reap the rewards of effortless bliss.
You will not reap the rewards of the divine dance.
If you play the game of religion, if you play the game where you think that your effort
is buying God's love, God will not dance with that behavior, all right?
The divine dance will not dance with a mindset that thinks that you can cheapen God's love
and treat God as the great big prostitute in the sky and just you do something and that
makes him love you because that completely misses the boat on the nature of divine love,
which says, hey, you are as loved as love can be.
You are as one as one can be.
You are as in as in can be.
You are as son as a son can be right now on your best day or your worst day.
Alright, so to we're championing along now and we're gonna move to freedom right the dynamic of freedom like freedom
Okay, freedom
in
Freedom is beautiful right freedom is the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
Freedom is the tree of life freedom is God
Refusing to control you right because if you if love is not a choice
It is no longer love right the moment that love is not a choice. It is no longer love
Let me know if you agree with that right that the moment that love is not a choice
It is no longer love and so God refuses to control people
We have to understand that yes, God will still discipline
But when God disciplines he disciplines as a father disciplining a son and the entire focus of God
Disciplining is always
Redemptive not punitive right so in the kingdom of light and the kingdom of heaven anytime there's discipline anytime God
Engages with you to discipline you in your life. It's for redemption. Okay. It's for a redemptive purpose
It's because he wants to take you from glory to glory
It's because he loves you so much that he doesn't want to leave you in that place of
Performance based acceptance where you can't participate in the divine divine dance. He loves you so much that he's going to bring
Discipline revelation edification
Transformation into your life so that you can participate more fully and deeply in the divine dance
so
That's freedom right the night
And so God is refusing to control you and God's refusing to control other people because control
Defies his own value for love, but the problem with all of this right the problem with vulnerability and the problem with
Freedom and the problem with the purity of God's love is that it sets God up
To be because he won't compromise. He won't budge from there
He's not going to ever budge from his stance of I want love and I want it
My way, I want it the divine way. I want freedom. You can't dance in the divine dance unless you are free
It's a prerequisite unless you're in full freedom
You cannot participate in the divine dance and that is what God wants so God's not going to compromise the divine dance
God will never compromise the divine dance of what is desire for relationship with humanity the blueprint of it
He will never compromise his ultimate longing and desire is for you to participate effortlessly
Perpetually fully in the most extravagant wonderful dynamics of the divine dance and the fellowship of the Trinity
He will never compromise that dream
Despite how many people misunderstand him despite how many people abuse him despite how many people refuse him
All right, he will never compromise his desire for us to step into the divine dance
so what we have as a result is we have exploitation and
Suffering and God living as a lovesick
Romantic and a broken-hearted father
So it's just like in Luke 15 if we look at back to this if we reflect back to Luke 15
God refuses to control his son there, right? He's not he doesn't control his son
He gives his son full freedom to go off
God doesn't but also he doesn't go with the Sun. He doesn't compromise his value for
Purity by following the Sun into his darkness and becoming lost himself. He waits for the Sun
He's like this I want this so much, but I will not compromise my value for purity
I will not follow you into your darkness. Now. That's not saying that God won't find you in your darkness
That's different like God found his son in his darkness
Even when the Sun came back his son was still lost in darkness
His son was someone still had a misperception of who the father was the Sun still had a misperception of his own identity
And but God smothered him in love. All right. The love was unconditional. The love was extravagant
The love was outrageous and remember when we read Luke 15 where it ended up it ended up with a great feast with a great
Celebration with the sound of music and with what?
Dancing the sound of dancing what they what is that? That is so priceless that Jesus put that in that
Description because it's about God's heart to bring humanity back into the divine dance and he included that and
Included the power of that in Luke 15 so that we would always remember that God
Really wants us to bring to be brought back into the divine dance. That's his heart for us
That's where he wants us to be. That's the longing of his heart is the divine dance how outrageous amazing fantastic
Dynamic beautiful wonderful is that that God's desire is for us to participate in the divine dance
But he refuses like his vulnerability is a line in the sand, right? He's like, this is my stance
And this is how I do love he doesn't change that. He doesn't root. He doesn't compromise his vulnerability for his son
He doesn't compromise as pure his value for purity and he definitely doesn't compromise his son's value for freedom
He values the Sun's freedom so much that he even sells off the farm and gives him his inheritance right then
How outrageous is that and then the Sun gets to decide what he's going to do with his inheritance and so do you and I?
We get to decide what we're going to do with our inheritance. We don't really
But God's already sold the farm for us, you know, God's already sold the farm for us given us the most extravagant outrageous
Inheritance Ephesians 1 talks about you know
Yeah, the limitlessness
that we have the oh that we have the
The blessing of everything that's in heaven. Oh my gosh
They are inheritance is insane God's already sold the farm for you and I now we look at this Luke 15 again
And we see exploitation another dynamic of the broken heart of God. So you've got the lovesick father waiting for his son
Refusing to compromise on his value for purity by running into and becoming darkness just to meet the Sun in his darkness
He refuses to do that and because he refuses to compromise his vulnerability and purity and desire for freedom
He the end result of that is he is a lovesick father. God is a lovesick romantic longing for you
He's a lovesick father longing for you
He's just waiting for you and the moment you turn right?
He's gonna smother you and the most dramatic outrageous grace filled at just phenomenal explosion of love that you've ever imagined
He's gonna swallow you up and draw you into the divine dance as quickly as you will come to him. So
There's the beauty of that
but then there's this other you're so there's this dynamic there where God's a bro like a lovesick father a lovesick romantic and
And waiting longing for us to come but then there's another dynamic, right?
Where God is brokenhearted because in the story of Luke 15, you've got all the suffering of humanity included in that, right?
You've got the exploitation of all those ladies that are in prostitution now
It doesn't matter what form of prostitution you're in if this is child prostitution if this is adult prostitution if it's consensual
Prostitution, it doesn't matter what you're calling it
Prostitution is a total
Like it's a total expression of darkness. It's a total lostness of your value. It's a total lostness of an understanding of love
It's a total lostness
So there's that in this story you have the the broken heart of God breaking for these people being exploited
Breaking for these people who are so lost there, you know with and they might be willingly or unwillingly being exploited
You know, they could be sex slaves. Who knows it doesn't tell you but what it captures in this picture is the
Exploitation of humanity the suffering of humanity
No one is gonna you know as a child dream of being a prostitute
So it captures this essence of nasty exploitation if we look at that today in the context of today
prostitution and
exploitation through prostitution and sexual exploitation is through the roof like it's never been before that there's never been so much suffering in the
Context of sexual sexual exploitation as there is in the world today right now
Then another expression of exploitation that we see here is the Sun but you know, he is starving to death as a laborer
He's not even getting enough to be you know to afford to be to eat that is slavery
You know like he to eat slaves usually can afford to eat but this guy he's so exploited in his work context and his labor
Context he can't even afford to eat. Well today we've got over 27 million slaves
There's more slaves today than there ever was at the height of African slave trading
So ask yourself this is this gonna be breaking the heart of God is this going to be like you imagine a father
in our father in heaven
So and I want you to I want to put it in context like this
There's the waiting heart of God and there's this there's that there's a waiting dynamic of God, right?
That's broken because he's waiting for his sons to come and then there's a another part of the broken heart
That is broken because he's waiting for his sons to go. All right, so God's broken hearted by
Everything that we suffer everything that we go through
He's longing just longing as a as a lovesick father longing for us to come back into the divine dance
But then God doesn't miss a beat every person who's raped every person who's abused every person who is more murdered every place
And there's not just one multiple places in the earth right now where there's genocide unfolding
Every place where there's tyranny every place where there's darkness every place where there's oppression every place where there's abuse and destruction and chaos
it is breaking the heart of God you think of what it's like, you know, I
I've been involved in anti-human trafficking work for a long time
I know right now that there's kids the exact same age as my kids
Just as beautiful just as loved by God just as valued just as precious that are trapped in sexual exploitation
Now what do you think that would break the heart of your father in heaven knowing that his very own kids as little kids and
When we're in the context of anti-human trafficking work, we've you know, you come across the stories of it's not just little kids
It's babies, you know, there are predators
There are pedophiles. There are
Sadistic maniacs out there doing the most disgusting things all over the earth and you know
God the part it's crazy part of the broken heart of God is that he never gets to turn off
the sound of
injustice the sound of horror
that rises before the throne of God. We understand that our worship and our prayer rises before
God as an incense that's pleasing to Him. I tell you what, the sound of injustice, the
sound of the shedding of innocent blood, the sound of chaos, the sound of abuse, they rise
before the throne of God just as much. And there is an aspect to the heart of God that
is completely broken and just at the absolute end of itself in brokenness, feeling every,
like, knowing every tear, feeling every dynamic of the chaos and the pain of humanity and
the suffering of humanity. So one part of God is the lovesick, the lovesick father is
longing for us to run back into the divine dance. Then there's the broken hearted father
that is suffering with humanity, the broken heart of the father that's suffering and longing
for the redemption of humanity is longing for us to go. So the lovesick father longs
for us to come into the divine dance. Isaiah 6 says, Whom shall I send and who will go
for us? Whom shall I send and who will go for us? And that is what God is asking us
right now. Okay, will you come and will you go? Right? Will you come and will you go?
Will you come and participate with me in the divine dance and be completely consumed in
that space? As we wrap up, let me give you a beautiful view here, because I just think
what we're seeing right here, just this captures like the beauty of the heart of God. This
captures the beauty and the essence and the purity of God. This creation right here, this
captures the purity of the heart of God. And he's saying, will you come into the divine
dance as I'm longing for you right now, as I'm desiring for you right now, as I'm, as
my whole heart is yearning and longing for you to come back into the divine dance. Will
you be swallowed up in unconditional love? Will you be swallowed up in unconditional
grace and unconditional mercy? Will you rest and will you open up your heart and will you
receive the extravagance of my divine love? Will you allow me to love on you? Will you
allow me to saturate you? Will you, will you put down all of your thoughts that I require
performance and will you just rest and allow me to consume you in the most beautiful, unconditional,
extravagant love? Will you open your heart up for my supernatural outpouring of love?
Will you open your heart up for Romans 5.5 that says, the love of God is poured out into
our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Will you rest now? Will you open wide your heart? Will
you receive a supernatural outpouring of the love of God that baptizes you, consumes you,
infuses you and draws you into the sacred divine dance that you were born for? Will
you allow him to take you beyond your disappointments, beyond what you've seen, beyond your experience
into new dimensions, into new realms of his love, into new aspects of the fiery, all-consuming
love of God. Will you allow him to take you where you've never been before? Will you allow
him to love you like you've never been loved before? There's the waiting heart of God and
then there's the Isaiah 6 where God says, whom shall I send and who will go for us?
And he says, hey, will you stand with me? Will you go with me? Will you run? Will you
outdream darkness? This is what God's wondering. Who will stand with him to outdream darkness?
Will you stand with God and dare to have the faith that will believe what God believes,
that there is redemption for all humanity? Will you stand with God and believe what he
believes, that he will disciple nations, that he will bring heaven to earth? Will you
stand with him? Will you go with him? Will you dream with him? Will you outdream darkness?
Will you dare to look darkness in the face and dare to look every expression of chaos
and tyranny and oppression and injustice in the face and say, you know what, let's outdream
darkness. God, what do you see? What do you say? Because God sees a higher dimension.
God sees a realm of redemption. God sees a place where you are the solution. You are
the answer. And God is longing for you to step into that place where you receive his
outpouring of love, where you participate in the divine dance, where you get baptized,
immersed, saturated, inundated, and receive the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that sets
you on fire and sets you ablaze and takes you where you've never been before and lights
you up like you've never experienced before and takes you into whole new dimensions. Will
you experience that from God? And then will you take that love into a broken world? We're
going to wrap it up. I'm going to pray for you briefly, but we're going to wrap it up
and tomorrow our session, and you'll see the notices for when it's going live, but tomorrow
our session, session number two is, today was the burning heart of God, the broken heart
of God, tomorrow is the burning heart of God. So we're going to explore the burning heart
of God tomorrow. I love you very much, fam. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, I thank you for your
love.
for everyone here. Holy Spirit, I thank you that you created them for the Divine
Dance. I thank you that you created them to be fiercely, outrageously,
extravagantly, unconditionally, perfectly, supernaturally loved. And I thank
you that even as we're seeing the waves in the ocean right here, I thank you that
waves of your supernatural love will flow from heaven, that waves of fire will
flow through them, that their burning outrageous electricity of your love will
charge right through their bodies, that there'll be encounters with your love
like never before, that they'll bring freedom, healing, redemption, that they
will set a fire in hearts like never before. Holy Spirit, I just hear the Holy
Spirit just saying, come, come, come. Lay it down and come, come, come. Come into the
baptism. Come into surrender. Come into this place of receiving, receiving,
receiving. Unconditionally receiving the outpouring of the love of God. May it fill
you and flood you and consume you like never before. And may it set you ablaze
and empower you and light you up and equip you and send you to stand with God,
outdream darkness and bring heaven to earth as you run into the face of
tyranny and injustice and oppression with the love of God and a capacity to
bring heaven to earth and draw others into the Divine Dance. In your beautiful
name Jesus. Amen. Go see your fam. I'll catch you soon. Love you heaps. See you
tomorrow for the burning heart of God. Alright, see ya. Bye bye.