Remove The Disgrace

0:00:00     Hey, I can’t wait to talk to you on today’s more faith, more life podcast about how to get rid of your human side and be transformed into a spirit being. Hello everybody, and welcome again to another more faith, more Life podcast. Today we’re going to talk about, well, we’re actually going to talk some more about restoring God’s honor, why it needs to be done. And most people don’t even realize how dishonorable the church has become, christians have become, until you really dive into it and think about the level of Christianity that we have today and how far off it is. We might review that a little bit, because most of the messages going across the general religious, you know, circuits, whether it be Pentecostal or Baptist or independent or whatever it is a Catholic, the messages going across tend to fall into one category, and they are a category of it’s all about me, it’s humanism. I want to hear about me, I want to hear sermons about me.

0:00:59     I want to hear why I do what I do. What can I do to not do what I do? Does God love me? Am I really forgiven? How do I forgive other people? How do I get along? How do I make more money? I’d like to get a better job. All these things are important, and we can lower it just a little bit and say, yeah, God cares all about those things. But the problem is, that’s not why we’re here. That’s not why we’re on earth.

0:01:25     And we have a reason, there’s a reason that makes no sense unless you understand the reason that we’re here on earth. Because God placed us here in his enemy’s territory. The great rebellion of Lucifer in heaven. He was thrown out of heaven. One third of the angels were thrown out of heaven and they were thrown to earth. Now, God wants to create humans and he says, I know what I’ll do. I’ll create them right there in the earth where my wicked enemy is, who has the power to deceive, obviously deceive the angels.

0:01:56     He lies, he deceives, he destroys, he kills. Oh, yeah, I’m going to put my loving children down there and just see what happens. Some are going to make it, some are not going to make it. So, you know, I’ll just kind of experiment with them and going like, what? Why are we here? Then you begin to realize we’re here because of the dishonor that happened in heaven, the rebellion that happened in heaven. We put out the rebellion by God, placing his new creation, his created people, you know, Adam and Eve and on through humans.

0:02:30     He places them here to be vessels of honor, to restore honor, to put down the rebellion. Because we have a choice here to follow Satan and go his way, go the world’s way, whatever way. But we also have a choice to do things God’s way and the Bible’s way and, and live a life differently that honors God and puts God first. And so we have to back up this whole thing was God told the children of Israel when they’re learning his ways, he says, listen, love me with all your heart. You have to start by loving God.

0:03:04     And you say, well, I don’t feel like loving God. Love is not a feeling when you start out with God. Love is an honor. We honor him by loving, respecting, hollowing his name, as we say. And when we talk about the Lord’s prayer, hallowed be thy name, we, you know, it means to respect, to be honored, to be praised, to be revered, his name. And that’s where this all starts. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

0:03:29     We know that loving your neighbor as yourself is there also. But that’s the second one. We got to get the first one first. The first, the second one doesn’t work. And listen, loving your neighbor as yourself is not that easy. And so you to start there, well, I’m just going to love my neighbor as myself. You’re going to have struggles if you get that. I learned to love God. I put the love of God above the love of self. That’s basically it.

0:03:54     That’s what Christianity is. Through Jesus Christ, the blood of the lamb has opened the way that humans like myself, like us regular folks, we can approach the throne of grace and we can be a part of the kingdom of God. But being part of the kingdom of God is not putting ourselves first, putting God’s love and God’s ways. God’s just putting God first, Jesus first, kingdom of God first and us second. Because that’s what happened with Lucifer. He put his selfishness first.

0:04:27     God had a plan, he had it all lined out. It was, and Lucifer was in a great position, powerful in heaven. But his selfishness and his pride became first in, in him and that got him thrown out. He led a rebellion to put himself on what he wanted first. So when we come here and we start this walk with God, then we have to realize what we need to do is follow the pattern of the kingdom of God and not make that same mistake.

0:04:56     To where now we have religion called Christianity that has allowed self-centered ways to become first. And so people go to church to be comfortable. They go to church to feel good. They don’t want to be corrected. They don’t want to have to have any responsibility. They want to just hear, well, it’s all by grace. Jesus did it all. And there’s no responsibility of me to love God or respond to God, because if you do that now, you’re into works and all that. Come on.

0:05:25     We should know better than that, that this is not about us, and yet it can become about us if we put it in the right order, that we are in the order of things. You are in God’s order of things, and you’re in the line of blessing, and you’re in the line of help, and you’re in the line of love. But if we put ourselves first and want God to run after us, trail after us, make me feel good, God make me feel good about me.

0:05:53     I want to go to church to feel good about me. Well, that’s the wrong reason we go now. If we. If we get this messed up from the beginning, if the foundation is wrong, then everything’s going to be wrong. Well, we have to go back almost 150 years or whatever through Christianity to where Christianity began to change, to become about going to heaven. And so we have this huge mandate on people. Like, I have to get out there and get people into heaven because that’s what this is about, is getting people to go to heaven after they die.

0:06:30     All right? And once they do, once we get that, we know they’re going to go to heaven, then now you’re saved, and saved means you’re going to get to go to heaven when you die. And so it’s the, that old school is not working. It’s not working because the people who are sitting in church believing that they’re going to go to heaven when they die are not enjoying living. And the symptoms are everywhere. Divorce and depression.

0:06:54     I need to feel loved. I’m so desperate to feel liked and loved, and I’m so fearful of so many things. And I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know how to get ahead. And now on top of that, we have inflation and cost of living going up and all these other things going on around us. And the old school doesn’t work because you just sit here and wait to die, to go to heaven. Say all those hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of songs, it’ll all be better when we get to the other side, right? It’ll all be good. When we get there, when we get to the other side.

0:07:31     What? That’s not even scriptural. You know, it’s triumphant here now. It’s triumphant here. The joy of the Lord is now the power of God, the presence of God. So the new school is different, and it needs to be incorporated, and you need to get it, whatever level you’re on in your walk with God. So the old school is, we want to make sure that we get to go to heaven when we die. The new school is we go to church to connect to God in the presence of God while we’re here on earth.

0:08:03     And through that, we restore God’s honor while we’re here dying. And going to heaven does not restore God’s honor. Right? Obedience does. Sacrifice does the very things Jesus did that we’re supposed to follow in his suit. We’re supposed to pick up our cross and follow him in his way. And so the new school of things is, wait a minute. This is not about me anymore. I need to get back to where Christianity was in the first century, to where they gave all. They sacrificed, they sanctification, they set themselves apart for holiness. All these great things that the new movement needs to begin because people need to encounter God and the presence of God and be the people of his presence.

0:08:50     And that’s new to most people because the general population is going to church to try to be a good person until they die and go to heaven. Got it. They’re going to try, through the power of God, to be a good person. All right, well, that’s good, too. Good for you. But that wasn’t God’s goal. God’s goal was to place you here, which makes no sense if all you’re going to do is be tempted your whole life, and you hope you’re going to make it to heaven, but some people will make it to hell.

0:09:17     That’s risky. But if God placed us here to cause us to end the rebellion, to glorify his name, to show that we can make a choice for God, we can love, God is a good God, and we’re going to choose him, and not just on a medium level, we’re going to choose him wholeheartedly, loving with our whole heart. And out of that’s going to spring forth the presence of God, experiencing the glory of God, hearing the voice of God, just knowing, just knowing God, aware of God.

0:09:50     Now all these things get translated into the what a transformed person, a changed person, who now can love his neighbor as himself or her neighbor as herself, who now can serve, who has become a better person. But we’re getting it backwards. We’re trying to just feel better about who we are rather than become who we are supposed to be. And, yeah, that means you have to say, I have a way to go. I need to learn this. I need to understand.

0:10:17     But instead, now there’s a disgrace in the church. Yeah. What is it? What about hypocrisy? It’s everywhere. And you know what hypocrisy is? Like yeast in bread. It spreads. Hypocrisy does not sit still. It goes after people. You get around a hypocrite, the hypocrisy will come after you. That’s not me saying that. That’s Jesus saying that. He says it’s like yeast, and it goes through the whole loaf of bread. Right?

0:10:46     And he said, so beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. You need to be aware of that today. It’s very much a lie. Materialism. We got such materialism. It’s dominating our lives. We have so much, and we’re still not happy. Right? We want. I don’t know if we want more. We think we need more, whatever, but we’re not satisfied. There’s a dissatisfaction in the people of God. Well, everywhere. But it shouldn’t be in the people of God. Materialism, just lukewarm faith.

0:11:16     Just middle of the road. Lukewarm. Not too hot, not too cold. Don’t want to rock the boat. Don’t want to appear weird, you know? And so all these things grab us to where now we have this sort of middle of the road about me. Make me happy, make me calm. Calm me down, make me happy. Teach me to be a better person, a better mom, better dad, better kids, cleaner carnality. It’s still carnal. It’s still about us. It’s carnal. If it’s about me, I’m flesh, right?

0:11:46     And if it’s about me, it’s carnal. So if it’s carnal, okay, but realize that’s just cleaner carnality. It’s not spirituality. And so God wants to put us in the spirit realm and have a church that reflects his presence and his glory, so that people with all these problems and all these situations and all these circumstances, they walk into a building. Yeah. And inside is people who love God with all their heart, that are set apart, sanctified holiness, all these great, willing to sacrifice, focused understanding that God’s love and God’s kingdom comes first.

0:12:26     Now these hurting people come in to that environment, and it changes everything, because they run right into the presence of God. And sometimes we have seen so many Jesus movies, I guess, you know, thought him up in ourselves, what it would like, what Jesus was like when he walked the shores of Galilee, walked among the crowds and everything. We forget Jesus had a presence about him. And his presence either made you love him and go to him and want him, or it angered you because you didn’t want that presence to dominate the area that he’s in. And he dominated the area that he was in. He dominated it with his presence.

0:13:09     Like there were demons and evil spirits and wickedness everywhere, and he would come in and dominate that. Or he would also infuriate the wicked people, wouldn’t he? Infuriate wicked religion, infuriate demonic people, and they would cry out, you know, and need relief. And so we forget Jesus has a presence about him. And when you come in and we claim that Jesus is in the house, God is in the house, and it’s just dull, blank, nothing other than just kindness that you can get anywhere. I mean, you don’t have to come to church, go down to the park or something. We have a park by our house here that’s loaded with people on Sunday morning. And they’re all being pretty kind to one another, you know, being friendly, drinking coffee.

0:13:58     And so, you know, go to church and you meet kind people who are being nice and trying to be better than other people. You know, nothing, be hard to get along with all that. But it’s a cleaner carnality because it’s still all about us and God’s not in it, and we’re not experiencing God. So we need to experience God so we can restore the honor to God and get this, get back some integrity, right? Some zeal, some hunger for God, some loyalty.

0:14:26     All these things that have disappeared out of Christianity. I mean, we may say the words, but even then it’s not said very often. You don’t hear sermons on integrity and sacrifice and sanctification. You hear many, many sermons and teachings on God loves you, you are forgiven. Don’t worry about it. Just keep going. Keep doing what you’re doing and everything will turn out okay. So we’ve got to have some heartfelt prayer. We’ve got to have some people finally praying. We got to have some preachers finally praying, calling forth, you know, like.

0:14:57     Like Joel did here. Joel calls it chapter one of Joel, put on sackcloth, o priests, and mourn and minister and come and offer offerings and declare a holy fast, a sacred assembly, summon the elders, cry out to the Lord, and this is way back then they were saying they needed to do that. How much more should we know to do that with the Holy Spirit, with the kingdom of God, with Jesus as our savior? How much more should we know that we are off the mark?

0:15:30     And there’s disgrace in the churches. There’s love of money and love of self and politics and all these things going on. And nobody wants to change anything. Because the people in leadership are like the Pharisees. Why would they want to change anything in Jesus day? Why do they want to have Jesus be the top dog when they’re already it, they’re the richest, they’re respected. They have power in the community.

0:15:58     You know, they have. Well, then, now they’re going to come and have Jesus say, hey, I am the way. Not you. You ain’t the way. I am the way, and I am it. He’s the way, the truth, the life. That’s everything. He’s everything. And today, when you have religion so locked up and it’s so smooth and it’s so great, and the people come and they just feel, you know, make them feel good about themselves, where they are every week, why rock that boat? Why should I accept it’s wrong?

0:16:26     It’s not Christianity. It’s humanism. It’s humanism in sheep’s clothing. See, it’s humanism. It’s all about us. It’s all about me. Because I know. I know, you know, as a pastor, okay? So I know you love to hear about you. You want to hear about you. You want to hear me to talk about you. You want me kind of turn my sermon into therapy session, group therapy, whether it be 100 people, thousand people, 10,000 people, they’re preaching group therapy to all of us of how we can feel better about ourselves and maybe realize it’s not our fault we’re victims of somebody else.

0:17:02     And now we just need to get over that and forgive them and blah, blah, blah. So if you really want to get back to what it is, if we need the power that comes and the glory that comes, when people want to restore honor to the disgrace that happened in heaven a long time ago, but it’s still happening in the churches and in our communities all over the place where Jesus is disgraced. His name is a cuss word.

0:17:28     His name is used all the time. Non-Christians use the name of Jesus more than Christians do. You don’t hear Christians using the name of Jesus. You don’t hear them praying hard in the name of Jesus much. But, boy, you can go watch a movie and how many times do they say the name Jesus in a bad way in these movies? So we have to get on track. What is this about? It’s about people being transformed. It’s not about people feeling better as they are.

0:17:55     This is a transforming power, new creation by encountering the living God and the presence of God. And that’s what church is to be. Church is not to be a fellowship of. Of, you know, just getting together like you’re at the YMCA or whatever. And we have fellowship. We enjoy, we have friends, we have home group. We go out to eat together, we do stuff together, and we sing some songs together. And we have a 20 minutes, 30 minutes sermon together.

0:18:22     Then we go our way, and the next service starts after us, in and out. You know, this is a life transformation, life changing experience called Jesus Christ, son of the living God, who makes new things, new creatures, new things, and those new, new folks then begin to chase after new things and want new things and begin to help others get a transformation by the power of God. Now, this also. It’s good, but if you’re. But you know, if you.

0:18:51     If we want to try to start this, we’re going to be up. Just like Jesus was, against religious spirits and religious people who don’t want to change a thing and people who don’t want to be transformed, they just want a home in heaven when they die. They want to know God loves me, God forgives me, and if I die, I go to heaven. The rest of it, I’d like God just to leave me alone. Right? I like the faraway God. I don’t want the close up God.

0:19:18     I like the faraway God because the faraway God leaves me alone to kind of do whatever I want to do. At the same time, I have blessed assurance that if I were to die, I were to go to heaven. So for me, I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want to live like that. I want to live in the presence of God. I want to notice God. I want to know. I want to know God. I want to know Jesus. I really know him. I want to know an intimate way.

0:19:41     I want to serve him. I don’t want to serve myself. I don’t want to live just for me. I want to be in contact with him. And I love the idea of walking through my day aware of God all the time. God awareness, God’s presence. And it overrides other things. When other things don’t go the way you wander, that it overrides it. You know, the world’s still the world, things. We still got stuff to do. It’s still, we got to raise kids or work or make money, pay bills, whatever.

0:20:11     Oh, but the presence of God, one touch by the presence of God and you’ll never be the same again. And that’s what happened to them in the Bible. That’s why they transformed into such powerful, powerful people that we still listen to today. We still read what they have to say today because they’re so, they were so transformed. Think about who you could be. Think who you might so you might suppose to be.

0:20:37     See, you’re put in here to be, not take your humanity and make it Christianity. No, you’re here to take your humanity and be transformed into a spirit being who walks by the spirit and not by the flesh, not by carnality, even if it’s cleaner. But you walk by the spirit. You’re a spirit person, a spirit being. This is who you’re supposed to be. And you can go through your whole life and never get this, never even know about it, and never even try to get in your church or your groups. Start talking about this.

0:21:11     Start talking about where we are. Look at our, look who we are, look how we feel, look how our mental state is. And we call ourselves Christians, and yet all the things that happen to non-Christians happen to us, too. We’re not immune to it. Although right when the. When all the plagues came to Egypt, there was a place called the land of Goshen. And in that land of Goshen, the people were safe as long as they stayed in the land or they stayed in their homes when they needed to, they were safe, and the plagues didn’t get them.

0:21:43     Well, that’s a great way to be that you can live triumphantly in Christ more than a conqueror. And that’s where you need to be. Not a conqueror, but even more than a conqueror. By serving Jesus the way it was meant to be, realizing why we are here on earth, to restore God’s glory and honor and how it affects us and reviving the church, breaking the power of hypocrisy and bitterness and these demonic powers that are plaguing people called Christians. I’m not saying they’re demonic. I’m just saying they’re demonized voices that just plague us and getting us back to true devotion. We need to slay Goliath in our lives and slay him in our churches, as David said.

0:22:31     Who is this giant that’s defying the armies of the living God? And David restored honor. He went out and slayed the Goliath. Yeah, he was going to get a big reward for doing it, but he wanted to get rid of the disgrace. You need to do that and start pursuing God with all your heart. Get into the will of God. Pray. Talk to him, reach out to him, notice him every day. Don’t be afraid of sacrifice. Oh, it’s the greatest thing to sacrifice, to be set apart for God’s use only all these great things that have been lost. Sanctification, holiness, the wonderful life of Christianity that follows Jesus, serves Jesus, doesn’t serve ourselves, loves God with all our heart.

0:23:19     And next time when we meet again, I’ll talk to you about the benefits of honoring God and restoring God’s honor in the churches and in your life today. Be sure and check out our resources. If You Only Knew: A Guide To The Clueless Generation and some other things we have at https://www.morefaithmorelife.com and tell your friends about the podcast. If you’re listening today, you might realize, hey, people aren’t hearing this stuff very much.

0:23:43     Either it’s being screamed at them or they’re being told they’re going to go to hell. So they’re afraid. So they, out of fear, they turn to Jesus. This is a lifestyle that will work for you and transform you and your family forever. Till next time. Bye.