Reviving Authentic Faith

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, maybe this is you. You’re going to church. You carry a Bible sometimes, but you still feel like something’s missing. I’m going to tell you what that is on the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:12 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, non-profit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:37 – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more, more from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the Word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately your life.

0:01:12 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:24 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. We’re excited to talk about spiritual things today that are going to help you see yourself better and walk closer to the Lord, get more victories and, well, get more life. That’s what we’re after. I got Kathy with me today again, my wife Kathy. And we’re happy to be doing this. We’ve been just celebrated 50 years of marriage and we’re still going, still going strong, still talking about Jesus and still trying to do what he wants to do. Never stop.

0:01:52 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I want to mention the book that they can get, Kathy. They can get it in the bookstores, you can get it online, a place you get. Or you can be really smart and just get it from us. Because if you get Mighty Like Gideon at https://stevegrayministries.com or https://MoreFaithMoreLife.com , wherever you want to go, you can get it with the book for I think a dollar, very little, this workbook, Mighty Like Gideon, that’ll help you answer questions and stuff. You want to get this, but you can’t get this anyplace else. You can only get it here or from J.D. King, who was the co-author with me on this book, he has them too.

0:02:31 – (Steve Gray): So you want to do that and get the book. There’s a lot of great talk about it. And in that, there’s a lot of things that you probably haven’t thought of that it’s not just like an informative book, you know, didn’t we talk about that the other day? Like when I write or teach or preach or whatever, you know, some people write or teach to inform. Right. But I.

0:02:54 – (Kathy Gray): No, you do it to transform. You bring a living message and your focus and your purpose is help the word of God coming through you to transform people, to enhance their lives, to help them change and defeat challenges.

0:03:10 – (Steve Gray): And when you’re transformed, you know what to do. The end of that scripture of Romans 12, the end of that 1 and 2, is that you’ll know what God’s will is. You’ll know what God’s will is. So it’s really important that you get transformed and you find. What is God saying to you about changes and change that you can make through the power of God?

0:03:33 – (Kathy Gray): Yes. Excellent.

0:03:34 – (Steve Gray): Well, we have a lot of thinking. Go ahead. You were going to say something? Yeah.

0:03:37 – (Kathy Gray): I’ll tell you what. From your book, it just keeps stirring so many questions and things in me. And I got a one to ask you today, and that is it. I’m just going to read it. Here we see churches that are growing in numbers, but shrinking in power. So what’s missing? Why are they so afraid to perhaps preach the real gospel that like we were just talking about you, transforms people? So what’s the deal?

0:04:03 – (Steve Gray): Okay, first of all, it’s interesting. Yes, churches do seem to be shrinking. They’re also shifting, but shrinking in power. Yes, but even in numbers, people say. But there’s some things to learn about it. Okay. One of the things is when we look at today’s churches, we begin to see that there’s something God wanted to do to cause it to be a church. Okay, so what is a church? And of course, that could be a big thing, but if you just get rid of the clutter. 1st century Paul and you know, churches were started first time by Jews who incorporated non-Jews, right?

0:04:46 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:04:47 – (Steve Gray): And there was a reason they got together. They got together to glorify God and to show obedience, glorification, and to reveal revelation of who God is to us and the Word of God. And then they got together, they worshiped Word of God, they helped with each other’s needs. All this was going on and. And be in a church. Okay, well, today’s church is different because it is shrinking and it has shrunk in power and some places shrinking in numbers.

0:05:18 – (Steve Gray): And so we’ve got to get that. Because my personal feeling is they will continue to shrink in numbers if they don’t change their message and continue. You cannot continue to shrink in power with God and grow in numbers without compromising God. Now, you could compromise God. You can compromise God. Here, I want to move this over a little bit. There you go. You can compromise and still be called a church and have a compromised congregation and you can still get numbers, right?

0:05:51 – (Steve Gray): But you won’t get the transformation. You won’t get the changed lives. So what’s going to happen is those people then the churches that have huge numbers, they look like success, but we don’t realize those numbers are shift. It’s a flow of. It’s not the same people. So he says, well, they have a congregation of 10,000, okay, but it’s not the same 10,000. It is for a while, but then they go and they go to another 10,000 church or a smaller one or a bigger one.

0:06:19 – (Steve Gray): It’s a shifting one. It’s not a committed one. Now at Revive Church, it’s really interesting. We’ve got a lot of new people coming and we’re thankful for that. And we are growing. We’re thankful for that. But you go to Archer, people that have been there 10 years, 15 years, 20, 25 years, maybe longer. Yes, they stick with it, See? Why? Because they were changed. You know, they were changed and they just keep coming back. Why would people keep coming back for 30 years to the same church?

0:06:49 – (Steve Gray): Unless, you know, do they have their special seat or whatever where people, you know, sit. No, they were changed.

0:06:56 – (Kathy Gray): They were changed and they want to.

0:06:57 – (Steve Gray): Stay in the house where they were trans.

0:07:00 – (Kathy Gray): And, you know, the transformation continues. Sometimes I’ll say, I’m the pastor’s wife, but every time I go or I hear that preaching of the word or I stand in the presence of the Lord, I’m transformed more and more, like Paul said, from glory to glory. That’s why we keep hanging around there.

0:07:21 – (Steve Gray): And so churches, some are growing in numbers and some are not growing in numbers. But it’s the same problem all around, is it’s not a case too where our leaders are totally against God’s power. It’s just they don’t know what to do. They’ve been taught by people who didn’t have the power, or they watched people who said they had the power. And you kind of know they’re show. They’re just all show. It’s all show. It’s all talk.

0:07:49 – (Steve Gray): And so what we have to do is we need to get on the message of God and the word of God and the shrinking in the spirit will stop. And the shrinking in numbers. Now get this. All right? So as an example, we pastored in a tiny town of 532 people. Long story. I know you’re looking now saying, who in their right mind would pastor a church in a town of 500 unless they were exiled by the spirit of God and being punished.

0:08:23 – (Kathy Gray): Being punished.

0:08:24 – (Steve Gray): Well, our story goes a long way that we were offered other churches, but God wanted to raise this one from the dead. And it was dead, wasn’t it?

0:08:33 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:08:34 – (Steve Gray): Locked up for four years. No people, no money, no maintenance, Nobody to cut the grass, nobody to paint the walls. Locked up and four years an old church. And the church was built in 1859. You lock up an old church for four years that’s built in 1859, it’s not going to be a pretty smell and sight when you unlock it. But we did.

0:08:56 – (Kathy Gray): Amen, brother.

0:08:56 – (Steve Gray): We did.

0:08:57 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:08:58 – (Steve Gray): Now, here’s the deal. Nobody would really do that in their right mind. If you could start a church in a big city where there’s a lot of people, that might be a good idea. But there are churches in small towns, and we did it. We did it for a long time. Right now, that same pastor leader church in a small church or a large church, what? Pastor leader, minister, elder, whatever you want to call them, would not like to have Time magazine or Newsweek magazine visit their church and do a story on it.

0:09:30 – (Steve Gray): What? Any church around here within 100 miles. Let’s say you go to them and you say, I got an idea. Why don’t you have Newsweek magazine come and do a story on your church? How would that happen? That’s not going to happen, is it? No, there’s. No, there’s not.

0:09:46 – (Kathy Gray): There’s no story there.

0:09:48 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, there’s no story there. It’s the same old, same old. Some churches raise their hand, some don’t. Some sing old songs, some sing out of hymn books. Some have bands, some have drums, some have organs, okay? And that’s what we think is our differences. But that’s not the problem. The problem is there is no difference. There is no difference. The heart of the people is the same. They go to a church where they don’t intend on changing anything, and they don’t intend changing.

0:10:17 – (Steve Gray): That’s why they found that church. They found a church that was already like them. So they don’t want to change, and so they’re Locked in. So what’s going to happen? They’re going to continue to shrink spiritually because they went to a place on purpose that didn’t change. Would. Wouldn’t ask them to change. Wouldn’t want them to change. Okay. Now knowing that a leader knows that, but they still want to get a crowd.

0:10:45 – (Steve Gray): So how do I get a crowd? I just need to begin to say, speak, do be what people who do not plan on changing want to hear.

0:10:56 – (Kathy Gray): There you go.

0:10:57 – (Steve Gray): People that don’t. That think I am. No, I’m not the problem. You know, I don’t need to change. I like who I am and I like my religion. It’s personal to me, which there’s no such thing. Two things. There’s no personal religion because Jesus is Lord of all. And another funny one, there’s no such thing as a silent prayer. Try it. Now. You can have a moment of silence out of respect.

0:11:22 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:11:23 – (Steve Gray): Let’s stop our world for a second.

0:11:25 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:11:26 – (Steve Gray): And remember the victims or the trouble that we’ve had in our hard things that have happened in our country or our world. And have a moment of reverence, a moment of thought, a moment of respect. But you can’t call it prayer. If you’re going to have a silent prayer, you better scrunch hard. Cause there ain’t such a thing. Okay.

0:11:47 – (Kathy Gray): No.

0:11:48 – (Steve Gray): So leaders who have taught other leaders who don’t maybe realize they were taught by other leaders, have taught us. I’ll say us. Taught how to have a church and how to get a crowd and how to have with people who do not plan on changing. So a scripture, God Paul said to Timothy, you have to be careful. Cause the time is coming when people are going to have itching ears. That’s a great phrase, isn’t it?

0:12:18 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:12:18 – (Steve Gray): You ever had an itchy ear drive you crazy?

0:12:21 – (Kathy Gray): Never.

0:12:22 – (Steve Gray): You know, they’ll have itching ears to hear what they want to hear. They will preach what they want to hear. So if you, Kathy, can figure out what’s itching people’s ears, what’s making them scratch, you can start a church. Because now all you have to do is feed them what their ears want to hear and they will come. Because what do they want to hear? They want to hear what’s itching their ears. What’s itching in their ears?

0:12:50 – (Steve Gray): Them.

0:12:50 – (Kathy Gray): Them.

0:12:51 – (Steve Gray): Them. Yeah.

0:12:52 – (Kathy Gray): Everything about self.

0:12:54 – (Steve Gray): Self. And so I need a church that reinforces myself rather than tries to change myself. Isn’t that remarkable? Isn’t that revelation yet? The kingdom of God is be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

0:13:09 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:13:10 – (Steve Gray): Become a new creature, new creation. Right?

0:13:14 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:13:14 – (Steve Gray): They’re new every morning. Blessings of God. You know, the mercies of God are new every morning. Every time you give, there’s something new you got to grab. But if you’re not in the new mode and self-protected mode and you know, you would just blow a gasket if anybody came into your church and did anything that your denomination normally doesn’t do. I did that a couple. I’ve done that. Oh, yes, and conferences.

0:13:40 – (Steve Gray): I’ve already told the story on here, probably, unless it was a different one someplace else. When I was on stage with all those famous people, I won’t say where, but it was a conference and I was one of the speakers and there were other famous people on stage and they were speakers. And so you had to be on the stage when the other guys spoke. You know, supportive.

0:13:57 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:13:58 – (Steve Gray): So he had to sit there while they preached, and then they sat there while you preached. But we. So we’re all on the platform when praise and worship was going on, you know, and everybody’s singing. They got hands up. It’s a good, good group. Right. But I looked down and every one of the leaders stood there like 10, like a soldier, wood soldier, you know. Yes, the people are whoa and whoa. But they’re like overseers. Like, okay, this is too low for me. I don’t show emotionalism. I don’t show.

0:14:26 – (Steve Gray): Oh, obviously they’re shrinking. They’ve shrunk back. Well, I’m on stage, I don’t know, there’s seven or eight guys up there and there’s song and then the band lead. But we’re standing, our chairs are over to the side. But we’re on the stage and God begins to speak to me because I’m a worshiper, so my hands are up. But that was okay. Nobody thought anything of that. And God began. And I had a suit with a tie and a vest and everything on, you know, dressed up.

0:14:48 – (Kathy Gray): You look just like him, huh?

0:14:49 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I dressed just like him until God spoke to me and says, I want you to lay out on the floor, nose down, arms out, legs out, just flat on the floor, prostrate on the floor, just get on the floor and worship me. Now there’s a couple thousand people in that building and the place and all those preachers standing there, you know, like board, stiff as a board, brick wall, standing next to. But I did it.

0:15:16 – (Steve Gray): I did it because I don’t have itchy ears for what other people tell me what to do. I have an itch for the kingdom of God and the spirit of God. And he just tells me. And so what’s missing then is that we’re not coming leaders particularly, but so are church folks are not coming to experience the power of God. That’s what we do. We come and we connect to God. Now when we connect to God, can it be, I’m going to help you, I’ll give you some money.

0:15:49 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I can connect. If we’re in church again, I’m going to give you some money, whatever. So we connect to God with people’s hurts and we worship and we sing and we praise and we share and we laugh. At least we do in our church. We laugh and enjoy. Right. But what we’re doing is we’re putting ourselves into this power position of the kingdom of God and the church and we then become pliable where we want to be transformed and we hear testimonies like, I was changed, I’m doing it.

0:16:18 – (Steve Gray): So that little town, what happened to it? I said, wouldn’t any little town like to have time and news? Well, just all kinds of newspapers came and all kinds. There were reporters there almost every week. Because 250,000 people visited that town of 500. Yes. Over a three-year period. And why did they come? So, yeah, the deception. If you don’t scratch their ears with your sermon, they won’t come. Right, that’s, that’s hanging over everybody. Yeah, it is, but it’s a lie. It is a lie because yeah, they won’t come. Maybe every week and be there and just help me, help me.

0:17:04 – (Steve Gray): But we had the whole world come twice and line up outside of the building for three years and in Kansas City revival in 2008, lined up in the middle of the day just to get in the building. So that’s a lie. Yeah, you can get a crowd by scratching their ears. You’ll get a bigger crowd if you pay the price and you stop shrinking back from the power of God. You get ahold of the power of God or let the power of God get ahold of you, however you want to say it, then you’ll give them sound doctrine and sound doctrine and the word of God will attract a bigger crowd all the time.

0:17:38 – (Steve Gray): But you got to do it consistently. You can’t just have a good Sunday where they come up and say, pastor, that was a really great sermon. Is there an insinuation that last week wasn’t so great? You got to have the kingdom of God and the power of God. You got to have him in your service and then people will come. We have new people coming now that we never have before. Don’t know anything about the Lord.

0:17:59 – (Steve Gray): And they are eating up what they see because they don’t know. They don’t know any better. They just come and they see these people. We had the lady come and say, I like this church because you’re really going after God. You’re not just saying, we’re going after God. Right. So what’s missing is the church is struggling right now in so many ways because it’s off course, it’s been derailed. And so people just keep doing, feeding that self. So we have to have another home group, another basketball team.

0:18:27 – (Steve Gray): You know, we have to have a fishing tournament. We have to have a spaghetti supper. We have to go.

0:18:34 – (Kathy Gray): I can’t fathom that. I’m sorry. I just have to say right now, I cannot. We could never live like that.

0:18:39 – (Steve Gray): No.

0:18:40 – (Kathy Gray): We, you know, from the very beginning, we decided to live under the power of God through the power of God. Cause we wanted other people to experience the presence and power of God. And that does come with a price.

0:18:53 – (Steve Gray): And how about this too? Yeah. Cause God wanted people to experience the change together in the church. Together. The corporate gathering. Now more secrets about how things fall apart. So now we have the congregation that they get their ears scratched and they hear what they want and then they fellowship and they have a good time and they go eat together and they do all that. But now, you know, they’re getting a little antsy or whatever. So pastors got to come up with a plan to keep them interested in a.

0:19:24 – (Steve Gray): In a sermon or church that’s not going anywhere with God. So what do they do? Oh, okay. So this week we’re going to go down in the. And among the drug addicts. Be sure and bring. We’ll take groceries and we’ll take some money or we’ll. And we’ll help drug addicts and we’ll go down, we’ll pray for the sick, we’ll pray for them to be delivered and we’ll give them groceries and stuff. Now, is there anything wrong with that?

0:19:47 – (Steve Gray): No, that’s parts good.

0:19:49 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:19:50 – (Steve Gray): But the reason they’re doing it, people don’t know. They’re not doing it just to help people. They’re doing it because their people that go to church need help in staying interested. Because there ain’t nothing there. God has not attended for a while at church. So they’re losing interest. So we give them and notice what they have to do to stay interested. They have to go outside their church and do an activity in the community with the People that they’ll never see again, probably. But that’s okay. I mean, if that’s what you want todo and that’s what you should do, that’s all great, but I’m talking about the corporate church that people are losing interest, getting bored. That. So we’ve got. So we’re going to. Okay, folks, we’re going to take a mission trip to Portugal or someplace. We’re going to go to Chile, and we’re going to build a church.

0:20:42 – (Steve Gray): Now, it won’t be much of a church. It won’t be a church that you’ll want to attend, but those poor people will think it’s great. So we’ll build them a church. How are we going to build?  Oh, we’ll build it in a week or 10 days, right? We’ll go to another country and they come back. We went to that country and we built a church. We built a church in a week. I say, yeah, but it’s not a church you’d attend.

0:21:05 – (Steve Gray): How much did the air conditioning cost you? And they said, air conditioning. Oh, we just put some flaps up, you know, and put some sawdust down and gravel, built some benches and got a. Now they got a church. Okay, is that good? Have we ever done that? Have we ever built churches in other countries? Yeah, yeah. But we didn’t do it for the same reason. They go on the mission trip, they go down, and now they’re praying for people on the street to get saved. But they don’t do it here.

0:21:33 – (Steve Gray): But they do it. Why? Because they’re losing interest and they need that trip every year to go. Oh, so wonderful. Oh, oh, what about the trip to Israel? And I love Israel. You. And I love to go to Israel, but what about the people that go there? Because they lose interest and they go. I just felt so spirit, the minute I set foot in Israel, I felt home. How many times have I heard that? Yes, And I love Israel. People know how I love and what God’s doing and wants to do there.

0:22:01 – (Steve Gray): But you understand, they got to go on the tour because they’re not interested. They’ve lost interest in the person of Jesus, person of God in the church. But you get the spirit of God moving in the church. We can take a trip, but we don’t have to. We can have a guest speaker, but we don’t have to. That’s another one. Why do we have guest speakers? People have lost interest. So they get a famous good.

0:22:25 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I get them at least three services a month.

0:22:28 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Oh, yeah, we know some have all the time, all the Time, because they don’t have anything else going. And it keeps the people coming. But if you. The goal is to get God moving in your church with you and the people you got, they may not be glamorous, they may be just a Gideon who says I’m the weakest and I’m the least, and I don’t. Why call me a mighty warrior? That may be all you got. Remember I said this one time someplace, I said, you know what?

0:22:59 – (Steve Gray): I may not. I was younger, too. I may not be the best preacher in the world, but I am the one that showed up. Right? You got me. You may not be the best singer or worship leader or best church that or that. You may not know the Bible, but you’re the one that showed up. And God will work through you like he did Gideon, and you get the power of God going in your church. Will there be some shaking up? Will some people be. Those people have no intention of changing. Yeah.

0:23:27 – (Steve Gray): Might not like it. They might leave. They might want you to leave. I don’t know. But you have to do the right thing and get more faith, get more life, get more power. Because that’s where I think the church is going. People say, we want real church. They failed at that. Because real church meant we’re going to get up and tell our sorry woes. We’re going to be transparent and let you know how bad I hurt and what a stupid person I’ve been, and I’m going to be transparent.

0:23:56 – (Steve Gray): That’s not okay. That might be real. But what they want, they want the real God. I want real. And. And that’s. That’s where the crowds are going to go eventually. Because we have, as you know, a spiritual renaissance is trying to happen. Spiritual revival is trying to happen in our country, just like a government revival or a, you know, a conservative revival. And that’s where it’s going. So what’s the lesson here?

0:24:21 – (Steve Gray): The lesson here is what’s missing is that we’re being used by ministries and churches to keep them going by keeping us unchanged. Not going to a church where I’m going to be changed. In fact, I was never promised I’d changed. Right. Just come to our church. But anyway, we remain unchanged. If you remain unchanged, you’re going to have to have that preacher, that teacher, that worship leader make you feel better every week because you feel bad, but when you leave, you feel better, but you have not been transformed.

0:24:57 – (Steve Gray): So that’s where the church needs to go. And. And the world will eat it up.

0:25:01 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:25:01 – (Steve Gray): And the world will come, but it’s got to be the real God. We can’t say God’s in the house when he hadn’t been in attendance in a long time. So that’s my today. So, you know, if your ears are itching, scratch them, get it over with, and it’s time to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And here’s some new things that will change your life forever. Don’t forget the book Mighty Like Gideon. You can get it here.

0:25:27 – (Steve Gray): https://MoreFaithMoreLife.com or https://stevegrayministries.com and you can also get the study guide. And I hope this helped you. That’s some radical stuff. Radical stuff you may not hear anyplace else. Till next time. Bye.