When The Gospel Gets Edited

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): The gospel today is being reshaped by culture, but it’s leaving you empty. I want to help you get over that and get alive for God. Full of the Holy Spirit, living the full faith life. I want to talk about that on the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:14 – (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. When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more.

0:00:42 – (Steve Gray): 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, 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.

0:01:14 – (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.

0:01:25 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast, your voice of revival. I’ve got Zion Vierra with me again today. We’re going to talk about basically, the church.

0:01:37 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.

0:01:37 – (Steve Gray): And you know, there’s so much that people don’t really know what’s going on or how it’s going on. That’s why I wrote that book, My Absurd Religion, to try to reveal some secrets that they don’t realize what’s going on a lot of times. But you know, if you listen too much to me, you might think, doesn’t this guy like anything about the church? But I love the church. That’s the problem. And I love our church and I love, and there’s other churches I love too, in the world.

0:02:01 – (Steve Gray): But there’s so much has gone wrong and people don’t realize it because they aren’t behind the scenes or like the Israelites did when Jesus is trying to change things. And people walked away with that thinking, Jesus hates Jews, you know, they still think that. Or Judaism, you know, and of course not. But it’s like, aren’t we doing anything right? And basically the answer was no. You’re an open grave, you know, you’re whitewashed people, you know, and, and so he’s really trying to save him and rescue him out of something. That the general population, they trusted the Pharisees, they trusted the priests. They thought they were fair and right and good and, you know, pure and yet they were corrupt.

0:02:45 – (Steve Gray): It was corrupt religion, not corrupt people. The people were following their leaders. Sure. And so it’s very similar. And so that’s why I, you, me a lot go back to the first century church, back to what was originally done. And you know, it’s a long time ago. So I don’t know if we can know everything, but there’s a lot of other writings and things in general ideas and knowing that the first churches that were started, first congregations, as they like to call them in Israel, were Jewish, all Jewish, their meetings were all Jewish.

0:03:18 – (Steve Gray): When it says they met together daily, there probably were very few non- Jewish people there. What did they do? You know, and it says they ate and they learned teaching. Right. And sang songs, hymns, spiritual songs, things like that. But anyway, so I like to go back and have a phrase. The early church was not like ours. It was what I, I put this in a book. We’re working on a new book, Unedited message. The message was unedited.

0:03:43 – (Steve Gray): They weren’t trying to make it anything except what it was. It is what it is. This is what Jesus said. This is what he taught. This is what Paul wrote. This is what Peter wrote. This is what John says. The people that were with Jesus. And it was unedited. And I. You don’t get the feeling those early pioneers of the church were stressed about what people think? Sure. What do people think? You don’t get the idea that they have. I mean, all of us need this, probably all the pastors particularly, but need this to get the idea like, well, if I say that or do that, they’re probably not going to come back.

0:04:15 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:04:16 – (Steve Gray): And Jesus did just the opposite. He said, are you guys out of here too? You’re going to leave also? Everybody’s leaving me. Are you going to leave me too? And they didn’t. But the crowd went down from 5,000 to about 12. And Jesus kept going, you know, so we have to remember. I like this phrase I coined for the book, that the gospel is to be like, heaven’s earthquake. It’s an earthquake, heaven’s earthquake. So it’s heaven, but it’s quaking on the earth.

0:04:44 – (Steve Gray): It’s supposed to shake us up, it’s supposed to get us convicted Sometimes realigned. Look at what we’re doing, what we’re thinking. And I like it, particularly if you get it right, that it’s not just all this. Well, some churches get it right, but they are a little overboard with—it’s always morality. You’re sinning, you’re sinning, you’re just. You’re sinning all the time. Yeah. And boy, are you. You better repent now. And they pound it and find something.

0:05:14 – (Steve Gray): And really it’s the flip side. It’s, Jesus came so we could live. Live. How do we live? How do we live? And if we don’t get how to live, then maybe you fall for it more easily. But the gospel, it’s either so edited and watered down, it’s an edited message today, or it feels like it’s pounding the sin really hard. And it doesn’t seem like there’s a middle. Like, well, I don’t want an edited message, but I don’t want to always just talking about how bad everybody is or how it’s immoral and everybody’s immoral and there’s immorality everywhere.

0:05:51 – (Steve Gray): You know, like Pastor J.D. King, he tells great stories. Like, you know, how his church pounded on rock music. They hated it. They hated Elvis. And he’s going to bring down the world, you know, and it didn’t do him any good, you know, so anyway. So I think what we have today is people are going to church. Some churches, you know, they say we had 30,000 people attend. I don’t know how they get them in and get them out so quickly, but they’re good at it.

0:06:21 – (Steve Gray): And so what we have to do to maintain that is it’s not that people are rejecting God. It’s the message they’re getting is a revised message so the crowds can handle it, get them in and get them out and get a revised message or an edited message. And I don’t think it’s. It’s just not working. I put, you know, like, it’s trimmed back. Sure, it’s trimmed.

0:06:42 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:06:42 – (Steve Gray): It’s not that it’s totally no gospel or that they’re bad people.

0:06:47 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:06:47 – (Steve Gray): But in order to maintain and have the mentality of, well, I want. I want even. There’s even churches that have, I don’t know, let’s say 100, 150 people, which most churches in America are. I used to say under 200, but now they’re more like under 150 or sometimes they’re 80, you know, and so the church 80 of 100 people. And it might have a young pastor, might have an old pastor, but that temptation comes to trim back.

0:07:15 – (Steve Gray): Trim back. You know, I only got 80 people or 100 people. I can’t afford to lose anybody. I remember as a country preacher when we had nobody starting. Zero. We had zero people. And it grew. But, you know, if one family left, it made a hole because, you know, there was a country church. Yeah. And somebody’s missing. And it was a big deal. And everybody talked about it and everybody wanted to know why they left. And there was always the insinuation maybe there’s something wrong here.

0:07:41 – (Steve Gray): If they left because there’s such a suspicion of religion.

0:07:45 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:07:45 – (Steve Gray): So maybe if they left, then maybe there’s something wrong here. And it just. The whole system just collapses. So, in order to fix that, pastors, leaders, young and old, all kinds, trim back. So that doesn’t happen. I don’t want to lose anybody. I don’t. And now the bigger church, I think in the 30,000, you can have a pretty good bunch leave and you would never know. Notice they’re sitting in the back anyway.

0:08:10 – (Steve Gray): But most church, that’s rare. Those are the rare churches that we hear about all the time. Most of the great people and the good people out there. There are churches all over the place here. Just if you go down Bannister, even down Bannister or whatever. People don’t know that’s Kansas. It’s close by our church. And there’s a couple of churches, smaller ones, and then there’s at least three within a mile.

0:08:33 – (Steve Gray): And they’re all small, you know, and good. They’re doing a good job. But if somebody leaves their church, it’s big, It’s a big deal. And so churches don’t mean to sometimes, but they trim back because it is true. If somebody. If it’s a small church and somebody leaves and everybody knows about it, it does put that in the air. Maybe I did. What did I do wrong as a pastor? Maybe I did something wrong. Or did you do something. Maybe you did something wrong.

0:08:57 – (Steve Gray): So anyway, I’ve got Galatians 1:6 up today. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all.” And that’s probably where we are in America in most churches. And it’s so slick and so close to it, to the target, that it. People miss it.

0:09:25 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:09:26 – (Steve Gray): And, you know, people are busy people. They don’t have time to analyze everything being said. Go to the. Well, go online. I was going to say a concordance. They say, what’s that? It’s a big thick book now, that chat. GPT. Yeah, yeah, you go online. But anyway, don’t have time to go and, and look at every sermon that they’ve heard and make sure it’s accurate. Or go study the roots of Judaism or study. Is this really what was taught in the first century? And is it really? And, and is, is it.

0:09:54 – (Steve Gray): How’s it translating the Greek or how’s it translating the Hebrew? It’s a lot of work. And that’s our job, is to get it right. You know, my job and yours too. You’re in around the ministry. Our job to get it right. And so what we’re getting is Paul would call us like, well, it’s so trimmed back that it’s really no gospel at all anymore. And one of my favorite scriptures, that was from Galatians. But Paul writes to the.

0:10:17 – (Steve Gray): I think it’s 2 Corinthians 11 where he says, you know, I’m sorry, concerned for you that just like Eve was deceived by the serpent, that you will also be deceived from a pure and sincere gospel. And then he mentioned it. There’s, he mentioned too that there’s no, it’s no gospel at all too. Like, there is, you know, there is no other gospel, there’s no other spirit, there’s no other Jesus, but they’re preaching another gospel, another Jesus by another spirit.

0:10:45 – (Steve Gray): Imagine that in his day. Yeah, sounds similar. And a lot of times it’s. It was. It’s the motives behind it. Get it wrong. Because if you have the right motives and the right heart, you’re kind of going to see through it.

0:10:57 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.

0:10:57 – (Steve Gray): And you’re certainly going to try your best to really bring the truth to people and to help people. But imagine how many thousands, hundreds of thousands of sermons are preached every week that really. It’s the leaders preaching a gospel that benefits them, keeps people coming, pays the budget, has people happy. And people are going to leave saying, I got a great church, I got a good church. You know, I always used to say, yeah, but is it a God church? You know, that’s just, just a funny mine. But anyway, a different gospel. And so it’s, so it’s not the, the deception today, I think, and I hope our listeners can get this. It’s. You can go to a church where God’s not rejected, but it’s adjusted.

0:11:39 – (Steve Gray): It’s adjusted. Yeah.

0:11:40 – (Zion Vierra): Wow.

0:11:41 – (Steve Gray): I wrote down some things today like this, you go in and it’s got. Worship is loud, surrender is silent. And. Yeah, and I shook up everybody all over the world because I would preach all over the world and use that song I Surrender All as an example. And I’d laugh. I’d just laugh. And they didn’t like that part, but I’d laugh because I’m laughing at them too. I said, how many times? Especially in older church, older line, when that sings older songs. I’d say, how many times have you sung I Surrender all? And then I look right up and say, you liar.

0:12:16 – (Steve Gray): You didn’t surrender one thing. You liar. You have to quit lying in church. Well, they kind of laugh, but it’s the truth.

0:12:23 – (Zion Vierra): They see the truth.

0:12:24 – (Steve Gray): It’s the truth. I Surrender All. And so I told him, let’s rewrite it and say. And we get a write in, like a ballot. Sure. I’m not going to vote for that guy. I get that right in. I surrender. I said, pick one thing, write down one thing. You’re going to surrender. That’d be great. All is a too big of a thing. So anyway, worship is loud, surrender is silent. But we grow. We’re. We’re trying to grow numerically, but I put. We faint spiritually. Yeah, we have that faintness, that weakness.

0:12:53 – (Steve Gray): Weak spiritually would maybe better. But we’re growing numerically. And then we have these huge churches that kind of weigh down on the little guys. I. And I have the book in that I wrote, I think it’s When The Kingdom Comes. I said, listen, get this. Every time you see a mega church, remember that just created a mini church. People leave because they don’t have the money, they don’t have the programs, they don’t have the pizzazz.

0:13:23 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:13:23 – (Steve Gray): And you know, and so, but do they have. The mini church might actually be accepting it’s being many. And maybe, maybe they’re really trying to get the truth. They didn’t trim back. But everybody wants to grow. So I mean, that’s good. But anyway, let’s see. So the sermons. I wrote this down. The sermons like to lift up, but not uproot. And that’s, you know, the, the Bible teaches us we need to uproot, uproot, tear down and uproot things. And that’s probably.

0:13:54 – (Steve Gray): I remember when I first preached that uproot, tear down sermon. And it says before, before you get to the building up, you, you have to uproot. Stuff went really well. I mean, people got it all over the world where that. Because I said, when we get saved, we get born again. We don’t go through the uprooting anymore. At least they did. Obviously they did. When everybody’s Jewish and the

0:14:22 – (Steve Gray): And the Pharisees, Sadducees and the priests didn’t like Jesus. They didn’t like what he was trying to do. And you became. They called it Christian. You know this, don’t you? That.

0:14:31 – (Zion Vierra): I think the word.

0:14:33 – (Steve Gray): We’ll see. The word Christian was not a compliment.

0:14:36 – (Zion Vierra): Yes.

0:14:37 – (Steve Gray): It was meant. It was meant to.

0:14:38 – (Zion Vierra): Yes.

0:14:39 – (Steve Gray): What would you say? Slander. Slander, yeah.

0:14:41 – (Zion Vierra): It was like a mockery.

0:14:43 – (Steve Gray): Mockery, yeah. Christ. Like. Right. And so. But it was picked up, and now it’s, you know, so they did not in the first century when they first became believers. They didn’t call them Christians at first, but anyway, whatever they called them, but they. Many of them paid a price. You know, there’s a price to it. And you could be rejected from your family, you know, everything. And so now we have it, though we don’t have that. So we don’t have any uprooting. So we get saved and born again. And then immediately, then we have to start living the life and that. But we keep everything and try to get God to bless all our baggage. Bless our baggage. That’s a great one.

0:15:25 – (Steve Gray): Bless our baggage, Lord, and let me know that I’m okay the way I am. And that’s not the gospel. Because the gospel is to uproot, tear down, destroy, and then we build up. And if we follow that pattern and just nobody knows it, it’s trimmed back. But if we could hear that at the very beginning, or we meet some people that lived it the very beginning and could teach it to us, we would grow.

0:15:52 – (Zion Vierra): You wouldn’t waste time trying to bless your baggage.

0:15:54 – (Steve Gray): Yes. And people don’t grow very fast.

0:15:57 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:15:57 – (Steve Gray): You know, and so you don’t have a lot of time because we’re so slow. Think about Paul. You’re so slow to learn or something like that. So we’re so slow to learn. We don’t have time to spare. We need to. We need to do it. So anyway, and so I got this last one. The preacher likes to keep the peace and remove the truth. These are just facts.

0:16:18 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:16:18 – (Steve Gray): And nobody says it. Well, maybe somebody, but not very many. And they’re not going to say it. The church. I would. I would say it in our church. I’ll say it in another church. So we have so much culture today. The Culture is powerful right now. It’s somewhat spiritually charged, as you know. We’ve talked about it many times. We’ve got some good signs on campuses in high schools, and younger ones and older ones, too, are turning in a new way. Bibles are being sold on some levels, more than they were a few years ago.

0:16:51 – (Steve Gray): Some good signs. But the demonic side of culture is taking over.

0:16:56 – (Steve Gray): You know what? I had. I sat down right here a few minutes before we started today, and I was looking for something. I can’t remember if I went to YouTube or whatever. All of a sudden popped up this. It looked like a private. It looked like a school setting. And these kids are sitting around the. And they’ve all got, you know. You know, when you were a kid, they’d give you little symbols and. Music class. Yeah, music class is what it was. And they had little drums, and they’re playing their little drums. I don’t know where it came from. And so I’m thinking, oh, because I used to be a music teacher, too. All that. And then guess what happened over here. From the side comes almost.

0:17:36 – (Steve Gray): Almost naked belly dancer. No, it wasn’t belly, iIt’s Hawaiian dancing, where the hips go back and forth like this. And she had a big midriff and slit up the side. You can kind of see her underwear. And here’s these little kids, and this is somebody like 20 years old or something like that. That age, not even a little kid comes out and is doing all that right in front of them, and they’re playing their instruments.

0:17:59 – (Steve Gray): What is going on here? Well, you know what? The culture has taken over. Like somebody who in their right mind thinks that’s proper, right? But culture says it is. And so what’s happened is now the gospel is being—Churches are reshaping the gospel to fit culture, fit the culture, right? And it’s acceptable because the culture is our culture. We’re used to ourselves, right? And God’s culture is not our culture. It’s a different culture.

0:18:27 – (Steve Gray): And I, you know, when I’ve traveled all over the world, like I said, and I’ve gone to other countries and other churches, and they would tell me, you know, well, listen, you’re in the toughest church. God just. This is a tough church to get God to move in. And then they say, but, you know, that’s just not our culture. So your church is your culture. Like, you do it your way because it’s your culture, but we’re not like that culture. And I would try to explain Wait a minute. There’s only one culture here, the Kingdom of God.

0:18:53 – (Steve Gray): It’s the same for everybody. We all have to give up things. I’ll go to Mexico. And those people in Mexico, they’re going to have to adjust some of their thinking. Or Singapore or England. England was fun because they think we Americans are just too brash, not polite enough. And that could be true. Our preaching, if you really get to. Is odd to him a little bit or awkward. Awkward.

0:19:16 – (Zion Vierra): Interesting.

0:19:17 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. I. What did she say? I was trying to think of the lady that. What she said to me, I’ll remember in a second when it came up offering time and this rich lady didn’t think it was proper to talk about money, you know? Yeah. Let’s see. I forgot. The word she used is. Since it’s rude, have to think about it. It’s. Didn’t say it’s crass, but she said we don’t talk about money here. Money is.

0:19:47 – (Steve Gray): Whatever she said. Rude, crash, bad, you know, it’s the root of all evil. Yeah, we don’t do that here. It’s, it’s. It’s, you know, it’s not proper. Sure, not proper. That’s what she meant, but she used some other word. As soon as we end this broadcast, I’ll think of it a hundred times. Can I go back and edit it in?

0:20:03 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:20:04 – (Steve Gray): But anyway, so there is another thing that is really bothers me and that is some of it’s true, but we don’t want to leave people. There is now we also have millions, probably, but hundreds of thousands of sermons that they approach everybody sitting in the pew or sitting in the chair. They made it to church, but they approach everybody, like everybody. So fragile. And that’s probably our culture too, because everybody’s got hurt feelings and everybody’s so angry and upset and it doesn’t matter what you believe, they’re upset, you know about something.

0:20:43 – (Steve Gray): And so the leadership of churches start talking that culture, which is not God’s culture, being fragile is not God.

0:20:51 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah. It’s not more than a conqueror.

0:20:53 – (Steve Gray): No, it’s not. Be strong in the Lord.

0:20:55 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:20:55 – (Steve Gray): Strength. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Strength. It’s not there. It’s. I know you’re also fragile. So I’m going to take it easy. I’m going to watch what I say, be very careful. And I don’t like it. I don’t like to. I don’t like preachers who attempt, especially if I’m there listening, which I don’t get to do so much. But I used to, especially if I’m there listening or I turn it on, you know, my phone or whatever. And they’re talking to me like I’m a loser, like I’m weak, like I don’t know what I’m doing.

0:21:22 – (Steve Gray): And I’m so hurt and I’m just confused and I’m just wandering through a wilderness. I’m wandering through life. So he’s going to help me or she’s going to help me feel better about myself. And so all of a sudden it goes into like a therapy session, right? And we’re talking about our feelings and we’re talking about how to be a better dad, how to be a better mom, which is good. But. But it’s bigger than that. It’s bigger than just improvement.

0:21:46 – (Steve Gray): It’s not self-improvement. And it feels self-improvement. It’s helping us. Like, okay, I’m the preacher now. I want to help you change how you view yourself. And like I came in here thinking I’m not that great, but I’m going to go out there thinking I’m okay and not thinking you’re so great. Could be the Holy Spirit confronting you and wants to make you better, really change you. So that’s my, that’s my theme for today. I think that it’s just the culture has overtaken church and over, it’s overtaken everything.

0:22:15 – (Steve Gray): You know, when, when it’s not so bad now, but we had. What was it? The, the culture. Cancel culture. Where’d that come from? Well, it was cancel cult culture. Well, guess what? All of a sudden, preachers are starting to be very careful what they say because the cancel culture came into the cancel church or, or fire you or whatever. And it was, you know, it’s, it’s getting better.

0:22:35 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.

0:22:36 – (Steve Gray): People are starting to get fed up with that. But, but still, culture has taken over. And so where it looks like just like Paul said, you know what, it’s barely a gospel anymore. And they’re not trying to be rebellious and they’re not trying to be immoral and they’re not really trying to be bad. They’re just trying to trim it back so. And adjust it. You know, they’re, they’re adjusting it to the culture.

0:23:01 – (Steve Gray): And maybe the bottom line is doing it for themselves because it doesn’t help people.

0:23:06 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah, right.

0:23:06 – (Steve Gray): It’s like I said, you know, you have, we have, we have loud worship and silent surrender. And so I think that’s the message of today that people need to get. You and I both are looking I know. And others are looking for new leaders. New. I don’t care what age. I don’t really like to say, you know, you know, that it’s going to be a youth revival or it’s going to be the young people or we got all these preachers coming up. Well, what are we going to do with the ones we have?

0:23:31 – (Steve Gray): They need. They need to come up too. Everybody needs to. No matter your age. We need to get a hold of the real gospel. Stop being so afraid. You’ve got to break the culture and you’ve got to stop listening to people who are promoting culture in their sermons. So strong. And I got. They got the crowds, they got the people, they got the, the popularity and they got how many followers. They got everything except the spirit of God. That changes you.

0:23:54 – (Steve Gray): So we don’t need a gospel that makes us feel good about ourselves.

0:24:00 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:24:01 – (Steve Gray): Seriously. Yeah, yeah. Really connect with God and things are going to change. Yeah. There’ll be stuff he’ll call you to uproot and change, but that’s okay.

0:24:09 – (Zion Vierra): Which is biblical.

0:24:09 – (Steve Gray): It’s part of the process. It’s part of the process.

0:24:11 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:24:12 – (Steve Gray): And we need to follow Paul’s process where we’re going to grow and grow and grow in the spirit. We grow in the faith.

0:24:17 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:24:17 – (Steve Gray): That’s good. So that’s my thing. I think there’s. I’m looking ahead to the next few years, wondering what other things are going to happen in the world that we never suspected are happening now. And. And I want everybody to be ready and satisfied and not afraid.

0:24:31 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:24:31 – (Steve Gray): And that’s what I think God wants. Provided by God, and not dominated by fear, but by faith. So that’s my speech. Go to https://stevegrayministries.com and you can get more of this good stuff. Tell other people about this podcast and like us. Send a note to somebody and say, hey, this thing comes on, you ought to hear it. Because he’s really getting to the root of what we need to do. And it’s really to save you and help you. And I’m not talking about going to heaven. It’s to help rescue you out of the troubles of this life and make life as good as it can get. Because that’s what Jesus said, to have life more abundantly. Till next time. Bye-bye.