A Gospel Without Power

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): I was asked the other day, where are the miracles? Where’s the presence of God? Where’s revival? Well, I’m going to reveal that to you. There’s a secret that I know that I want to share with you on the next More Faith, More Life podcast. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. Your voice of revival in the world today. So glad we could be together. We’re going to talk about what a great subject today that we’re going to talk about, the Westernized gospel that is barely the gospel at all.

0:00:29 – (Steve Gray): And I want to take us back to where it needs to be and get us on track. Okay? Now, I got onto this a little bit because I just happened by chance to see, I guess, an advertisement, I guess, for a church. Okay, it’s not a big church or a fancy church or anything, just a church. And it’s small. But the advertisement was really, really interesting because they were grabbing people’s attention by telling them, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter your lifestyle.

0:01:04 – (Steve Gray): We want to be a church of diversity and love and diversity and community. Okay? So you take all those words and all of a sudden something doesn’t fit to what should be the Bible. And so I came to the conclusion that one of the problems we have today is we don’t really. I know this is going to be probably too far out for a lot of people, but we really don’t. We’re really not getting the gospel or we’re really not getting the Bible, and we’re really not getting the word of God the way it should be.

0:01:38 – (Steve Gray): Now, I went to a conference and I was one of the speakers, but I wasn’t the only speaker. So I got to hear other preachers, too. And the host preacher was the first guy, and he got up and really hit it hard about how their church preaches the word of God. We preach it in context. We preach it the way it is. We don’t, you know, embellish it. We don’t take away from it, you know, and it’s going on and on and on, and it sounded really good.

0:02:04 – (Steve Gray): And he’s right. I mean, he preached pretty much in context. Not totally, which I’ll explain to you in a minute, but pretty much in context. So what’s my problem today then? When I hear people say, and I heard another preacher say that, you know, where are the miracles? Where’s the power? Where’s the glory? Where’s revival? All the things. And I’m going like, you know, I get it. I know where it is. I know where it is.

0:02:32 – (Steve Gray): Because we’ve westernized our gospel to fit who we are, and we’ve lost who. The context. You say, wait a minute, that guy just said he. You just said that guy preached in context. Yeah, here’s the problem. He preaches. Or a lot of preachers, they preach the Bible in context, but we don’t live in context. See, our lives are so far removed to the way the first believers lived and the way they believed, the way they lived, the way they practiced it. And so what we’re doing is, and I hear a lot, is people start reading the Book of Acts and they see signs and wonders and miracles and all the things and the works of the apostles or even Jesus or even Paul and others, even some that weren’t apostles were doing miracles, and they start, what?

0:03:23 – (Steve Gray): Where are those things in our day? Well, they’re still as alive as ever, so why not? Well, we’re preaching. You know, you can hear a good sermon on God heals today, all right? Or God delivers today, or God does miracles today. You hear some great sermons on that, and they’re in context with the Scripture. But when the people leave the building, their lives are out of context to what the original lives were. And you say, well, what do you mean by that? Well, let me start here by saying when you read in the Book of Acts and the first believers, when churches are growing, they’re being added to every single day. People are adding numbers. People are being added to these congregations every single day.

0:04:15 – (Steve Gray): And so I went back, I know these scriptures, and maybe you do, too, but it was good to look at them. It says, here’s what they did. The early believers, as they got started, the roots of this, right, they devoted themselves. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They met every day, by the way. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship. All right, now, that’s a big word, devoted. It’s not just listening to a sermon.

0:04:43 – (Steve Gray): It’s not just hearing a sermon. God loves you. And all of a sudden you validate yourself by hearing how much God cares about you. And you validate yourself, which I understand this part, but still, think about it. You validate or you get validated by Jesus, loved you so much that he died for you. Okay, okay, I get it. You get it. We get it. But if we’re using it to validate ourselves that we’re valuable, then we missed the whole thing.

0:05:13 – (Steve Gray): These people devoted themselves to what the apostles were teaching and the lifestyle. They had a new lifestyle. And get this. Then it Says they met every day. Every day. And they met in the temple courts. A lot of people believe, well now they were kicked out of the temple courts and there was a big war between the believing Jews and non-believing Jews. And no. And it says. And people got along and they were approved of the people, the people approved of this group and who were totally devoted and meeting every day.

0:05:53 – (Steve Gray): Now let’s think about that a minute. If you get these frustrated people or the good preaching and we preach in Bible context would be the scriptures, but life context would be, how about we start a church that meets every day? Do you think if we followed their pattern of lifestyle devoted to the apostles, teaching every single day, they met every single day. And they also, fortunately for them, the Jewish culture worked around that schedule. So it helped.

0:06:29 – (Steve Gray): But we could work around the schedule, you know, we wouldn’t be doing a whole lot of other stuff, but we could work around that schedule. Yeah, but they met every day. So could you imagine if the same guy that said, come as you are, we love you, you know, whatever, whatever, you know, we want to be diverse, but you took that diversity. We want unity. We do want unity and we want diversity. That’s true. We don’t all have to dress alike, you know, we’re past that, aren’t we? I hope.

0:07:05 – (Steve Gray): But we want this unity. And so all of a sudden we say, okay, what would happen if we would get in context with their lifestyle, not just their teaching? So they had the word of God in context, but then they had a lifestyle. Everybody was meeting, they met every, they met every day. So you can imagine now seeing the ad for that church, right? There’s going to be a lot of people that’ll never show up.

0:07:38 – (Steve Gray): But why did these people show up then? Well, I think these were devoted people to God. They just didn’t know Jesus. You add Jesus to the devoted people of God, people who believed in God, but now they’re encountering the living God, they’re encountering living Jesus. Now you got something. And they changed their schedule, they changed their lifestyle and all of a sudden it began to work for them. So it’s just amazing to think of that, that a church congregation of that day was adding, I mean, a lot of people every single day because they were meeting every day.

0:08:17 – (Steve Gray): And it was their devotion, two things. It was their devotion to God and devotion to each other that was attracting them. And then the other thing that was attracting people is it says the people, especially the apostles, testified, testified to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Their testimony was he was Resurrected from the dead. He’s alive. He was murdered, but he is alive. He came out of the grave, okay? And that was their testimony.

0:08:50 – (Steve Gray): And today the churches lean toward that Westernized thing of trying to validate people, trying to make people feel good about themselves, trying to. And, of course, trying to make people feel loved. And have you ever noticed this? That no matter. I mean, I’ve been doing this a long time. No matter how many times you preach, God loves you and Jesus loves you, and you have the children singing Jesus loves me. This I know.

0:09:15 – (Steve Gray): The people don’t feel loved. Am I right? I mean, you know it in your head. You’re supposed to believe it. But we live with our culture here, our Westernized culture, where people feel unvalidated, unloved, uncared for, lonely, surrounded by people, surrounded by so many blessings and lots of gadgets and. Unloved, uncared for. How could that be? Well, we’ve got the wrong message. Yeah, okay. God loves us. Jesus loves us. But that’s not where the Jewish gospel roots started.

0:09:49 – (Steve Gray): They started with love God first. Teach your children and your family. Well, all of us, we need to love God with all our heart, right? Soul, mind and strength. So first of all, it is not love coming, it is love going that starts this power and presence and relationship with God. It’s love going to him. Love going to him. And then devoting ourselves to that. And then devoting ourselves to the fellowship and one another, all the things that we did and changing the message and from. God loves you, which he does. We’re not going to throw that away. Don’t get riled up now. But God loves you. But we need to change our evangelism to the testifying to the risen Lord.

0:10:31 – (Steve Gray): The risen Lord. That’s what they did. And it worked for them. And somehow they began to add to themselves by hundreds every single day. And yet it was a church, a congregation that met every day in the temple courts, that met every day to listen to the apostle. It was just. That was it. There was nothing else. That was it. And I just don’t think our culture is ready for the real gospel, which is these Jewish roots. Let me read this scripture to you.

0:11:04 – (Steve Gray): If some of the branches have been broken off and you though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in, among others, and now share. So this is talking about gentiles. You share in the nourishing SAP from the olive root, okay? But do not consider yourself. I have to turn the page here. Do not consider yourself superior to those other branches. You know, who the other branches are the Jewish believers of that day.

0:11:33 – (Steve Gray): Of that day. And they were getting arrogant. See, the Greek believers, the pagan believers who converted and all that kind of stuff. There were starting to be more of them, and they began to get arrogant. And he says, do not consider yourselves to support the root. Okay, you do not support the root. The root supports you. What root is that? The Jewish root. The Jewish root is the support of the Christian root, so to speak, grafted into this olive tree.

0:12:05 – (Steve Gray): One tree. One tree. But it was Jewish first. Now, it’s tough today because we have. We’re reading in the Bible about believing Jews, you know, devoted Jews. Today we have something called secular Jews, which means their heritage. They were born Jewish, but they don’t really practice being Jewish. Okay, so they probably had those then, too. But that kind of throws us a little bit. Cause you can meet somebody Jewish and realize they’re not involved in God at all, but then you’ve got those that are.

0:12:39 – (Steve Gray): And so realize there is a root that is Jewish. And here’s the mistake, though. So we have a root that is Jewish. And then we have congregations everywhere that kind of advertise as being Jewishness. They have Jewishness there. And you go in, and they’re not Jews. They’re non-Jews who are dressing, acting, singing, preaching like they’re Jewish. And that’s the very thing that was wrong in this day, is that Paul has really taught, and people miss it, that Jews, you get to still be Jewish, you don’t have to now convert, so to speak, over. And now you’re a Christian, you’re not Jewish anymore.

0:13:29 – (Steve Gray): But that’s what it feels like to them. So that’s where we got that wall of division between Christians and Jews is through the centuries, we’ve tried to make Jews non-Jews and make them Christians. But the same thing happened in Paul’s day is people were believing in Jesus who were not Jewish. And they came to them and says, hey, buddy, you have to be Jewish now. You have to start doing Jewish things. And Paul says, no, they don’t.

0:13:55 – (Steve Gray): They have to believe by faith. Everybody believes by. Everybody has to believe by faith. And if they believe by faith, that’s what’s going to connect them to Abraham and the faith of Abraham. Okay? So this was the. That was the battle going on way back then. But in the very first days, they didn’t have that. And so non Jews would come in, Greek people would come in. But what did they do? Did they act like Greeks?

0:14:24 – (Steve Gray): Or did they start wearing yarmulkes? And they start, you Know, dressing like, I don’t know, you know, and carrying the Torah and all that stuff. No, the Greeks just were non Jews. And they loved Jesus and they served Jesus and they. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, but they didn’t. They didn’t start being Jewish. And then through time, though, the Christians began, who outnumbered the Jews, began to pressure Jewish people.

0:14:52 – (Steve Gray): Now you have to become Christianized, okay? And now what’s happened in our country, we have no Jewish root. I mean, if we do, it’s very, very rare to. To find anybody that understands it. And then if you find somebody that believes in the Jewish route, I have books at home on Jewish roots, you know. But what they do at the Jewish roots is they start singing Jewish songs or dancing like a Jewish dance or dressing or whatever. And that’s not the root.

0:15:24 – (Steve Gray): The root is not acting in the way, and it’s not outward. The root is inward. It’s the devotion that the apostles had that the believers had, that the early church folks had, that the elders had and all that. It’s their heart, it’s their devotion is the Jewish root. And so the root comes, and all of a sudden we’re going like, I’m going to, you know, I’m going to really believe in Jesus. The problem is, most people in our country, they acknowledge Jesus. They don’t serve him maybe, but acknowledge him a little bit, especially at Christmas, right?

0:16:00 – (Steve Gray): And so. But to all of a sudden start this devoted movement, a movement of devotion, all right? Would really, really be a revival, because we would be this. We would. All of a sudden we’d have. Can you imagine meeting people that want to. Joining people who want to meet every day. They don’t want to go do something else. They want to drop everything else because something has happened. They have experienced the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the resurrected Jesus Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and all of a sudden, nothing else is that important.

0:16:35 – (Steve Gray): It’s not that it’s all bad. It’s just not that important to us anymore. And that was what was happening to Jewish believers devoted to the apostles teaching. But that was happening to non-Jewish believers too. And they began to get arrogant. And what has happened, that arrogant has overtaken us to where they don’t even teach Jewishness in most seminaries, Bible schools and churches. So there is no Jewish there. Really. There’s a Jewish root that does not exist today.

0:17:07 – (Steve Gray): Because it says the root does not. You are not the root. You are not the root. The root supports you. But if you don’t believe in it, you don’t know anything about it. You don’t understand what it means to follow this pattern. Then all of a sudden you have a westernized. And then I was sharing with a Greek rooted gospel. And the Greek rooted gospel is not the same as the Hebrew gospel. You know, the Hebrew dads planned and raised and the Bible says to do it, raised their children to be believers in God.

0:17:45 – (Steve Gray): Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Right? And love your neighbor as yourself, all those things. And they raised their children in that. And okay, we got the secular Jews, I got it. But I mean the believing Jews, the practicing Jews. But you know, it’s not just them Muslims do it. The Muslims, they don’t raise their kids to say, and all of a sudden turn Greek on us and say, well you know, we’re Muslim. But you know, I’m just going to let my kid go and choose for himself.

0:18:16 – (Steve Gray): And when he knows what he wants, we’ll just let him choose. That’s not going to happen. And you know, all the religions other than Christianity, they raise their children to believe like mom and dad and family and ancestors. All right, we don’t. The Greek mind says, well, you first have to feel it, then you believe it. And the Hebrew was, no, first you believe and then you will feel. Got it. And so, you know, we realize the very small, tiny, tiny teachings of being a parent, bringing your kids to church.

0:18:54 – (Steve Gray): And instead of teaching them to first participate, we give them toys and coloring books and like that. And you know, most churches do it and the kids bring it and then they go to their own church, maybe service and have entertainment and get entertained and have fun and play games. Okay? But that would never happen to the Hebrew fathers would say, you do what I do, do what I do. Watch me, I’m going to worship, I’m going to raise my hands, I’m going to repeat whatever the psalms or whatever, you repeat it too, as best you can. We’re going to do this together.

0:19:32 – (Steve Gray): Because this is who we are and this is who we’re going to be. But the Greek mind says nah, they don’t understand it. They don’t understand the sermon, they don’t understand the gospel, they don’t understand. So let’s bring some toys and let’s bring some entertainment with us to church or let em play on the phone, you know, or whatever. And so now all of a sudden we have a westernized Greek culture that’s raising our children and our families under a whole.

0:20:01 – (Steve Gray): Out of context. Out of context. We may have a preacher that preaches in context, but until you Have a church that lives in context. And this is not legalism, this is freedom that you get so set free by the power of God that you want to do. You want this lifestyle, you want to live devoted to the Lord. The Lord. And so I was thinking about this last night when I see all the struggles that Christians go through and believers, I mean, I’m talking about believers who believe in the Bible and they go to church with struggles.

0:20:36 – (Steve Gray): Struggles in relationship, raising kids, finances struggles, a lot of struggles and emotional struggles, like I’m not valuable, I’m not worth anything, you know. You know, I always fail or I’ll never be amount to anything. And then we see other people that look so successful on the Internet, like, huh. Well, they only have a million and a half followers. That kind of puts down my 15, right. And so I’m a failure. I only got 15 followers and they got a million and a half. And so there’s this cloud hanging over generations that feel like I’m not successful.

0:21:11 – (Steve Gray): If I was successful, I would be successful online. And so put that all together. And now we have a whole group of people that feel rotten or intimidated or failure, I don’t know. And just middle of the road people, you know. And so I thought, so what’s the greatest trial? What’s the greatest trouble? What are we fighting the most? And I came to the conclusion, it’s selfishness. We want to live for ourselves and at the same time have all the blessings of God.

0:21:47 – (Steve Gray): They didn’t do that. They wanted to live for God and be completely devoted to him. And the blessings came and the power came. Yeah, persecution came too. But even during persecution, the church grew. So let’s think about this a little bit. The Bible says there is a root. It’s a Jewish root. It’s not that I’m not Jewish, so it’s not that all of a sudden I need to become Jewish, sing Jewish, dress Jewish.

0:22:14 – (Steve Gray): Right? No. What I need to do is get the root. And the root is the devotion to God. Loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Your neighbors, yourself. Right? Teaching my children, my grandchildren to love God before I all of a sudden say, well, here’s what we do. Here’s what Christians do. We teach Jesus loves me first, and we never teach love God. I don’t know. I don’t know of. I’m sure they’re there, but I don’t. I am not aware of a church that emphasizes love God before God loves you.

0:22:53 – (Steve Gray): Weird. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Sounds like we’re I don’t know. Sounds like we’re being blasphemous or something. Like what? You got to start with Jesus loves them, right? No, that’s not the root. You’ve got your own. You’ve got your own root. That is Greek. That is Western. That is weird. When it comes to the original mindset of the early believers who started this movement, if we could get back to that, not being Jews, but getting back to the Jewish root of attitude and start living in context of.

0:23:30 – (Steve Gray): Of the heart of it and the mind of it and the soul of it and the strength of it, we will see revival. We will see miracles. We will see the presence. You will. You will experience the presence of God. The more you narrow your life and shave off all these other things that are so attractive to you and start living that more in context. At least more in context. You’re going to see the living God show up in your life in greater measure.

0:23:58 – (Steve Gray): So getting back to Jewish roots. Yeah. And understanding. Most of us have Westernized our theology. We’re Westernized, and we’re not Middle Eastern. This is a Middle Eastern mind. Right? It’s Jewish. It’s Israel. All right? And we don’t need to become like them. We need to understand the root that started them and has held them together and has brought the power of God centuries after century after century to rescue them and save them in this crooked generation.

0:24:34 – (Steve Gray): Well, I hope this helped. You can go to stevegrayministries.com and get the new book, Revival or Ruin. You have to do it. You have to read it. It’s prophetic. It’s warning. It’s the best I could ever do to tell people things are going to happen you don’t like. Unless we see at least some of this kick in, some of this revival thing, and some more devotion. Okay, so it’s Revival or Ruin. That’s where America is right now. It’s not coming. It’s here,

0:25:03 – (Steve Gray): Okay? Get it? If I knew you personally and could meet you on the street, I’d give it to you for free. But go to stevegrayministries.com, get involved. We’re reshaping that ministry to fit what’s happening in the world today, so get on board. I don’t ever ask for money. I don’t know if the other guys are gals do or not. But if you ever want to send something—look what you’re supporting this kind of message that’s meant to save America and to save your family and to preserve the lifestyle that God has blessed us with.

0:25:45 – (Steve Gray): All right, till next time, bye-bye.