What Have I Become?

0:00:00     Hey, don’t miss today’s more faith, more life podcast. As I tell you the three things you must have and must be doing to survive what’s happening in the world around you. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another more faith, more life podcast. Today we’re going to talk about what have I become? If you’ve been a Christian for years or doing a job for years, you’ve been married for years or whatever, and what have you become after all that? What’s taken place that’s made you into something different, that you become something.

0:00:30     And that’s the great thing about growing up. You know, we start out as a kid, but we become something. We even start out in life younger. You know what? The more we learn, the more we grow. We become better people, we hope better skilled, better at our job, whatever, better in relationships. Well, the other day I saw something on the Internet and a guy came on and said that he had died and gone to heaven.

0:00:54     And then he came back and his statement was, I guess God has something more for me to do now. I get that. I hear that a lot. We’ve over people a lot of times who thought they were going to pass or thought they were going to die and came back and didn’t die. And many times they say that I guess God or God must have something more for me to do. And that struck me because that’s generally what we think. Now, my experience in doing this all these years and hearing that statement and seeing people think they’re going to pass and die, and they don’t come back and say that.

0:01:29     The interesting thing is, I’ve never, in my experience, maybe yours is different. In my experience, I’ve never seen anybody go do anything different. They had this experience with near death experience. Maybe God has something more for me to do. All right, get at it, then find out what it is. But I guess they never find out what it is. I guess God has something, but I’ve never really seen anybody come back from this near death experience and all of a sudden jump in. There’s got to be somebody that has. I’m just saying I haven’t seen it after hearing that many times.

0:02:02     And it brought to my attention the scripture I taught at church, also from two Corinthians 521. And the end of it says that we might become the righteousness of God. And here’s what it is. It says, he who knew no sin, meaning Jesus, he who knew no sin, you probably know that sinless became sin for us. Okay, so he didn’t have sin, but he became it something he was not, he became. And then it says so that we might become the righteousness of God. All right, so we’re not the righteousness of God, but we get to become it.

0:02:40     So he became something he was not, as I say, many, many times, so that we could become something we are not, the righteousness of God. So what does that mean? What does that mean in that? So first of all, let’s back up to the righteousness of God. And that’s a big subject, but we try to narrow, I tried to narrow it down to what does it really mean? What does it really, how do we really see it in operation?

0:03:05     And I think the best I could come up with in studying it would be faithfulness, the righteousness of God. He’s righteous because he’s faithful. He’s faithful to his promises. He’s faithful to his people. He’s a faithful God. And that makes him, right. Righteous. So taking that statement, then if God is righteous and shows his righteousness to us, and that’s his faithfulness, then if we are to become the righteousness of God, would it not make sense that we would become faithful?

0:03:38     Right? The same faithfulness that he has, that is his righteousness, then I become the righteousness of God, and I walk and I become faithful. All right, now we back it up. We have a word called imputed righteousness. And that means imputed means imparted, given. And so we have that doctrine that is strong in a lot of circles. And that is when we become a Christian, when we become a believer, we get the gift of righteousness. In other words, he imputes righteousness to us.

0:04:08     And that’s correct, I think, because we start fresh. God’s not mad at you for your past. He may ask you to deal with some things from your past, but he’s not punishing you. He’s not dealing on your past mistakes or sins. It’s imputed. He gives the gift of right. You’re right with God. Right. Standing with God right now as you give your life to Jesus. You’re right with him right now. Okay, but then what do we do after that? We get the legal, it’s legally binding in the kingdom of God. It’s like a legal term.

0:04:42     You’re reconciled to God. That’s right. Before that passage, be reconciled to God. For he who knew no sin has become sin. So you can become the righteousness of God. Why wouldn’t you want to make peace with God? Because you become fresh. You get a fresh start and become the righteousness of God, which I believe is faithfulness. So it’s like I was explaining, if somebody goes and gets a new job, they get hired.

0:05:07     They are legally now hired. They legally work at that place. They legally are. Right. Able to come in. They’re legally able to go. Come and go and work. Right. But the first day you show up on the job, guess what? You’re legally an employee, but you don’t know anything. You don’t know what to do. You’re certainly not ready to teach anybody else anything to do because you first have to become that employee. Right. You are employee legally, but you have not become it practically to where you know how to cook this or change, move that or box that up or whatever you do, you know, sell this.

0:05:42     So it takes time to become what you’ve been hired to do legally. Okay, so that’s what I want. How I explain it is, yeah, legally, we become right with God. When we become a believer, he’s not mad at us. He wants to work with us. We are the righteousness of God. What a great gift that is through Jesus. Okay, but now what does it mean practically? So that’s when it becomes practical. God is practical with his righteousness.

0:06:08     He shows faithfulness, and that makes his righteousness apply. So we do the same thing. We are the righteousness of God. It’s been given to us as a gift. God’s not mad at us anymore, but now we need to do it practically. What does it mean? It means now we copy God’s righteousness because it is the righteousness of God. It’s not mine, it’s his. And his righteousness is what? Faithfulness. So now I begin to walk in faithfulness.

0:06:34     That’s why we have to take that word where somebody says, well, you know, I had a near death experience, whatever. I guess God still has something for me to do. And then I told you, I don’t see it. That often changes. But anyway, what if we turned that around and said, well, I guess God has something more for me to become, because we want to rush out and do things before we’re really understanding what righteousness is. And the righteousness of God is faithfulness.

0:07:03     So what we have is we have people hurrying to do things without ever becoming. It says, you’ll become the righteousness of God. Okay? You become it instantly as a believer, as a gift of God. But now you don’t know anything. Now you need to walk out righteousness and become faithful. And if you don’t get faithfulness, then what happens? Then you get double minded. You might be for God one day and not another. Your faithfulness has not been … you haven’t become faithfulness.

0:07:31     And you get lukewarm one time, then you’re on fire another time, right? You’re angry about this, you’re unforgiving about that. But then you ask to forgive somebody, it’s just like you’re unstable in all your ways, like a double minded person. And. Cause you’re not developing-you haven’t become the righteousness of God. You’ve been granted the righteousness of God. But the practical side is what makes life great for us. And it also glorifies the lord that we have become what he has become, faithfulness.

0:08:02     And so we don’t just say he’s righteous because he is righteous, but he’s righteous because he also does righteous things. He is faithful to his word, he’s faithful to his promises, he’s faithful to you. And so now we develop faithfulness, and we begin to copy, if we can, the nature of that, of Jesus. And now we go do stuff once we get, once we become that righteousness in practical ways. Now, a faithful person is evangelizing.

0:08:34     A faithful person is teaching the Bible. A faithful person has gone overseas to be a missionary. A faithful person is downtown ministering to the homeless or to the, you know, whatever they need. You know, we need food or whatever. It’s faithful people. Now, without that faithfulness, what happens? Well, we get double minded, and then we give a bad witness, because now we’re trying to tell our children, this is what God wants me to do.

0:09:00     And then they see you throw a tantrum, or they see you lose your temper, or they see you live in selfishness, and they see you arguing with your wife or husband or whatever, and all of a sudden it’s like, okay, okay, okay, I know it’s important for you to do this, but really, you need to become this. You need to become the righteousness of God. So your faithfulness, so you have a good reputation. You’re not fighting, you’re not depressed, you’re not obsessed, you’re not offended, you’re not unforgiving all the things that get in the way.

0:09:30     And so what happens, particularly with our children, is then they don’t want to serve God. They see it’s hypocrisy. They see it because they say, well, you’re so busy doing, and pastors make this mistake all the time, or people in ministry, they put their ministry first. They put the doing first. So they go, do, do, and they neglect their kids. Sometimes they get so busy doing God’s work, that they neglect their marriage or whatever.

0:09:54     And so then the person says, well, turns against that person. They don’t want to be married to you anymore, or your kids get rebellious or whatever, because they see you doing, but not becoming, whether it be husband, wife, kid, anybody, or a pastor, we have to become faithfulness. Then once we’re faithful to God, we’re faithful to his precepts. We’re faithful to the attitude, same attitude in you, that’s in Christ Jesus.

0:10:20     We die to ourselves. We want to live for other people and live for God. All these faithfulness things come out because we become faithfulness, and we’re faithful to the word of God. We’re faithful to the concept of God. We’re faithful to what he wants us to be. We’re faithful to what’s important to him. Okay? Now, in order to put that faithfulness into practice, I gave three things the other day because people ask me a lot. What do I. What can I do?

0:10:48     Okay, there you have it. What can I do? Today we have a failing economy. Groceries are sky high. My taxes have gone up. I can’t buy a home, or I can’t sell my home because homes are out of this, priced out of. Did I say gas? I think I did. My electric car doesn’t go near as far as I thought it would, something like that. And then on top of that, I hear of wars and possibly nuclear things going off and rockets happening and the unification of nations like Russia and China are getting together, maybe even North Korea.

0:11:23     Then, of course, the Middle east is all in turmoil and shooting and killing and all that stuff. And so they’re concerned, is there going to be a major war? And some people predict. A lot of people predict it, yes. So with all the things happening in our country, with it inflation and rising taxes, etcetera, and then the threat of outside, not just inside our country, but outside our country being threatened with wars, which could happen.

0:11:48     Their intention is they’d like to put a ruin, make us ruin us, but. And take what we have. But will they do it? I don’t know. But I know the intention. They’d like to do it. So people ask, well, I don’t know, what do I do in the meantime? And they, again, they want to do something. And instead of telling you what to do, I’m going to tell you who to become. Okay? Cause we want to become the righteousness of God. So in these turbulent times, here’s the first thing we want you to do. And I take this from Isaiah, chapter twelve.

0:12:18     And it starts out by saying, in that day. And it says, they will praise me. They will praise me because my anger has been turned away. I’m not angry with them anymore. And that’s when the Messiah comes. Now the Messiah has come, and now we need to receive him. And when we receive him, then God’s anger is turned away from us. That’s that gift of righteousness. Right? Right. Standing with God. And it happens right now, but then it goes on and says what they will do. The anger has been turned away.

0:12:51     But here’s what we will do. Right thing. The right things we will do. All right? So first of all, I will praise him. So that’s his anger. They’re not mad at us. So he deserves some praise and some worship. Say good things about him. Let him know you recognize that. Say some stuff good about him. Yeah, praise him. Worship him. Say good things about him. If you can’t think of it, open some psalms and read those out loud and say, this is for you.

0:13:17     So the first is we’re appraising people because that’s the right thing to do, the righteous thing to do. It’s practical. Secondly, from Isaiah twelve, it says, I will trust him. So we praise him because his anger has been turned away. Now we can trust him because he sees us as right standing with him. We are the righteousness of God. So now we put that practically. We don’t just say, what am I to do? I guess I’m do something. You become something. You become the trust you trust.

0:13:47     Right. Or if you need something to do, it’s a practical thing. Do that. I will trust the Lord. That’s the second thing. These are things you need to do today to protect you from what could come. Whether it be internal things happen or external things happen in the world. Whatever happens, you’re ready. Cause you’re a praising person. Thanksgiving. Praising person. You’re going to trust the Lord? I’m going to trust the Lord. It’s a decision. I will trust the Lord.

0:14:14     The third thing you need to do is what it says in Isaiah twelve. I will not be afraid. Become fearless. Now, I’ve said to some to people that some fear is practical, too. Walking out in front of traffic or something like that. You should be afraid of, you know, of jumping off a building. Yeah, okay. But the fear I’m talking about is you will not be afraid of what you see around you. You see the economy, you see the nations rising up.

0:14:41     You see gas prices going up. You see food, whatever, taxes or whatever. But you’re not. You’re. You’re going to trust the Lord and you’re not going to be afraid. You learn to not be fearless of what’s going on around you, because whatever happens, you’re ready if you’re not. If you don’t have fear, right? You’re ready if you have trust. You’re ready if you have praise. So you praise the Lord. You trust in him, and you don’t let fear affect you in the negative way to where it makes decisions for you. You can’t sleep at night.

0:15:14     You’re afraid of what’s going to happen next. But God is faithful, so we’re going to be faithful in our righteousness. God is righteous, and he’s faithful in that righteousness through his promises. Now we’re going to become that, too. We’re going to be praising him. We’re going to trust him. We’re not going to be afraid. And then at the very, very end of Isaiah, chapter twelve, it says, for the God of Israel is near us, is with us.

0:15:40     And so that’s the other response. I need to start responding like, God is really here and his kingdom. Jesus said, repent, for the kingdom of God is here. I need to start believing even no matter what I see outwardly. If there’s wars, rumors of wars, if there’s tragedies, if there’s things happening, storms or whatever going on in the world, and it kind of could be scary to us, but we’re not going to be scared because we’re going to trust the Lord.

0:16:06     We’re not going to be afraid, right? We’re going to get rid of our fear. And then we also know the Lord is near us. He’s here. He’s not the far away God. Heaven is not far away. God is not far away. And so all of a sudden, we put that together, and what good news is this? The good news is not what a lot of people teach. It’s not you going somewhere. The good news is not you going to heaven.

0:16:33     It’s not you going somewhere. All right. The good news is God comes down from heaven, not you go up to heaven. Is it true? Like, if you die today? Yeah. Okay. God has a place for those that are in him, that believe in him, that serve him. Yes. He has a place for people to go when they die in their bodies. But of course, their bodies will be resurrected. And so you go there. But that’s not the good news.

0:16:59     That is good news, but it’s not the good news. The good news is, and always has been, God comes down to us. God comes down to us all. Through the Old Testament, the children of Israel get in trouble. God comes down, they need a miracle. God comes down, they need water. God comes down, they need to part the Red Sea. God comes down. And then finally the Messiah, Jesus comes down. 2000 years over, 2000 years ago, good news. God comes down.

0:17:26     And when you’re in trouble, you need help. Believe that. It’s not that you could say, well, I just. I just need to die and go to heaven. No, God is here. God has come down. He’s near you now. Activate it in your faith. Activate it. Use your faith. Start believing. Start confessing. God’s near me. God’s going to help me. I’m not going under. I’m not going down. God is my helper. All right? So there’s the things you need to do. This is what you need to do in an unstable world where we don’t know what’s going to happen.

0:17:54     I want to prepare you for everything. You are the righteousness of God now, okay? But you want to walk that out, because righteousness is demonstrated in faithfulness, okay? That’s how you demonstrate you’re faithful, just like God is faithful to his promises. So therefore, you’re going to trust in the. You’re going to praise the Lord, because you should, because he’s near. You’re going to praise the Lord.

0:18:16     You’re going to trust in him. You’re not going to be afraid of what you see, what’s happening around you, your circumstances. And you’re going to believe and call upon the name of the Lord, because the God of Israel is now near us. God has come down to help us. Did you get that? So these are the things. Think like that. No matter what happens, you’ll be safe. God will help you. Your faith will be strong, and you’ll see God come through with you, like we talk about. More faith is going to produce more life, more success, and more.

0:18:46     I was going to say happiness, but contentment. No matter what happens in the world, you’re going to be on your mark and you’re going to be safe, and God’s going to take care of you. So I hope you learned those three things if you go to go. More faith, more life. We’ve got some more products there. We’ve got the book. My absurd religion. We’ve got the book when the kingdom comes. And my newest book lit right?

0:19:08     If you only knew. A guide to the clueless generation. We’ve got a new. It’s not a new book. It’s one that when. When we left the country in Smithson, Missouri and came to Kansas City. I wrote a book called Follow the fire and it was published by charisma Books or charisma house. And so you’ll want to get that. Plus, I haven’t. You can download and I just found out the other day it’s for free. Download the CD, you will restore. That’s me. And you can’t.

0:19:36     Come on, you got to do free, right? And if it’s not worth it, then you can delete it. But I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at the quality of it and that I can even carry a tune and it’s just a few years old. So get that for free at least. And don’t forget to donate. Don’t forget to tell your friends. Don’t forget to watch. And get this every week, because every week we’re helping you to survive by more. More faith and more life.

0:20:03     Everything going on in the world today. We’re going to help you survive and do well between you and God and the rest of your family. Did you get that? I hope so. I got this lesson today. Go online and pick out some of these stuff that I just told you about and we’ll see you next time. Bye.