Embracing Jesus in Chaos

0:00:00     Hey, on the next more faith, more Life podcast, I’m going to teach you how to survive trouble and which way to look so you can see the great things of God. Hello and welcome to another more faith more Life podcast, where we’re going to be talking about faith today. Because more faith does produce more life. And Jesus came to give us life to the fullest that we can get on earth while being human. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t obstacles and sometimes difficulties, but the highest level that it means to be a human, establishing the greatest humanity in us that we can have.

0:00:35     And he said, I came to give you the greatest measure of life, more life, right. That you’d have life. And so it means to the greatest measure. And so I want to talk about that and how you can start evaluating your own life and start seeing yourself maybe a little more like God sees you or Jesus sees you, if you want to say that and encourage you that this is, in my opinion, the greatest hour in my life, my lifetime, to encourage people to go for God to their greatest measure.

0:01:10    Because I want to get you the greatest measure of life. But what I see on the horizon, what I think is possible, it might not be imminent, it might be. But when I see the stirrings of nations, planning on war, working towards war, and a lot of times I look back at the 1930s, late 1929, the thirties, after the Great Depression was still going on to some degree then in the 1930s. And so it stirred people.

0:01:42     And right now we have high inflation. We’ve got in our country, at least we’ve got high inflation, groceries, gas, all that stuff. A lot of division in our country. And so there’s disturbances in our own country, but they’re the same thing. Disturbances are in other nations. And in the 1930s, then we had dictators rising. We had Italy rising with Mussolini, of course, most everybody knows Hitler in Germany.

0:02:09     We have Stalin in Russia, thank the Lord. We had Winston Churchill in the UK. But these are the kinds of exact scenarios that I believe are rising up now. Is it imminent that we would have World War III?  I know if you’re on the Internet, you’re hearing about that, the possibility, and a lot of people warning and scary stuff, but is it imminent? Is it absolutely necessary that we’re going to have war? No, the thing that’s going to stop it is the church or the Christians rising up in prayer and in lifestyle.

0:02:44     Okay, so this is the way that we push back darkness and we push back evil. We don’t just let it go. So I’m going to talk to you about that. And so you can see who you are and trust the Lord, that you give more of yourself. Even if you say, I’m already a Christian, I go to church or I believe in God. I don’t go to church, but I believe in God. Okay, now is the time. Give yourself the full measure so you can gain the full measure.

0:03:12     And if war would break out or if the economy would crash or stock market gets worse or anything like that in the whole world, you’ll be in a position to get God’s help to bring you more life and wisdom, blessings. And sometimes I call it a God advantage. The advantage favor, advantage over people that are nations that don’t know God or don’t care. Right? But you care because you’re giving yourself more fully.

0:03:43     I hope you just hear it. I’m trying to be a pastor. I’m trying to be a father to you. And we don’t have a lot of fathers in the world today, as many people that need it, don’t have it. So listen to me like a father, and prepare yourself, prepare the way. And maybe through all this, hopefully, I would like to see the return of Jesus. But that’s not my call. That’s their call. It’s heaven’s call. But I want to go to Hebrews now.

0:04:09     And chapter two, let me read this to you. This is describing Jesus, really, and then talking about people like us. It says that God put everything under his feet. All right? Picture it. Put everything under his feet. Jesus, in putting everything under him. Oh, this is verse eight, two eight in Hebrews. In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Okay? All right. That’s why he’s the one for you.

0:04:44     He’s the one you choose, right? He’s the one that you make a definite step towards getting to know, wanting to serve. You don’t want him to serve you. You want to serve him because everything has been put under his feet. He’s ruling everything. He’s going to rule everything. Everything will become subject to him. Now, legally, that’s already happened, but look what it says next. Yet at present, we do not see everything subject to him.

0:05:15     And so once you understand that, you can understand a lot about creation, war, trouble, sickness, disease. I saw on the Internet, too, a lot of arguments. They have these arguments between, you know, some scholar, I guess, and some non-believer or atheist, whatever they always bring up, that they try to bring up, well, why is there war? Why is there sickness? Why are we have hospitals? If he’s lord of all, then how come.

0:05:43     Well, that is going to happen. But obviously the Bible knows, the writers of the Bible knew that we’re not going to see everything put under his feet yet until he comes. So what do you do about that? I mean, maybe others are not going to understand it, but I want you to understand it. Okay, what do you do about a line that says, at present we do not see everything, all the stuff, all the things around us, but that’s not what we’re supposed to see.

0:06:11     We are in a time when we’re not going to see all sickness and disease, all. You know, the Bible teaches that there won’t be any more crying or any more sickness, no more dying. Okay, but we don’t see that yet, do we? That doesn’t mean that it has not been declared that it is going to be all right, that legally everything is under the feet of Jesus, but we don’t see it yet. And when he comes, we will. Okay, but we don’t see it yet.

0:06:37     What do you do in the meantime? Look what it says. Very powerful if you can get it yet present. We do not see everything subject to him. What do we see? But we see Jesus. O. Now I get it. If I press in with my faith and my walk and my energy and my love and I begin to search, I will find him. And you know what? There’ll still be wars or rumors of wars. There’ll still be famines in the land, maybe droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, all that kind of stuff.

0:07:12     Yeah, but you know what? That’s not what I’m looking at. I see Jesus, and I like it that as I’ve gotten older as a person, but also older in the Lord, that I begin to see Jesus in everything. And that’s when I think you really start growing up in tree, when you begin to see. Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to see Jesus sometimes in tragedies. I get it. I get that. But I do have the faith to know that I see Jesus because I know tragedies are going to end for us and the believers.

0:07:44     And try to understand your theology, get your theology right. If you die, you go to heaven, but you come back, and it’s great theology that’s been around for centuries, clear back to the first century and before with the Jews, that actually what’s going to happen is God is going to restore the earth where it, let’s say, like it was before sin or like the garden of Eden, so to speak that’s one way we can say it.

0:08:08     So the earth is going to be restored, heaven is going to be restored, because there was rebellion in heaven. Imagine that. But it’s going to become a new heaven and a new earth. The earth will never be destroyed, because God makes the new earth out of the old earth. You should know that, because that’s what he wants to do with you, right? He doesn’t want you to be destroyed and die. And where do you go? No, he takes you, and you are still you.

0:08:34     But he makes a new you out of the old you. And that’s what it means to be a new creature or born a second time. Right? Born a second time. You’re born the first time, you now, you get born a second time, and now you are a part of something fresh and new. The new humanity we’d like to see, wouldn’t you? I would. I’d love to live. I’d love to go ahead and have the change over and have no more tragedies, no more death, no more fears.

0:09:03     Yeah, I would like. A lot of times people get afraid, like, is this the end of the world? No. If you’re a believer, a true believer, there is no end of the world, and there is no end of you. Because, will, if you were to die and Jesus doesn’t return, so then if we get old, we die. Right? But you don’t lose consciousness. You become eternal. Your body is temporary, but it will become eternal, too. Okay, so everything’s taken care of.

0:09:37     Nothing. That’s why I keep talking, because it says nothing that is not subject to him. So, believers, bodies in the grave will become subject to the power of the resurrection. Right. And death will be done away with completely tears and famines and more everything. But we don’t see that yet. Right? But we do see Jesus. And when we see Jesus now, that changes everything view in our viewpoint, who we are, what’s happening around us.

0:10:10     So when I see the different wars, well, that are going on a couple more, well, there’s a lot of wars going on big and little around the earth, and the tragedies of war are hard. Isn’t it difficult if you know the truth of what’s really going on in the difficulties people are going through? Even in our day, it’s hard. Like, I don’t know, do I see Jesus? Do you see Jesus in that? No, but I see Jesus in the progression of the kingdom of God advancing and the coming out people coming out of misery spiritually use we still physically here and the suffering that does happen on the earth.

0:10:55     But people are beginning to come out of that spiritually, and that’s a very, very good sign. And I believe, as the threat or if World War 3 or other tragedies or trouble or whatever break out, it’s going to cause more people around the world to turn to Jesus and start seeing Jesus. Yeah, if they get distracted, you can see trouble everywhere. So much trouble that it could be discouraging as a Christian or discouraging even as a human.

0:11:26     But more faith is going to produce more life. Instead, we begin to see Jesus. And that gets us. And we should put it this way, too. If trouble does come your way or a hard time, you still can see Jesus. And it’ll help you get through it. You will get through it. Time will help you get through it. Jesus will help you get through it. How do you say that when people are hurting, so many people are hurting, but the best solution is to be able to feel something else, see something else.

0:12:05     And that would be Jesus himself, who is going to put all your pain under his feet eventually, right? It’s going to go under his feet, and the new light and life will come. And eventually he will come. Okay, so it says, as you keep reading, I’m skipping over some verses here. Cause I like this part, but it says here, I love this scripture. It says that he who. Well, let me just read it to you. Both are the one who makes men holy.

0:12:40     And those who are made holy are of the same family. Okay, so Jesus, who makes men holy, right. Takes those people. Did I say men? Yeah, sorry about that. This is written a long time ago, and ladies were excluded in most of the places for a while, but not anymore. Both. The one who makes all of us, every one of us holy. And those who are made holy. Okay, so Jesus makes holy. I get made holy. And holy doesn’t mean perfect. I’d like you to be perfect. I’d like to be more perfect. We also be more perfect. And that is a good goal. Be as perfect as you can.

0:13:24     But holiness is not the same as perfection. Holiness means set apart, set over here. So Jesus makes people over here. The world is here. Let’s say the world is here. And in that there’s trouble and tribulation and strife and depression and sickness and disease. Okay, now we’re still in the world. But he takes us while in the world and puts us in a different category. We belong to him. He separates us to him.

0:13:55     We don’t get separated all the time from the trials and tragedies of the world. We hope to. We hope to get the advantage and favor of God, that we escape much of the trouble in the world. Right? But we’re still going to be in the world, but we’re in a different category. All right. So he who makes men holy also made us to be in the same family, both the one who makes men or people. Sorry, again, makes holy.

0:14:25     And those who have been made holy. So the maker of holiness and those who have been made holy, guess what? Are of the same family over here, let’s say, still in the world, but we are of the same family. And what is supposed to happen then, at that point is that we have a thing called church. And church is supposed to be the gathering of the family that are like minded, that have experienced the same thing. The new creation, of course, but this also, it’s supposed to be the separated ones.

0:14:59     And I think churches in some ways, some churches in some ways miss that a little bit. And they always make, they’re trying to make the church 100% evangelistic. In other words, it’s where everybody gets saved. Okay. Of course people come in and believe. If you become, you come in the church and you believe you’re a believer, you’re part of the family, right? But the church was not made as an evangelistic place.

0:15:29     It was made as the gathering place of the family of God who are like minded, who experienced the power of God, but experienced the holiness of God. We’re over here, and we’re going to go meet together. Yes. We’re going to invite others to come who don’t even know God, don’t know Jesus. Of course we’re going to invite them to come into our family living room at the church. But the church is to be a gathering of like-minded people.

0:15:54     And right now it’s so splintered. It’s so splintered. I agree with some people who, they get confused because this church over here says we don’t raise our hands. We sit on our hands, or we just. That’s what church is. And we read stuff, and then we sit down and we hear a 20 minute sermon, and then you leave. Okay? Strongly believe in that. And in fact, if you came, if they came and visited our church, they probably wouldn’t like it, because we do raise our hands.

0:16:26     We speak in tongues, not like publicly from the pulpit, like, was guarded against in I Corinthians. But I mean, people, their tongue talking people that worship that way, too. And you should study that and find out what the purpose of that is. But we believe in the gifts of the spirit. We believe in he, we believe in enthusiasm for God. You come and visit our church, you’ll find enthusiasm now. So those that are not enthusiastic, they might not like it I a visitor. I had some people, first time, come from another country and they’d heard about our church and they wanted to come visit and, and they said, well, what’s it like know? And I said, well, have you ever watched the Kansas City chiefs on tv?

0:17:09     They said, yeah. Cause we know about them in our country. It’s kind of like that. It’s really not. But last time I went, we went to Zion. We went to one game, didn’t we? No, I went with Pastor JD. Yeah, we went to one game this last season and I hadn’t been there for years. And there you go, and you stand up the whole time. So at our church, we worship as long as we need to. We try to make it, you know, the real spiritual thing.

0:17:38     So you might stand up longer than you would at another church, but I don’t worry about it. The people there at the chief’s s game, they stood up the whole time then our people like to sing. People actually sing. I grew up in a church, I won’t even say what name right now. I grew up in just for years. I did drop out about the 8th grade, but, you know, nobody really sang. It was like mumbling, holding a book and mumbling, singing, right. Except the guys up front or the choir or the song director, it was okay. But, but our church, the people really sing.

0:18:09     And I don’t apologize for it. You know why? When I went to the Kansas City Chiefs s game, you have to stand up the whole time and everybody behind you screams at the top of their lungs and in front of you. And it’s known as the stadium with the highest decibel sound. Loudest. It’s the loudest stadium in the world, they say. Cause they measure the decibels. And I’m telling you, the people behind me, they never quit screaming. They just stand up and scream the whole time.

0:18:34     And that’s for the Kansas City Chiefs, which I’m fine with that. I like to have winning teams like you do, you know, it’s great, but I’m not going to apologize for it if people at our church come and they don’t scream the whole time of me, but they really do sing and they might praise and you might hear a shout once in a while or somebody just enthusiastic for God. But, you know, some people would criticize that and say, well, that’s not right. That’s not how you do church.

0:19:02     So you see, we’re so like. Some say, raise your hand. Some say, don’t raise your hand. Some say speaking in tongues of God. And another person will say, no, speaking in tongues is of the devil, which is if you really study it, that’s one of the dumbest things you could ever say. But. Cause even Paul, who told us that we’re saved by grace, said, I want you to speak in tongues. Now, which are you’re going to listen to Paul both times or just, just the part you like?

0:19:27     Okay, so the church is to be the place where we gather like, like minded. I would like nothing better than to get all the church leaders and denominations and all of them together and have ththem all just spend some time and decide what is church supposed to be? It’s not supposed to be where you’re comfortable. A lot of people, they go to church to makes them feel comfortable. Why go there? You don’t go to be comfortable. You go to be changed.

0:19:52     You go to be transformed. You become the new creation. You learn how to live life to the fullest measure. You don’t want to hear some sermon like, well, we’re here in this trouble o world, but we’re hanging on. We’re just hanging on, and it’s going to get better, so just hang on. I’m not a just hang on person. You’ve seen that poster that shows a kitten or whatever and caught, he’s hanging from a tree branch by his claws, you know, with his eyes wide open, and he’s just hanging on.

0:20:18     That’s not Christianity to me. Pressing on, yeah, but not hanging on. You get the difference? Yeah. So I want you to have life to the fullest measure. The Bible does too. Said I came that they might have life to the fullest. And the enemy, the powers of darkness, come to steal and kill and destroy. So that’s here because the powers of darkness are still operating, evil still operates and. But he came for a different purpose.

0:20:48     And he also came and said to destroy the works of the devil. Well, he has destroyed them legally, but the devil is like a renegade. He’s like he’s broken out of jail or he’s free or. Some month ago, some prisoners escaped and they were somewhere in some state and they were doing a big manhunt and trying to find him. Well, the devil was like an escaped prisoner. He was never really in jail, but he’s like, in the world, like a criminal.

0:21:14     He’s a criminal in the world and he’s already been declared guilty. And eventually he’s going to be caught, and when he’s caught, he’s going to be thrown in jail type thing. Okay? Kinda understand that and that type of easy to understand stuff. And yet it’s not yet. We’re still seeing the renegade. He’s out there committing crimes. But we see Jesus and we’re going to see him and we’re going to get on his side.

0:21:41     And we’re not going to be embarrassed about it. Because we know that he’s going to include us in his family. We’re going to be set apart for him. We’re going to get the favor of God as much as we can. We’re going to get the advantage of serving him as much as we can while still in this world. Cause we know not everything’s under his feet. But some things are. Some things are. And most of all, I’d like to be in my position. I want to have him above and be below.

0:22:07     He is high and I’ll be low. I’ll take the low seat and let him be Lord of all. And just worship him and serve him. I’m the servant of the Lord. I’m a servant of the Lord. I like to say that sometimes I say my name is Steven. A servant of the Lord. Steve, a servant of the Lord. Cause Paul would write and say that. Or apostle or a servant know. So for you, I hope this gets you get going. Get going, right.

0:22:30     Your friends. Don’t worry about your friends. You may lose them, you may gain others, you may keep them, they may listen to you. But I’m saying for your own safety, if you have children or your own safety. And if you have children, you have friends, you have roommates that you care about, whatever, right? You have to get this. And. And you have to stop being afraid that you’re going to get criticized when I’m trying to save your life eternally.

0:22:54     But I’m trying to save you trouble as much as possible in this world. That you can live as a human to the highest level. How do you do that? You have to start. You have to see Jesus. Don’t look around. Oh, yeah. I said this for years. I said, listen, don’t look down and don’t look around. But look up. Lift up your eyes and look and see, right. And see Jesus. And your life will get better. But that’s not why we do it. I don’t want to make that a sales pitch. Because your life will get better.

0:23:33     You may still have some trouble here and there, but, God, you’re going to see Jesus and you’re going to see his advantage. And he’s going to bring you in the family. He’s going to separate you to himself. And he’s going to show you how to get out of trouble, which is great, right? But you’re going to see and life will get better. But that’s not why we do this, right? We do this because he is the king and everything is under his feet and it is going to be subject to him.

0:23:57     So I want to start early, before the end of the age and start being subject to him. Now you do that with me, get your faith going. More faith will produce more life and it will get better. But you’ll get in the category in the family of God and then go find a great church that believes. And I encourage you. Find an enthusiastic church. You’ll be so glad that you did. It’ll change your life in this world forever.

0:24:26     Well, I keep mentioning the book. If you only knew. You need to get it. I’ve been handing them out for free around, but on the website I think it’s dollar or something. Just cause business side of it. You try to recoup what you can, but that’s not my point. A guide to the clueless generation. And I tell people, maybe I told you already. You heard me say’s God’s. Well here he’s taking care of everything, right? The only thing that if people sin, there’s a cure, right? You can be forgiven of your sins. But what do you do with a clueless person? They’re not even going to ask forgiveness. They don’t even know what’s going on. They’re clueless.

0:25:01     And that was the story of Noah and the flood. Those people could have stopped the flood, I believe if they had to listen to the preacher Noah. But they didn’t. They were clueless. And it says they did not know that there was going to be a flood or they’re going to be swept away till the door of the ark was closed. You don’t want to wait that long. So get the book. It’s only five chapters. It was written for fast reading, quick understanding.

0:25:25     We’re planning on it being hopefully translated in other languages. And it might just help you survive a lot of things. Cause you will not be clueless anymore. Well, thanks for listening today. I hope this build you up. More faith, more life. Till next time. Bye.