God Still Comes Down

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): So you think you know the good news of the gospel? Well, I’m not so sure because today on the More Faith, More Life podcast, we are going to discover the good news all over again.

0:00:11 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, non profit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:36 – (Steve Gray): When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more. More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that 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.

0:01:11 – (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 an experience more.

0:01:23 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone. Welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast, your voice of revival. And today, we’re going to discover the good news. Or maybe for some of you, rediscover the good news. We’re going to find out what is the real good news. And if I were to ask you what the good news is, you probably could tell me some version of it with a little good news in it. If I ask pastors all over the country what the good news is, I usually get an answer. It’s partly right.

0:01:47 – (Steve Gray): And get an answer like, well, Jesus died for your sins. Or our that we can be forgiven. And then when we die, we can have a home in heaven. We can go to heaven. And so the good news is what? And the truth of it is, Jesus did do something. He did die for our sins so we could be forgiven. That part is part of the good news, but it’s not the entire good news. And so we’ve got to expand it to discover the full good news today.

0:02:16 – (Steve Gray): Because then after we get forgiven, then the promise is what? Something is going to happen after we die. And then there’s that period where Christianity has gone into nominal, quiet, backslidden, comfortable, convenient religion where not much goes on not much of seeing God and encountering God when you go to church or at home or whatever. And so we want to talk about that good news a little bit. And so it’s good.

0:02:47 – (Steve Gray): What we started with was good. Jesus died for our sins. We can be forgiven, but it’s incomplete. And I want to today discover what the good news really is historically. So maybe you know this or not, but the first churches that were planted on the earth and you read about them in the book of Acts were started with Jewish roots. Jewish people started Jewish congregations that believed in Jesus. Got it? Yeah.

0:03:12 – (Steve Gray): And so they brought with them the Jewish roots of theology and their theology and their ideas. A lot of people think that the Jewish people then came and they believed in Jesus and then they just chopped off everything Jewish and left it behind. That’s not what happened. The Jewish people continued to practice Judaism in a new way, in a fulfilled way. And that’s another subject. But the important part about it is what did they think the good news was when they heard the phrase good news or the gospel of the kingdom?

0:03:47 – (Steve Gray): Jesus came and they preached the gospel of the kingdom. You know, the Bible says that, you know, all the earth will hear, it’ll be the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom and then the end of the age will come. Okay, so what is all that? And so they brought that with them. And with that they brought what they believed, the good news of the, of the day and the future. So their good news was not you die and go to heaven.

0:04:14 – (Steve Gray): That was not preached in their churches. They didn’t have people bow their heads and pray. So if they were to die today, they know they’d have a home in heaven that did not exist. Their good news that they discovered was the good news is Jesus is now the Messiah. As the Messiah will and is reestablishing the kingdom of God on the earth, we are going to see restoration, not tribulation, restoration.

0:04:41 – (Steve Gray): And even if they were going through tough times or persecution, they always had that goal and that hope that the day is coming when the kingdom of God will be fully known. The kingdom of God is here now. Jesus said it’s here, but it’s not fully known, it’s not fully activated. That’s called the now and not yet. There’s things happening now in the kingdom and there’s things happening, things that have not yet happened, that will.

0:05:06 – (Steve Gray): But their promise and their teaching was it’s going to come in fullness and God is going to restore the kingdom of God. He’s going to restore Israel in the kingdom of God. And those who are part of Israel, which Christianity is, cause its roots in Judaism. And it says we are grafted in to the olive tree. Right. So we’re grafted in as Christians. But anyway, so their thing is, God is going to restore. There was no teaching about the sweet by and by, or we’re going to all fly away.

0:05:38 – (Steve Gray): None of that existed. Now that’s hard for some people to swallow because they’re so grounded in just the go to heaven and die and go to heaven gospel. And that’s the good news, that then they can’t adjust to it. But that’s what it is. Yes, if you die, you do get to go to heaven. But guess what? You’re not going to stay there. You’re not spending eternity in heaven. People say that, but they’re not. No, you’re coming back.

0:06:06 – (Steve Gray): Everybody comes back. Jesus comes back, the kingdom comes, Heaven comes down. Everything comes down. And the earth and the heaven come together. So what God does is restore the earth to his original intention. Which is a picture of the Garden of Eden. When he made the Garden of Eden, that’s a picture of what God thinks is garden. And he’s going to restore the earth. A lot of scholars believe similar to that.

0:06:34 – (Steve Gray): Okay, so anyway, so let’s look what happened then. Lucifer, we’ll go back, we’ll head up to heaven for a second. So Lucifer in heaven is a mighty angel, archangel. And he rebels against God and wants to be like God or God. And he gathers one third of the angels to believe in him. And God won’t tolerate it, so he throws him out of heaven. And where does he go? Where’s he thrown to? He’s thrown to the earth.

0:07:01 – (Steve Gray): And.

0:07:02 – (Steve Gray): And he comes to the earth and begins to establish his kingdom and get everything in order and all that. And then God then establishes the Garden of Eden and creates a man and a woman, Adam and Eve, and tells them to be fruitful and multiply and go subdue the earth. Why do they have to subdue the Earth? Because Lucifer’s out there, his arch enemy. See, there’s still this war going on between God and Lucifer even today.

0:07:30 – (Steve Gray): It didn’t stop. It didn’t stop. God just moved it from heaven to earth. So the battle’s here now rather than in heaven. Isn’t that interesting? And so he creates the man and the woman and they’re supposed to multiply and get children from them who will go, and they’re going to take over the earth and subdue it for God. But as you know, sin came in and everything faltered and Now Satan is there a king.

0:07:57 – (Steve Gray): Because they gave in to him and gave in to his ideas, and now they’re following him and it’s a big mess. But God didn’t change his plan. He just changed how he’s going to get his plan done. He changed strategy. He just said, okay, my plan was to have a man subdue the earth. Humans, Humanity’s a better word. Subdue the earth, all right? And multiply and subdue the earth and establish my kingdom here on Earth. Okay?

0:08:27 – (Steve Gray): So it faltered there, but he still kept a plan. Cause then eventually we get Jesus, who is born of a virgin, all man, but conceived by the Holy Spirit. So kind of a God man, but still a man. And that man is going to be fruitful. He’s going to multiply people like him, which he has done. And he is going to subdue the earth. And when he subdues the earth, then he’s going to turn it over to his father. Okay?

0:08:57 – (Steve Gray): So he’s going to subdue it now. He subdued the worst part about it, he went to the cross and died. And he conquered sin and he conquered death. Now we still have physical death, which is conquered. It just. The resurrection hasn’t happened yet, but it will. So he did that, all those things. So he was the obedient son that got that done. Right? So now we have this new thing. Interesting. You can imagine being a first century Jew and for 2000 years you’ve heard about, the kingdom of God is coming. It’s coming, it’s coming.

0:09:33 – (Steve Gray): And all of a sudden Jesus says, repent, for the kingdom of God is here, it’s near, it’s here, it’s on the earth right now. Repent of being so busy, of building your own life. Get into it, get going with it. And so there, there again, isn’t that interesting? Discovering the good news. What is it? The kingdom of God came down and is here today. The kingdom of God came down. Okay. So that’s, that’s, that’s the good news too. And so then as we look through the, through history, then, then we see that the, the world really got corrupt. And so God comes down and talks to Noah and says, go build a boat to save your family.

0:10:18 – (Steve Gray): And as I was sharing with somebody else, interesting. As the flood comes, Noah didn’t fly away and go to heaven as some people would expect. No, he didn’t fly away. He floated away and he stayed on the earth. He’s still on the earth. Right. Okay, so Noah. And then God comes down and talks to Abraham and says, I’m going to bless you, make you a blessing. I’m going to start a new, a new family, a generation of believers, and they’re going to be my people, and you’re going to help me start it. God came down and talked to him. God came down to Moses and said, moses, we’re going to get these people out of bondage. And that’s going to be a picture of what I’m going to do. I’m going to take people out of bondage and I’m going to put them in a promised land.

0:10:59 – (Steve Gray): So I’m going to take people out of slavery, the slavery of Satan and powers of darkness. And then at the end, they’re going to enter into a promised land, a land filling, filled with milk and honey. So you see that picture? And God came down and told Moses about it. He came down and talked to Joshua and said, be very courageous. You’re going to enter a land you’ve never been in before. But every place you put your foot, I’m going to give it to you.

0:11:25 – (Steve Gray): And you go and take this land, because this is going to be our land, the promised land. And this is going to be God’s land to start with. And it’s going to be the Holy Land. Okay, so he comes down to Joshua. We can keep going. God came down to Elijah, you know, and then comes down in fire. When the prophets of BAAL tried to compete with Elijah, comes down in fire. And as we continue on, then what about the New Testament? God came down to a girl named Mary.

0:11:50 – (Steve Gray): God came down and established them, and. And then the angels come down. God comes down to the shepherds and says, I’ve got good news. So all of a sudden we’re discovering the good news. What a great joy. A savior has been born to you this day in the. In the in.

0:12:07 – (Steve Gray): And so what, God is now here. God has come down in the form and he’s in a manger right now, and he’s going to grow up and be the savior of the world, the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. So I don’t know if you’re getting this point or not, but if you’ll realize how much Christianity has lost that to where we go and we pray and we try to evangelize. And the way we evangelize is the only way we know and is just a partial good news where we tell them, you know, if you die today, would you go to heaven? Then pray with me this prayer.

0:12:42 – (Steve Gray): And we start with, you’re a sinner, you’re no Good. Admit you’re a sinner, admit you’re sorry, and then you do. Okay, now tell Jesus you want him to be your savior. And now you know you’ll have a home in heaven if you were to die today. So go and try to be a good person and wait for that day. So part of it’s true and part of it’s good, but it’s not what the first century Jews who became Christians and Christians who became Christians, if we want to call it that.

0:13:10 – (Steve Gray): It’s not the way they did it. They presented something, they said, repent, the kingdom is here. So the good news was first, the kingdom has come down. That changes everything. That changes your life, that changes the encounter that you can now in this as being part of the kingdom and you can now encounter God, that God will come down to you. So you can imagine, you know, praying for somebody on the street and giving this whole new picture to say, well, whatever you’re going through, when I pray for you, God is going to come down to you. And yes, Jesus will come into your life, but it’s more than that. The kingdom will be activated in your life and kingdom things will happen.

0:13:50 – (Steve Gray): Encounters with God, the presence of God, the glory of God, everything’s going to change. Well, it doesn’t for people because we don’t tell them, we don’t believe that. Many people go to church today that prayed that if they were to die, they go to heaven, but they have no God encounter. And so you go to that church and they sing songs, nice people, but there’s no God encounter. It’s sweet, it’s inspirational, but you don’t go and encounter God like they did in the Bible.

0:14:18 – (Steve Gray): And a lot of people have said to me, why don’t we see the signs and wonders and miracles and power that we saw in the Bible? We should be seeing those. And the answer is yes, we should. But we’re not starting with those. We’re starting with me. You understand when you pray the sinner’s prayer, how many times do you say, I, I know I’m a sinner, I know I need forgiveness. I am sorry. I accept Jesus. I, I, I. It’s all about you. The, there’s no really empowerment, there’s no really subject of all of a sudden turning that and saying, now let me get you empowered with the kingdom of God so that you begin to experience God things. When you go home and you go to church and God things are happening, right?

0:15:02 – (Steve Gray): So anyway, there’s where we discover the good news is God still comes down It’s a stretch for some people because they’ve never heard it or thought of it that way. They know Jesus is going to return, but they don’t get the idea that God is still coming to the earth. We’re still getting visits from Jesus in the earth. We have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit did what? Holy Spirit came down. You see, the more we talk about this, everything’s coming down.

0:15:35 – (Steve Gray): It says every good and perfect gift is coming down. Isn’t that something? And look how lax we are about that, though, in our religion, at home, teaching, our kids, going to church. We have not implanted this good news, discovering the good news. We have not implanted it into a generation that needs to hear the real, full good news, discover it. So we have a generation today that needs to be prayed for. They need to know the Lord and they’re searching. There’s a great group that there are people, young people and above, young married people and above, are searching and they’re trying to find God. And they’re doing a pretty good job on their own.

0:16:20 – (Steve Gray): But if all we do is help them discover what happens when you die, then they’ve missed the whole kingdom of God while they’re alive. And so imagine the confusion that’s in that generation and the division, confusion, anxiety. You hear about it all the time, right? They’re anxious, they want to buy a house, and they can’t. And grocery prices are so high, gas is high, and, you know, childcare is expensive, and just all the things that they feel they’re up against.

0:16:49 – (Steve Gray): And then we go and say, well, you know, if you were to die, though, it’ll be okay. But what if I don’t? What if I got to pay that bill, you know, or whatever. And so you say, well, let me talk to you about the kingdom of God. Discover the good news today. The good news today is God still comes down just like he did all those times. Everything you start reading about in the Bible, once you catch this, you’ll see, ah, God came down.

0:17:13 – (Steve Gray): God came down. God came down and talked to him. Maybe God came down and talked to one man and he became a prophet, and then the prophet came and talked to people. But either way you look at it, you it is God entering into the space, the airspace of Earth, and setting into motion kingdom of God things. Kingdom of God things. So you can imagine, like I said, first century Jew, all of a sudden Jesus comes and says, repent, the kingdom of God is here.

0:17:43 – (Steve Gray): And it came down. And they’re like, okay, well, shouldn’t this be Subduing everything in the earth. Then shouldn’t everything be done? And Jesus says, no, no, it’s going to be this way. It’s going to be like a mustard seed, small. Going to start out small, not a big explosion, but it will continue to grow. And listen, for you that think of a different way of you just want to escape and get out of here. And that’s what’s going to happen.

0:18:10 – (Steve Gray): That the prophet said. And his kingdom will be established and his kingdom will know, know end. It’s a forever kingdom. It knows no end. It’s not going to end here on the earth or go somewhere else. So the kingdom is here and it’s going to stay here. And so now we have the real good news happening. We’re discovering the good news. And that’s why we now talk about the word revival. Because what is revival?

0:18:39 – (Steve Gray): Revival is a lot of things, but in the simple term, it is God comes down and people encounter God. It’s an encounter with God. He comes near. He comes near us and he begins to demonstrate in a revival. He begins to demonstrate that he is here in new and fresh ways. And he’s done it periodically in American history. Two great awakenings, prayer revivals, Canaan’s Revival, Azusa street, and other revivals that have been in my lifetime.

0:19:09 – (Steve Gray): And so, so once we begin to flip this and realize, oh, I need to discover the good news, then we realize that our life can be completely changed. And we begin to think of life differently. As soon as we hit a problem or circumstance, we look for the good news. Let me put the good news into your circumstances. Let me put the good news into your situation, into your relationship, into your finances. We’re going to put good news because we’re going to release the kingdom of God that has come down, the God that still comes down, the Jesus that visits his people through the Holy Spirit. All these things. The Holy Spirit has come down.

0:19:46 – (Steve Gray): And so there’s. Through history, there’s very, very little of going up. Yes, most people say you go up to heaven when you die. That’s there. We have a few, couple of characters like Enoch and Elijah, they went up. You know, people disagree on what happened to Moses. Did he go up or did he stay down? But read the Bible. The Bible is not full of people going up. It’s not full of things going all haywire down here. And the only way we fix it is to fly out and get away.

0:20:18 – (Steve Gray): Escape. That’s not a strong theme in the Bible. The strong theme in the Bible all the way through is God comes and visits God comes and shows himself strong. God comes and defeats the enemies, right? God comes and establishes his word. God comes and establishes the kingdom, the churches, the prophets, the evangelists. Okay, all of that, you just get it. Now I want to just conclude with this thing I just kind of recently discovered.

0:20:45 – (Steve Gray): I knew it, but I didn’t know it like I know when it comes in Revelation. So let’s back up to the Garden of Eden. Well, let’s back up to heaven when Lucifer was there and he rebelled that and he gets thrown out with one third of the angels. And we already said he comes to Earth, right? All right. Then when I read that, then all of a sudden I get, okay, what happens next? Well, God creates Adam and Eve, and then Adam and Eve are supposed to subdue the earth. And then Adam and Eve or Eve encounters Satan and the devil, and then she gets her husband to eat. And then the fall and sin, and then they get cast out. And then the story continues on till we get down to Jesus, who goes to the cross for us, right? So that’s how I read it and that’s how I plan it all. I missed one very, very important thing that I don’t know why I didn’t catch it, but I caught it now. Okay, so Lucifer rebels, one third of the angels with him, he gets thrown out of heaven and he gets thrown to the earth, right?

0:21:47 – (Steve Gray): What, in chronological order, what happened next? He gets thrown to the earth and God followed him. Cause the next character, when we read about that, we know chronologically because we know Lucifer was thrown out before Adam and Eve, right? But before Adam and Eve, God’s already here. God’s already here on the earth before Adam and Eve. Cause then he creates Adam and Eve. That means Lucifer was cast to the earth and God followed him.

0:22:22 – (Steve Gray): And God moved the war, the rebellious war of rebellion of him against God, moved that war, moved the conflict from heaven to earth. Then he created Adam and Eve to start the finish the conflict, really. But we know that story now, so that’s an amazing thing. So we learn Lucifer rebels, he gets thrown out of heaven, and what’s God’s next move? Now you know the answer. What? God came down. Cause the next thing you know, God’s down here.

0:22:55 – (Steve Gray): He’s down here and he’s talking to humans, he’s talking to Adam, he’s talking to Eve, he’s walking around with them. Where on the earth. Well, what’s going to happen at the end of the age then? We’re not going to spend eternity in heaven. God’s going to Come down. The kingdom comes down, Jerusalem comes down. It meets the new earth. Everything comes down and restores and everything here. So the story of God’s, of God and the earth is, yes, it failed.

0:23:25 – (Steve Gray): Adam and Eve failed, but God is going to restore everything, everything back to possibly a garden type situation or a land flowing with milk and honey. So is what’s being prayed most of the time evangelism, Is it wrong? It’s not wrong. It’s incomplete. It’s incomplete. So now we’re going to church with an incomplete gospel. That does not change, empower, help us transform, just gets us by so that we can manage our lives better.

0:23:58 – (Steve Gray): But we’re not transformed into new creation. All right, so that’s all I wanted to say today. I wanted to just break that to you and implant that in you. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your children, hey, let’s realize God still comes down. We’re not helpless here. We’re not just waiting to fly to the sweet by and by. We have an opportunity here to really throw ourselves in to seeking God with all our heart and walking in this kingdom of God today.

0:24:27 – (Steve Gray): Well, go to https://stevegrayministries.com, you’ll be seeing a new book there soon. We’ve got other books there. Share like tell your friends and if this meant something to you, send us a note and say, hey, hey. That really makes sense to me because I hope it did because it’s the start of revival. That’s when revival starts, when God comes down. Till next time, bye-bye.