The Gospel We Forgot

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): I have never gambled in my life. I’m not a gambler. I have never bet anything. But if I was a betting man, I would bet that you don’t know what the gospel is. I hope you’ll tune into More Faith, More Life, because I’m going to tell you exactly what it is and you find out if you really knew or not.

0:00:15 – (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.

0:00:40 – (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 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.

0:01:15 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more.

0:01:17 – (Steve Gray): So subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:27 – (Steve Gray): Hello everybody, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life, the voice of Revival podcast. Today I have a new sidekick, as we call it. This is Zion Vierra and he’s sitting in for Kathy. Unless he does such a good job, Kathy gets fired and you take her place. Oh, boy. But anyway, she had some knee surgery. She’s doing well. And now we’re together to talk about some things today.

0:01:53 – (Steve Gray): Listen, we’ve got some things to shake them up today. Some people might actually get angry or mad. Now, I know that’s hard to believe, especially if they’re Christians, that Christians would get angry or have a temper tantrum. Throw a tantrum. But they do. And here’s the problem. Christians don’t know their Bible. What they know is what they’ve been told is in the Bible.

0:02:17 – (Steve Gray): And unfortunately there is. Has been. I don’t know how corrupt I would say it’s been, but it’s been off the mark where since the 1800s, particularly pastors and leaders, evangelists, figured out a way to get better crowds by altering just a little bit here and there. That’s not really, it’s not non gospel, it’s not non Bible. Right. But it’s twisted. I had somebody send me in and they’re right. They said, you know, they’re just fed up with the traditional altar call. And they said, notice there’s no such thing in the Bible. Yeah, there’s no such thing. Bowing your head, raising your hand, coming down to the front and, and even the type of prayer that’s being prayed, that’s where, if I mention that too much, that’s where people really get angry or they’ll get confused because they don’t know their Bible.

0:03:07 – (Steve Gray): You and I just have discussed, even on these broadcasts, that obviously they had two days last month that this rapture was supposed to take them away. And I saw, I watched some videos online of some people who were sincere, standing there with their hands up in the air, looking with a heavenly look on their face like, I’m, I’m out. Yeah, horse, yeah. And it’s. But they don’t realize what they’re saying, asking God to do. They’re seeing, oh, I’m getting out of here and I’m going to go miss all the bad stuff.

0:03:40 – (Steve Gray): In the meantime, though, they teach as soon as they’re up in the air, buses crash, planes crash, doctors are gone, people die. And it’s, there’s, there would be more people probably dying than flying. Right. You know, and, but they just. Where’s. Do you really think that that is the level that our God is on? He’s going to desert everybody and, and, and it’s the end for them. So that’s where the left behind idea comes.

0:04:07 – (Steve Gray): Well, it didn’t happen and it didn’t happen the second it didn’t happen through the many times in my lifetime when they said it was going to happen. And I’m, I’m not expecting it to happen because it’s not that scriptural, but they’ve twisted it and it sounds really good. I even taught it myself. Okay. I confess under oath. I confess I did, and I was a good teacher, but I didn’t teach it because I learned and studied history, Bible history and the Bible. That’s what you were taught, right? Yes, it was. Exactly. And I was required.

0:04:37 – (Steve Gray): I didn’t grow up in that denomination, but I wanted to get a more formal ordination, so I studied with them and went up and they licensed me, then they ordained me and I had to do all their studies and everything. And, and it felt legitimate and it was. And they’re a good denomination. But I was required to. To teach and preach the rapture of the church. And probably still today in that denomination. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, so I want to get on something here that I think is very powerful and life changing.

0:05:09 – (Steve Gray): The title today is Real Gospel. I think we put. And real, real revival. People want to see revival, but the gospel that’s being preached, Zion is not well suited for a revival because you don’t need one if you’re going to fly out of here. You don’t need one if all you have to do is talk about yourself before God. I noticed that because I listen carefully and not to be critical, because I appreciate everybody’s attempt to get people saved, but they’re not really trying to get them saved because they don’t know what the word saved means.

0:05:47 – (Steve Gray): It means to be saved, preserved, healed, delivered and kept safe.

0:05:54 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:05:55 – (Steve Gray): All that’s right here. The prayer is all geared to not hear. If they don’t fly away, they’re going to go. When they die, they get to go up. And so they divided, say, do you know. And so the prayer is all about us. Do you know you’re a sinner? Do you know that Jesus is Lord? Do you know that he’s your Savior? Do you believe and know that he’s forgiving of your sins? And if you. Okay, so then say this prayer. I know I’m a sinner.

0:06:22 – (Steve Gray): I believe in Jesus. I believe he’s forgiven my sins. I believe I’ll go to heaven if I pray this prayer. And look how many times you’re talking about yourself. Right, See? And so they go with no knowledge. And I don’t. I don’t care if somebody gets saved that way. Great. But the knowledge of God doesn’t go with it. There’s no. It’s nothing about God. Yeah. It’s all about you. You’re doing this for yourself.

0:06:47 – (Steve Gray): The kingdom of God is not for me. It’s not about me. It doesn’t surround me. And I need to learn to step into it when it’s not about me. So I want to talk about the real gospel and how this is hurting us. Because in the early church and even Paul himself, they did not start their gospel did not start with I’m a sinner. Now, did they preach sin? Yes. Is there. Do we need to talk about I’m a sinner Sometimes? Yes. Okay. It’s legitimate in the right perspective, it’s not the place to start. Right? Yeah. Because if you start that and all of a sudden you start it, they’re saved, you’re okay now everything’s great.

0:07:27 – (Steve Gray): Where do we go from there? There’s. Yeah, there’s nothing left but just to die. Right. And go to the great sweet buy and buy. And so it’s just a holding time. Right. And if it’s just a holding time and there’s nothing else going on, then you tell people that there’s. You don’t you know you can’t earn salvation. It’s not self-effort. Right. Then you say the prayer. I’m a sinner. I believe my sins are forgiven. And then now I’m in, waiting to go to heaven.

0:07:53 – (Steve Gray): When I die, what is there left to do? Self-effort. You’re right back to self-effort. Trying to be a better person, trying to be moral, trying to be a better person. And a lot of people don’t come to Jesus. I didn’t for a long time. Even though people were trying to pray. This prayer with me to come to my door when I was in college is because I didn’t. I couldn’t be a better person. I knew I can’t do this right.

0:08:16 – (Steve Gray): And I’m not sure I want to be. I don’t know what I want. You’re content? Yeah. And so I had to be offered something else. But anyway, so. So the real gospel, back to the first century, they didn’t approach it in the cities like in Ephesus or wherever. They had all these thousands of people saved. They began to talk. Who’s the real God? Yeah, that’s here. And Paul saw a statue that said an unknown God. Where was the statue of the unknown God? It’s not in heaven.

0:08:43 – (Steve Gray): There was a statue of an unknown God. They had other gods too known. This is the unknown right there in front of them. When they worshiped, they worshiped something right in front of them. They believed that statue had power. Yeah. Or the other statues right in front of him. Okay. So all he had to do was say, hey, I know the name of that God. Isn’t that clever? I know the name of that God and I’m going to introduce you to the real God. Yeah. Who is going to be right in front of you like this statue. The real one is coming.

0:09:12 – (Steve Gray): And so that. And so they presented a real God who’s powerful, who raised Jesus from the dead and he’s going to give us complete salvation. And even though our bodies are going to be Raised up, alive. We’re actually going to come back and be rescued and live in a safe spiritual world for eternity. We’re not going to spend eternity in heaven. Probably thousands and thousands of times a day, a preacher will say, do you know you’re going to spend eternity in heaven? Or now you’re going to spend eternity? They have no idea that we’re coming back.

0:09:46 – (Steve Gray): I mean, heaven’s coming down. But we’re all meeting down here. We don’t go up. The earth doesn’t. It doesn’t say earth goes up to heaven. Vacuum. I keep bumping my mic so it’s excited. Earth doesn’t go up to heaven for eternity. Heaven comes down to earth. New heaven, new earth, new bodies, new everything original. So. So the real gospel needs to be said, and it would. And we’ll get more people saved if we present the real gospel.

0:10:14 – (Steve Gray): So even Paul was. I like Paul because he was on the road to Damascus, as you know, and he was struck by the power of God. Of course I like that story because I have a similar story. But when he got up and he got figured out what’s going on, he’s blind. He can’t see from the light, all that he’s going to get his eyes. But his expression was, what do you want me to do? Not God, where am I going to go? Right. And they didn’t mean to say, aren’t you happy now? Believe in Jesus. So if you don’t survive this lightning bolt, you know you’ll die.

0:10:44 – (Steve Gray): Right. And he never confessed. Well, that’s not true. He was low on his, on his opinion of himself because he persecuted Christians. Sure. But when he looked back on his life, if you get the other, say, do you know you’re a sinner? Do you know that. That Paul says, you know, I persecuted Christians, but other than that, I was perfect. Yeah. He never, he never went to the realm of our thing, where Paul, do you know you were a sinner? He says, I was pretty much a perfect Jew. I was the top of my class. Yeah, I just had. I just had. I just had the wrong.

0:11:19 – (Steve Gray): I didn’t know. I didn’t know Jesus. Yeah. Just guided wrong until I met the real Jesus. I took all of that and, you know, I’m ashamed of what I did. But. But still. So you go into the early church and they approached it that we’re going to go in and we’re going to worship, we’re going to praise, we’re going to worship, we’re going to declare, and God is going to Be among us. God is going to be among us.

0:11:44 – (Steve Gray): And then people would come in and they’d say, don’t you want God among you? And if you get God among you, we live this out. Salvation is something that acts in your life now. Right? But you do get to go to heaven if you die. Yes, absolutely. But the biggest point, they didn’t preach that. They preach you get to have your body raised from the dead like Jesus, and you get to be an eternal being, a glorified body. That’s a lot more enticing, like Jesus. That sounds cool.

0:12:14 – (Steve Gray): They approached it from two things, the resurrection and the presence of God among us. Even though it could be hard in this world, it could still be tough. There’s still a battle going on. There’s still evil in the world. But that was their approach. And so today we don’t have that approach from 100 years. Because the system of having people raise their hands while eyes are closed, what is that? First of all, it’s saying, this is embarrassing. We don’t want people, no one looking around.

0:12:42 – (Steve Gray): So, okay, well, then if I can do it with no one knowing, I’ll do it, because now I’m going to be a hidden Christian. And then, like, we laugh and say, the guy, then he immediately says, I see that hand. Well, I thought no one was looking around, and somebody was, and a lot of people were peeking. And then you do it like, okay, nobody knows I raised my hand, and nobody knows. Now you that raised your hands come down and you go, oh, I’m caught. I’m caught. He knows I raised my hand. And now I don’t want to come down in front of everybody. But now I feel like an idiot because he knows I raised my hand. So if you raised your hand, you need to get. And so now they got him to come up down there. Now we have all these people coming down. Now the pastor can show the other people how many people he was able to get saved, so to speak. And then they advertise it, how many people have been saved or whatever.

0:13:29 – (Steve Gray): But in the early church, there was no demonstration of that. You know how you became a Christian? You believed. Believe the gospel, believe in who Jesus is. Just right where you’re sitting or standing or worshiping. And that faith comes in and we’re going to. We’re going to proclaim who Jesus is. As we proclaim Jesus in the church and as a people, salvation comes to us and we are being saved. Not saved once, but we’re being saved all the time through many, many ways. Even through difficult times, we’re still depending on God and to save us.

0:14:03 – (Steve Gray): And so when, when Jesus then goes up, and I told this story before, when he goes up, he doesn’t say, hey, get ready to fly away with me, although we still know you die, I got to say it. So people think, you know, I don’t believe in heaven, but, but his instruction was, I’m the angel said, well you see him going up, he’s going to come down. Okay, there’s the gospel, he’s going to come down the same way.

0:14:29 – (Steve Gray): And so he’s going to come down and all of a sudden there’s their hope. He’s coming back, he’s coming down. The hope, yes, we go up and we die, but then we’re coming down. But the hope is in the world is, I want to tell you about the Savior that’s in heaven, but he’s coming down. So now we have the essence of the gospel of what they were saying. You believe in Jesus because he’s coming down to establish his kingdom on the earth and you don’t want to be out of it. We think of, well, you don’t want to be out of heaven, but it’s going to be here. It’s a kingdom that he comes and you don’t want to not be in it.

0:15:06 – (Steve Gray): And so the Jewish person came up to Jesus and said, you know, how do I, how do I get into your kingdom? And he started talking about, well, or how do know, how do I get saved? What does it take to get saved? And he started talking about the law and all that kind of stuff. But what he meant saved was I don’t, I don’t want to say get, go to go to heaven. I want to be in your kingdom, I want to be saved from what’s coming and be in your kingdom when it comes.

0:15:32 – (Steve Gray): And so. Okay, so I’ll speed it up a little bit. So now they’re promising, in the early church and early gospel, they’re promising a resurrected body and a new life now. Yes, but you do not see writings much about going to heaven when they die. It’s not that it’s non-existent. Yeah, but it’s really not there. In fact, even before the ministry of Jesus, those that went and lived in the desert and we got the Dead Sea Scrolls out of them, there’s no mention of going to heaven. The Jews are not thinking of going to heaven. Heaven’s going to come down, God’s going to come down and he’s going to restore us.

0:16:11 – (Steve Gray): We don’t have to restore ourselves. That’s kind of gospel. Y. He’s going to come down and do it. So we just need to hold on, do what he wants, live for him, serve him, glorify him, worship him, live according to his word. And eventually God’s going to come down and save us and establish us forever. Okay, so we back up now and we. We have that. That’s what was being taught. Now let’s go to the roots of it to help people that think what.

0:16:43 – (Steve Gray): Because, yeah, the salvation prayers are okay, but they already. Embarrassment, right. Or it’s all about you. You’re doing it for yourself. And that’s not the gospel. Right. That’s good. Okay. That’s really good. You’re doing it because you want God to come and be with you and operate through you and around you and through other people. Okay? So now we have the simplest verse in the whole Bible. Okay.

0:17:03 – (Steve Gray): And everybody knows it in our country pretty much because we’re going to be celebrating Christmas and that, you know, holiday. And what’s the. What’s. Where did it all begin? Where did the gospel, so to speak, beginning? It began one place. The shepherds are on the hill, right? With their sheep guarding at night. And the angels appear and glory shown all around them. And they say, behold. And they get really afraid. And they said, stop being afraid. I’ve got good news. I’m not the bad news.

0:17:30 – (Steve Gray): I’m the good news. And what do they say? Here’s the good news. God is with you. Emmanuel has. God has been born in Bethlehem. God has come down in a baby, in a person that’s going to grow up to be the Messiah. The good news is, Emmanuel, God with us. Behold, I bring you good news. A great joy that shall be to all people. A savior is being born. Who is? Who is? We say Christ the Lord, but they would have said the Messiah.

0:17:58 – (Steve Gray): They would have said he’s the Messiah, which they would have been waiting for. So here we are, holiday time, Christmas. We won’t talk about Santa Claus. We’ll talk about this. Holiday time and Christmas. And what do we celebrate? The birth of the king. The birth of Messiah. The birth of the Savior. Right. Who came down. Yeah. So in the Old Testament, what we call the Jews, the Hebrews, Israelites, they get themselves in a lot of trouble.

0:18:26 – (Steve Gray): They didn’t do everything right. And it would go in a circle, as I’ve talked to you about that circle circular thing where they. God does great things. It’s so great. They start forgetting God. Then they start losing God, then bad things start happening, then they repent, then God comes back again. And the whole circle is whether that whatever they did is in that circle of life, as we call it now, Lion King, but the circle of life in, in the real circle, God’s in it through.

0:18:57 – (Steve Gray): He shows up and he comes down to help us. Right? That’s Old Testament time. And then finally, then we get. The final help has started. The final help has started. A savior has now been born on the earth. He could have been born in heaven and stayed up there. And we just go and see him die. He came down. Okay, so that’s the beginning of the gospel. Now it goes through that, the promises and the Jewish folks who started all the churches, most of the early churches, they. That’s the roots they gave.

0:19:26 – (Steve Gray): So let me just share now, we’ll close out here with this Bible thing. So they’re in, in Luke chapter seven, there’s a widow whose son died. And they, and they make sure we know if she had another son, then there wouldn’t be such a pitiful situation because that son would be required or a son in law even would require to take care of the widow. There were certain rules, but this woman had nobody. Her husband’s dead, her one son is dead. This would mean she would be poverty stricken with nobody to help her. Her life is basically over.

0:20:01 – (Steve Gray): And so the funeral procession is going, and he’s in the casket and all that and you know, and they’re carrying it on a cart probably. And Jesus sees it and has pity and says, don’t cry. Then he went up and touched and said, young man, I say to you, get up. Arise the older language. And the dead man sat up and began to talk and Jesus gave him back to his mother. Okay, all right. So a lot of preachers, especially those preaching, you know, we pray for the sick and raise the dead and all that kind of stuff, that’s where they stop.

0:20:34 – (Steve Gray): Sure, okay. But there’s a theology that was rooted in what they just saw that came out of their mouths that we don’t have. And it is the gospel. Okay, okay. So they were all filled with awe and praise. God, of course, great thing happened. And, but, but then they say they.

0:20:53 – (Zion Vierra): Were all filled with awe.

0:20:54 – (Steve Gray): And after they saw it, this is what they said in some paraphrases. God has come down to help us. Or a great prophet they call it here in this translation. A great prophet has come among us. God has come down. It wasn’t that guy’s. Too bad for him. Well, he, he was In a better place. Yeah. Why’d you pull him back? Yeah. So it was their theology that came out. Somebody’s been raised from the dead. God’s here. Yeah. God is among us.

0:21:25 – (Steve Gray): God has come down to help us. And so all through the Bible, then we see that that’s what Paul is explaining to the people, the resurrection of the dead. God comes down to help us. God is among us. The unknown. God is Jesus, you know? And so that’s where I’m saying we need to get back to that. We can change and have real revival. And real revival is, I know you’re hurting. I know you’ve made mistakes.

0:21:56 – (Steve Gray): Eventually that person is going to have to face up to living a life. But John the Baptist, living their kind of life. But John the Baptist didn’t do that either. And neither did Jesus. This is hard for people. When they said repent, they didn’t say, repent because you’re a sinner. Zip. Doesn’t exist. I’m going to let them just sit on that just for a second. Marinate. Yeah, yeah. They did not say, john the Baptist said the same thing. Jesus preached the same thing. Right in a row.

0:22:23 – (Steve Gray): Repent. Okay. They did not say, because you’re a sinner, you know you’re a sinner, you know you’ve sinned. That’s today’s gospel. Yeah, it is. They said, repent because there’s something here. Now the kingdom of God is here. Repent, for the kingdom of God is now among men. The kingdom of God is here. What a difference. God has come down. And then Jesus, when he preached, he repented, for the kingdom of God is here. He went about preaching, doing good, and he went about preaching, the kingdom of God is here. And when he taught, what did he teach?

0:22:56 – (Steve Gray): The kingdom of God. And he says, let me tell you, it’s here. Let me tell you how it works. Here’s how it works. This is exciting. This is how it works. That’s what happened. We’ve lost it. We’ve lost it. And the reason they needed to repent is because they were so busy in their religion and life and like, just like us, even religion and life. Or not going to church, whatever. Yeah. But through the centuries, they promised God, if you will come down, we will give ourselves over to you. Sure. Now they’re needing to repent because up to that time they were living selfish lives.

0:23:31 – (Steve Gray): And so he said, now it’s here. So you’re going to have to repent of living for yourself and now live for the kingdom of God. Because it’s here. If it wasn’t here, you’d be okay. You’re not okay because you need to repent because God is among us and you don’t care. God is among us and you don’t have time. God is among us and you don’t even know he’s among us. That’s the church today. Yeah. What we do know is that if we were to die today, we would go to heaven, to a better place.

0:24:00 – (Steve Gray): Right. But we do not preach. And I say we because some get it. Most don’t, though. It’s not being preached that God is among us. We talked about on college campuses and high school campuses, the reaction that people are having. What are they reacting to? They’re not reacting to going to heaven. They’re not saying, come and worship. Come and worship and light a candle on that. Because if you were to die. No, they’re saying, I feel God. Yeah, God. It feels like God is here.

0:24:28 – (Steve Gray): Let’s worship. It feels like God is here. Let’s sing for an hour. Let’s sing for two hours. Let’s start living for him. Let’s go for him. Let’s go for him. The kingdom of God is among us. And that’s what’s making it happen. Now, if the church gets this, it’s happening on a campus or in a community or maybe on a beach somewhere. I don’t know if the church would get the gospel. It would bring revival because the revival comes because God comes to us.

0:24:54 – (Steve Gray): What, me? Measly me. I’m not that great a person. Yeah, but you know what? God will come down to help you. Just like that Bible story. Just like God is among us. That is the gospel. God comes down, heaven comes down. Yes, we go up, but we come back. And so if we could transform instead of it being all about us. Savior, you’re not. You’re saying, I can’t save myself. But you, you’re. You’re. If you don’t pray this, you’re not going to be saved. So now you’ve got to do this.

0:25:28 – (Steve Gray): And where’s God? He’s still up in heaven. And you’re being promised that you get to go there. But there’s no promise of God coming down to help us. Right. And so we. 99% of the pastors that I’ve talked to across the country or around the world, they don’t preach the gospel. They preach this. And they do the altar calls and they do it, and it’s all about us. So people are getting saved, believing in Jesus I hope so. But then they just. Then they continue to believe in themselves until they die.

0:25:55 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. So there we go. We’ll see how this stirs up. But I hope it, I hope that people realize really good. Yeah. A pastor says, I, I want revival in my church. And then he gets up and says, now with every eye closed one, you’re not preaching the gospel, right, Telling people God will come down and help us if we will turn to him. He says, turn to me and I will come to you. Repent. Right. Turn to me with all your heart.

0:26:21 – (Steve Gray): Come to me and I will come to you. Isn’t that it? There’s many. Draw near. Yeah. Draw near to me, I’ll draw near to you. That’s what we want. That’s what we want in our country. That’s what we want in our homes. That’s why we’re frustrated in government and frustrated with politicians and frustrated. And there’s wars around the world. Is God’s too far away? And that’s because we are. That’s how we bring revival. Well, we don’t want to take up any more time, but I hope this. You tell your friends, subscribe.

0:26:49 – (Steve Gray): I hope you’re amazed to hear it. And just if you let the spirit speak to you, you’ll get it and do some study if you have to. And it could transform you to get personal revival. But it could turn your church and your friends if you start doing this. I wish we had more time. I wish you’d watch every single one of these podcasts because it’s the voice of Revival. We’re going to continue to teach about revival that we need so desperately in our country. And that’s the only thing that’s going to save us from the divide—the division that’s in our country today. So go to https://stevegrayministries.com. There’s books there, there’s stuff you can subscribe to. Tell your friends about it and go like us on socials.

0:27:24 – (Steve Gray): Until next time, bye-bye.