The Power of No (Biblical Truth Most Christians Miss)

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Remember when you were a kid and somebody would tell you no, or your parents would tell you no, and now you really wanted to do it to show that you could do it? Well, I’m going to talk about the power of no on the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:12 – (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.

0:00:29 – (Steve Gray): I’ve spent many years as a worship

0:00:31 – (Steve Gray): artist, minister, non profit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse. 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.

0:00:49 – (Steve Gray): So I spent the following years diving

0:00:51 – (Steve Gray): into the word of God and searching for the biblical principles that that would

0:00:55 – (Steve Gray): bring me closer to God and help

0:00:57 – (Steve Gray): 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. 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 and experience more.

0:01:24 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life podcast. Your voice of revival. And we need a voice of revival. There’s a few, but there’s not enough. Helping us get to the point where we see the power of God, unmistakably power. Obviously, power of God has come into our churches, into our ministries, into our lives in a greater, greater measure. And the reason that’s important, it’s good for you because it starts with the people of God.

0:01:51 – (Steve Gray): But it spills over to where you see so many angry, upset, let’s just say angry, upset people that are just way, some of them way out there, angry, upset over issues that they really don’t understand, in my opinion. But if they could meet the living God, if they could meet the power of God, then we could still talk about those issues. But. But it would be a whole different world. And so we need to get revival in our lives so that we can let it spill over into their lives. We can’t say God.

0:02:22 – (Steve Gray): America needs revival. That’s just too ambiguous. What is that? America needs it. No, you need it. I need it. And most of all, the churches need to Be the light of the world. To have that unmistakable power of God to where people who are angry, they’re upset. And some of them rightfully so. I get it, I get it. Some not. I don’t agree with everybody, but some. I understand their circumstances or how they grew up or whatever, but they need to be able to have a place.

0:02:52 – (Steve Gray): Not the streets of America, but they need to have a place to go called a church. God started the church. The church is considered a gathering. A gathering. They need to be able to go to a gathering and connect with. With the living God. Not connect with just religion. And some songs, you know, three songs and an inspirational message and a few friends. And then we go and have a spaghetti dinner at their house.

0:03:17 – (Steve Gray): Okay, okay. And then play volleyball or something together, you know. Okay, I get it. But we need to be able to. You need. And I need to have a place where I go and I encounter God. And that’s what the early church of the first century did. They encountered God. And that’s why they had signs, wonders, miracles. They grew so much. All these things of the first century churches, because they went and they glorified God wasn’t about them. It wasn’t about their hurt feelings.

0:03:46 – (Steve Gray): It wasn’t about how to feel better about yourself, accept yourself, forgive yourself or whatever, none of that stuff. They went to glorify God and they met God in that glorification. So that’s what we need in America. That’s why I’m trying to be a voice. I got a new book coming out that should be titled Revival or Ruin. I’ll tell you the subtitle later and how you can get that. It’s the best work I’ve ever done, I think.

0:04:13 – (Steve Gray): Well, anyway, we’re going to talk about something a lot that’s really, in my opinion, it’s just fun to talk about because it’s the way America went. And so one of the things I’ve been talking about, the power of no, the word no has a power. Was talking about some kids and I said, the kids are doing this and they start doing that. And you say, no. Now they really want to do it. They want to do it after you said no more than you said.

0:04:41 – (Steve Gray): When you say yes to stuff, no has a power. And I was sharing about Adam and Eve in the garden, and God said, you can eat of any tree you want, but not that one. That’s the no tree. The knowledge of good and evil. Don’t eat of that. Not of that tree. Well, that becomes the center of the Story, right? That’s it. From then on, temptation comes and Eve eats of it. And she brings some to her husband. The very tree that.

0:05:10 – (Steve Gray): I mean, they could have gone to any tree. But the very tree he said no to is the one that was the downfall of humanity. Up to Jesus. Jesus was the savior and the. And, you know, brought a new humanity. But up to Jesus, it was the fall of humanity, was the tree that God said no to. So “no” has a power. And in fact, even Paul said in Romans 7, 7 and 8, I think it is, he said, I wouldn’t have wanted a covet till I saw in the law.

0:05:43 – (Steve Gray): The law said, do not covet your neighbors, your neighbor’s wife, your neighbor’s donkey, your neighbor’s money, your neighbor, whatever, and do not covet. And he says, as soon as I saw, do not covet no. Now I want to covet. What is that about us? Okay? So we have to understand that the word no has a power. And what happens to protect us from that power is we pass what laws, we make it illegal. So there’s a speed limit on the highway. I don’t like it. I want to drive, you know, the Autobahn in Germany.

0:06:25 – (Steve Gray): I want to drive on the Autobahn. I want to decide how fast I should go or not go. And you can do that in Germany on the autobahn, but in here, in other countries, their speed limit, that means no, not past that. And so I would in my insides, I want to drive as fast as I want to drive. I like to press it. I like to go. But I see the law says no. So I’m not speeding. Not because I don’t want to speed. Do you get it?

0:06:56 – (Steve Gray): I’m not speeding. Cause there’s a law that will get me in trouble, and it’s illegal. So the law is holding me back on the outside, but it’s not holding me back on the inside. Okay? So God has laws. The Ten Commandments and the laws and that. And so God had laws. Well, they didn’t work. It didn’t work because it didn’t change the heart. It only changed the outward behavior. Right? And so there you have it. You understand that we need to solve this power of no or we’re going to continue to actually be empowered to want to do things when we’re told not to, rather than decide for ourselves. So anyway, in my new book, I went to the 18th Amendment of 1920.

0:07:45 – (Steve Gray): All right? Well, before that, in the late 1800s, Christians began to say, drinking alcohol is the problem of our society. Because of alcohol, we have immorality divorce, obviously, drunkenness and crime. All right. And loss of income and all that. So they list of all these things. Well, that started with Carrie Nation. She’s famous for having a hatchet and going into the bars and saloons and hatching things up. All right.

0:08:17 – (Steve Gray): Well, Anyway, so by 1920, it got into our society. And part of the reason it got in our society is because during the World War I, from 1914 to 1918, well, we didn’t go into the war till later, but that’s the war. So when the United States went into World War I, we needed grain for all different kinds of things for the war effort. And so people couldn’t make. Couldn’t drink alcohol. They couldn’t make alcohol as much.

0:08:47 – (Steve Gray): And people began to make it sort of a pride thing, like, I don’t drink for the war effort, so I’m an outstanding citizen and I don’t drink. Well, that continued on until 1920, and they pushed it through, and it’s called Prohibition. And in Prohibition, then they passed a law that it was illegal to make alcohol, to sell alcohol, to have alcohol, but not quite. You could drink it, but you sort of still have it. They would look the other way.

0:09:16 – (Steve Gray): Well, they passed that and it was. And so now alcohol is totally illegal. Now. They think we got it. It was the 18th amendment. We got it. Prohibition. What happened? Well, now alcohol is the big. No, no, no, no. What happened more? Well, I studied it before I talked to you today. And what I read was everybody drank. Now, that’s probably not true. Everybody but the general population went from partial drinking due to the war effort to.

0:09:49 – (Steve Gray): To everybody was drinking. They opened up illegal speakeasies, they were called. They were hidden bars and saloons, nightclubs. And you went down to them. Everybody was drinking. And what happened was criminals took it over because it’s against the law. They don’t care. That’s why they call them criminals. They do crime. They took it over. And the gangsters, famous gangsters, Al Capone, others became famous and powerful.

0:10:20 – (Steve Gray): And so crime actually get this. Alcohol, no Crime went up. Alcohol, no. Immorality went up. Alcohol, no. Drinking increased. Who would have thought, right? It’s illegal. The law said no, but they didn’t. A person didn’t say no. Al Capone obviously didn’t say no. And so not being able to say no, the power of no got our country. Now, this went on till 1933. Thirteen years of bootlegging, crime, killings, organized crime.

0:10:58 – (Steve Gray): It got big, big business millionaires. And they became like heroes, some of them, because they were so rich, and they would go into their neighborhoods and yes, they would do money things like, you have to pay me. Protection money. Protection money. I’ll protect you if you pay me. That went on too. But they also went into neighborhoods and handed out money to kids and bought things for the neighborhoods. And so, you know, it was just such a mixture and such a crazy, crazy time.

0:11:31 – (Steve Gray): And so what happened was then Prohibition, the power of no alcohol, became a big, big flop. It was the biggest mistake, I think if I’m right about this, it’s the only amendment that has ever been repealed in our country’s history, I think. So in 1933, they appealed it. Now everybody can drink legally. And now the government began to control it. I was mentioning. I was talking to someone saying, actually, during those years when it was people began to make their own alcohol, obviously you hear the stills that they had in the hills of Arkansas, hills of Missouri or whatever, and illegal stills. And they’d make their moonshine, right?

0:12:15 – (Steve Gray): And the reason, moonshine, because they made it when the moon was out at night and moonshine. But people were making gin and alcohol in their own bathtubs who didn’t know what they were doing and poisoned themselves and poisoned other people. So you know what? It was a total, total flop. What do we learn from that? We learn that whatever law you want to pass, whatever you’re trying to get done, if you’re trying to stop immorality and gangsters and killings and crime, which we have plenty of today, you can’t legislate it. You can’t pass laws to change behavior, okay? And that’s what they were trying to do.

0:12:53 – (Steve Gray): And so it was a big flop. And Paul said it didn’t work for him and it doesn’t work for us. The more we say no from somebody else, the more somebody else, whether it be government or a person, mom, dad, that rebellion or that thing rises up. Whatever happened in the Garden of Eden, whatever Paul was talking about. And so the power of no is really, really strong. And we have to understand that, okay, so here I am.

0:13:25 – (Steve Gray): I want to serve the Lord. I want to be a Christian. I want to do what God wants. Well, we understand the law didn’t work because of what laws do. So we need something else, right? We need a savior. We need a new way. We need a power that transforms us. And that’s why we talk about revival. Revival is not just a revival of longer meetings. You know, different church meeting, longer, louder, who knows what happens? Meetings, you know, that’s not it. Those things may Happen.

0:13:56 – (Steve Gray): But revival is a revival of the presence of God. He’s actually reviving himself nearer to us, near as he can be, as close to us, God, as you can be is what we want. We want a revival of that. Because I can’t revive myself. I need help. I need your presence. I need your glory. And the farther we get away, or the farther he gets away. Cause he will withdraw from you. Yeah. If you ignore him enough, he will pull himself back.

0:14:28 – (Steve Gray): If you return to him, what does he say? I will return to you. I’ll come back again. So there’s a lot in our hands in revival and in maintaining our relationship that we can do ourselves, that help do it. But anyway, they made laws in the Old Testament. Laws. And that was explaining to a people, to Israel, God’s intention. What God liked, what he didn’t like, and how to maintain it was to maintain a relationship with him. Okay?

0:14:59 – (Steve Gray): But it did not maintain a relationship in the heart. It maintained a relationship just like speed limit, you know, I’m not going to speed because the law says I can’t. I might get arrested, all right? Or other things. Or steal or whatever, or commit other crimes. So laws are passed to tell us the way we should act, but they do not change the way we do act. So we have a lot of laws right now, but crime is high.

0:15:26 – (Steve Gray): We in our own. In our own city here this last weekend, we had three murders in our own city. I think they had six in another city that’s three, four, five times the size of Kansas City, one of the huge, huge cities. They had six, but we had three. And we’re much smaller than those huge cities of 10 million or 8 million or whatever. So it’s. So we have laws, but we’re not abiding it. So crime is up, Right?

0:15:58 – (Steve Gray): Human trafficking. Who doesn’t know that’s wrong? Right? It’s wrong, but it’s growing. It’s an epidemic. We have a problem here in Kansas City. We have a World cup coming. Is that this summer, guys? My guys. Yeah, this summer. Well, people are thinking money. And you know how wonderful it is that Kansas City, a smaller city than some of the bigger ones, is having the World cup partly here. They’ve got soccer fields, and everybody’s getting ready for it. Huge, huge deal.

0:16:31 – (Steve Gray): But one of the things we don’t realize that I was talked to about was, do you realize that when that happens, human trafficking is going to be huge here in Kansas City. It’s going to bring crime, too. Huge crime. And so as wonderful as it is, it sounds to our city it’s got its downside because crime is going up. The power of node. You can’t do it. No human trafficking, no drugs, no this, no that. And so how do we solve this though?

0:17:00 – (Steve Gray): How do you solve it where you can walk out your Christian life without needing a law, okay? Without needing laws about crime or stealing or whatever it is, right? Or coveting, as Paul said, to a person who doesn’t need a law, I mean, society needs laws, but that doesn’t mean you have to have laws for everything, right? Cause you have a conscience, you have a heart, you have the Holy Spirit, hopefully you have Jesus.

0:17:29 – (Steve Gray): I mean, Jesus did not need laws, right? He was so in tune with his Father and the Spirit that he walked by the Spirit. He lived by the Spirit. He lived by dying to himself rather than living for himself. Okay? So there were laws. He knew the laws, he knew the Jewish laws and he abided by them. If you want to study that. But he didn’t need them, he didn’t need him to understand God. He didn’t need it to maintain a relationship with his father because he had the Holy Spirit doing that for him. So that’s where we want to get. We want to get to where we are walking by the Spirit. And we want to begin to be carriers of revival, carriers of implementing. So the spirit of God increases in our lives.

0:18:17 – (Steve Gray): It increases in our churches. So when people go to church, they encounter God because that’s the only place on the face of the earth that’s made for that. You can encounter sports, volleyball, friends. We call them home groups. You know, churches have home groups where they fellowship. Some of them have Bible studies, some of them don’t. But it’s fellowship. People need friends, they need to connect with people.

0:18:40 – (Steve Gray): Yes, but that’s everywhere. There’s everywhere places to connect with people, but not to connect with God. And if people come to church to connect with people, then the church is missing the mark. And we’re missing the mark because they need to connect with God. So that means you, I, us, whoever’s hearing this, we need to look at our church and our ways and our lifestyle and even to our children, our family relationships and say, you know, I’m a dad, I’m a mom, I’m a friend or whatever. I need to be a person that helps others connect with God.

0:19:12 – (Steve Gray): That’s what I need. Because there’s no other person on the face of the earth that’s been given that opportunity to do that. Other people can connect to friends and sports and activities and whatever you know, go out to eat, restaurants, have a great time. But where are they going to connect with God? And if I let down in my church or your church, and we make it a social place where we actually are connecting with people, we’re hearing inspirational messages that make us feel better about ourselves.

0:19:41 – (Steve Gray): We hug ourselves, we love ourselves, we forgive ourselves. It’s all about us. It’s all about my feelings. Instead of transforming us and changing us, then we have a problem. Cause if all we do is have people come to church to feel better about themselves, we have not solved the no problem. They may not steal, but they may not be stealing. Not because they don’t want it or not because they wouldn’t do it. They’re doing it because they don’t want to get caught, they don’t want to go to jail.

0:20:12 – (Steve Gray): So you just ask yourself the question. If you could have access to a million dollars and nobody knew you had it, nobody knew you took it, nobody would know it’s a million dollars. Nobody knows. Nobody will know it’s yours. Nobody will trace it. All the things that could happen by taking it are gone. All you had to do was do it and go deposit it. Would you? Most people would if they knew there was no consequences.

0:20:44 – (Steve Gray): So. But if it’s stealing, then you have to say, whether it’s a dollar or a million dollars, I have a no in my life. So the only way to get around this is what Paul teaches in the Book of Titus. He said, grace teaches us. You know what grace is? We all know it as unmerited favor, but most of us know it as unmerited. We don’t deserve it, but it’s favor that we don’t deserve. Because we did bad things, right?

0:21:12 – (Steve Gray): We did bad things. We did things we shouldn’t have done. We still do. But there’s grace. And it’s undeserved. I deserve to get in trouble, but I don’t get in trouble because of God’s grace. Okay? That’s not what it is. God’s grace is a power. And it gives you an undeserving people to do things you wouldn’t get to do. To go places you wouldn’t get to go. To be who you wouldn’t want to be. It’s undeserved, but it’s a massive power.

0:21:38 – (Steve Gray): It’s an empowerment to step into things. Not to erase things, not to camouflage things, not to cover up your weaknesses, but to empower you with strength. So he wrote in the Book of Titus, he said, grace teaches us. Did you know grace is a Teacher, not a coverup. Grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness. And that’s the problem we have, is we might be saying no to ourselves, but many times we’re saying no because we don’t want to get in trouble, we don’t want to get caught, we don’t want to look bad, whatever.

0:22:18 – (Steve Gray): But grace teaches us say no. We’re not being told no. We’re telling ourselves no. I’m saying I have to say no to myself to live this spirit life. I have to say no to myself to walk with the God can say no to me. But it didn’t work in the Old Testament, did it? Didn’t work with the laws. It may have changed their outward behavior, but it didn’t change inward. So there comes a time when I need to grow up and I need to start saying no to myself.

0:22:47 – (Steve Gray): Because if I just let other people tell me no, God or anything else, mother, father, laws, teachers, it becomes a power. It becomes a rebellion. It becomes like, okay, I might not do it, but. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it. That just means I’m not going to do it. But I might do it if you weren’t watching or if you weren’t here. But when you tell a child no, it actually can empower them more to want to do it.

0:23:14 – (Steve Gray): So we have to be parents. We have to say no to our children, obviously. And they need to have laws. We need to have speed limits, as I used example. But what really needs to happen in America is we need to have grace that empowers us and teaches us to say no. And when we begin to say no to ourselves, that is the beginning of revival. Because now we’re walking in the same spirit of Jesus, the same power that raised him from the dead. The same spirit that raised him from the dead dwells in me. And the spirit that was working in him where he was telling himself no is now working in me. And I’m not needing to be told no.

0:23:56 – (Steve Gray): I say no to ungodliness. Grace has taught me to say no. And there are benefits, of course, to saying no to ungodliness. Cause ungodliness produces bad fruit. But nevertheless, I’m saying no to myself now. I am empowering myself by the grace of God, transforming me to be able to say the no. And it gives me power. The power of no becomes a positive. The power of no becomes I’m saying no to ungodliness.

0:24:26 – (Steve Gray): I’m not having somebody else tell me no, which is only angering me, rebelling me. Making me say, well, you’re not going to tell me what to do. Okay, so that’s the power we have today. The power of no is a negative in the world in laws, but it’s a positive in the kingdom of God. If you can say no to yourself, and that’s where you want to go, you want to be able to say no to yourself, then you don’t need anybody else to say no to you. It’s powerful.

0:24:56 – (Steve Gray): Well, more like this at https://stevegrayministries.com. Be watching for the new book, which will be in a few weeks I hope. And it’s like I said, the most exciting thing I’ve ever done writing this one that’s coming out. There’s other books about Gideon and empower Gideon’s life is there the book on Gideon. Other books are there. When the Kingdom Comes, my very first published book is in seven or eight languages. Now many people use it as the beginning guide to revival. So go there, tell your friends about this and submit. How about that, guys? Submit to us, subscribe to us, tell your friends about it and be sure and return every week. Because you’re hearing things, in my opinion on I’m trying to give you things that you don’t hear every day, in every church, everywhere, on every podcast. I know there’s great things out there, but I’m trying to give you stuff that is really valuable to you, that can be life changing and that you don’t hear every day. So tell your friends about it.  Till next time, bye-bye.