The World is Shaking

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, what in this world is going on? You know, everything’s shaking and people are shaking on the inside and everybody’s shaking on the outside. I’m going to give you the cure so you can become unshakeable in 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. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse.

0:00:37 – (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.

0:01:12 – (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 and experience more.

0:01:24 – (Steve Gray): Hello, everyone, and welcome to another More Faith, More Life fantastic podcast. It’s going to be great today. Why not be up about it, Right? And I want to thank you and Heather for last week. I was out of town and we tried to say, what. What could we do? You know, how should we do it and all that. And you invited Heather, who’s on staff with us at Revive Church many years, and you, you know, she’s sort of. You’re like, you discipled her and trained her, and now she’s in her own right.

0:01:52 – (Steve Gray): Got a strong, strong ministry. Yeah. That she can hold her own. So you kind of had her as the guest on here. And I heard great things about it and did great and people responded and it was just really good to give it so you could take the lead.

0:02:05 – (Kathy Gray): And I pretended. I was used to gray.

0:02:09 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:02:09 – (Kathy Gray): Except I sat in my chair.

0:02:11 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. So I’m used to it. Yeah. So you must have done a good job. I mean, I was gone. I didn’t get to.

0:02:16 – (Kathy Gray): It was very. It was very wonderful and fun and.

0:02:18 – (Steve Gray): Thank you.

0:02:19 – (Kathy Gray): So thanks for letting us.

0:02:20 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Well, I want to thank you guys for stepping In. And we know now that. And you know that you can do that and Heather can do it. But we also have other people on staff that are just excellent, too, that we should hear from at times. But if we do, that means one of us has to be kicked off that week. So unless we put another chair in. But, you know, there’ll be times when your schedule doesn’t work out or mine doesn’t work out. Like it didn’t.

0:02:44 – (Kathy Gray): Exactly.

0:02:44 – (Steve Gray): And so anyway, thanks, everybody for helping out and doing. Doing that, you know. So that was. That was fun.

0:02:50 – (Kathy Gray): That was wonderful.

0:02:51 – (Steve Gray): So what’s on your mind today? I said it was going to be fantastic.

0:02:53 – (Kathy Gray): Oh, man. Well, you know, I keep thinking of that phrase. Probably younger people will not recognize it, but the phrase, there’s a whole lot of shaking going on, you know, and as I look around, you know, the news constantly and just everything happening in the world and in the lives of our people and just everywhere, it just feels like. Oh, like, you know, there’s a real shaking going on. And. And then it makes me think of that scripture from Hebrews yeah. 12.

0:03:20 – (Steve Gray): You.

0:03:21 – (Kathy Gray): Can I just read it?

0:03:21 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, read it.

0:03:22 – (Kathy Gray): Okay. Hebrews 12 says this now, now this, yet once more indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire. So, you know, there’s a lot of shaking going on, but our God and his kingdom can’t be according to the word.

0:04:00 – (Kathy Gray): So what’s going on with all this shaking?

0:04:03 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, I think it’s interesting that every day you wake up with our current administration and something new, they shake. And it says the removal of things that can be shaken. And, you know, there’s a lot of known. I don’t know who’s. I don’t want. I don’t need to be political, but obviously what they’re trying to do, I would say makes sense. I would do the same thing if. If I found out that we owed us a whole lot of money. What do you do? Yeah, you start saying, how can we cut back and get on a budget? And, you know, people do that. Oh, we’re credit card debt, almost debt. Almost everybody that young couples that come to our church new, which we do have new ones. I’m thankful that revived churches got young. When I’m talking about with kids with a lot of churches they say they’re not coming, but they’re coming to revive church.

0:04:51 – (Steve Gray): But most of them come with credit card debt, you know, and so, you know, so you start getting. Well, there’s kingdom principles that we can learn. So you need to let God start shaking those things. Because you, you know what, credit card debt can be removed. Hey, it’s shakable, you know, and just things like that. And so we see that in the government. That’s how I look at it. Like, yes, it’s painful for some, and we may have to cut back. It might be scary for some people.

0:05:18 – (Steve Gray): But I know as a dad, a pastor, a leader, you know, sometimes you have to let God shake things up a little bit. For me, though, there’s a different viewpoint. You know, my viewpoint on this. Yes. Because there are things going on the. And what countries are going to do, and there’s wars going on. They’re pretty important wars. Right? Pretty important. And threats from other countries to go to war. And then some people say our economy’s going to go down.

0:05:47 – (Steve Gray): Others promise it’s going to go up to a golden age. And people, like you said, they feel that shaking because, I mean, who’s right, who’s wrong? It’s uncertain. Are we going to. Some people we’re going to lose our Social Security and Medicare, and then, no, no, no, that’s not going to happen. And so there’s people that try to scare us and frighten us. There’s other people that try to reassure us. Right.

0:06:09 – (Steve Gray): So all these things are going on. And you know my philosophy, and I want to tell people about this first before we’re going to talk more about shaking. But you know my philosophy. I was talking to you before we started that. Just out of the. Out of my mind, I just remembered Psalm 100, and it says this. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. This is King James, I think. Serve the Lord with gladness, for it is he who has made us and not we ourselves.

0:06:43 – (Steve Gray): Now, I know it’s King James. I don’t use it much, but I just like that one. You know why that’s important to me? Because with the solid rock that tells me what to do, that’s what I do. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness. Enter in his. I forgot about that part. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, to his courts with praise. So no matter what shakes for me, I trust the Lord that things are not of the kingdom too, and are shakable. They’re going to be removed permanently when Jesus returns You know, but for me, you hear, it’s such a strong thing. It helps people so much. I say, look, whatever happens, I’m not going to do anything different.

0:07:26 – (Steve Gray): What would I, Kathy is just a person. What would I do different if the, that side was right and this collapsed, this side was right and it all rose up, millions came in and our economy went to the top golden age or it fell and people are fighting bad stuff in the streets and all that kind of stuff. What would I do different? Nothing.

0:07:46 – (Kathy Gray): Nothing.

0:07:47 – (Steve Gray): Because I’m doing everything I want and I want to do, can do and should do. But the basic is what? I’m going to serve the Lord with gladness no matter what. So you have that. Yeah, yeah. Things are going to be shaking. There are things that can be removed and we feel the shaking going on. And, and the kingdom of God though, doesn’t shake. It stays firm.

0:08:11 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:08:11 – (Steve Gray): And, and so we know that. And that’s why I, I, I can’t think. Let’s say a world war broke out. What would I do differently?

0:08:19 – (Kathy Gray): Right?

0:08:20 – (Steve Gray): What, what would I…Now I’m going to go and panic or I’m going to quit serving Jesus or I’m going to quit giving money to people or church. Maybe, maybe, maybe our economy would go down. That means I’m going to quit giving. I’m going to give what I can give. I’m going to do what I can do. I’m going to be who I can be. I’m going to serve. So that scripture came to my mind, and by the way, it also came to my mind so saying, make a joyful noise unto the Lord.

0:08:44 – (Steve Gray): The NIV says shout. Use the word, shout to the Lord. All you people. And I thought about that a little bit. Some people are so stuck in their religion, it wouldn’t matter how many times I read that scripture to them, if I went and visited their church, I ain’t going to hear any shouting. It’s against their spiritual law or doctrine. So they’re going to, it’s going to be a really quiet service with them. But I like it.

0:09:09 – (Steve Gray): Oh, I was talking to somebody the other day how we are like at our church, I like it. We sing a song and it says, and the word so shout. Do that. And you’re right in the middle of the song; everybody starts shouting because we said so shout. So everybody shouts. And the leader, the other, we did that the other day and the person leading the song had to stop for a second and then we went on with the song.

0:09:29 – (Steve Gray): I remember when I was ministering in church. And they sang that really famous song. It’s a great song. Shout to the Lord. Shout to the Lord. Let us sing.

0:09:42 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:09:43 – (Steve Gray): Okay. And I watched him shout to the. Nobody shouted. And then the second song they sang, and I’m the guest speaker, the second song they sang was I Live My Hands up unto the Lord. Nobody lifted their hands up. And I’m thinking, like, how long can I last? Now I get it. It’s tradition. People just. They grew up in a church that doesn’t do all that stuff. But if you think about it, that then translates into our everyday lives where we’re saying things about God.

0:10:18 – (Steve Gray): We say things Bible, but nobody does it. Nobody’s. Nobody even expects anybody. Nobody expects anybody to go home from church and do anything different. They already know they’re not going to, right? So I got up in that. More than one church, basically, but that particular church. And. And I’m getting ready to preach. And I said, listen, I just got to visit with you something. I want to give you a bit of advice.

0:10:40 – (Steve Gray): If you’re. The worst place in the world to lie is in church. Because I said, you sang Shout to the Lord, but my favorite. You said, I lift my hands up to the Lord and nobody did it. That’s a lie. I said, I just want to give you a bit advice. It was a little tongue in cheek, you know, a little bit advice. If you’re going to lie, don’t lie in church because you’re not going to get what God has. And then I went on, remember? And I said this, then the other, and I said, listen, I don’t know if I can take it anymore.

0:11:13 – (Steve Gray): Listen to a church sing I surrender all I surrender. I said, listen, that is a lie. I’ve been around Christians enough. They don’t plan on surrendering anything. Most of them, right? So I said, just sing it like it is. We’re going to have to rewrite the song and at least tell the truth and surrender one thing. So we’ll say, I surrender one thing. Not a great song, but it’s the truth. I’m willing to. I’m willing to surrender one thing. Maybe I’ll give some money. Maybe I’ll give some. Maybe I’ll lift a hand up or whatever.

0:11:44 – (Steve Gray): It’s just. I know it’s a little tongue in cheek, but think about how much we say and have no intention as Christians of. We’re not going to do anything different. We’re going to go to church and sing. Shout and never shout. Lift hands and never lift hands. Sing about Our love and our generosity and how we care. And then zero. That’s a secular Christian is what I call. You know, I’m getting off the subject.

0:12:11 – (Kathy Gray): I just want to preach. I want to preach right now. I want to say.

0:12:15 – (Steve Gray): But I’m. I’m preaching.

0:12:16 – (Kathy Gray): Well, no, but I’m a preacher too. I just can’t take it.

0:12:20 – (Steve Gray): Secular. It’s. What do you want to say?

0:12:22 – (Kathy Gray): No, I want to say it first. Everything that can be shaken needs to be shaken and must be shaken. Shake that shoutlessness off these people. Shake that hypocrisy.

0:12:35 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:12:35 – (Kathy Gray): Out, out, out. You know, let the wind of God come in and knock them all. All down, you know, and shake. And let there be. I’m sorry, but let there be physical manifestations of the power and the mercy and the grace and the authority and, and the honor of God. And it’s time to shake them up. Shake them up. Shake it out of them.

0:12:58 – (Steve Gray): I appreciate you sharing that.

0:12:59 – (Kathy Gray): That’s made by man. I can be shaken out. Sorry.

0:13:03 – (Steve Gray): Okay. I wasn’t going to go that direction about people being knocked down. Is that scriptural? Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. The place, the whole. In the Bible, the whole church was shaken. The building. Well, the, the. The building shook, though.

0:13:16 – (Kathy Gray): The building shook.

0:13:17 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. So. Okay.

0:13:18 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:13:18 – (Steve Gray): But, but, but here’s the thing is, is to. Getting people that. To have that in you.

0:13:24 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:13:24 – (Steve Gray): It’s not healthy as a Christian to say things that you don’t mean or are you never going to do and you can practice it your whole life. It just makes you nominal as a believer.

0:13:35 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:13:35 – (Steve Gray): It’s also, at this time in our lives. We talked about our nation.

0:13:38 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:13:40 – (Steve Gray): People, you can read all the reports on this. This is not just me that people are fed up with. I don’t know, performance. They’re fed up with.

0:13:49 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:13:50 – (Steve Gray): Hypocrisy. They want real and they want to know the truth. And they need help. They do need help. And so to have a visitor or guest come to our church, that’s searching and wondering and thinking. I need to get back to church and stand there while people say things, sing things, preach things that they’re not intending to do. It’s. It’s okay. It’s innocent. If you sing, shout to the Lord and you don’t shout, what difference does it make? But it’s not that difference. The difference is it’s a lifestyle.

0:14:20 – (Steve Gray): It’s not a song.

0:14:22 – (Kathy Gray): Exactly.

0:14:22 – (Steve Gray): It doesn’t matter. You know, I’m not going to get legalistic. Shame on you. You didn’t. You know, but the lifestyle is there and the people pick up on that. And, and the only kind of people they’re going to attract to their church are other nominal people.

0:14:38 – (Kathy Gray): Right.

0:14:38 – (Steve Gray): That church is going not going to go anywhere in Today’s world, maybe 50 years ago in today’s world, because we are, we are in a shakable society. We are. And people are getting shaken up in themselves and in their minds. And obviously in the news sometimes as ministries are being shaken. And that’s nothing new. God, it’s always happened. So I don’t. Like I said, what would I do differently? Somebody asked me, they were trying to get me involved with this certain ministry that I guess got into trouble, did something and they fell in the churches closing or something or, or the pastor had to step down, whatever. And they want to know, what do you think about that? And shouldn’t we be. So I said, what difference is it to me?

0:15:23 – (Steve Gray): I’m here to make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Even if the, you know, the mountains as that favorite scripture, God is my refuge, God is my strength. Right. Ever present help in time of trouble. Right? Yeah, that’s it. So. And he says, even if the mountains would fall into the heart of the sea, well, you know, I’m. What would I do differently? What am I going to do? A war or famine or great things, bad things.

0:15:53 – (Steve Gray): If you’re doing everything that you can do now, then nothing else in the world is going to change who you’re supposed to be. The problem is if we’re not being who we’re supposed to be now, and this is not condemnation or come on, get with it or turn over a leaf or you need to be more moral. It’s if you could just do what you can do. Remember in the book Mighty like Gideon, that’s out now in the bookstores and Amazon, you can get it stevegreyministries.com it’s got great things in it to help you.

0:16:23 – (Steve Gray): But the angel of the Lord said, Gideon, I’m going to make you the deliverer. And he’s looking, I can’t do that. He said, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go in the strength that you already have. You’re denying what you can do in the kingdom by saying something’s missing. And yeah, something’s missing is doing what you can do and then God will give you more to do. So here’s the problem. I see and I’m already making it clear those small things like the offering plate goes by or whatever and you know, people put an empty envelope in you know, okay, I guess that’s still, you know, all right, do it if you want to do it. Okay.

0:17:04 – (Steve Gray): But the root of it is what we don’t realize. So what’s happening in our nation right now and what we have to be careful of and let that shaking in ourselves take over is there is a spirit in the world. From we were talking about second Thessalonians, isn’t that right? I wrote it down to make. Yeah. 2nd Thessalonians 2 that it says about the man of lawlessness being revealed. Well, a lot of people make that just an end time scripture, which is wrong.

0:17:33 – (Steve Gray): I’d love to talk about that someday, but which is wrong because the spirit of lawlessness is in the world. And so we become Christian, but we become secular nominal because we’re actually lawless. Now what you see happening, the collision in politics right now and in churches is lawlessness. And so the funny thing about it, what I saw, and like I said, when political. But it’s funny when the some people, political people in the last few years were trying to use the law to impeach or put people in jail and they said nobody’s above the law.

0:18:12 – (Steve Gray): Right. And now we have people fighting to laws that say, if God, what is it we can’t understand about illegal things that are illegal? If it’s a law, whether government, Congress, president, local government, put something into motion, it’s a law. And we need laws because laws protect us and put us boundaries. So we all do it. Now, if you don’t like the law, we’re fortunate we live in a country where we have laws. Then get to work instead of breaking the law.

0:18:47 – (Steve Gray): Get to work and help change the law. If you think it should be changed. That’s America. Thank God we can do that. Yeah, it’s a long process and takes a lot of work, but otherwise you’re a lawbreaker. So the same people who said no one’s above the law is now wanting illegal things, people, places, things and taking place. And it’s against the law. And these are some of our leaders that are controlling.

0:19:11 – (Steve Gray): And I’m not saying I agree with them or don’t agree with them, but you don’t break the law because then you’re lawless. And if lawlessness, which is in our country right now, you’ve got to say, I disagree and change the law. But if you’re lawless, then it’s not going to go well. Lawlessness does not work. Everybody gets hurt. And we have people that have been killed and taken and lawlessness reigns and it’s just out of control and there’s people trying to get law back in. And some people don’t like that. You know why?

0:19:45 – (Steve Gray): They are lawless. And so they don’t like it and they’re lawless. Even when they were saying no one’s above the law, they were still being lawless because their purpose was to manipulate it for themselves. But nobody should be. I’m saying the same thing. Let’s just say that and do it. And then we, we go with the punches. But we don’t become lawless now. Especially if we’re Christians, we’re believers.

0:20:11 – (Steve Gray): That’s why I’m in tongue in cheek. I’m mentioning songs and silly things that are not really the issue. But the issue is that we are lawless in that we can say we believe, we say how much we love God and how much we’re going to give and we give the impression that we’re somebody else, that we’re not. And we, we become lawless in our own Christianly way and we become what I call a secular Christian. And you know, I learned that when the first time we went to Israel years ago. I didn’t know much about Judaism and Israel, but I’ve learned a lot, studied a lot. But the first time we went, I was introduced to what I didn’t know existed. I thought, I know I was naive. I thought if Jewish people move and the Jewish people move to Israel, like they were in Russia and they moved to Israel, they were somewhere and they moved. Israel thought these people mean business. They’re spiritual people.

0:21:08 – (Steve Gray): And then you go over there, oh no, no, no. You got to learn some. There are practicing Jews and there are Orthodox Jews and then there are secular Jews. And so they’ll even tell you Jerusalem is a practicing Orthodox type city. But Tel Aviv, they told me this, Tel Aviv is a secular city, but they’re all Jewish people. I’m going like what? Now I get it, that’s their business. I’m not Jewish, so it’s none of my business.

0:21:33 – (Steve Gray): But it is my business when I see secular Christians now. Oh yeah, they’re Christians, but that church is a secular Christian. Like Tel Aviv is a secular. They’re Jews and they believe some things and they probably believe in God, you know, it’s thing like that. But they’re not going to practice anything. So they’re going to practice secular world practices and be a Jew at the same time. None of my business.

0:21:55 – (Steve Gray): But it is my business if you call yourself a believer or a Christian and you go to church and yet you’re going to be secular, nominal. In my opinion, that’s lawlessness. And the reason that’s important today is yes, absolutely, we are living in a day when things are really being shaken. And it’s being shaken in the world, it’s being shaken in our government. Obviously, whether you agree with it or not, things are shaking.

0:22:21 – (Steve Gray): The same thing now is approaching the church and approaching us as Christians because the real scripture that you read is shaken and removed is spiritual things. Things, spiritual things are. Need to come in. And the non spiritual, the foolishness, the secularism, the worldliness, just the nominal nothingness is going to, in my opinion, is going to be shaken. And sometimes it can be shaken not by directly God taking you and shaking you, but you’re being shaken because you don’t have the foundation of Jesus Christ and the foundation of a doer.

0:22:59 – (Steve Gray): So when a government threatens us or a war breaks out, or the economy goes down or it goes up, or the things are happening in the government you don’t agree with, it shakes you up because you don’t have the foundation of. Make a joyful noise. If the mountains fall in the heart of the sea, what is that to me? I’m going to, I am on the solid rock. I’m going to serve the Lord with gladness either way. And I do that every day.

0:23:25 – (Steve Gray): And I’m happy about it and I’m joyful about it and I, and I, and I want, it’s not. I have to. I want to. But that makes me. What? Unshakable? That makes. No, I don’t. I might not agree with that. I don’t like that. And everybody’s, you know how those, everybody’s just fighting and fighting and fighting, you know who fighting shakable people. They’re. They’re afraid. They’re afraid. They’re afraid of what the government will do. They’re afraid what they won’t do. They’re afraid. They’re afraid their money will be taken away. They’re afraid that, you know, whatever, their jobs be taken away. Okay, okay, I get it. It’s important stuff.

0:24:01 – (Steve Gray): But if you’re unshakable, then it won’t shake your inner foundation. And that’s when we do dumb things. When we’re shakable. We do dumb things. We get a dumb divorce, right? Because we, we think we got. I got to find an answer here for what’s all the shaking going? Oh, it must be my marriage, must be my job, must be my kids, must be me, you know, so I, I better go get some help. You know, because there’s something I just, whatever.

0:24:28 – (Steve Gray): So that’s my advice. Yes, things are shaking, but it’s the shaking. Because if you have lawlessness, you’re going to be, you’re going to be afraid and you’re going to feel the shaking. If you’re not, if you’re serving the Lord with gladness and you have a foundation and you say, I’m doing all I can now, what would I do different? I just keep going either way. Then you become unshakable. And that’s in that scripture too. There are things that are unshakable and the goal is to get. So the unshakableness is in you and you’re unshakable and you get to remain unshakable until Jesus comes back, if it’s our lifetime and he brings an unshakable kingdom to us.

0:25:10 – (Steve Gray): So that’s my speech today. And you got to give a little speech today, too.

0:25:14 – (Kathy Gray): Sorry about that outburst.

0:25:16 – (Steve Gray): So I just want to remind you about the book Mighty like Gideon. We’re going to, we’re going to close out with that. And it’s, it’s a great book. It was written along with my son-in-law, J.D. King, who has Christos Publishing. He’s got great books you can’t get anyplace else. If you’re, you love books, go there. You can’t get them anywhere else. He’s republished some great books too that you can’t get.

0:25:34 – (Steve Gray): But I have some books on stevegrayministries.com but that are, that people are talking about them now. And but this got a lot of jewels in there that you can practically apply to your life and say, oh, just like I just said one right. Said Gideon, go in the strength you have. Don’t wait for something else to happen. That’s my paraphrase. Great jewel. I hope they’ll do it. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for doing it last week and we’ll be back next time. So don’t miss the next podcast. More faith, more life.