0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Ask yourself the question, when you go to church, what do you hear? Do you hear Jesus Christ or do you hear Sigmund Freud analyzing you of who you are and why you do what you do? Are you coming in church and getting an encounter or just an explanation? I’ll explain it all to you in the next More Faith, More Life podcast.

0:00:20 – (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. When I was in my early 40s,

0:00:47 – (Steve Gray): I was craving more.

0:00:48 – (Steve Gray): 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.

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0:01:32 – (Steve Gray): Hello everyone, and welcome to another More Faith More Life podcast. Your voice of revival with my sidekick, Zion, back today. Yeah. And we’re going to talk about revival in a way, but I. I’ve been on this subject of this subject we’re going to talk about and it’s titled the Therapy Gospel.

0:01:50 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.

0:01:50 – (Steve Gray): And the reason I’m on it because, you know, I’m working fast as I can trying to finish a new book that is much more hard hitting than the last one. It’s more political, it’s more. It’s more revelation of where we are in church, where we are in the country. And I think we’re going to call it Revival or what? What is it?

0:02:12 – (Zion Vierra): Revival or Ruin

0:02:13 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Thank you.

0:02:14 – (Zion Vierra): I haven’t even seen it yet.

0:02:16 – (Steve Gray): And we got a subtitle too, you know. But anyway, so I did this chapter. Now, you know, Paul wrote in Second Corinthians that he was concerned and he’s writing to Christians that they would be deceived just like Eve was. Now that’s a strong thing to see the deception on Eve changed the world. Yeah, literally all of us. And that’s strong. He said, I think you that deception is still here, that you would lose your sincere desire, sincerity and love and commitment to Jesus.

0:02:52 – (Steve Gray): And he’s concerned about that. And then he said this and you would turn to. I can’t remember the order, but I think it was another spirit, another gospel, another Jesus. And so that’s why this is so important because it happened then and now Paul’s saying it happens with him and, and I’m saying it’s happening now. It’s not could happen, it’s already happening. So I called it the therapy gospel because he said another gospel.

0:03:19 – (Steve Gray): Well, that’s what it is. And then another place or there he says, actually there is no other gospel, but we’re inventing one. And so the therapy gospel is to reign in and help people. A phrase that I put in another book, and I’m putting in this one too, is the anxiety driven, guilt ridden, anxiety driven, anxiety driven Christians culture. But Christians and our bringing people in is guilt ridden. Anyway. You know, the traditional salvation prayer, which I mention in the book too is okay, you want to get saved so you can go to heaven when you die and not go to hell, or you want to be a Christian or whatever and be free of your sins. Okay.

0:03:59 – (Steve Gray): So they say, okay, pray with me, dear Jesus, I know I’m a sinner. Immediately you’re bringing up your guilt or your anxiety. And you’re supposed to have anxiety about like, okay, I’m guilty, Yes, I admit I’m guilty and I admit I’m a sinner and now I don’t want to go to hell, I want to go to heaven when I die. So guilt and anxiety come into the prayer and you’re already starting on that. And now you’re going to try to serve Jesus because you want to deal with your guilt and you don’t want to have anxiety what’s going to happen if you die.

0:04:32 – (Steve Gray): So then you want to have some of that blessed assurance and go through life. And that’s presented as the gospel. And so it starts out with anxiety and guilt and anxiety. And so there we go. And now that kind of sermon has crept into the church.

0:04:52 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah, I think it’s crept in one, because it’s easy to sell, it’s easy to market, it’s easy to make people feel anxious and guilty or whatever. But kind of like what you’re saying, I just want to segue on this a little bit, that starting the gospel off or your salvation off about you is the completely Wrong thing in the first place. Right. That puts the focus on you, which something I learned from you is like, no, this is about. This is about God.

0:05:14 – (Steve Gray): This is about Jesus.

0:05:15 – (Zion Vierra): This is about God coming down. So before I get too far going into that, something that we kind of would talked about a little bit is the gospel initially was about confronting us, not necessarily comforting us. So do you want to kind of speak on that a little bit?

0:05:27 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And so what, what I’ve been saying along just to get at people’s attention. Yeah. Is I’m saying, well, what you’re having preached to you is not Jesus Christ, it’s Sigmund Freud.

0:05:37 – (Zion Vierra): Right. Yeah.

0:05:37 – (Steve Gray): It’s psychoanalysis. And he believed that your behavior, your fears, your motivations all had to do with something outside of you that has gotten inside of you. Yeah. And, and, and so, so it’s like there’s something going on inside of you that’s really not your fault or not about you. It’s something triggered it or whatever. And so the psychoanalysis. And so, yeah, church used to confront us and after we’re confronted, then comforts us and say, but there’s. It’s going to be okay.

0:06:07 – (Zion Vierra): Right, Right.

0:06:08 – (Steve Gray): Like that. And this is, it’s a.

0:06:10 – (Steve Gray): It’s a little different.

0:06:10 – (Steve Gray): It’s. It’s trying to comfort us from the very beginning about something. We’ve. Things in our lives that we’ve never confronted before.

0:06:18 – (Zion Vierra): It’s kind of the exact opposite of the gospel and what Jesus preaches because the message is, the kingdom in you is going to affect the kingdom outside of you. The world within you is going to affect the world outside of you. And that’s the opposite of like, okay, now I’m letting the world outside of me dictate what’s going on internally. And so now I need to be comforted. But the Lord’s like, no, I’m going to come and establish my kingdom in you so that you can make an effect on the outside world around you.

0:06:41 – (Zion Vierra): So if you look at it from that perspective, it’s like two different messages entirely. You have the therapy gospel and the Kingdom of God gospel, which is a lot different. True. Right, Exactly.

0:06:51 – (Steve Gray): I think I mentioned before, like Jesus said, so the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the earth, and then the end will come. And the end doesn’t come, by the way, by floods, hurricanes or the devil. The end comes by preachers. But notice it says the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached. Not the gospel about me trying to rescue myself from going to the bad place.

0:07:12 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:07:13 – (Steve Gray): That’s so good. So what’s happened to us, too, is now people come to be encouraged.

0:07:19 – (Zion Vierra): Right.

0:07:20 – (Steve Gray): Rather than convicted. And if they get convicted, then they feel like, you’re making me feel bad about myself. Now you’ve hurt my feelings. Yeah. You’re mean. I’ve had that. I’ve had it happen, and I believe it. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a generation that by any correction or conviction, they feel. They take it personally. As though you’re being mean to me.

0:07:40 – (Zion Vierra): Exactly.

0:07:40 – (Steve Gray): You hurt my feelings or whatever. So it’s really.

0:07:42 – (Zion Vierra): There’s a lot of consequences to that, too. I would say culturally, not. It’s like as a person. Yeah. There’s consequences to being. I’m just going to call it soft, I guess, in a sense. Sorry if that’s offensive, everyone, but yeah, there’s consequences to being soft and not being able to stand up. The Bible talks about stand strong, stand up. When adversity comes, it’s your job as a Christian to stand.

0:08:03 – (Zion Vierra): So when you’re submitting to this therapeutic gospel, there’s consequences to that. And I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of consequences over the time.

0:08:11 – (Steve Gray): Christians are turning into emotional feeling. It’s emotional feelings, and they’re just. And they can’t get out of it because preachers have. They’re tapped into that. And I don’t think all the pastors and churches are bad. They just see the mess that’s in and think, well, what do I do about it? Okay, I’ll try to help them. But they’re not helping him. They’re keeping him in bondage because we’ve got to get our eyes off ourselves. We can’t get saved because we want to do something for ourselves.

0:08:35 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:08:35 – (Steve Gray): That’s not good. That’s not it at all.

0:08:37 – (Zion Vierra): That’s right.

0:08:37 – (Steve Gray): And one of the things that the therapeutic gospel does, too, it says, okay, here’s the problem, is your view of yourself and what’s going on in yourself. So we’re going to change that by socialization. See, so now we’re going to have groups and home groups and these friends and these things. And we’ll get socialization in there and find out. So we’re going to come to it. We’re going to make a church that’s a safe place where you feel accepted and loved and cared for.

0:09:11 – (Steve Gray): And we’re going to teach you. Yeah. We’re going to teach you how to manage your anxiety, manage your guilt, manage whatever’s going on inside of you rather than get free of it and overcome it. Because we’re supposed to overcome, not manage everything. And so it’s so manageable. I wanted to mention this, too. We talked about our feelings and how the gospel is therapeutic and the conviction’s gone. If you’re being mean to me, think about this now.

0:09:39 – (Steve Gray): I’ve never preached this before, so we’ll think about it, okay?

0:09:41 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah, yeah.

0:09:42 – (Steve Gray): But think about the preach, the presentation, not the preaching. Because, you know, Paul talks about, you know, you have to watch the preaching of the cross can lose its power. And we’ve kind of lost some of that power. And I’m trying to figure out what it is. And I thought, there again, just like we present the gospel prayer.

0:09:58 – (Zion Vierra): Sure.

0:09:59 – (Steve Gray): They used to call it the Roman Road or something like that. Yeah, It’s Roman thing anyway. But anyway, how? We start with I, I, I, I’m a sinner. I know I need to be forgiven. I want to be saved. I don’t want to go to. I want to go to heaven. And then sometimes they throw a line in there about serving or something, but then the rest of it’s still I. Sure. So now I believe I’m saved. And if you prayed that prayer, then know that you’re saved now from hell and you’re going to go to heaven.

0:10:27 – (Steve Gray): So there’s a direction now. What? Wait, what? And I caught that. I’ve caught that. And it’s not bad. It’s just not the true good news. That’s not the good news. Yeah, and if we have time, we’ll even mention that. Looks like we will have time. Yeah. Doing good on time. So think of this, okay? So now think of that same attitude of salvation. People are getting saved then. Now the presentation of the cross.

0:10:53 – (Steve Gray): Jesus. Now where are we? We’re coming up. You know, every year we celebrate Easter and Palm Sunday and Good Friday and all those kinds of things. And what’s the presentation of that and even people expressing it. I just, you know, I’m just so thankful. And this is good. But think in the big picture. I’m just so thankful that Jesus loved me so much that he would go to the cross and die for me and become my personal concierge. I mean, not concierge, my personal savior. Yeah, and he’s not your personal savior. He’s everybody.

0:11:27 – (Steve Gray): God so loved the world, and he did give his son for that. But there’s a much bigger, bigger picture going on. I mean, Jesus is taking on the principalities and powers. He is fighting and doing it to overcome death for everybody. And he’s fighting this battle, and we kind of get Teary eyed and want to sing about his pain. And I know, and for me, God loved me so much. And he does, right? He does. But think about putting it into the therapeutic realm of I’m getting saved for me and thank you for doing this for me.

0:12:06 – (Steve Gray): And he did do it for you, but if your mind’s on that, it’s for me again. Now you’re serving and talking and analyzing yourself. And so guess what happens now? You come to church and you want to learn about the cross, you want to learn about Jesus or whatever the church attitude is and whatever direction they go. But when it’s about you and your sins, anxiety and guilt, and Jesus died for you. Cause I thank you for dying for me.

0:12:35 – (Steve Gray): Now that’s the subject. Now I’m coming to church cause I want to hear a sermon of explanation. Explain if that all happened. Explain why I feel the way I do or why I act the way I do. Why my husband or wife acts, why my kids, why does my boss act. Why do I feel the way I feel? If Jesus did all that for me, why aren’t I enjoying life? Where’s the joy in this? Why do I still have anxiety? Why do I get angry? Why do I have fears and all the things that people are dealing with. So instead of coming and getting transformed and getting free, which is the direction I went.

0:13:10 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah, exactly.

0:13:11 – (Steve Gray): And it’s the direction Paul went in the Bible, Saul who became Paul. And it’s even, you know, it’s even the direction a little bit of the woman who was caught in adultery. You notice they want to stone her and kill her. And Jesus writes something in the dirt and convicts them and they all leave. And then he asks, you know, where are your accusers now? And what he does then, right then is he says, he does not say, okay, lady, I need you to confess. You’re in adultery, right? You’re an adulteress. I need you to confess your sins.

0:13:44 – (Steve Gray): Just say, repeat this prayer after me. You know, I know what I am. I won’t say it. I know what I am. I know what I’ve done. But I ask you to forgive me, Lord, and let me. You know, it didn’t go that way. He just said, look, where’s your condemners? There’s no where are they that condemned you? They’re gone. Now you go and sin no more. So it was all forward, right? Not one thing was backwards. You better forgive your mother because she’s the one that made you into a tramp, you know?

0:14:16 – (Steve Gray): Right, sure. None of that.

0:14:18 – (Zion Vierra): Right?

0:14:18 – (Steve Gray): None of that you got to confront your past in order to get a future.

0:14:23 – (Zion Vierra): And you got hold of this moment.

0:14:24 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. He said, look, the kingdom of God is here. It’s moving forward. That’s the good news. And when it comes to, oh, we’re doing good on time, I can talk about this when it comes. I’ve said this before. It’s in another book and it’s in this one too. It just has to be said over and over and over. Because I’ve heard it preached a lot that now your guilt is gone. My guilt is gone. My shame and my guilt is gone.

0:14:48 – (Steve Gray): First of all, I never met anybody with much shame in this culture. They talk about my guilt and my shame. I never saw that shame. But maybe a little guilt. Sure. Okay. So now the church, the theology of it is, God’s going to do something, he’s going to forgive you your sins, and. And your guilt is going to go away. You’re going to be not guilty. I’ve heard it lots and lots of times. Well, it seems like a small point because I get it.

0:15:12 – (Steve Gray): I understand that. We don’t want people to be guilt ridden. We don’t want guilt to have a force in your life.

0:15:18 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:15:19 – (Steve Gray): But that’s not the good news. So if the good. If a person is in jail, they’ve committed a crime.

0:15:27 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:15:28 – (Steve Gray): And now you come out and you say, you know. And he says, okay, guilty or not guilty? That’s guilty. This guy is guilty. And the judge says, well, okay, but you know what? I’m going to change that. I’m going to just say, not guilty. Bye, go enjoy your life. I’m saying you’re not guilty. And now I want you to enjoy life as though you’re not guilty. Inside, he knows he is guilty. So that’s a lie. Not guilty is a lie.

0:15:57 – (Steve Gray): He’s guilty, you’re guilty. I mean, doesn’t the world. Everybody sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, So everybody’s guilty. So the idea is turning guilt not into something we’re trying to get rid of. Cause it doesn’t work because the inside says, yeah, well, thank you, but I’m still kind of dealing with this, you know, thank you, I appreciate it. But instead, the gospel of good news is. The gospel is.

0:16:22 – (Steve Gray): So that guy comes out and they say, guilty. And the judge says, okay, you’re guilty. But you know what? I’m going to set you free to start your life over even though you’re guilty. So the verdict is guilt. So the good news gospel is guilty. People get to go free and they walk out saying, I’m guilty. I don’t believe it.

0:16:44 – (Steve Gray): I can’t really believe this.

0:16:46 – (Steve Gray): They set me free. And so we used to sing he set me free. Oh, he set me free. Okay. I was bondage and free. And so now I feel like. You know what? This is wonderful. Yeah, I’m guilty. I’m guilty, but I’m not being treated like I’m guilty. He’s offering me the whole kingdom of God to a guilty person. What? Freedom. So I’m not having to deal with trying not to feel guilty. Sure, I feel guilty because I am.

0:17:14 – (Steve Gray): Guilt is not a feeling. You know, a lady said that one to me when she says, every time you preach, I feel guilty. I said, that’s impossible. She said, what do you mean? I said, guilt is not a feeling. It’s a verdict. I said, so what did you do? Right? Why would you feel guilty if you didn’t do anything? So that means something is there’s something saying you’re guilty. And I’m saying you’re guilty. Or whatever I’m preaching is making you feel guilty.

0:17:41 – (Steve Gray): You know why? Because you are. You should feel guilty. But now God, the Good News gospel is, God will set you free from that or God will let you go free. Now a guilty person is saying, Jesus paid for my guilt. So you’re looking at the cross like, thank you for just loving me so much. Thank you that you took my sin and my guilt. And a guilty person now gets to go free. That’s so good. We still got time.

0:18:06 – (Steve Gray): Okay, so get what happens. I didn’t know we were going to talk about that. Yeah, this is great. Yeah, but get this. This is huge, okay? Especially now, this season we’re in. Okay, so when they bring Jesus before Pilate, it was a tradition that once a year he would let a prisoner go free. See, when I’m talking about going free, now we’re getting a picture of the gospel and we don’t even know it. So he comes to them, and there’s a guy named Barabbas. You’ve heard him. And Barabbas, they say he was a criminal and a thief and all that.

0:18:37 – (Steve Gray): That’s not really true. He had led a rebellion. He was a Zionist, and he led a rebellion against Rome. And so he should have been crucified. That’s what they do. But it was their tradition to let somebody go free. And so Pilate is trying to get out of crucifying Jesus. So he says, who do you want me to set free? This man who I don’t see has done anything wrong, or this criminal that’s done everything wrong.

0:19:02 – (Steve Gray): And they go, that’s the one we want. We want Barabbas to go free. Barabbas goes, oh, wait, what just happened? Jesus is innocent, but a guilty man just got free. A guilty man. Barabbas gets to go free. And. And he’s the guilty one. He really did commit crime. The gospel is pictured right there before it even happened.

0:19:21 – (Zion Vierra): Paying the price before the cross, before that.

0:19:23 – (Steve Gray): And a guilty man got to go free. So now I’m Barabbas and you’re Barabbas, and everybody is, we’ve done something. And instead, when the world says, go free, and we’re trying to, but when Jesus says, doesn’t say a word. Yeah, I didn’t say a word. He just says. He didn’t say, well, I haven’t done anything wrong. He doesn’t. He just. He just doesn’t say a word. And they crucify him so that guilty people can overcome guilt by the power of God and not try to get rid of guilt. Because the joy of it is, I’m sitting here, I did a lot of things.

0:20:02 – (Steve Gray): My verdict is guilty, but I’m free from that. I’m not being punished. I’m not in jail. I get to start over. And God offers me, like, the prodigal son. He gives you a ring and a robe and shoes and said, let’s celebrate.

0:20:15 – (Zion Vierra): That’s awesome. Wow.

0:20:17 – (Steve Gray): So, see, the cross is a lot. It’s close. And we’re thankful that we can say thank you for dying for my sin. Okay. Get it. But the good news gospel is bigger than that. It’s a bigger truth. It’s true that he died for you. That’s true.

0:20:33 – (Zion Vierra): Good place to start, bad place to stop.

0:20:34 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. It’s not the good news gospel. The good news gospel is the kingdom of God is now here, and we can adapt to it. We can go for it. And what was the last thing we were going to talk about? I don’t even remember. Oh, that’s where you’re going to talk

0:20:46 – (Zion Vierra): about what it’s meant to be.

0:20:47 – (Steve Gray): What’s meant to be. So I’m just trying to get people to get what the real good news is so you can enjoy and realize you don’t have to deal with your guilt. If you’re guilty, you’re guilty. He’s faithful and just to forgive us of our sins. But don’t try to be not guilty. Be thankful that guilty people get to go free and live so good. Free in the kingdom of God, man So that’s the thing I don’t like about the therapy gospel. The therapy gospel keeps you in bondage cause it keeps you in selfish self-examination and inner self. It’s all about inner self rather than outward fruit.

0:21:21 – (Steve Gray): That’s so good.

0:21:22 – (Zion Vierra): Some people might call a nitpicking line. But what a difference it makes.

0:21:25 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. At first it sounds a little nitpicking. Yeah.

0:21:27 – (Zion Vierra): But like when you understand the full picture and you have it explained and broken down like you just did, you see, wow. There is a drastic difference in the therapeutic gospel and the kingdom gospel because.

0:21:37 – (Steve Gray): Because what we would do today if Barabbas attended our church, we would try to work with him to feel better about himself. And the church would be a place that gives you acceptance and forgiveness. And we would try to get Barabbas to not feel guilty. Instead we say no, go ahead. And it wouldn’t be feeling, but no, go ahead, be guilty. Join us, be guilty. Look at the joy of being guilty and Jesus letting us go free and not punish us and not being punished for their sins. That’s the good news gospel.

0:22:07 – (Steve Gray): So when you get Barabbas in there and you realize what would they do to Barabbas if he attended your church? They try to make him feel better about himself.

0:22:14 – (Zion Vierra): That’s a good question. I think leaders could take a look at church leaders. How would I handle Barabbas in my church? And if you’re look at your response and analyze what your response would be, put yourself in that position and that analysis could kind of figure out which side are you leaning on the therapy side or are you leaning on. Yeah, the kingdom side.

0:22:30 – (Steve Gray): Right. So it’s just good stuff and it’ll be in the new book coming out Once in a while we talk about this. But yeah, I, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the, the therapy gospel called that.

0:22:40 – (Zion Vierra): Yeah.

0:22:41 – (Steve Gray): And analyzed like this may probably somebody has. But it’s going to be a great book and a great day and I hope it helps people today. Go to https://stevegrayministries.com and learn more. There’s lots of information. The new book will be out. Other books are there. I don’t know, I might have a music CD on there. I haven’t looked for a long time. And so go there and get some information. Tell your friends, subscribe.

0:23:01 – (Steve Gray): You know, you might want to make a donation. You probably got people wanting your money all the time though, right. But if you see value, you know, pick what’s value and what’s really life changing and support that whether it’s me or somebody else. But don’t just give money just because you know. You know the people or you want to bless somebody. Just make it count.

0:23:18 – (Zion Vierra): Let it be a seed.

0:23:19 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Yeah, right. So anyway, I hope this was helpful today. It’s been helpful to us. Right? And good for us. And until next time, bye-bye.