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The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
Rethinking Salvation
We explore how traditional teachings on salvation often rely on fear of hell rather than the fullness of the gospel Jesus actually preached. Rethinking salvation isn't about abandoning it but seeing it as an invitation into abundant life now rather than just escaping punishment later.
• Salvation didn't start with us—God was reconciling the world to himself before we even existed
• Shifting from seeing salvation as escape from hell to entering into life, healing and union with God
• Jesus taught salvation as a present experience of wholeness and liberation, not a transaction
• Fear-based theology focuses on what we're being saved from, but grace-focused theology centers on what we're being saved for
• Traditional view frames God as angry and distant, while the truth reveals a loving Father seeking relationship
• Transformation happens when we see ourselves as already included, redeemed and loved by God
• The gospel invites us to live heaven now through inner transformation, not just escape hell later
This isn't about taking anything away but seeing the fuller picture—salvation is bigger than we've imagined, focusing not just on where we go when we die but who we are while we live.
following up what we've been talking about the last few weeks.
Speaker 1:We've been talking about rethinking hell. We've had a lot of questions on that on Wednesday night and other people believe it or not. There's some people that have seen it online. There's been some questions, there's been some comments, and that's fine. We want everything. Some of them have been to me, some of them have been to other people about me, but that's fine too.
Speaker 1:My thing is I want people to look at it. I want people to be challenged. My purpose in preaching these things is simply to provoke people to think. I was telling Cindy the other day. I want to try to find out. She said there's somebody that takes the old cassette tapes and puts them onto a CD. I've got all my cassette tapes back from when we used to go to CI.
Speaker 1:Some of y'all may not know CI. It's a prophetic school down in Florida that we used to go to all the time. We had good friends. That was prophets at that school. And anyway, I remember one of my words from going down there. This has probably been 15, 20 years ago and one of the words and I'm going to try to find that tape If I can find me a cassette player where I can listen to those tapes. I'm going to try to find it.
Speaker 1:But I remember one specific word that a young lady down there gave me one day. And I wasn't even a pastor at the time. I might have just started being a youth pastor at the time, I'm not sure, may not even have been that yet, but I remember she spoke over me one day and she said you're called to the ministry and she said a few things about that and then she said you're going to speak with a voice that's going to cause an uproar. And I don't remember exactly how she put it, but I remember what she said because I was, so I didn't understand it at the time. But she said you're going to speak with a voice and you're going to say things that's going to cause an uproar, that's going to cause an uproar, that's going to cause disruption. And I always held on to that because I was always one that kind of went against the grain to begin with. I never wanted to just go with the flow, just because that's always what's been taught. And I'm going to try desperately to find that word because I want y'all to hear it, because I want y'all to see that this was not just something that I get up and do just to try to be different, but this is something I truly feel like God has put in me is to come up against some of the things that we've always been taught. That's tradition, and maybe it's great tradition, but not necessarily biblical. So I feel like that's uh, that's something that that god has instilled in me to be able to do, and that's why I do it. I'm not going to stop doing it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we've talked about rethinking uh, hell, and I hope that you understand that we've got them online. So please go back and watch the video, listen to it while you're driving, whatever, because if you've got questions, go back. You won't get everything you need to get. The first time hearing this, you won't get it. It's going to probably create more questions in you. So we put them online, not just for other people to hear, but for our people to go back and be able to listen to. So take the opportunity to do that. If you've got questions, ask me, text me, call me, put them in the box, whatever you need to do, and we'll make sure that we get those questions answered. I said before, you don't have to put your name on it if you put it in the box. But if you want to put your name on it so I can talk to you directly, then that's fine too, because I know everybody don't necessarily come into alignment right now, immediately with everything that I say, and I understand that and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1:I've always said that we don't all have to agree to love each other. We don't all have to be on the same page. Every person in this room is on a different step on their spiritual walk. Okay, nobody in this room is the same as anybody else. Some people study more, some people choose to go deeper, some people are content on a certain place, and that's fine. My point of saying that is we're not all in the same place. I'm not in the same place. I was last month and I hope next month. I'm not in the same place. I am right now. I want to keep progressing. I want to keep learning more. I want to keep going deeper all the time.
Speaker 1:I believe when we get to a place that we feel like we've exhausted God, we need to take a close look at ourselves, because we will not exhaust, we will not get all the answers that we think we want, and there's plenty of times I'm okay with looking at people and saying you know what? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that question you're asking. I can search for it, I can pray about it and I may come back after that and say, dude, I still don't know. Because there's just some things I just believe that we may not have an answer to, and that's okay. Why? Because it keeps pushing us.
Speaker 1:There's always something more that we can try to figure out. We're never going to get there. Nobody's ever shot a perfect game in golf and shot a hole-in-one on every hole. That's why it's such an awesome game for some people, because there's always another challenge. You're never going to be perfect at it. That's the same way with the Bible. We're never going to have every answer, but what we are going to be perfect at it, that's the same way with the Bible. We're never going to have every answer, but what we are going to do is we're going to break away some of these answers that we've been given over the years simply because they've been passed down through tradition. I want more than that.
Speaker 1:So we've talked about rethinking hell. We're going to talk now about rethinking hell. We're going to talk now about rethinking salvation and, right there, if people watch this online and don't go to this church, they're going to turn this thing off Because they're going to come to a mindset of he's saying he's debunking salvation. I'm not debunking salvation. Salvation is real, but the salvation that we've always been taught and the steps to it may not be everything that God has intended. So I'm just saying let's rethink it. If we rethink it and you say I'm going to stick to my old definition of salvation, good, do that, but at least you have an option, at least you have some information that you can look at. So let me start off with a couple of questions.
Speaker 1:I like to get people thinking, so let me start you off with a couple of questions here. What if I told you salvation isn't about going to heaven when you die? Think about that. What if it's not a reward for good behavior or it's not necessarily just a safety net from hell? What if salvation is something so much more than we've been told and we've been preached to over the years? Could it be that we've reduced salvation down to something that God never intended it to be? I don't care about man's intent. What did God intend. What did God want? And tradition, a lot of times, as sad as it is and as good as tradition can be, tradition is simply, a lot of times, things that man has passed down because it feels good, sometimes because it works.
Speaker 1:Fear works. We talk so much about hell. Why? Because the fear of not going to hell will bring people to this altar. Not saying that's wrong, some people use that and they use it very productively and very successfully.
Speaker 1:But I'm talking on a level that's a little bit different than just getting people to the altar. I'm talking on a level of what does it mean to live in a place where I don't fear the Father, I don't fear making a mistake, and all of a sudden I'm living my life good and, oops, I made a mistake. And what's going to happen to me if I'm not able to repent before God takes me? Stuff like that. I don't want to live my life in doubt. I don't want to live my life in doubt. I don't want to live my life in fear. I don't want to live my life wondering if I've got everything just right, just in case. That's not a way to live. So we're looking at it a little bit different than that.
Speaker 1:We've been told that salvation is what happens when we believe. But Scripture if you look at Scripture and that's what we're basing this on Scripture paints a bigger, better picture than just that. It's one where salvation did not start with you. That right, there should be revelation to somebody. We're going to talk about a salvation that did not start with you, because we say it all the time. He made a choice. He come to the altar. He dedicated his life, he made a decision to give his life, and that is true. We do that. We make that decision to awaken to what's been given to us. But this thing did not start with any one of us. It started with Jesus Christ and it's a salvation that started with him and it includes you, whether you know it or not.
Speaker 1:For centuries we've heard it preached like this, like a transaction, and I've mentioned this many times. But I just want to slow down and just break this down a minute. I want it to make sense to you. So we've been told it's kind of like a transaction. Say this prayer, believe this doctrine, and you're in your name's written down in the Lamb's book of life, you're going to walk through the pearly gate, you're going to stand before him on the great judgment day and he's going to say well done my good and faithful servant. And you're in. That's the doctrine we've been taught.
Speaker 1:But Jesus never came here handing out tickets to the afterlife. That wasn't His purpose. He came to reveal the Father, to heal the broken and to make us alive. That's what it was about. And I know there's a wasp flying around in here, so if y'all see me start dancing, it ain't the Holy Ghost, it's because he stung me in the back of the neck, because I just seen Him fly by. Well, maybe He'll stay on the cross. Jesus can change you.
Speaker 1:So maybe it's time that you know we stop asking the question of how do I get saved and start asking what does it mean to live saved? We know how to get saved according to traditional church teaching. I just answered that for you Believe, confess, pray a prayer, stay right, don't mess it up, don't slip up, because if you do it, you've got to come back next week and do it again. We know all that. But what does it mean to live saved? Maybe it's time that we look at this thing differently. So today we're not throwing away the gospel. Okay, understand that we're not throwing the gospel away. We're going back to the source, and the source is Jesus Christ. So we're going to go back to what really matters. What did he really say and what did he really intend? We're peeling back the layers of fear and control and performance and discover salvation as it truly is.
Speaker 1:So again, I'm not taking salvation away, I'm not saying salvation's not real. I'm not saying salvation is a bad thing. I'm not saying it don't exist. I'm saying we're going to go back and understand what salvation was truly meant to be according to Jesus, not according to man. And what did it really mean? Think about these words union, grace, wholeness. We're talking body, soul, spirit. We're talking health, we're talking financial. Every area of your life, wholeness in your life, life in Christ. So let's rethink salvation today and reclaim the life Jesus actually came to give.
Speaker 1:Jesus taught that salvation is and I look this up specifically because I wanted to be able to say how did Jesus look at that word salvation? I know how we teach it. You know how we teach it. You can ask any pastor anywhere and they're going to pretty much give you the same boom, boom, boom, boom. Tell you what to do, the same steps to salvation A, b, c. Admit you're a sinner, believe that he's Christ and he died on the cross, believe he's the son of God and confess your sin. Abc, okay, we make it simple. We make it simple steps. Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:I don't know that Jesus ever told ABCs. Okay, that's all I'm saying is, let's just take our mind off of that a minute, because we already know that. We don't have to keep regurgitating something that we already know. And to me, that's what the church has done. That's how tradition starts. So I'm just saying let's rethink, let's go back to something that maybe we haven't heard. And I did that. I said I want to know.
Speaker 1:I went back through Scripture and I said let's see what Jesus said about salvation. Here's what he said it's a present experience of wholeness and liberation. I'm paraphrasing verses here. Okay, but this is what he said in the verses A present experience of wholeness and liberation. He said it's available to all, not just the religious elite. It's based on truth, trust in God's word and God's love, not a ritual performance. And he said it's the unveiling of our union with the Father. It's not a reward for good behavior A little bit different than what we've been taught. So, rethinking salvation. After preaching on rethinking hell, to me is not just important, I think it's essential, I think it's necessary. Here's why my view of hell I'm going to use me, I ain't going to point at nobody out there my view of hell shapes my view of salvation. Okay, my view of hell shapes my view of salvation.
Speaker 1:Most traditional teaching again frames salvation like this You're a sinner, you're headed to an eternal torment, but if you become a believe the right thing and say the right prayer, you'll be saved, you'll escape hell and you'll enter into heaven. Is that not the teaching most of us has heard? But here's the problem with that teaching. Two of them. First is really important. Jesus never taught that. He never taught that. The second problem with that is the model. That model was built on a distant father, fear and transaction. You do this and you get this. It's not based off the finished work of Christ. That model is not based off the finished work of Christ.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read three verses to you right here. I just want to bring these to your memory. Because we've talked about them so much, you ought to know them by heart. 2 Corinthians, 5 and 19. I went ahead and gave them to Ronnie because I just wanted him to pull them up so you can read it with me.
Speaker 1:That is that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses against them or their sins against them, and has committed to us the word or the ministry of reconciliation. Romans 5 and 8. But God demonstrates His own love towards us in that, while we were still sinners, he died for us. And the last one I didn't give Ronnie, but I'll just read it out of Ephesians 1 and 4. He chose us before the foundation of the world. He chose us. I picked those three scriptures on purpose, because it talks about him reconciling us, because we're part of the world, we're part of that humanity. He's reconciling us. He died for us while we were yet sinners. We're all included in that we and he chose us. He reconciled us. He died for us while we we and he chose us. He reconciled us. He died for us while we were sinners and he chose us. And here's the thing what do these verses show us? What do they have in common?
Speaker 1:God didn't ask you about any of it. He didn't ask your permission to do it. He didn't ask if you wanted it. God didn't wait on your faith before he started reconciling you. He didn't say, well, I believe they were believers, so I'm going to reconcile them. No, he went ahead and said I'm going to reconcile the world to myself. He finished it before you ever believed, before you ever had a chance to believe, before you ever had a chance to make a decision on it. He did this. And again that word reconciliation means to change thoroughly, to restore to favor and to restore relationship. There was a relationship between humanity and God that we teach was messed up in the garden. Adam and Eve, they messed it up. They broke that relationship. It was already restored before you came along, right there on the cross. He restored it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that we attach ourselves to that we don't. That's not even anything to do with us new covenant people, because it was taken care of. There's Old Testament things that we're man. You cannot get some of this stuff away from people. They are determined. You ain't taking this away from me. Leave my Ten Commandments alone. I just come to you. I don't want to get on the Ten Commandments today, but I'm just saying that is an Old Testament thing that was taken care of. The law was finished. It was done away with on the cross. So although there's some good things in the Ten Commandments, morally they don't apply to us. I'm telling you you'll lose Christians by saying that. They'll call you a hypocrite, they'll call you all kind of stuff. And then I'm going to bring them right back to the Bible and say, show me in there where it says this. And then I'm going to show them where we are in a new covenant. The law does not pertain to me. The law does not rule me anymore. It don't mean that we just need to rip that page out and throw it away. There's still good stuff in there, but I don't live in that old covenant anymore. It don't control my life.
Speaker 1:Me and Cindy was eating yesterday evening and I got on that whole conversation because I was sitting there. We were sitting there, captain D and Hazel Hurston. I'm sitting there, I'm looking out the window and there's a big old sign over there and the first thing on it says you have sinned and God has to punish you. And it goes on and says a you have sinned and God has to punish you. And it goes on and says a lot of stuff and it's talking about repenting and different things, but that was the first thing that caught my attention when I've seen it and I got to thinking about it and somehow I got to think about the Ten Commandments and all that too, because you know this is a whole other teaching.
Speaker 1:I've touched on this before but we're not going to get into it but the Ten Commandments that we're hanging up in the courtrooms and we're hanging up in the churches and we're putting on headstones everywhere and all this, it's not even the commandments that God called the Ten Commandments. Now, go look in your world. I'm not making that up. God specifically said call this the Ten Commandments, and it's not the Ten that we call the Ten Commandments. It's different. You know how many Christians that would blow their mind if you actually took out the Bible and said let me show you the difference right here. I can't do it off my iPad because then they'd say, well, that ain't the Bible, even though the Bible's downloaded on here. You got to show them in a King James Bible, not a new King James, not an NIV, not anything other kind of King James and guess what it's in there too. Go read it. Can we rethink some of the stuff we've been taught? So these verses have? They have something in common because this was done beforehand. He never asked us about it. Now, think about this If you challenge or rethink hell, now, when I'm saying hell, I'm saying eternal conscious.
Speaker 1:For me, that's a word you don't hear that often. Actually, I've never heard any other pastor say it in regular denomination. Okay, I never heard that coming up as a child. Eternal conscious torment, but if you think about that, that is what we, when we say hell, that is what we're talking about. It's eternal, you ain't coming out of it, you ain't going to beg your way out of it. You are conscious, you feel it, and it's torment. You're burning forever. That's what we define as the word hell. Now, again, we don't use those words because I believe this is not Bible, this is Brown's belief.
Speaker 1:I believe if we use the word eternal conscious torment and taught what it was, you would see more people grab onto this and say that makes sense. Just saying hell is one thing, but when you start talking about torment, that changes the picture a little bit, but that's what it is. That's the idea of hell that we're teaching. So if we're going to challenge that belief on eternal conscious torment and we're going to rethink hell, but we hold on to a salvation model that is directly tied to that, then there's going to be some contradiction. We can't let go and rethink this but then hold on to a process that's going to send me there. Can't work like that. If I'm going to send me there Can't work like that. If I'm going to rethink this, then I've got to rethink the process that sends me there as well. This is why I'm teaching on this If we're going to rethink hell, we've got to rethink salvation.
Speaker 1:Not saying it's not real, I'm just saying rethink the process that we use. If God's not in the eternal torment business, then what are we actually being saved from? That's the question to ask yourself. Here's a more important question what are we being saved for? Rethinking hell breaks the fear, that fear factor that's there. Rethinking salvation builds faith. We've got to replace it. Get the fear out and replace it with faith. See, it's not enough just to have less fear. We need a new lens to be able to look through. Now you can take the fear out of somebody, but then you've got to replace it. You've got to give them something to take this place.
Speaker 1:And the thing is here we're moving tradition and saying I'm going to give you truth and I don't mind saying that. I'm not saying that as a pat on the back to me. I'm saying I can show you in the Bible where it says that. So I'm saying I'm coming from the truth of the word of God, I'm not coming from traditional teaching. So we're replacing tradition with truth. What does the Word actually say?
Speaker 1:Rethinking hell brings a sense of relief to many people, but it can also bring a lot of confusion, and I believe it has to a lot of people. You know, it's sort of like your whole belief system just got shattered. If your whole belief system, if your whole theology is built on I'm going up or I'm going down and we take one of them away, then it just shatters your whole theology. All I'm saying is let's open our minds up and think bigger than heaven and hell. If hell isn't what I thought then is salvation? I'm asking these just to give you something to think about.
Speaker 1:Here I'm not going to answer. If hell isn't what I thought, then is salvation still necessary? Absolutely it is. But these are questions people are going to ask. If God isn't sending people to burn forever, then what's the purpose of the gospel? Because we have taught the gospel is going to keep you from burning. So if we've taken the burning part out, what's the purpose of the gospel? It's questions people are going to come up with. If salvation isn't about avoiding punishment, then what's it about? These are great questions to ask and people will ask them, but what's even better is actually finding the answer. Don't just ask a question just because you want to be. You just don't believe what I'm saying. Find the answer, come to me with an answer, and most people that come against this will not have an answer to come with.
Speaker 1:I want to be able to come with an answer and say I don't believe. I just had this conversation with somebody the other day and they asked me that exact question, number one question on our little sheet that we gave out. Oh so you're saying hell's not real? Boom, that's what they asked and I was able to answer it. And now I was not able to answer, just with my opinion. But I was able to come back and say this is why I believe this. This is the scripture that I base my belief on. And then I asked a really important question. I said what do you believe? And they told me what they believe and I said do you have any evidence to support it? Biblical evidence they didn't.
Speaker 1:If I say I believe something, I got to have some supporting evidence to back me up. This is why I believe it. This is what I stand on and this is what I stand on and this is why I stand on it. If you just stand on it because Pastor so and so said to, that's tradition, that's tradition to you, you're just doing it because somebody said to and it's always been done that way. But if I've got something that I can pull on and say, this is why I believe it, right or wrong. There's a lot of things I believed over the years and then I figured out later and I really believed it and I felt like I had something to stand on. And then later on I figured out that wasn't correct. It was correct then, based on my misinterpretation of the word, so I wasn't wrong. It was based on the misinterpretation of the word, so I wasn't wrong. It was based on the way I was interpreting the Scripture. As I grew a little bit and started interpreting Scripture correctly, I realized that belief was not. I really didn't have any evidence to stand on that.
Speaker 1:That's what I want to cause people to think I'm not trying to take anybody's theology from them. Listen, if you want hell, stay in it. Nobody's taking hell away from you. Nobody's taking salvation away. We're just saying let's look at the bigger picture of it and let's look at what God actually said, what the Bible actually said, and let's look at what God actually said, what the Bible actually said.
Speaker 1:If we don't take this opportunity to rethink salvation and dig a little bit deeper, it's likely to cause some confusion in people right here in this congregation. I'm not talking about people out here, I'm talking about people right here in this church. It's also very easy to lose interest. You know why I think about this. I guess if everybody's fine, then why bother? I've seen a lot of people take that attitude. Why bother? Why do I have to do anything?
Speaker 1:Now that we've kind of cleared away the fear-based foundation of eternal punishment, it's time to build on Christ True foundation. The true foundation refocuses the gospel on love, on union and on life. Rethinking salvation allows us to shift our mindset in a way that we've never had before. My goal is that we begin to see that salvation is real, but it's not a way out of wrath, it's not a way out of hell, but it's a way into life. Changing the way I see salvation changes a lot of things. You're not saved from an angry God. You're saved into a life of love, union and participation. So it's not what you're being saved from, but it's what you're being saved to and for. That's a simple shift in thinking that will change the way I see myself, it'll change the way I see the Father and it'll change the way I look at Scripture. Let me say that a different way.
Speaker 1:Theology has to be more than just the academic study of God. We're talking about the pursuit of truly knowing who God is, what has he revealed to us and how that truth shapes our understanding of our union with Him. Rethinking hell challenges that fear-based theology that we've been taught for so long. But rethinking salvation restores purpose. It restores purpose to what the gospel, the good news. It invites people into a faith. That's not just about avoiding something, but about becoming someone, someone whole, someone awakened, someone actually alive in Christ. We say that all the time In actually alive in Christ. We say that all the time In Christ, in Christ. What is salvation about? It's about truly understanding that we're alive in Christ. We're not just going to meet Him one day when we get to heaven. It's not a futuristic event that we're waiting on, but we can be alive in Christ today on. But we can be alive in Christ today If we tear down this house of fear that leads so many people and we never rebuild a house rooted in love and the grace of God.
Speaker 1:We tear down this house and we never rebuild a house rooted in love and the grace of God. We tear down this house and we never rebuild this house. You know what we do? We leave people spiritually homeless. They don't have anywhere to go. You've taken one thing from them, but you've never invited them into something else. So we're not just tearing something down and deconstructing something, but you've never invited them into something else. So we're not just tearing something down and deconstructing something, but we're actually bringing you back into the remembrance of what God actually said.
Speaker 1:Let's break from the tradition and get back to the truth. It makes a difference. It's not enough just to deconstruct the theology. We must construct something in its place. People need more than just an absence of condemnation. We say that all the time. He did not give us that spirit of fear. The Bible tells us not to condemn ourselves, not to beat ourselves up, so it's not. If we can get that out of people, that's great, but they need the presence of belonging, they need a presence of understanding of this is what it's about. A purpose Without the good news of salvation, identity and restoration, deconstruction just tears things down and leaves people lost.
Speaker 1:That's all it does. Our goal is not to. That's why I hate it when people's here for one message and then they're not here for the next message Because they won't admit it. But they're lost. I'm not saying lost spiritually, I'm saying lost as where we're at in the teaching. That's why it's important to be here. That's why it's important to ask questions.
Speaker 1:If you're not here, go online and look and watch it. If you are here, go online and watch it. I'd love to see people even just go on there and put a little. You ain't got to put a big post, but just say watched, just to let me know somebody's watching it or listening to it. And don't lie about it. If you didn't watch it, don't put it. Make me feel good. I'm not worried about my feelings. I want to know that people is actually going on there and saying I got questions, okay, and I want answers to them. I need to know this.
Speaker 1:I had some questions in the box and I don't know if that person's here or not. They didn't put their name on it, so that's okay. But the questions that's in the box there's two questions in the box and those two questions can be answered was answered in the previous two sermons. Now I'm not saying that person should have got it. No, because you never get anything the first go around. You never get some of those real things answered the first go around. What does it do? It creates more questions. So you've got to go back and hear it again and listen again. So if that person isn't here, that's stuck in the box go back and listen again and if you still don't find it, come talk to me and I'll go into them anyway at some point again. But if that was, you then put that in the box and go listen to those sermons again with that question in mind and I guarantee you you'll get your answer. I know you will because I've read the questions and I know what I preached in the sermon. I can tell you exactly where at you're going to hear it in the sermon. It's not off the top of my head, but I can look at my notes and tell you because I know it's in there. Okay, so be willing to go back and put a little study time in. Let me see if I can get through this. Let me rephrase this again too, and say this again, because I don't want nobody to miss this part here.
Speaker 1:Rethinking salvation doesn't mean we're throwing it out. Please hear that, because if somebody just sees the title of this, they're going to say, oh, that joker don't even believe in salvation, and I have not said anything close to that today. But they're're going to say, oh, that joker don't even believe in salvation, and I have not said anything close to that today. But they're not going to listen to it because they see the title. We are not throwing out anything. It just means that we're seeing it more clearly, we're just taking a deeper dive into it.
Speaker 1:Salvation was never meant to be just about escaping hell someday. It's about entering into life, real life right now, not one day. Right now it's about being made whole, finding our identity in Christ and joining God in the restoration of all things. Restoration of all things. Where here, restoration? Wait a minute To restore something. It had to be in that position to begin with. Yeah, if he's restoring us, then he's taking us, opening our eyes back to who we were to begin with. You can't be restored to something you never were, so keep that in mind.
Speaker 1:We're not doing away with salvation at all. Rethinking salvation doesn't mean we're losing a piece of the gospel. It means we're recovering the heart of it. We're not taking the gospel and trying to change it up and make it the way we want it. We're actually taking it and saying tell us what it really says and going to the heart of it. It's not about taking anything away. It's about seeing the full picture. I hope you can see that salvation is bigger than we imagine. Let me repeat that. Somebody maybe watch this. We're not taking it away. We're saying salvation is bigger than what we imagine it to be. It's not just about where we're going when we leave here, but it's who we are while we live here, who we are right now. It's the story of grace. That doesn't just save us from something, but it actually invites us into something A life of purpose, healing and union with God. It changes the way we see things.
Speaker 1:Rethinking salvation matters because it changes how we see God. It changes how we see things. Rethinking salvation matters because it changes how we see God. It changes how we see ourselves. It changes the way we look at Scripture. It changes the way we look at other people. It changes our whole perspective on everything. It's not about jumping through hoops to try to be accepted. It's about realizing we already are, and that's tough for some people to realize when we understand that salvation is about wholeness, not just escaping. It brings peace. It brings a freedom that we've never had before. It brings real change from the inside out. It's not just good theology, it's actually good news, and that's what he told us to do Preach the gospel, preach good news, and we're going to do that.
Speaker 1:We're going to preach the good news here, whether people want to hear it or not. I don't know why so many people want to hang on to do that. We're going to preach the good news here, whether people want to hear it or not. I don't know why so many people want to hang on to bad news, but we're going to continue to preach the good news regardless.
Speaker 1:Let me end the day with this comparison how does rethinking salvation compare with traditional church teaching? We know what we've been taught. All of us come up in church. I'm sure We've heard this how does traditional teaching compare with what we're talking about here, with rethinking salvation? I've got five little things I just want to show you right here. Let's talk about the nature of God. In traditional view, it's a distant, angry Father who's going to send us to hell if we don't change. But in rethinking salvation, the nature of God is a loving Father seeking relationship, not focused on how bad we messed up, not focused on the mistakes that we made, but just trying to restore us into union and into relationship with Him.
Speaker 1:You look at the starting point in traditional teaching. The starting point is you're a sinner, you're born a sinner and you are separated and you are guilty. It's a tough place to start. I mean I thought we were innocent until proven guilty. You start this thing guilty and you got to try to prove yourself innocent. I had a preacher. I never looked at it like that. But rethinking salvation, the starting place is you're included, you're redeemed, you're loved. Why redeemed? You're loved? Why? Because I chose you. Before you had a chance to even deny it or reject it, I chose you.
Speaker 1:Salvation in traditional view means a legal pardon from punishment. A legal pardon from punishment In, legal pardon from punishment. In rethinking salvation, it means healing, wholeness, restoration. And what's the role of faith? In traditional view, the role of faith is the requirement for inclusion. If you want to be included, then faith has a lot to do with that.
Speaker 1:But in rethinking salvation, it's just simply a response to truth. This is what God said. How am I going to respond to it? This is the Word of God. I can't change it up and make it say what I want it to say. If I get back to the original intent and say this is what God said, I just got to believe it. I got to look at Jesus and say how did Jesus handle this situation? How did Jesus? What did he have to say about this? Why? Because that's a reflection of the Father. He said he's the exact image of the Father. So if you want to know what the Father's like, then look at the Scripture and say what is Jesus like? And listen. If Jesus didn't preach it like that, but pastors preaching it like this, I think I'm going to go with Jesus. Sorry, pastor, I'm going to have to just go with Jesus. Last one the outcome. How does it end?
Speaker 1:In traditional view, the escape from hell. That's our, that's our goal. The traditional view is escape hell, make it heaven. But in the rethinking salvation it's inner transformation now. It don't have anything to do with going up or going down sometime in the future, it's got. How do I transform my life now so that I can transform this world around me now, so that I can play a part in other people's lives now, not one day and it really?
Speaker 1:You know, some people me and Ronnie's talked about this a lot and I agree with what Ronnie said. There's some things that really just don't matter. If we didn't talk about them, it really wouldn't matter as long as you know who you are and you know. You know hell don't matter to me. Somebody says, oh, you're taking hell away. Hell don't matter to me Because whether I'm right or whether the people who teach traditional stuff is right, I'm still not going there. So it don't matter to me whether, if I'm wrong in what I'm teaching, it still don't matter to me because I'm not going there. But I believe this is important because it shapes how we see ourselves now.
Speaker 1:Are you a person living in fear? Are you a person that truly lives in peace and understands restoration and understands that you can be transformed? You are transformed now and you can live a life transformed here on this earth. That matters. Some people live in hell just to get to heaven and it's crazy to say that, but it's the truth. They live like I mean, it's horrible down here, but they say the prayer so they can get in. Why can't I live heaven now? Why can't I live in heaven now? Why can't I live in peace now? Why can't I live this life with restoration Restoration with the Father, restoration in relationships, restoration in marriages, restoration in everything. We have the ability to do that now and again. We're going to keep teaching this.
Speaker 1:Y'all have heard me say so many times I wish I could have the opportunity to go into other places and teach this. I really want to do that. It may have to be doing some evangelistic stuff in the park, because I'm not going to get invited to do that. It may have to be doing some evangelistic stuff in the park because I'm not going to get invited to a church, but I always still say I decree God, you're going to open doors, you're going to open doors. I had a guy call me yesterday and ask me about going to teach at the men's breakfast at New Vision the breakfast they have. It's not just not just new, it's people from about every church in Bacon County that'll be there. It's a good group. Last time I went to one, probably a hundred and something people there. So it's not I'm not.
Speaker 1:You know, I have common sense. I'm not going to walk in and start teaching on hell, I mean, but I'm going to teach on identity. I'm going to teach on identity. I'm going to teach on who we are. I'm not going to hold my words back because I might offend somebody in here, because look at the other side of it, maybe I can just speak the truth and I might actually help somebody in there that's having questions or they're in a place to where they say, you know, like I was years ago, god, there's got to be more than this. If there's not more than this, I'm done with it. I don't want no more of this. And that's the way I was.
Speaker 1:I said, god, if this is all there is to this, and I can remember being a young Christian and truly, truly thinking that if I'm only doing this to get up there to you, this ain't worth it. That was my thought. I'm not putting that on nobody else. That was my thought. That thought is what led me, and other things that led me down this path of saying I want more than just what Pastor So-and-so said. Not saying Pastor So-and-so was wrong. I just want more than that. There's got to be more than that, and if we're willing to go after it, he'll put us in line with the right people to get that thing going. And that's exactly what he's done. I don't talk to Pastor Tommy that much. I don't talk to Jamie Englehart that much. I've talked to him a couple times but they started stirring something and it ain't stopped. And I'm glad because we're going deep and I'll never tell anybody.
Speaker 1:This is what you need to believe, because you go to this church. Believe what you want to believe. I'm going to offer you something different and you can choose to grab on to it or you can choose to say no, I don't align with that. That's okay. We're still going to give it to you and you're still going to have the opportunity to make your decision on it. We're just going deep. We won't say there's more to it, let's live a life different now. It ain't going to change anything If you believe the old way. Guess what? You're still going to heaven. We're not taking heaven, we're not taking hell. We're just saying you can live in either one of them right now. If you want to, we're giving it to you sooner. That's what I always tell people. We're not taking it from you, we're just saying you can have it now, and you can literally have either one of those right now.