Graduating From The Gap

We retire “the gap” as a headline and move toward what it was always pointing to: lived union with the Father and real formation. We stop treating faith like a climb to God and start learning how to live from what’s already true because of the finished work of Christ. 
• the gap as the tension between truth and lived experience 
• clarifying there is no separation between God and us in Christ 
• “Christ in you” as the core of identity and hope 
• the real struggle as awareness rather than distance 
• renewing the mind as the pathway to transformation 
• moving from seeking acceptance to practicing formation 
• spiritual growth as agreement with what God already says 
• divine power “has given” rather than self-effort earning 
• repentance as changing thinking and speaking God’s Word 
• beholding Christ as the catalyst for lasting change 
• challenging “God is in control” when it removes responsibility 

Transcript

Graduating From The Gap

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The title of it is Graduating from the Gap. And there's a reason that I'm saying that this morning. We've obviously been talking for weeks now about the gap. And I just feel like it's a it's a strong next step to retire the gap, the word the gap, the two words the gap, to retire that as the main headline and transition into what the gap was always pointing to in the first place. We've been doing that, but I want to make that an emphasis now. And what it's been pointing to is a lived union with the Father and formation. We're not abandoning anything that we said, and I don't think that. We're not abandoning anything. We're actually graduating the series, is what it's been, and it's probably the first series I've ever preached in my life, but we're graduating that series to a different level. And we're going to kind of be looking at it a little bit differently. Right now, I think the gap, as we've called it the last several weeks, has done its job. I feel like it has. It's clarified the finished work. It showed us that there is no separation between us and God. And it's introduced us to what the difference between experience versus truth. What we know to be truth, but sometimes what we experience in life. And I think most of us are in a different place today, I hope. Which basically means we're not stuck in confusion. We're not confused about where we're at. We're not confused about who we are. I hope we're not confused about what we're talking about when we say the gap. I hope we understand that. But I feel like we're ready for clarity about what really comes next after this. We've talked about the gap between what we believe is true in Christ and what we are currently experiencing in life. And we've been very clear the whole time about one thing. There is no gap between God and man in Christ. That was the fear of preaching this and preaching on the gap was that people would think that we were saying that there's a separation, that we're here and we're stuck in this place, and God is way up there somewhere, and we're trying to work our way, get ourselves better, improve ourselves so that we can get to him. And in turn, people would look and say there is a gap, and that's what they would justify it as. That is not what we're talking about. There is no gap between us and God. But there is a gap sometimes in what we believe versus what we experience in life. So that gap between us and God has already been dealt with. It was dealt with on the cross. So if that is settled, we're no longer trying to figure out how do we get to God. And I know we use those terms that terminology a lot and we use those phrases a lot about he found Jesus. And I've joked about this for many years. I never knew Jesus was lost. You know, that we had to find him. You know, and we know what people mean when they say that, but when you really think about it, Jesus found us before we were ever created. He chose us before the foundation of the world. So we didn't just find him, we didn't just come upon him one day during a bad moment in our life. So sometimes I think we have to really pay attention to the thing, the wording that we use. So if if this is already settled, if the gap between us and God is already settled, we're no longer trying to figure out how to get to God. So what we want to focus on now, what we want to put our focus on and want it to be on is how do we live from what is already true about us. I feel like what we're doing, and this is just this is my mindset, it may not make sense to you yet, but this is my mindset of why we're graduating this series or while we're transitioning to something else. I believe that we have moved from a place of theology and teaching theology about it to moving to a place of living life now. How do I take what we talked about and take the theology, the Bible that we've we've gave scripture after scripture after scripture to support what we've been saying? That's the theological side of it. Now, how do we step from that side over here and say, how do I live this out in my life now? No matter what I'm going into, no matter what my life's like, how do I make this effective in my life? Now I want to make a statement that it may sound a little bit different than what you've always been taught. Um, but I'm gonna explain it a little bit, and I think you'll agree with it. The Christian life is not a journey to God. Think about that. The Christian life, the Christian walk, as we sometimes call it, is not a journey to get to God. We turn it into that. But that's not never been what it's about. Because what that does, that produces a mindset of striving and doing to try to be good enough to get to him, to try to be good enough that he becomes accepting of me, because our mindset is we're trying to get to him. So if we believe this is not a distance problem, God's not up there somewhere, and I'm down here and I'm trying to make my way up to heaven so that I can be with him, it's not about distance. Because in Christ, let me say those words again, in Christ, union, togetherness, oneness has already been established. How can I get to something that is already within me? That's the simplest way to look at it. I'm not trying to get to a place or get to somebody who has already said and declared in their word that they are one with me, they're in union with me. He lives on the inside of each one of us. So we're not trying to get somewhere, we're trying to live out what's already true within us.

Christ In You Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Let's look at Colossians chapter 1, verse 27. I got a few verses I want you to see this morning. Colossians 1, verse 27 says this to them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of his mystery among the Gentiles. Here's the key part. Which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Think about that last part of a minute. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Not Christ far away somewhere, not Christ waiting for me to get good enough. Christ in you. If we're gonna read those words and we're gonna preach on those words and we're gonna say this is the Bible, then I gotta believe these words. And this is the problem, this is the gap that we talked about. This is what we mean by graduating this to another level. I don't want to just say them and say I believe them, but not be able to truly live in this place in my life. I want to know that I'm not trying to accomplish something by getting to him, that he is already Christ in me the hope of glory. He's in me. This has got to mean something. It can't just sound good. It's actually gotta mean something to me. So, with that being said, the real struggle is not distance. The real struggle is awareness. Becoming aware of what is already mine, becoming aware of what the Christ that's already on the inside of me. Most people experience what they experience as struggle in their faith has nothing to do with separation. I'm just as guilty as anybody else. There's been times in my life where I was going through problems. I was having a hard time. And I can remember walking to an altar at first community and turn, you know, lights out, just me and God, and walk into that altar. And the first thing I would say when I knelt down to that altar is, Why have you left me? That's the mindset I had. Because I was going through hell in my life. Apparently, God had backed up. He backed away. Because my life was not experiencing the things that the Bible said that I should experience. So my first mindset was not that I've made some dumb decisions or I'm doing something wrong or I'm not recognizing my true identity. My first instinct was to say, God, why have you left me? I can't tell you how many times I've questioned why He's left me sitting at that altar. Because I went through a lot of stuff. And I just could not figure out why, why do I believe this? Why do I teach this? Why do I preach this? But then over here, my life is not showing it. I recognized the gap a long time ago. I just didn't have language for it. I didn't know how to teach it, I didn't know how to really explain it. I knew I was feeling it because I knew what I believed, I knew what the word said, but when I looked at my life and I was going through stuff, I was like, I don't understand this. It don't make sense why I'm going through this, but yet it don't line up with what I believe. And I believe there's a lot of people there. I really do. Not a bad thing. We've talked about it so many times. That's a place, that's an opportunity now. And I one day I woke up and I realized years ago this is an opportunity for me. It's an opportunity for some things to come up. That messed up mindset that I had when I knelt down at the altar and said, Why, God, why have you left me? It was an opportunity to realize he's never left me. He's always been with me, he'll never leave me, he'll never forsake me. It was an opportunity to realize that what I was quoting in the Bible, I had to believe. I couldn't just quote it. I had to actually believe that when he said he wouldn't leave me, he's not a man that he should lie and he will not leave me. But it took a while to get there. I had a lot of Job moments. God didn't do things to me that he'd done to Job, but I'm telling you, I had a lot of moments where I questioned him. I didn't question who he was, I questioned what he was doing and what he wasn't doing in my life. So again, I believe most people when they look at the struggles, they see separation. That's why I told that story, because we see separation. And I don't think it's separation, I think it's a misalignment between truth and awareness. We know what's true, but am I aware of it in my life? Can I see the truth even in the midst of the problems? Can I stand on the truth? I know a lot of people that know they're loved by God. They quote the scripture, they believe it, they tell people that, but they still walk around every day feeling unworthy. They believe they're free. Maybe it's somebody that's encountered addiction in their past, and they've they've come out of that and they're living a life of freedom now. So they know what the difference between bondage and freedom is, and they know they're free. They're quoting the scripture. But there's still days that they're walking around and they feel like they're bound up in different areas. Listen, we've got to understand when it says who the son sets free is free indeed. Can I put that in my own language? Who the sun says free is not free here and bound here. When you are free, you are free indeed. Everything. And I think we miss that sometimes. I believe that there's people that are walking around right now and they believe that they're a new creation. They quote the verse. They say it, they say, I am a new creation in Christ. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. And they get excited about that. And I'm glad they know that verse. I'm glad they're standing on that verse. I'm glad they're holding on to that verse. But then they walk out of the church and they start interpreting their life through an old identity. I know the verse, but am I truly aware of it in my life? There's a difference there. Listen, I used to, when I worked in the prison, I had a guy that was uh I was a recreation director over there, and he was a he was one of my orderlies, and he was an atheist. He admittedly he was an atheist. This brother knew the scripture frontwards, backwards, and sideways. He could quote you any verse in the Bible better than most of them Christian folks could come in and do it. Didn't believe in God, but could quote the scripture. And I think about that, and I think about how many Christians can quote the scripture, but they're not aware that that scripture applies to them too. It's not just certain people who have reached a certain level or standing behind a pulpit. He lives in all of us, he died for all of us. We died, every one of us died with him, we were buried with him, we rose with him, and now every single one of us are seated with him in heavenly places. But are we aware of that? This is exactly what we've been calling the gap. I want you to understand that. I want you to be able to somebody come up to you and say, you know, I heard your pastor online and I heard him preaching on something called the gap. What is he talking about? I mean, I want you to be able to, you ain't got to go into detail and re-preach it, but I want you to be able to say, well, it's the difference in what we believe to be truth and what we're experiencing in our life. Between those two is a gap. Because I believe it, I quote it, I preach it, but then sometimes my life is not experiencing it. There's a gap. I want us to be able to know and understand what that is. Because that's exactly what we've been talking about with the gap. It's not a gap between you and God, it's a gap between finished work and awareness. Am I aware of this stuff in my life? We use this next verse I'm finishing to talk about many times. But I want to remind you of something really important in it.

Renewing The Mind For Real Change

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Romans 12, verse 2. This is this is my go-to verse. I've said that before. This is the verse that I will always go to this verse because I can preach anything out of this verse. I can talk about anything out of this verse, I can encourage people out of this verse. And do not be conformed to this world. I can stop right there and preach a sermon on that, what it means. Don't be conformed to the world. But be transformed, we can stop right there and preach on what is transformation. But be transformed by renewing of the mind. We can stop right there and say, what does it mean to truly have our mind renewed? That you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Be transformed by renewing of your mind. Transformation is not just becoming accepted. Okay. It is becoming aware of what is already true about you. I don't know how to say this without it sounding negative, and I'm not trying to make it sound negative, but I know a lot of people, including myself, who come up to an altar one day and we repeated a prayer and we thought that our life was transformed that day. I'll say that about me. I thought my life was transformed that day. And I couldn't understand why on Tuesday and Wednesday, and especially next Friday and Saturday, while some of the same thoughts and ideas and behaviors were coming back up again. I just knelt at the altar and gave it all to the Lord. And he was supposed to transform my life. So the first thing that I thought, I truly remember this. The first thing I thought was I didn't do something right. Apparently I messed it up somewhere. I didn't say something I should have said. Pastor Dale didn't put enough oil on me at the time or something. Somebody didn't pray the right prayer for me because I shouldn't still be going through this. Only a week. Probably only a couple of days. I'm just giving myself a week. But those old thought patterns started coming back up, those behaviors started to resurface. And I couldn't figure out why. Transformation is not just being accepted. See, I come, too many people come to an altar just to be accepted. And then they forget about transformation. They forget that yes, I'm accepted. Here's the thing, I was accepted before I come to the altar. But if I need to come to an altar to feel accepted, nothing wrong with that. Come on. But I've got to remember that after that, there comes a time of transformation. And that's a process. That's where we're living in this gap. I know I just gave my life to Christ. I know I just repeated a prayer. I know I just said, Lord, I went through the ABCs of salvation. I admitted I was a sinner. I believe He's the Son of God and I confessed my sins. And I believe He accepted me. I went through the whole Christian thing. But nobody ever told me that I might feel the same way when I walk out that I felt when I walked in. That the older experience alone and the acceptance alone was not all that it was about. Transformation does not come from that place of acceptance. It's becoming aware of what is already true about you. Years later, when I started realizing and I started getting in and understanding more about kingdom stuff, and I started realizing my identity in Christ, that's when I started transforming. Because I started seeing things differently. See, this should cause us to see spiritual growth. And we talk so much, there's so many books written about spiritual growth. But this should cause us to see spiritual growth in a different way. Growth is not about achievement as much as it's about agreement. Not agreement with you, not agreement with the pastor, but agreement with what God has already said. See, too many times I think we just agree with the pastor. Whatever he's saying. And can I tell you, there's pastors even in this county. That are preaching different stuff. I want to agree with the word of God, not with somebody's interpretation of it. So maturity is not getting to a place where God finally approves of me. I've matured, I've worked, I've read my Bible, I went to Sunday school, I went to church every Sunday, I've done all the religious gymnastics, and now I am coming before the Lord and I'm ready. Will you accept me, God? That's the mindset we have. Because why? I think I'm mature now. I've walked away from some of the dumb stuff that I used to do. I'm not doing some of that stuff anymore. I'm not thinking like I used to think. And I've matured. And my mindset is that maturity is finally going to get God to approve of me. Because I'm in a different place. See, maturity is learning to agree with what God has already declared about you. It's less striving and more awareness, less self-effort, and more alignment with what he's already said.

Maturity Is Agreement Not Approval

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Take a look at what it says in 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3. Powerful verse. As his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue. Now that's a powerful verse, but there's a couple of things. His divine power. Not my effort, not my striving, but his divine power. And I love what this says. It didn't say that he will give one day when I get everything right. It says he his divine power has given, which means it's already done. I'm still trying to work for something that he's already gave me. You know how frustrating that is. So I'm no longer looking at myself in the mirror and asking the question, what do I still need to do to be approved, to be accepted? My focus now is on learning to live from what I already have. Realizing he's already given me this. It's already a part of my life. He's already made me a new creation. I'm not trying to become something new by getting better each day. Now that don't mean I can't improve things in life. But it said that he's already made me a new creation in Christ. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become, past tense, new. So let's make this thing, this one thing clear one more time, and then I'm gonna get off of it. The gap was never between you and God. We're not talking about a God in heaven sitting on a throne somewhere, and you're down here just trying to figure it out how I can get closer to him. We're not talking about the distance between us and him. We are not reintroducing separation by talking about the gap. Because there is no separation in Christ. But sometimes there is conflict between truth and perception. I know it's true, but how am I perceiving it? I know what my identity is, but am I truly aware of it? I know what the word says about me, but do I see myself that way? I know what it says about the finished work, but am I experiencing that? And I know some people may get upset when I say that I think we're all living in the gap. But I do. As long as we've got sick people walking around, as long as we've got people that's struggling mentally and physically, emotionally, then we're living in the gap because he said in the word, by his stripes we are healed. And if we're still walking around unhealed, then we believe something to be true, but we're not experiencing it in our life. Therefore, we're in a gap.

Conflict Becomes Formation

SPEAKER_00 27:53

So sometimes there's a conflict, and this conflict is not a bad place to be. It's not a negative thing. This conflict is where formation begins to happen. Think about that a minute. I'm a former quarterback, so the one thing that I had to make sure of when we got in a huddle and we called to play and we broke the huddle, my linemen went up to the line, my receivers went out, and I would always stand back here in the back a minute and watch. You know why? Because I had to make sure they were in the right formation. If we caught a certain play in the wrong formation, that play was going to get blew up in a second. So I had to make sure, hey, get over here. You, right there. I had to make sure the formation was right. When we're in this place of conflict, it's where formation begins to happen. What does that mean? Everything in my life may not be perfect yet. I may not feel like my life is just going the way God planned it. I may not be experiencing everything that I believe the word says that I'm entitled to. But this is a place where I can wake up. This is a place where I can say, I'm not experiencing this, but I know what the word says. Think about what it says. It says to repent, to change the way I think. And if I'm living in this experience and it ain't lining up with the word of God, I now have an opportunity to change my thinking. I no longer have to wake up and say, well, this is just life. I may say this is the life I'm experiencing right now, but I'm gonna tell you something. The word of God says this. And instead of waking up every day and speaking something different, I'm gonna wake up and speak what the word of God says. And what am I doing? I'm confessing the word. What does confession mean? Homeligeo, speak the same thing. Instead of saying, speaking what is happening, speaking what I'm feeling, speaking what I'm experiencing, I'm gonna forget about that. I'm not denying truth. I still know I'm in this, but while I'm in the midst of it, I'm gonna come over to the word of God and say, God, your word says this, and I'm gonna start decreeing. Yeah, but you're lying, brother. No, I'm not. I'm speaking those things that are not as if they are. I'm speaking faith, substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not yet seen. But the more I speak it, the more I decree it, the more I believe it, the more I'm gonna start experiencing it. And this stuff's gonna start wiping some of this junk out. That's what repentance is. Repentance is not saying I'm sorry. Oh God, I messed up Saturday night. Please forgive me. You know what I've done, but I got to admit it anyway. And I gotta go tell somebody else what I've done because I gotta be held accountable. No, repentance means change the way you think. If you're thinking negatively, go to the Word and find something in there that I can bring it over here, and instead of saying this, I now begin to speak this. That's all it is. We make it hard. We do. We make it confusing sometimes. And we make people do things that biblically is not even there. Man-made, we want you to come up and repent it to me. I want to know every bad mistake you've made. Because you said you're a Christian, but you did that. No, I don't need to know what you did. I don't care what you did. All I care is do you know the truth and can you stand on it? Even in the midst of the problems. Can you stand on the truth? So we don't close this gap by striving. Transformation doesn't become, doesn't come simply by trying. Try harder. Push yourself a little bit more.

Read For Identity Not Completion

SPEAKER_00 32:40

I had a conversation with somebody the other day about the Bible. And they were fixing to get into reading the Bible through in a year. Nothing wrong with that. So listen to what I'm saying. Nothing wrong with that. But I did ask her one simple question when she said it. I said, where are you gonna start at? I knew what she was gonna say because if I'm gonna read the Bible through from the front to the back in a year, where's my starting point gonna be? Genesis in the beginning. I'm not gonna start in Revelation and read backwards. But I said, you know, those those those books in the Old Testament are gonna be really hard to understand. I know, I know, but I just want to read them. If reading is all you're doing, then great, read on. But I truly want to know what this means? How is it impacting my life today? I gotta do more than just read it. And that's why I tell people start with the book of John. Because John talks about identity, John talks about Jesus, John talks about things that if I understand this, now when I go back and I read Old Testament, it begins to make more sense to me now. Because I have an understanding of identity. You start with Old Testament, you're gonna be lost and confused. But we've been taught we gotta read in chronological order. No, you don't. There's no rule that says you got to read all that first. I want to get understanding before anything else. So transformation doesn't come just by trying harder. You can't force awareness, you can't change, force changing your life just with effort alone. And many people feel stuck sometimes because they're trying to fix their struggles with just sheer willpower instead of leaning into what's actually already true about them. But how can I lean into something that I'm unaware of? That's why I say start with John, because John tells us about our identity in Christ. If I truly understand my identity in Christ and who I am, everything I read after that is through the lens of identity. I'm not starting over here reading the Old Testament through the lens of the Old Testament, because there's going to be, man, there's going to be confusion. But I want to read it through the lens of who I am in Christ. Transformation comes from beholding, listen to these words, beholding, renewing, and agreeing. Beholding Christ, renewing my identity in Christ, my understanding of Christ, renewing my thinking, and agreeing with what Christ has already said. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 3, verse 18. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, or being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Think about what this verse says. As we behold him, we are transformed. If I'm just reading it just to read, am I beholding him? Am I understanding? Am I getting in there to the deeper parts of it? As we behold him, we are transformed. Not as we strive, but as we behold.

Stop Trying To Close The Gap

SPEAKER_00 37:14

So maybe, maybe it's possible that the goal was never to close the gap at all. And this is something I struggled with when I was going through this. Because I feel like that people think, okay, I'm in a gap. Let's say I get it, I understand what you're talking about. You're basically saying that over here is what I believe, it's what I've been taught, it's what I stand on, it's the core of who I am. I believe in that word, I decree the word. But then over here is my everyday life. I'm over here preaching heaven and I'm over here living hell. Those two are not lining up. And you know what's in between? There's a gap in between them. The one thing that I did not want people to misinterpret about the gap is that I'm in this place and I'm trying my best to get to that place. So my goal is to try to close this gap down. Because what it does, if you if you have that mindset, it gives you this understanding that you're always in a bad place. That you're never where God wants you to be at. And that's not true. God loves us. Even in the midst of your mistakes, he loves you. Even while you were yet a sinner, he died for you. So to say that he's going to separate himself from me because I'm not where I should be is not even biblical. I can't find anything in the Bible that supports that theory. Nothing. So maybe the goal is not to close the gap at all. Maybe the goal is to stop interpreting my life as if something's missing when everything in Christ is already complete. So maybe instead of interpreting my life as God's left me, or he's not here with me, or I'm doing something wrong, or I'm messing up, why not just come back to the fact that everything that I need, same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord, but with unveilable, beholding as in the mirror of the glory of the Lord. As I behold Him, as I recognize who He is, I recognize that everything I need to achieve in this life, to succeed in this life, I already have. So each day, our goal should be learning to live our life in Christ. Not learning to live our life to get to Christ, but learning to live our life in Christ. 2 Corinthians 5 and 17. I think it makes it pretty plain. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, not working toward him, but if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. Why do we focus so much on becoming something new if this verse tells us we've already become new? Have you ever thought about that? Just one of those things that hit me. I wrote it in last night when I started reading through this verse, and I was like, why do we work so hard to try to change our life and to become new when this verse says you've already become new? How can I become something that I've already become? This takes out striving. I'm not striving for him, I'm beholding him. So the Christian life is not becoming someone new. You know how many people would disagree with that? And I can understand why. But I believe this, and I'm gonna stand on this. The Christian life is not becoming someone new, it is learning to live as who you already are in Christ. I mean, when I was out there living like I was living, and I'm gonna talk about me, I won't talk about y'all. But when I was out there living and doing, and whatever I wanted to do and living that life, and then one day I come to an altar. Something happened, and I made the decision, I didn't want to live like this anymore. And I and I come to an altar. And I knelt down to that altar and I said, Lord, I'm tired of this life. I want to give my life to you. You know, when I said that, I don't even know when it was, I don't know, 2000, whenever it was. But when that happened, when I knelt down to that altar and I said those words, God did not jump up and say, Finally, and run to me. I've been waiting on this, Brian. No, what he's been waiting on is just for me to understand that he was always there to begin with. And that he chose me, he died for me, he was buried for me, he rose for me. I was a part of that. He was just waiting on me to come to me. The understanding of it. I didn't become something new that day. I become something new this day. I just received it that day. I come into an understanding of it that day. That was it. And I mean, I know a lot of people that that goes, man, people would argue that with good reason. I understand why they would argue it. But I'm still going to hold to it. Because the cross is what made me a new creation, not my words, not my acceptance. So this is where I think that we kind of land the gap series and then kind of go off into something a little bit different. We're not leaving it, we're just kind of changing the language a little bit. The gap has served its purpose, it's helped us understand finished work. It's exposed the difference between truth and experience. But now we move forward. Not into striving, not into distance, but we're moving forward into awareness. This is who I am. This is what he's done for me. This is what's already accomplished. Because we're not trying to get to God. We are learning to live from the life of Christ already on the inside of us. And the more we see that truth, the more our experience begins to align with what's already been finished.

Trading Striving For Finished Work

SPEAKER_00 45:57

We've taught people to strive. We come from it with a good from a good place. But we've taught people to strive to get to God, to strive to become worthy, to clean up, to become acceptable. What if I'm already accepted? What if what he did on the cross made me worthy? If I take all this stuff that I'm being told to do with my life and I put it back on him and say, he's already done that for me. I don't have to work for approval. He's already approved me. I don't have to try to work to be redeemed. He's already redeemed me. I don't have to, every time I make a mistake, fall down and ask for forgiveness. He's already forgiven me. All it is is simply taking it off of me, everything I've been trained and taught to do, and turn it to Christ. And when I do that, I'm beholding Christ. And all it's going to do is say, why am I reworking what he's already accomplished? What good is it doing for me to redo what he's already done? Either I don't understand it, or I think he didn't complete it. And I think that I'm just holy enough that I need to step in and complete what Jesus didn't complete. And we know that's not the truth. So to me, it comes down to we a lot of times we just don't understand it. That's where we're at. That's what we're trying to just get people to see is that beholding him changes the perception of everything. I no longer have to work and strive. I no longer have to become worthy. I no longer have to do all these things to work towards something that Jesus Christ has already finished. Now, yes, I can accept it. Yes, I can become aware of it. I'm not saying, see, this is where the where we get messed up at because some people would look and say, yeah, but people's gonna take advantage of that. People's gonna take advantage of anything. If they believe that it's already finished, they're just gonna live how they want to live. Well, if that's the case, they're gonna live how they want to live anyway. You telling them they're gonna burn in hell ain't gonna change it. Let's take it off of us. And that that to me, we should do that anyway. Why put so much on people when Christ is sitting there saying, It is finished. I've done it. All I need you to do is be aware of it, receive it. Don't just read about it in the Bible, don't just talk about it in church, but actually behold me. Live it, let it become not just something you study, not just something you read, not just something you preach, but it becomes something that's a lived reality in your life. That's all we're saying. Instead of just saying it, instead of talking to talk, let's walk the walk. That's it. I don't see nothing wrong with that. Some people do. Because it takes away control. I'm not taking away control, I'm just giving control back to every single one of you and me and saying, okay, I control my life. I'm gonna recognize who Christ is, I'm gonna recognize what Christ has done, I'm gonna agree with it, I'm gonna speak it, I'm gonna decree it, and now I'm gonna take control of my life.

Rethinking God Is In Control

SPEAKER_00 50:41

How many times have we heard, and I'll end with this. I didn't have this in here, but it just made me think of it. Because I said a while ago that sometimes we just need to pay attention to some of the quotes that we use and some of the things that we say. And and I've heard it preached so many times, I'm sure I've preached it too. Well, we just say, don't worry about it. God is in control. You know what popped in my head one day? I'm just gonna be real with you. I heard that so many times. And I remember thinking one day, if he is in control, he has really messed up. And I shared that with somebody, and they kind of rebuked me a little bit. And I was like, well, no, no, I'm just being honest. If God is in control and we're like little puppets on a string, and my life goes wrong, who do I blame it on? And you know what that does? By blaming it on him or blaming it on the devil? That old devil won't leave me alone. It's either God or the devil, and if I can blame it on one of them, it takes all responsibility away from me. God's just got me here for a reason. No, you got yourself there because of the decision you made. And God's trying to say that ain't where you belong at. That's not who you are. And I'm trying to awaken you to the truth of your identity so you don't have to keep living there. If God listen, the Bible says God gave control over to us. Why? Because the work was complete. We're not puppets on a string. Why don't God fix everything by lunch tomorrow? I mean, if we're gonna keep saying, oh, God is in control, why don't He fix it by lunch tomorrow? Why don't we all come together and pray before we leave that by 12 o'clock tomorrow everything in this world is fixed? I mean, wouldn't that be the most smartest thing to pray? God fix everything. I think I'm being a little bit too real. But it's it's the truth. We have a choice in this. God has not messed up, He has finished the job, and He's simply saying, I want you to recognize and become aware of what I've finished. That's it. Behold Him, our life will begin to change, transformation will happen. It's not immediate, it's a process. But we can see things start to shift.

Prayer And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what you're showing us, what you're bringing to us, what you're teaching. Father, I pray for every person here within the sound of my voice right now. That you bring understanding and bring wisdom and bring revelation to this word, that it's not just something that is just another sermon, but it becomes life-changing. That it opens up our minds and opens up our hearts in new ways. You've called us to be a different people, you've called us to look deeper, you've called us to go to a different place. And Father, we're doing that. And I pray that every person in this room begins to look at this word, begins to study this word, begins to understand the completeness of the finished work. And realize that all we have to do is become aware and begin to live out that life. Not because we're striving toward it, but because just becoming aware of what's already been completed and finished in our life. Father, we thank you, and we'll be careful to give you the praise, the honor, and the glory for everything in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Be blessed.