Through The Lens

We wrestle with why sincere believers can read the same Bible and still walk away with opposite conclusions about grace, obligation, freedom, and performance. We trace the difference back to the lens we bring to Scripture and why identity in Christ produces lasting transformation more than fear ever will. 
• why denominations and church splits often reveal different interpretive lenses 
• how family, pastors, and tradition shape the “starting question” we bring to the Bible 
• why context matters and why questioning can deepen faith rather than threaten it 
• the contrast between “What must I do for God?” and “What has God already done for me in Christ?” 
• what we mean by the finished work of Christ and why it points to discovering rather than striving 
• how a fear lens turns grace into “risk management” and behavior control 
• why Paul teaches identity first and behavior second in books like Ephesians and Romans 
• how transformation comes through “beholding” Christ instead of shame, pressure, or condemnation 
I challenge you to write it down. What lens am I looking through when I'm reading this scripture? 

Transcript

A Different Kind Of Message

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I am excited about this message this morning. I almost on the way here I started thinking, I almost said, man, I just want to, it's like I want to pull up a chair and just sit down and just just talk rather than preach. Because I think this is one of those things that we can get a lot out of that can really really help us a good bit, help us see some things in our own life, but also help us see, you know, looking in the community and looking at other people, talking to other people, why is there such a difference? I know I mentioned, I talked a little bit about that last week, you know, why there's such a difference uh in the way people think, the way people believe. Uh what makes us what makes us so different? Um this message this morning, you can see, you can already know what it's about, but it says called Through the Lens. And my whole purpose in that, the question behind that, or the thought behind that, is how our starting point shapes what we see in Scripture. Wherever we're starting at in scripture, whatever our our lens is that we're looking through is going to dictate how I interpret and how I see that scripture. So today I want to talk to you about something that has always fascinated me, but even more so in the last couple of weeks with what I've been preaching. But it's fascinated me for years, and I can remember years ago uh preaching sermons on this and asking this question, and I still haven't, well, I feel like just recently have got what I would consider a good answer for it. But uh what that is, is how how is it that sincere believers, I'm not talking about just people that comes every once in a while, or what, but I'm talking, I'm not talking about just our church, I'm talking about in the in the church community, uh church as a whole. How is it that sincere believers can read the exact same Bible, quote the exact same verses, love the same Jesus, and arrive at a different conclusion. Now, this ain't me saying this. This has been years and years. Why do you think we have so many denominations? Because one group of people arrived at a different conclusion than what the rest of the church did, so therefore there was a church split. Look at all the churches we got in this tiny little town. All that, forget denominations a minute, just churches in general, and I've never done research on this. Might be interesting if somebody wants to do it, but how many churches, number one, how many do we have? I used to know that, I don't remember now, but it's a lot for a small community. But how many of those churches, let's just say they was they were 80 churches in Alma? I don't know. But how many out of those 80 churches started from a church split?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I mean, think about that. It's most of them because certain things did not line up.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

I mean, have you ever really thought about that? Have you wondered why we see things so differently? Not just denominationally. I know there's people in this church right here that don't always understand or don't always line up with everything that I may say. And I'm okay with that. Uh that's fine. That's that's why we learn, that's why we're here. But we're reading the same scripture, we're reading out of the same Bible. And my question is, how can two people read that same passage and one walk away seeing grace, and the other walk away seeing obligation? I'm obligated to something. But the other one says, I see grace in this scripture.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

You think about it too.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

One sees freedom and another one sees responsibility. Two very different things.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

One sees identity, and another one sees performance. Two different mindsets. Why does this happen? What causes it to happen?

SPEAKER_01 4:37

And let me be clear when I'm saying this, because sometimes this is taken when I'm when you preach a message like this, it's taken the wrong way. And I do not want this to be taken the wrong way. So let me be clear about this. I'm not questioning anybody's love for God. In this church, other churches, other denominations, I am not questioning anybody's love for God. I'm not questioning anybody's commitment to scripture. I'm and I'm definitely not questioning anybody's desire for holiness. It's not about that, it's not about being right or being wrong. And that's what people want to turn it into. People want to automatically call you a heretic and say you're not preaching the Bible and you're wrong. And that comes from a place of fear. And we're going to talk about that in a few minutes. But that comes, that mindset that I'm scared to listen to something. Listen, I don't mind listening to anybody. And I don't know very quick whether me and you are on the same page or not, spiritually, biblically. I can figure out really quick if we're going to be on the same page. But I can still listen to you. And the reason I can do that now where I couldn't do that years ago was years ago I was so easily moved and swayed in one direction or another by who

Same Bible Different Conclusions

SPEAKER_01 6:10

I was listening to. But now I am I am grounded in what I believe. I'm not there. I'm not saying I've arrived. I'm just saying I'm grounded in what I believe. And nobody, no other, I don't care what anybody believes or says, it's not going to sway me. I can learn from them, I can take information, I can I can gain knowledge, I can gain wisdom, but it's not going to sway me from what I believe. And I believe we should all get to that place and be in that place. So when sincere believers read a scripture and arrive at a different conclusion, the explanation, it must have to be deeper than just sincerity. We can't say, well, this person's, I mean, they're really, really deep and sincere in their Bible. This person's probably not. It's not about that. I think we got to take that off the table. It must be deeper than commitment or desire. The difference is often found in the lens that we look through. And I talk about this all the time, but I want to go just a little bit deeper into it to see where we're coming from. That lens that we look through, uh, which we interpret, that that lens is how we interpret what we read. And depending on which lens I'm looking through, that's how I'll come to the conclusion of what this verse says. That's why you can ask one person, what does that verse say? And they'll tell you something totally different than what the next person says. And you're like, did they read the same verse? Yeah, they did. But they're looking at it through a different lens. So therefore, it's going to change the outcome of what they think it's saying. We're not just reading scripture. And I hope you understand that by by now. We're not just reading scripture, we're reading scripture through a lens that we've been given by somebody, whether it's family, mom, dad, grandparents, a pastor, whatever, wherever we, probably whatever type of denomination we sat under coming up. That's why we talk about uh sometimes that we have to deconstruct some things. I grew up as a child sitting under, you know, I went to a church of God. Okay, as a child growing up, my teen years I went to a uh, you know, a Methodist. I don't even really look at the denomination anymore. I just look at the Bible. I don't care if you're a denominational, I mean, if you're a Methodist church, a Baptist church, a church of God, a Catholic, whatever. What does the Bible say? That's the main thing. I mean, you know, people's quick to tell you, well, I'm a Baptist, especially here in South Georgia. You know, it's almost like a badge of honor. You gotta be a Baptist. Nothing wrong with that. They take pride and they take honor in the fact that they they have gone to a Baptist church that all of their, you know, family has gone to through the years. Nothing wrong with that. But I really don't care if you're a Baptist or a Methodist or a Pentecostal, it don't matter. But see, here's the thing in South Georgia, it's okay to say I'm a Baptist. It's okay to say I attend the Methodist church. It's okay to say, well, a little bit, you start kind of getting out there when you say church of God. They'll kind of look at you a little bit funny. But then when you say I'm non-denominational, they look at you kind of sideways. Because in their mind, what they've been taught is that's a group of people who have rebelled from denominations. I don't even like to call it rebelling from denominations anymore. I like to call it deconstructing from denominations. Because there's a lot of stuff in denominations, again, I'm not bashing denominations. You go talk to a Baptist, a Methodist is gonna tell you something different. Talk to a Methodist, a church of God is gonna tell you something different. That's why we have the fight spiritually, the spiritual fight between denominations. But yet we have one Jesus, one Bible, but all these different denominations. Now we're not talking about different religions, from Christianity to Islam to Buddhism. That's broad. We're bringing it down to the local church. And then we're still breaking away into different denominations. So this question that I'm asking is not new. I'm sure people's been asking this question for centuries. It's just really been on me lately, though, because of some of the things that you hear people say when you when you when you put a Facebook post on. Or you say something a certain way, or you question something that's always been taught. Listen, I fully believe if you cannot be questioned on what you believe, you need to question what you believe. Don't question my question. Question what you believe. If you are not strong enough to stand on what you believe, if my questions shake it, you might want to question the foundation. Because me asking a question should not shake the core of your foundation. But see, God has blessed me, and I call it blessed, and anointed me with the ability and the drive and the desire to shake foundations. I believe that. That's something that has always been in me. I want to take something and just shake it and let all the junk fall away from it until we got something there that's firm. And there's a lot of stuff in every denomination that if you shake that Baptist tree, there's a lot of stuff that needs to fall out of it. That Methodist tree, there's some stuff where it needs to fall away.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Pentecostal tree, there's some stuff that needs to fall away.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

I wonder why it just popped in my head when I said Pentecostal. Did anybody see that Facebook post of the lady speaking in tongues? And they and they was talking about how from how you know it's supposed to be a language, you know, that only God, no, you know, and and this guy said, It sounds so familiar. And then they played it back and slowed it down, and she was quoting a Michael Jackson song. It was fun. That just popped in my head, sorry. That's my that's my ADHD kicking in. So again, we're not just reading scripture alone, we're we're reading scripture through a lens. And I think the more that we understand that and we can realize that we're reading through a lens, that's what makes me now where if I disagreed with somebody, or let's say they disagree

The Lens We Inherit Over Time

SPEAKER_01 13:40

with me and we have a debate or a, you know, whatever, a disagreement on a scripture, used to, man, I would I would jump on there and I just boom, I'm just gonna attack, and they're gonna attack, and it's just gonna start this big thing. But now I look and I say, you know, what lens were they looking through? How are they reading this scripture? Just like I told you last week about the guy that, you know, posted on the video, uh, this one-minute clip video of me preaching. He totally misunderstood that one-minute clip. He was saying things, he he was actually debating things in his comment that I didn't even say in the one-minute clip. But he was just in his mind, he was thinking, well, this must be what he believes. You know. So, number one, context. Stay within the context. The reading scripture, we have to understand the lens that we're reading through. And here's the thing: this is not new. People, you know, when I question things and I do, I question everything. I am okay. I learned that years ago. You used to, I had I had somebody, I had a pastor that got on me and said, You question too much. I can I can remember our conversation. You question too much, just trust God. That was the words. So, what did I do? I was a young Christian, I just followed my pastor's advice, and I quit questioning things out loud. But inside, every time something was said, man, something in me would just it drove me nuts because I did not, it just did not align with me the right way. And I was questioning, I was like, why does that's not what the Bible says? Well, he just said it's not what it says in the Bible, and finally I just said, I don't care what somebody says, I'm gonna ask questions. Why? Because I want to learn. And how do you learn? How do you grow? You ask questions. Sometimes it's asking questions to God, and I've done that many, many times. I can't tell you the number of times that I laid in that floor at first community church right by myself, and me and God had a moment. And I said, God, I don't understand you. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand why you're not doing this in my life. I don't know why you're allowing this to happen in my life. I don't know what way you want me to go. I don't know why you're not with me. I don't know why you always leave me. I mean, I have those moments. And some people would say, well, that was just you rebelling. That was just you not trusting God. No, that was me getting deeper. That was me finally realizing that my father loved me enough and he was okay with me questioning him. I wasn't questioning who he was. I was questioning why my life was not lining up with what I was reading in scripture. I was questioning and saying, God, your word says this, but I keep seeing this happen. Your word says this, but I keep hearing this preached. Which one is it? Because it can't be both. And it challenged me to get in the word, and that's when I really got in there and just started saying, I want to know the context. Don't, I don't care what a pastor thinks. Tell me the context. What did God intend with that scripture? What was he really trying to say? And then it hit me, you know, one day, and I said, you know, and this is not, I'm not saying this is some deep revelation that I come up with. Many people come up with this. It was revelation to me at the time. And it hit me, and I said, you know, when Jesus, I mean, when Paul was saying this right here, whatever verse you may be reading, when Paul was saying that, he wasn't talking to me.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

He wasn't talking to this church, he was talking to the Corinthian church 2,000 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

So I can't take everything literally because it was not for me. But I can get in there and say, what was the overwriting message that he was talking to them about, and does it still apply? That's context. Who was he talking to? Why was he saying it? What was the language? What was what was going on in the community in that area during that time? And when I started doing that, a lot of these questions that I was having about why people are misinterpreting scripture, it began to make sense. Because I started seeing this lens that people were looking through. And the lens that I was looking through for years, and I'm telling you, this is not new. People look and they say, Oh, had they non-denominational, are they preaching a new gospel? No, we're preaching an old gospel, and I'm I've started telling people that because I've had people say that you're preaching a new gospel. I'm saying, no, I'm preaching an older gospel than you are.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

Because we're going back to the original text.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

You're preaching something that comes along later, after and they're added to the text.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

We're going back to the original. And I think this is still happening today, too. I mean, when you think about it, Jesus went through this too.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

It's not new, it's not because we're non-denominational, it's not because we teach a finished work message, and that's what a lot of people, that's what I get a lot of times. Well, that finished work is this and that, and it's wrong, and it's not biblical, and it's you know. And I go back to the scripture and I say, that's not what scripture shows me.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

So when we're reading it, we have to look at the lens.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Jesus addressed this too. He did. You can go back and look in the Bible. Jesus addressed this very issue when he spoke to religious leaders. In John chapter 5, verse 39. I want you to look at what he said. And you have to understand again, context of who was speaking? Jesus,

Context And The Courage To Question

SPEAKER_01 20:41

who was he speaking to the religious leaders of the day. He was not speaking to me in this verse, he was speaking to a real group of people who in this day were the scholars, they were the biblical scholars of the day. They knew scripture better than anybody. And this is what he said to them. You search the scriptures. See, he wasn't putting them down saying you're a bunch of hypocrites. He was saying, You guys, I know y'all search the scriptures day and night. You're always in the scripture. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me. I pulled this one verse out just to show you right here. You have to kind of read a couple of verses ahead of it and a couple of verses behind it to understand what he's saying here. I'm gonna paraphrase what he's saying. He's saying, you're reading the scriptures and you know the scriptures, but you miss the one that the scripture is pointing to.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

That's me. You are totally missing the point.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

You're reading it, you have all this information. You have everything you need, but your knowledge of scriptures is blinding you to the one that it's talking about.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

You're missing the one it's pointing you to. But see, the problem wasn't information. They had that.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

It wasn't interpretation. They had people interpreting the scriptures. The issue wasn't with the text itself, it was with the lens that they were looking through.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

And I think that's still happening today.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

In today's church. For some believers, the primary question they bring to scripture when they sit down and they start reading, it's kind of like there's a question. There's always something behind their reading, their lens. And this is what I think for most people is what it is. What must I do for God? What must I do for God?

SPEAKER_00 23:08

Now that's not a bad question. It's sincere, it's understandable.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

But if that's the starting point, if that's the lens that I'm looking through, I'm reading the entirety of the scripture from a lens of what must I do for God. Now I'm going to slow down right here because I want you to get this. If this is where we stop at, that'll be fine. Because I want you to see this. If that's the starting point, then you will naturally see the Bible through the lens of responsibility, obligation, and performance. Why? Because the question that is behind your lens is what must I do? So you're always, every time you read a scripture, you are going to find something in that scripture that has to tell you what to do.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Does that make sense? They're not wrong in what they're reading, but the lens is bringing out the interpretation for them. Others come to Scripture asking a different question.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

And this is all I'm trying to get people to see is what lens am I working through, looking through, and what questions am I asking? So one person says, What must I do for God? And then another person comes along and they're asking something different. What has God already done for me in Christ? So now I'm sitting down and I'm pulling out the Bible and I'm reading the same scripture that this guy was reading, but instead of saying, What must I do for God? What must I do to be loved? What must I do to be accepted? What must I do to get to heaven and miss hell?

SPEAKER_00 25:12

I'm asking the question of what has God done for me through Christ. And that starting point changes everything.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Because the starting point always affects the destination. Wherever I start at, it will affect where I arrive at in my interpretation. One lens begins with human response. What must I do? See it. I need to just stop right here and preach on that. What must I do? It sounds really sincere. Now, some people will take what I just said and they'll try to turn it around and flip it around and say, oh, he's saying that we don't need to do nothing for God, that we don't need to work, that we don't need to do. That is not what I'm saying. I'm just saying, asking a basic question. If I'm looking through a lens that says, what must I do? And I'm going to answer to please God, to get God to love me, to get to heaven, because that's really the question that's being asked.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

That's human response. What must I do as a human? What must I do? The other begins with a divine accomplishment. What did he do? This lens said, What should I do? This lens said, What did he do?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Two, can you see that if we were reading one verse and you looked at it this way and you looked at it this way, how you're going to come to a different interpretation and understanding of what that verse says simply because of the question that you're asking as you're reading it. So, what did he do? That's a divine accomplishment we're looking at. One is about responsibility, while the other is about relationship. One says I have to be responsible. I need to know what I need to do as a Christian. I need to know, God, what you want me to do. And again, it's nothing wrong with working and doing things. We're all called to do things. But I'm not doing things to get his love. I'm doing things out of love. I'm doing things. I'm working for God. I'm working the ministry because of who I am, not to become something. That's all we're saying. We're not saying not to just sit around and just not do anything and wait till Jesus comes back. And that is the first misconception that people put on the finished work of Christ. Well, if it's finished, what are you going to do? So they think that we're automatically saying if it's finished, there's nothing else to do. Those clowns are just sitting around doing nothing. And you need to be out here working.

Two Questions That Change Everything

SPEAKER_01 28:40

You need to be out here and getting people saved. You need to get people and pull people out of the depths of hell. Yes, we can do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

But we're doing it with a different lens. That's all. With a different purpose. Here's another way to think about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

This is this is what kind come to me because I always ask, make this make sense to me.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

In my own words. Becoming something versus discovering something. That's a very different mindset. Becoming something versus discovering something. What does that mean? All we're saying in the finished work is he finished the work. It's pretty self-explanatory. Everything that we need was completed on the cross. It was sufficient.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Now, this is always what amazes me because when people try to debunk the finished work or come against it, the first question I ask is, Did he do this on the cross? Did he do that on the cross? Did he do this on the cross? Yes, brother, he did that. Okay, did he complete it?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Or does he need me to come along and finish it for him? Oh, yeah, he completed it. Okay, he completed it. So if he completed it, it means it's finished. Right? Because if he didn't complete it, that means it's still work to do.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

But if he completed it, it means it's complete, it's done, it's finished. Therefore, it's a finished work. The work that he came to do was finished. It's just, I don't know why the wording messes with people so much. I mean, I do, but it's just, it amazes me. Because when you say it, you put it to them like that, they're like, oh, yeah, okay, I see what you're saying now. And I'm not saying that because he finished the work, that we just sit down and just wait on him to come back and do nothing. All we're saying is it's finished, which means that everything that he has for us, we already are entitled to. It's already given to us. And all we are doing now is trying to open our eyes, awaken, and discover who I am.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Who I am, why? Because of what he has done. It's not, it's not on me.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

I know who I am naturally. I can give you my resume. I can tell you my education. I can tell you where I grew up. I can tell all of us can do that. But we're talking about who I am because of.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

That's different. A lot of people can't do that. That's not putting people down. I'm just being honest. A lot of people cannot tell you who they are in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

And it's not because they're bad people, it's simply because the lens that they've always looked through has always told them that you're only this and you're only that, and you're only getting this over yonder on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

One day in the buy and by.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

That's why we sing songs about it. Not only are they taught that from the pulpit, but every one of their songs tell them that. We, you know, and and I know Monica and Ronnie does this, and I've even, I'm not a big song person, but I do go, I do listen to the songs. I pay attention to the wording of songs. And I it ain't happen hardly any because Monica and Ronnie is on the same page spiritually. They understand what we're saying, they understand. And I'm saying this because we don't want to preach a message from the pulpit, but have songs that contradict what we're saying. Does that make sense? There's some awesome songs out there from hymn books. They're good songs, but they're contradictory to our teaching. So sometimes we gotta say, well, this is a beautiful song, but it's it's it's teaching something that is not what we're teaching. So we're gonna maybe not not sing that. I've never had to go through as a pastor and say, hey, y'all need to take this song out, or because they they understand that. They know what our belief system is, they know what our core, you know, where we're at. They've there's been songs that I think they've probably pulled out and said, we're not gonna sing these anymore because it didn't align.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

They're great songs, but it's the lens that people were looking through when those songs were written.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

So one lens is a human response, and the other is a divine accomplishment.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

And here's the important thing to understand. When you look at these two sides, this is why this is hard to preach.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

And you may not understand what I'm saying here, but I want to explain this because I know how some people look at it. This is difficult to preach because it always looks like I'm putting some people over here and I'm putting other people over here, and I'm dividing people, and separating people, and saying we're right, you're wrong. That is not my intent. I'm not even talking about people, I'm talking about lenses. What are we looking through? That's what I'm talking about. So I'm not trying to divide. I'm not saying we're right on this and you're wrong on this, so you need to change. That is not the purpose and the intent, but I do know that that's the way people take it. Why? Because they told me that. I've had people, even in this church, people that I trust to come up to me. There's some people I can I feel comfortable going to and saying, how did that sound? Did that come across, this is what I meant, but did it come across the right way or did it come across the wrong way? And sometimes I've had Ronnie's come up to me a couple times and said, Hey, you may want to change the way you say that. It's coming across, I know what you're trying to say, but it's coming across a little bit different. And so it's hard. It's very, very difficult to talk about this because I never want to look like I'm just purposely trying to divide people and pull people to different sides. Now, naturally, if you got two lenses, by nature, people's gonna be on different. Which which one are you looking through? But it's I'm trying to tell you, it's not a bad thing. It's not because they're bad people, it's not because they don't believe in God or they don't uh you know are committed to the word. We just gotta understand, okay, what lens are they looking through when they're reading this?

SPEAKER_00 36:20

What lens am I looking through when I'm reading this? So neither is trying to dishonor God, neither side is trying to dishonor God.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

Neither is trying to change scripture or ignore scripture, which we get accused of a lot, of changing scripture.

Finished Work Means Discovering Identity

SPEAKER_00 36:50

That's not the case. We're not not trying to do that.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

We're simply looking through a different lens at it. I I you're gonna get tired of hearing me say that, but I that's what I want you to walk out of here with today. To realize that we look through a different lens in life. Do you realize that every one of us look at situations through the lens of our life? You didn't grow up the same way I grew up. I don't know how you grew up, but I'm just I guarantee you it wasn't the same as me. I was raised different than you were raised. I went through situations that maybe you didn't go through, and you went through some that I didn't go through. So when we look at life, we look at life through the lens of my experience. That's all I have to, that's that's the only way I have to look at it. You know, when you're growing up, I don't know if you did this, I remember doing this. You would always say, Well, man, I don't want to grow up and parrot like my parents parented me. I want to be different. Maybe you didn't say that I did.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

And then I realized as I got older that I'm I am made up of my mama and my daddy. And everything they were is in me.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

And I speak like them and I think like them and I parent like them, and and I can't get away from why because that's that's natural. And I realized it wasn't a bad thing. It wasn't when I was 17, 18, I thought it was a bad thing. I never want to be like my daddy.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

And then I realized, you know, he he wasn't as he wasn't wrong as much as I thought he was. He actually knew something. So I feel like one of the strongest lenses in the Christian church today is the fear, what I call the fear lens.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Now listen to this. A lot of people have been taught to evaluate truth through fear-based questions. You know, I if you know me any at all, you know I love questions. I love asking questions, I love provoking people to ask questions. Why? Because I think that's the way we learn. Now, that don't mean I've asked some really dumb questions in my life, too. And I didn't get nothing out of the question I asked. No big deal. I just move on. And then I've asked some really good questions that really sparked and moved something in me, made me dig deeper, made me see things in a different way. And it was really helpful to me. That's why we say there's no dumb question. There's not. There's questions you'll learn from, and there's questions that you may not learn from. No big deal, it's not dumb.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

But be willing to ask.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

So I feel like the fear lens, and here's the questions that I think the fear lens puts out there to people. Listen to these. See if you've ever asked these, see if you've ever heard anybody ask these. If people believe that they're forgiven already, will they become careless? If they believe that they're already forgiven, that it's already finished, won't they just become careless people and do what they want to do?

SPEAKER_00 40:48

If people know that they're righteous, will they stop pursuing holiness? If people know that God loves them unconditionally, will they abuse that love? Have you noticed how often these questions come up when we talk about grace? These questions come up a lot. The concern is real, it's sincere, but it also reveals something.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

The message is being filtered through a lens, those questions I just read, they're being filtered through a lens of what I call risk management. What is risk management?

SPEAKER_00 41:37

If I do this, what's the risk?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

If I realize that I'm already loved unconditionally, if I realize that I'm already forgiven, will I just live this kind of life? Will people even go to church if they know it's already done? That's the mindset, that's the thinking. If it's already finished, what will that provoke people to do? Will it provoke them to stay out of church?

unknown 42:13

Why?

SPEAKER_01 42:14

Because they ain't got to go do nothing. It's already done. That's what people's asking. That's a fear lens. They fear that if you know this and you have this information, that it will cause you to act a certain way.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

That's fear. The question really becomes how do we keep people from doing wrong?

SPEAKER_01 42:41

All those questions I just asked is really summed up into one. How do we keep people on the right track and keep them from doing wrong?

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Better yet, how do we keep them from burning in hell? That's the ultimate question. How do we keep them from going to hell? But what if that's not the primary question of the gospel? It's okay to question that.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

What if the gospel is not really about behavior management? What if the gospel is about the revelation of our identity in Christ? The revelation of our identity in Christ. Because that's where the finished work perspective begins at. Instead of asking, how do we control behavior? As a finished work person, we start asking, what if behavior flows from identity?

SPEAKER_00 43:50

I mean, think about that just a minute. What if my behavior flows from who I am?

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Think about life in general. Think about the behaviors that people act out on. And most of the time you can trace that behavior back to their identity.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

And I'm not talking about Christianity here, I'm talking about their identity in life.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

We have this mindset and this idea that rich people, and I'm talking about wealthy, wealthy rich people, act a certain way. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Not saying all of them do, but that's the mindset we have.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

I'm not going to go there, but we could break that down because we could get real political with that. Because we think some crazy stuff, and it's not always true. But there's a lot of people out there. You don't believe me. Go online and look at what happened with the shooting. I mean the stabbing that happened in Texas.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

You start seeing this divide of people, of races.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

We won't even go there, but I'm just telling you, there it divides people, and it makes people, you start looking at the lens that people are looking through. And what it's done, this situation has caused a situation to come upon us that is racial when it shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

It should not be. But it's taken us there. And I'm not just talking about people in Texas. People right here in Bacon County. When you get on there and read some Facebook posts, all around here.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

I mean, people talking about things that they're going to do. The behavior that they're going to do, why? Because of the identity of the way they see themselves now. They see themselves as being mistreated. So now I'm going to do this behavior.

The Fear Lens And Behavior Control

SPEAKER_01 46:01

You think a lot of stuff start happening. People's going to start getting hurt really bad. Why? Because of stupid thinking. Not going to be because of racial stuff. It's going to be because of this, because people are not thinking things through. Let me get off of that because that that we could go into that. So instead of asking how do we control behavior, what if we said behavior flows from identity? Think about this. Is the answer to people's struggles really more condemnation?

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Is me telling them that they're going to burn in hell forever?

SPEAKER_01 46:49

I mean, is that is that really gonna make them change? Is that what they need to hear when they're going through a period of struggle and they and they're they're trying to find their identity, their spiritual identity, and they're searching and they they're they're trying, and they're and all of a sudden I'm telling them you need to do this or you're gonna burn?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Really? Now some people would say absolutely, and I would say, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 47:22

That's my opinion, only mine. You're fine to disagree with that, but I don't believe fear and condemnation is gonna help. Maybe they're struggling because they've forgotten who they are, and they're acting like somebody they're not. See, this changes the viewpoint from rebellion to blindness. Why does this why does this matter? Why are we talking about this in 2026? Why does it make a difference? Because the solution always depends on the diagnosis. If we figure out what lens people's looking through, we know now how to approach certain things. We know how to look at scripture in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

We know what questions to ask.

SPEAKER_01 48:15

The solution or the problem is not just always rebellion. And that's what we say sometimes. Oh, they're rebellious, they're being rebellious. If the problem is rebellion, if we look at it and we say that, and I've been told that before, I've been told by a pastor I was being rebellious.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

If it's about rebellion, then the answer is more rules. We need to put more rules on them.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

But if the problem is that we are blind to our true identity in Christ, then revelation becomes necessary.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

They don't need rules, they need understanding of identity, revelation.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

They needed revealing. And that's why the apostles spent so much time reminding believers who they were. Take the book of Ephesians. For three chapters, Paul barely tells believers to do anything. In those three chapters, he never hardly ever says, do this, do that. He doesn't talk about doing stuff. Instead, he tells them who they are. For three chapters, you would have thought he could do that in one chapter. But it took him three chapters. He told them, he said, you are blessed, you're chosen, you're accepted, you're redeemed, you're included, you are loved. Many more things. But that was the main ones. And then, this is what's so amazing. Then, after establishing their identity, after telling them this is who you are, after doing that, he says, walk worthy of the calling which you were called.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

Think about that just a minute. I'm telling you who you are.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

And after I beat your identity into you and keep telling you over and over who you are, then I'm going to turn around and look at you and say, now walk worthy of what I just told you. See, Paul doesn't say behave so you can be accepted. He says you are accepted. Now let your behavior reflect that.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

The lens we look through matters. What Paul was doing really was saying identity first, behavior second.

SPEAKER_01 51:05

Identity first, behavior second. Why? Because identity will shape behavior. When I know who I am, I act a certain way. When I don't know who I am, I act a certain way. It changes behavior.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

We try to change behavior first. Stop doing that. You want to be a Christian? Stop doing that.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

But if I don't realize who I am, then I'm going to keep doing certain behaviors over and over again. And it's not just today with the finished work of Christ, this message that we're preaching. Paul preached grace all through the Bible. He preached grace.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

And people accused him of promoting sin. Listen to his words in Romans 6 and 1. What shall we say then?

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Again, this is one of those that you got to read the before and you've got to read the after. I'm just giving you a little short clip there. People were essentially saying this, and I'm just paraphrasing this. Paul, if you keep preaching too much grace, people will abuse it.

SPEAKER_00 52:43

That sounds so familiar. Paul didn't back away.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

He never backed away from preaching grace. He didn't soften the message of grace. And I'm not either. I'm not claiming to be Paul, but I'm just saying I understand what he's doing, I understand why he did it. He didn't back away from it. And I'm not going to back away from what we're preaching because people don't like it.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Instead, he reminded people of their identity.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

He said, You died with Christ, you were buried with Christ, you were raised with Christ, you are seated with Christ, you are alive in God. That's what he was telling them. Paul's answer wasn't less grace, it was deeper understanding of who you are, deeper understanding of union with God. And that's where I believe much of the difference is, even in today's church. Many people see the Christian life primarily as becoming something. The finished work message simply emphasizes discovering. Discover what's already done. You're not becoming loved. You're discovering that you've always been loved from the very beginning. You're not becoming accepted. You're discovering acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

You've always been accepted.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

See, one focuses on attaining something one day, the other focuses on awakening to something today.

SPEAKER_00 54:31

I can awaken to the reality today.

SPEAKER_01 54:37

And here's why this matters, and I'm gonna get ready to close.

Identity First Then Behavior

SPEAKER_01 54:41

Here's why it matters. Because the lens doesn't just affect theology. You can't just say, well, this is just about church, it's just theology. The lens affects people. This isn't just a discussion about doctrine, church doctrine, and saying, well, the Baptists believe this doctrine, the Methodists believe this doctrine. It's okay. In the end, it's not really gonna matter. It might not in the end, but it matters now. Because it's not just a discussion about doctrine, it's a discussion about people. Because the way people see God eventually becomes the way that they see themselves.

SPEAKER_00 55:30

And we all know people.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

Everybody in this room knows somebody, believers out there who love Jesus.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

I mean, they love Jesus with all their heart. Yet every day they wake up and wonder, have I prayed enough? Have I repented enough? Am I pleasing God or am I falling short? And many of those people aren't living under the burden of sin.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

That's not, we're not looking at them saying they're sinning. They're not living under a burden of sin, they're living under the burden of uncertainty. They don't know who they are. They're exhausted. Not because they're rebellious, but because they're trying to become what God has already declared them to be. And that changes everything. It'll wear you out to keep working every day to try to become something that you on your own there's no way you can become. But you already are, if you'll realize through Christ is finished. A believer who sees God as primarily disappointed will live differently than believer than a believer who sees God as a loving father. A believer who sees Christianity as striving will live differently than one who sees participation in Christ. A believer who believes God, that God's love rises and falls with our performance will live differently than one who believes God loves us fully, completely, and it's been fully revealed through Christ. That's just a different mindset. The lens determines the experience. That's why I love what Peter says, and this is one of the last verses here, but I want you to see this in 1 Peter 2 and 9. I like what he says here.

SPEAKER_00 57:52

But you, everybody say me.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

But you, because this includes you. It wasn't talking to you. Peter was not talking to you in this verse, but he was talking to a group of people, which includes you. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Out of darkness, out of ignorance, into light. Light represents knowledge. You come out of darkness into light, you come out of ignorance into knowledge and understanding.

SPEAKER_00 58:45

Notice Peter doesn't tell them to become these things, he tells them they already are these things.

SPEAKER_01 58:55

Once again, right here, identity precedes behavior. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold, all things have become new. Not becoming, but is.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

Not someday, but now.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Can I do one more verse? Just one more verse, and then I'll promise you I'm gonna close. 2 Corinthians 3 and 18. We can't leave without. We've talked about this one, but it's so important we gotta keep looking at it a minute. But we all with unveiled faith, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. Notice what transforms us in this verse. It's not fear, it's not shame, it's not condemnation, it's not striving, it's beholding. When we behold him, that beholding means seeing, awakening. The clearer we see him, the more we discover who we truly are. Why is that word, I love that word, beholding in there? Because when you think about it, you become like what you behold. Behold your failures and your you're gonna be thinking about your failures all the time. Behold your lack, and you'll become consumed by lack. Behold the glory of Christ, and life in you is gonna change. So we're not we're not debating whether holiness matters. We agree it does. We're not debating whether obedience matters. It does. Transformation matters. The difference is where we believe these things come from.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:17

Do they come from fear? Do they come or do they come from awakening? Let me get to the end here and close.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

My goal is simply to invite people to examine the lens through which they've been reading scripture. That's it. Be open-minded enough to truly look and say, what lens am I looking through? Maybe this is why this verse doesn't make sense to me. Maybe this is why this person and that person have a different interpretation than I got, because they have a different lens. Maybe grace is bigger than what we imagined. Maybe identity is more foundational than what we realized. Does transformation come from, and I just put a question in there, does transformation come from trying harder or seeing more clearly?

Transformation By Beholding Christ

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

We're not going to transform because we put forth more effort. And think about this. This is my closing, but think about this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

What if the reason the New Testament spends so much time telling believers who they are in Christ is because God knew that lasting transformation would always flow from the discovery of our true identity. The gospel was never about changing behavior, it was awakening you to who you have always been in Christ. When you finally see this, when we finally wake up to this, when we finally wake up to the fact that it's finished, and you see yourself the way that He sees you, striving gives way to resting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

The Bible says rest. And we've often asked the question how do we rest? We stop striving.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

It gives way to rest. Fear gives way to confidence, and transformation becomes the natural fruit of seeing what has always been true all along. It's a natural thing. We don't have to force transformation.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

See, sometimes we try to force people to change, but if we teach them who they are, then change naturally occurs.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

Why? Because I see myself differently. And I'm telling you, once you transform on the inside, once you begin to see your identity differently, you don't talk the same anymore, you don't walk the same anymore, you don't you don't think the same. Everything shifts. And when that changes on the inside, then the outside naturally has to shift and change. I don't hang out in the same places I used to.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:35

I don't hang out with the same people that I used to.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

But we need to focus on transformation, which is on the inside, rather than behavior modification, which is on the outside.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:55

It's a process. And it's looking at these things through this through this lens.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:04

How what's people what lens is people using? I don't want to get back on that because I'll keep going, but I want to stop.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

I should have broken this up into two sermons. But it's important.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

It's really important to even ask yourself when I'm reading scripture, what is the question? What is the what is the overriding question that's in the back of my mind that I'm trying to. Now, if you're just reading it just to read, you may not have a question. But if you're reading it to truly study and to truly understand, then there's going to be an underlying question that's there when I'm reading it. What is that question? I challenge you to write it down. What am I reading this with? What lens am I looking through when I'm reading this scripture?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:02

And that'll tell you a lot about yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

But more than anything, it'll tell you too why we can read the same Bible, worship the same God, believe in the same Jesus, read the same scripture, but be on totally different pages when it comes to interpretation. It's the lens that I'm looking through. It ain't one's good and one's bad and one's holy and one's evil.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

It's just a different lens that I'm looking through. When we understand that, it really does shift things.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:41

It's changing the way I think, even about people who come on there and fuss with me on Facebook. I don't even, I don't even argue the same way with them anymore. I had, I mean, I had an awesome response typed up the other day to this guy. I'm telling you, it was good. And then I sit there and said, Why am I gonna waste my time with that? Because he's not gonna see any of that. Not because he's not smart, he was a very smart guy, but because the lens that he's looking through will not allow him to see what I'm saying. And I deleted it. Because it wasn't worth it. Because he was gonna go in there and just pick it apart, pick it apart and say all this, and it wasn't worth it. But I've done that only because I recognized the lens that he's looking through versus the one that I was looking through, and there was different.

A Practical Challenge And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_01 1:07:40

And then finally, some other guy came on there, just out of the blue, don't even know the guy, he was from Colorado. He came on there, he said, told that other guy, he said, This is what Pastor Bryan is saying. He's talking about your identity, learning our identity in Christ. He said, Sometimes you can look at a mountain from a different perspective, which means that you're on that side, you see one thing, I'm on this side, I see something totally different. That's the lens we're looking through. We were looking through a different lens. That's it. I'm telling you, it changes the way you look at situations and people, and I don't get mad anymore about people disagreeing. I used to, boy, it upset me because I wanted to defend my faith. I wanted to show that I was right. I don't. There's sometimes I still get urged to do that, according to who it is. But for the most part, I don't do that anymore. Not to the degree that I want to. Now, I'm still gonna speak up for what I believe. I'm still gonna throw it out there because you never know. They might get something out of what I say and say, hey, that I see what he's saying, and it may help them. So I'm always gonna offer a comment. I'm not just gonna be quiet. You're never gonna shut me up. And I and somebody here is saying, yep, he's right about that. But I had to get this out today. I could not turn this into two messages. So thank y'all for staying. Thank y'all for listening. But we'll get ready to close. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you. We thank you so much for who you are. We thank you for what you're doing in each one of our lives, Father. We thank you for the purpose that you've given us here in this ministry and each one of us in our life personally. But most of all, we thank you for the community that you've placed us in. And I believe the mandate and the and the purpose that you've given this ministry to speak into this community. You've put something in us, you've put us in a certain place, you've given us certain revelation and information, Father, and you've given us the time to just sit back and learn and gain understanding. And we thank you for that, Father. I thank you that you've transformed my mind in different kinds, so many different kinds of ways. I don't see the world the same way. I don't see people the same way anymore. I don't, I'm, I'm not as quick to fight anymore. And now I have a deeper understanding that it's just simply because we see things from a different perspective. And that changes everything. But Father, I thank you so much for that. I thank you for what you're doing here. I just ask you to bless each person who's here today, Father. Bless their homes, their finances, their families, Father, and every word that comes out of their mouth, everything that they put their hands to. We call it blessed in the mighty name of Jesus. And Father, we'll be careful to always give you the praise, honor, and glory in everything in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.