TRANSFORMING or DEFENDING

We talk about the moment our faith shifts from simply reading Scripture to interpreting it, and how that shift reveals the lens and posture we bring to the Bible. We challenge the habit of using verses to defend what we already believe and push toward a Jesus-centered, context-driven way of reading that leads to real transformation and identity in Christ. 
• the difference between Scripture transforming our lens and protecting our lens 
• posture in Bible reading as the driver of humility, openness, and growth 
• selective reading, proof-texting, and “editing” Scripture to stay comfortable 
• why context matters more than our opinion 
• Scripture as a window that reveals God versus a shield that blocks challenge 
• measuring beliefs by whether they look like Jesus 
• John 5:39 and the danger of missing who Scripture points to 
• the finished work of Christ as the filter for reading all of Scripture 
• identity in Christ and helping people see the treasure past the dirt 
• confronting fear-based religion and condemnation that keeps people bound 

I want you to question something. 

Transcript

An Internal Shift In Belief

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, we're gonna get I'm gonna get straight into the word this morning. Um I was thinking about this as I was going over it last night and and going over it this morning. I want to say this off the top. This word this morning can be taken different ways dependent on where you're at, where you're at in your walk with God, where you're at in your thinking right now. It's gonna be dependent on where each one of us is at individually, how we receive this word this morning. Um I hope it don't offend anybody, but I'm gonna be real about some stuff this morning that I believe really that all of us, if we're not there now, we've been there in the past. And hopefully we're we're getting to a different place, but you'll you'll understand in a minute why I've given that disclaimer this morning. But anyway, there's a uh I believe there's a moment in almost every believer's walk where something shifts on the inside of us internally. I'm not talking about things changing on the outside. Uh that happens too. A lot of times as Christians, we change locations a lot. We change churches a lot. Uh we get around different people. Um but what I'm talking about here is something on the inside of us that shifts, an internal shift. I was thinking back about it and trying to think of a way to explain what I'm saying. And the only thing I could do is think back to think back to when you first got saved. And for me, I can remember that scripture felt really simple. I read it, I believed it. There wasn't no, nobody had to convince me of it. I mean, I when I read the scripture, I believed the scripture. I had full trust in everything that I was reading in that word. Complete trust in it. But over time, something started happening. Now I can stop right here and they say, oh, you don't trust the word anymore. No, I trust the word still. But something started happening as I went along. I wasn't just reading scripture anymore, I began to interpret scripture. Big difference in just reading it and then actually digging down in it to interpret what is God's purpose and meaning of this verse. And here's where the two different words here, here's where the danger lies in this, but also the invitation this morning. And they both begin right here. Because there's really, there's really only two directions we can go, and you're gonna see in just a minute. I'm gonna show you two different paths that we can go on. We're either allowing scripture to transform our lens. Now, we've been talking about a lens that we look through, and everybody in this room, whether you realize it or not, we all have a lens that we look through when we read scripture.

Reading Versus Interpreting Scripture

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Nobody can say, oh, I just go to scripture and I just read it because it's the word of God and I trust it. No, every single one of us has experiences. We have circumstances we've lived through, we have teaching from other people that we that's on the inside of us. So every time I open that Bible and I read Scripture, I am looking through a lens that has been shaped by my life experiences, by the teaching that I've been given, and by a host of different things. None of us in here are reading scripture in the same way. That's what I said a while ago. I mean, we are we're reading the same words, but they're taking on different meaning based on where we're coming from. So basically, the two different ways that we can go is we can allow Scripture to transform our lens that we're looking through, or either we're allowing scripture to protect our lens, to transform it, or to protect it. And these two can feel almost identical in the beginning, but they're not, they're totally different. Think about this. Two people open the Bible, both read scripture, both begin to quote scripture, and both of them look and say, This is the word of God, and I believe it. This is the word of God. Now, two different people reading the same scripture, and both of them come out and say, This is the word of God, and I believe it. But internally, something very different is happening. So let's slow down right here just a minute and take a closer look because I believe this is really, really important. When scripture is transforming our lens, when scripture is changing me from the inside out, not the outside in, when scripture is shifting me from the inside out, my lens that I'm looking at scripture through is totally different. Okay? So when uh when scripture is transforming me, there's a certain posture that shows up. When I'm talking about posture, I'm talking about the way uh we position ourselves mentally. When I'm sitting down to read scripture, how am I positioning my mind to receive this word? I can approach this word and say, oh, that just backs up what I already know. Or I can approach that word and say, teach me, God, what I am missing. Show me areas that I'm not getting this right. Teach me something new. Give me some revelation in this that I've never had before.

Two Paths For Your Lens

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Or I can just let it just read it and say, oh, I already knew that. And that's what we do a lot of times. Scripture becomes very familiar to us because we read so many same scriptures over and over, especially here. I use the same scripture a lot. But I use it from different perspectives and we look at it in different ways. So, what kind of posture am I taking? If I'm letting scripture transform my lens, then I'm taking a posture of openness. I'm being open to the word, a posture of humility. I don't know it all. God teach me something different, give me new revelation. There's a willingness in me to say, I may have to rethink some things that I thought I knew already. That's a different posture than a lot of people take. Even when it's uncomfortable. You know, it's not comfortable going back and having somebody look at a scripture that you felt like you always knew what the meaning of it and the purpose of it meant, and then all of a sudden God shakes and turns your world upside down with that same scripture. That is uncomfortable. It's difficult sometimes for us to be able to manage that. But we've got to do it when it's even uncomfortable. Even when it disrupts everything that I thought I always believed. Can I do it anyway? Can I be open? Can I have an openness? Can I have a humility about me? Now, on the other hand, and this is where I'm gonna kind of get bogged down just a minute because I want you to really see the difference here. On the other hand, when scripture is being used to protect a lens, something very different happens. Now, I want you to understand the difference in what I'm saying. If I'm taking a posture that it is transforming my lens, that means that it don't matter what past history that I'm coming to scripture with, it don't matter what I've been through, it don't matter what religion has meant to me in the past, it don't matter how bad religion has hurt me in the past, whatever lens I'm looking through, it don't matter why, because I'm allowing God, I have an openness and a willingness to allow God to transform the lens that I'm looking through. Does that make sense? I'm being open. But then on the other hand, it's very different if I'm approaching it

Openness And Humility In The Word

SPEAKER_00 9:06

from a standpoint of no openness. I'm dead set on what this scripture means. This is what I was taught, and you are not going to change that. Little different posture that I'm taking there. When it's being used to protect the lens, it pretty much means that this is what I was taught, this is what I believe, this is what I will always believe, and it don't matter what I read or what I hear, this is it. That's the posture some people take. That's a protective posture. I'm going to protect what I believe to be the truth, and I really don't care what anybody else says. I know some people like that. Let me go a little further. I used to be like that. Some people would say I'm still like that, and I am to a certain degree, but I'm open now to even somebody saying, no, I think you're misinterpreting that. Okay, let's discuss it. I can be wrong. I'm wrong, I figure out I'm wrong every day on things. But we're gonna discuss it, and my opinion or your opinion is not gonna be the deciding factor. We're gonna look at context and we're gonna say, what is God trying to say here in context? And it's amazing how people all of a sudden don't want to discuss anything when you mention the word context. Why? Because context will override your opinion and my opinion. Okay? And when you start looking at that, people automatically, well, that's what I believe, that's what I think it says, and I'm gonna leave it at that and conversation over. That's a closed-mindedness. This is what I believe, and that's all there is to it. I want us to be somebody who don't say I'm always right, but says, this is what I believe, but I'm willing to open it up, I'm willing to dissect this verse with you. I'm willing to sit here and say, what is the purpose? What was the intent? What is the context? What does it really mean? And guess what? If my opinion on this verse changes, thank you, God, for the revelation. I'm not mad because I I'm not gonna sit here and say, well, I was wrong and beat myself up. Thank you, God, for the revelation that I now have on understanding this verse. That's a different posture. A lot of people don't want to take that posture. We want to be right. So that's something very different. Now I'm gonna use the word we right here as I'm describing this. We is very inclusive. We, we means that we're all included in it, and that way I'm not separating anybody out and trying to say, well, you know, well, well, Cynthia knows this, but Kim don't know this. We're not we're not gonna exclude anybody, so we're gonna say we and put everybody in here with this. But I want you to listen to this because this is what I feel like happens. And I believe that we've all been here, even if you're not here right now, maybe you've advanced a little bit personally, but you've probably been here in the past. We start reading scripture. Now, this is going back to saying if I have a protected lens, if I'm, if I'm, if my posture is just to protect what I've always believed, and I'm not open and I'm not willing to listen to anything else. This is what happens. We start reading scripture selectively. Now, if you if you hear something that's that hits home with you, you ain't got to raise your hand because some of this is gonna hit home with you, I promise. Because it did with me. We start reading scripture selectively. We don't usually notice it in the very beginning. It feels like we're being faithful to scripture. I'm reading my Bible every day. But what we start doing is we start selecting

When Scripture Protects A Closed Mind

SPEAKER_00 13:40

certain verses out of the Bible. And slowly, certain verses stand out more than other verses do. They speak a little bit louder than other verses. And it's not because they're more important, but it's because they're more comfortable for what we already believe. So we start selectively grabbing on to verses that automatically accommodate what my belief already is. You know why people do that? Because it's real comfortable. If I choose things that already agree with where I stand, it don't push me. It don't challenge me, it don't make me think. I'm just comfortable. And the reason that people do this a lot of times is because a level of comfort. They don't want to be pushed to dig deeper, they don't want to be pushed to think a little bit further than they've ever thought before. So we begin to focus on what agrees with us, and we overlook the verses that disagree with us. We often try to explain away any verse that creates questions. Anybody been there? Don't say nothing. I've been there. And over time, scripture's no longer something that leads us. We should be led by scripture, but it's no longer something that leads us. We actually become the editor, and we begin editing what we want Scripture to say. I've been there. You find me any topic that you want to talk about, and I can find you a scripture, twist it, turn it, manipulate it to say exactly what I want it to say. I'm not saying it's right to do that, but people's been doing it for years. I can hear, I can go online now and listen to somebody preach. And it's like they will pick a topic and say, I'm gonna preach on this today, and then they'll find every scripture they can find to support their topic. And it may be very good supporting scripture. I'm not saying it's not. But instead of letting scripture speak, we're just letting scripture, we're pulling certain selective verses out to support it. And we're all, I'm not bashing anybody. I'm guilty of that. I do that. It's easy to do that. I'm just putting some of these things out there to challenge you this morning, to get you out of that norm that we get stuck in sometimes of just saying, this is the word of God, and I'm gonna believe the word of God, and nobody's gonna challenge the word of God. Listen, if the word of God is not challenging you, you better wake up. If you are just reading it and it does not challenge you at all, there's an issue there. Because you do not know it all. Now that may be a surprise to some of us, but you do not have all the answers. So therefore, if the word does not challenge you, then it might be the posture that you're taking. And I know that's hard for some people to hear. But over time, Scripture begins just to be comfortable to us instead of leading us and pushing us and moving us to a new place. What we start doing is we start organizing verses around what we already believe. We build a framework. Think about it like this. We build a framework, and then scripture is placed into that framework like puzzle pieces.

Selective Verses And Edited Theology

SPEAKER_00 18:10

And they conform to the picture that we've already decided is correct. This is what I believe, this is what I stand on, and I'm gonna find every scripture that supports it, and I'm gonna use that. But any scripture that challenges that, that's a problem. This is this is a tough place to be. Because again, every single person in this room has been in this position, some of you may still be there, and that's okay. Because when we do that and we use those scriptures like puzzle pieces to fit a narrative and to produce a picture that we already have in our mind, what happens when somebody else teaches something that doesn't fit? What happens when somebody else stands up and challenges what you just said? Oh, that guy over there at the Rock Worship Center boy, he's preaching all kinds of heresy. He is so far out there, he's preaching this new age stuff. Those are the things that said. I could care less, but those are the things that said. And for people who don't know and just believe it because somebody said it, that's where I'm at. I want people to hear the whole message and to understand what we're saying. We're not preaching heresy, we're not misapplying scripture to try to fit what we want. And what happens is we start defending a conclusion instead of being formed by the word of God and transformed by the word of God. And this is again, this is tough. It's hard sometimes to break out of that. And this this is a major, major shift because now the goal is no longer what is God revealing to me. The goal becomes how do I protect what I already believe about God? I go in protective mode, and I have my belief about God, and I have my belief about heaven, and I have my belief about hell, and I have my belief about tribulation, and I have my belief about all, you know, escape it up into the sky, the rapture. I have my belief on that, and nothing you say, if you say anything that challenges that, even if it's biblical, even if what I'm saying cannot be found anywhere in the Bible, I'm gonna stand on it anyway. Don't you bring your Bible and try to shoot it down. That happens. A lot of this stuff that's being taught, you will not find in any of the 66 books in your Bible. But yet we continue to teach it as the gospel. And then when somebody else brings Scripture and says, Let me show you what Scripture says, we we have a problem with it. And this is one of those things that's I don't know, maybe it's just God has gotten me in this place right now, but man, He is pushing me in this area. To come up against that, not in a mean way, but just in an open people's eyes way. And I don't see nothing wrong with that if you do it in the right way. And once this happens and our goal changes, something takes place in our mindset. We stop coming to Scripture hungry. You remember when you first got born again, you first got in the Word, man, it's like every time you opened Scripture up, you was just hungry for something. God show me something, teach me something. Especially if you didn't grow up in church and you was coming to it, I mean, you didn't know anything, and all of a sudden, man, every time you got in the word, God was just pouring it out to you. It was so amazing. And what happens is when we go into protective mode where we're just trying to protect what I believe, we stop coming to Scripture hungry. And we start going to it with a mindset of I'm just going to find verses that support what I already believe. That's it. I would say we stop coming hungry and we we start coming guarded. We're guarding against anything that tries to come up against what I believe. So I'm always on guard. I put walls up. We're no longer open

Context Over Opinion

SPEAKER_00 23:40

to being reshaped. Now we're invested in not letting what we believe be disrupted. And this is difficult for me personally. Because I've said this before, and I don't mean this in a negative way. I mean this in the most positive way possible. I believe God has called not just me, but others. I can just speak for me though. I believe God has called me to be a disruptor. I believe he's anointed me to be a disruptor, not in a negative sense, but in a positive sense. And I've always felt that. I'm not just saying that today. I've always said that. I've always, I hate religion. I can't stand religion that tears people down and keeps people in bondage. And from the time I got saved, you know, 20-something years ago, I can remember when I heard something that kept people in bondage, even if it sounded religious, I mean sounded spiritual, man, something in me just moved. I wanted to come up against it. I've always been like that. And I'm probably not going to change. My process of how I approach it has changed. Because used to, I done it the wrong way. So the process has changed now, but the fact that you know we're disruptors, I believe we're called to be. I believe Jesus was a disruptor. For some of y'all who saying, oh, that's negative. No, Jesus, he disrupted the religious stuff that was going on. And he didn't mind doing it. He would go into a place and say, Well, I see what's been taught here, I see what's going on here, but let me tell you this. And he would totally flip it and turn it upside down. And totally contradict what was being taught by the religious people. Even though they were the biblical scholars of the day, they were misinterpreting the word. So without even realizing it sometimes, scripture stops being a window. Scripture should be a window. And you think about a window. What is a window? A window is something you look through to see what is beyond. Okay? It lets light in. Light represents knowledge. It expands your vision. If you're standing in a room like this room, we can't see beyond this room. But if we put a window outside on this wall right here, you can sit here and see beyond the walls of this room. That's what the purpose of a window is. But when the lens is no longer open, the window takes on a new function. It becomes a shield. A shield's different than a window. A shield is not about seeing clearly. A shield is about protecting what I've already assumed to be true. And every time you try to come at me with something that is threatening my belief, boom, boom, boom, I'm just going to block it off. Who cares if it might be the truth, what you're saying? Who cares if you can support it with Scripture? It is coming against what I believe. So I have to boom shield it and guard it off. So now scripture's no longer revealing God. It's being used to defend a version of God we already constructed. I want us to be different. I

Window Or Shield What Scripture Becomes

SPEAKER_00 27:55

want Scripture to reveal something to us. Not just be used to defend a belief that I already have. Let your belief be challenged. And some people would say, you know, they would argue that. If I know it's the truth, I don't mind the challenge. It's when I'm not sure that I'm scared of somebody else's opinion. But if I stand on something and I know it's the truth and I believe it with everything in me, your questions don't bother me. We should be asking each other questions. That's what we do on Wednesday nights. That's what I want you to do when you leave here. I want you to question something. We're not questioning God by doing that. We're questioning the lens that we're looking through in what posture. What posture are we taking? And when Scripture no longer reveals God, but it's used to defend a version of God that I've already got constructed in my mind, this can be a big problem. Because at that point, Scripture, it may still be honored. You may still honor Scripture, you may still quote it, you may still defend it, but its primary function has changed. It's now becoming a defense system. Has any of you ever used the word to defend rather than to reveal? I have. His word stands on its own.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Okay. He doesn't need me to prove it correct.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

And that's the mindset that we take so often. Instead of forming us, the word begins fortifying us. And those are those are not the same thing. One keeps us open, the other keeps us secure and locked away. One transforms us, the other rejects while still sounding spiritual. And this is why, if you think about Jesus' words, and you go back and you look at all the different things he spoke throughout the Word, this is why his words become so important. Number one, whatever I believe has to, I have to go back and say, does it point to Jesus? Does it look like Jesus? I don't care what you say, what you believe, and how long you believed it. If it don't look like Jesus, I'll come against it every day. Because the word has got to point back and look like Him. And there's certain things that we have turned into gospel that never, it don't look anything like Jesus Christ. I'm not going to go into them, you know. But there's a lot of things we believe and we call gospel, and it don't look anything like Jesus. And those kind of things, they challenge me. They anger me when I hear them. A righteous anger. I get upset with them because I keep thinking other people's hearing this and they're believing this. You know, there's I mean, there's people that are teaching, you know, how angry God is at us.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

God is love.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

The word says God is love. And this is a this is a topic that's is tough to get into because there's a lot of different things that we can look at. I believe we can do things that's not right. We can do things that God's not pleased with. But I can tell you, there's not a single thing that my son could ever do that would make him stop being my son. But every day in the church, we are kicking people out. And I don't mean the physical building, I mean kicking them out of our group and saying that God has distanced himself from them because of what they've done. And I'm bold enough to stand up and say, that ain't Jesus. That doesn't look like Jesus.

If It Does Not Look Like Jesus

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Now you may pull a few scriptures out and try to support it, but that's not Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

He's love.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

And again, if you go back and you look at him, because all through the Bible, a lot of times when he was speaking to people, he was not speaking to people who was ignoring Scripture. He was speaking to people who built their identity around Scripture. But they missed the person that it was pointing to. And maybe that's the question that that's really sitting underneath all of this, and we're kind of pushing where we're at right now. At what point does our commitment to be right about Scripture become a barrier to being changed by God? And we do that all the time. We're so adamant that we're just gonna be right. That we don't allow God to just change us and reveal something different, new to us. I'm gonna pull this verse up again. I tell you, I told you a while ago, I used a lot of the same verses, but it's so important. In John chapter 5, verse 39. We've read the scripture so many times, but I can't get away from it. This is Jesus talking to the religious people. He's talking to the biblical scholars. And he said, You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me. In other words, you can be committed to the text of the Bible, you can be committed to the book, to the Bible, and still resist the truth that it's revealing. How many times do we know people that read scripture? They quote scripture, they they know it, but they're missing the one that it's pointing to. That should unsettle us a little bit. And it does me. That's one of those things that makes me want to challenge it. That's just who I am. I want to come up against that. And when I say it should unsettle us, I'm not talking about producing fear in us. But it should it should produce an honesty in us. So when I say that it pushes me to want to challenge people, not challenge them is so I can say I'm right, but challenge them because I believe that people need to hear the truth. And if something is being misinterpreted, then something in me is just motivating me to say, no, show them, show them what script that that scripture is being misapplied. Show them how they're misunderstanding that scripture. That brings out the teacher in me. I want to break the word down. I want to teach them what that word means and show them what this scripture is actually saying. Because I believe also that it's it's uh it's saying something real that people don't really want to admit. And it's this. I believe it is possible. Now listen to this so you don't misinterpret what I'm saying here. I believe it's possible to use scripture, your Bible, the book. Some people would say the word, but we know Jesus is the word. That's a book. It's a book that points to the word of God, but it's still a book. But I believe that we can use scripture in a way that keeps us from seeing God clearly. Oh my God, he's preaching heresy again. He's saying that the Bible is going to move you away from Jesus. That ain't what I said. But I believe, and this question comes up, somebody said something Wednesday night in here, and this question came up, and I thought, what about the people who are reading scripture daily? They are committed to the Word of God. But they're misinterpreting everything they read. Not because they're unintelligent, but because that's the way they've always been taught.

John 5 And Missing The Point

SPEAKER_00 38:53

So everything they're reading, even though they have a level of a commitment that is awesome, if they're reading it out of context and they're reading it through the wrong lens, is it helping them or hurting them? That's what I mean by. Now, I would never tell nobody, quit reading the word, obviously. But I'm throwing this out there to kind of push us to think a little bit further on this. Because I do. I believe it's possible to use scripture in a way that keeps us from seeing God clearly. And if that's true, then this next question becomes unavoidable. What determines whether Scripture is transforming us or being used to defend us? Am I allowing Scripture to transform me, to shape me, to mold me into what I'm supposed to be through Christ? Or am I just using Scripture to defend a position that I've always been taught? Whether it's right or not. I want us to let the Word of God transform us. It should teach us something. I don't care how long you've been reading the Bible. Every time you go in Scripture, it should show you something different. Some revelation that you've never seen before. And when we ask that question, what determines whether Scripture is transforming or defending us? This ain't got nothing to do with intelligence or education. It's not even about sincerity. This person's sincere in the word, this person's not. It ain't even got nothing to do with that. It's posture. What's the mindset that I'm taking? What's the posture that I'm taking when I open up that word? When I open up the Bible and begin to read. What posture am I taking? Because that posture is going to determine the lens that I read it through. Let me say it another way. And I kind of alluded to this earlier, but this just makes sense. Two people can read the same verse. One reads it and says, Lord, show me what I'm missing. Show me where I can grow. The other person reads that same verse and says, Well, this confirms what I already know. Two different postures. Same verse, different posture. And posture determines transformation. So it's not about whether I believe the Bible. Most people do. I hope everybody in this room believes in the Bible and believes what the Bible says. That's not a question about that. The deeper question is when I read Scripture, am I willing to be changed by what I see, even if it's challenging what I've always believed? Am I willing to let it just shake me? When we got into the finished work and really started understanding that, I'm telling you, there's a shaking that has to take place. Some people's not there yet. So you may not understand what I'm saying. But there is a shaking that has to take place. And shake some, can I say it, shake some crap out of you that used to be there that you always stood on, that you said you would never let go of. Some of that had to be shaken away so that you could grab on to something different.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

And that's a hard place to be.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

Now they that's what they believed because that's all they knew at the time. So I will not say Granny was wrong, but Granny talked to a level of her understanding. And you know what? Granny always wanted me to surpass her. She wanted me to go higher than her. Granddaddy wanted me to go higher than him. I want my child to go higher than me. So guess what? I'm not being disrespectful. Granny's

Posture Creates Transformation

SPEAKER_00 44:30

up there cheering right now, saying he's gone further than me. He's got deeper revelation than what I had. Because we got more information to go on. We should have deeper revelation. If somebody does not get revelation in today's society, it's because they just don't want it. I mean, that's just the truth. They just don't want it because pull your phone out and ask anything you want to ask. Study anything you want to study. Don't matter where you're at, you can be in your car, you can be on a bus, you can be in a grocery store, you can be anywhere, and you've got that technology right there.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

And you can ask it anything.

SPEAKER_00 45:23

Transformation, I believe, requires friction. There's gonna have to be some things that come up against what you believe. If nothing ever challenges your lens that you're looking through, then nothing will ever change your lens. You're always gonna be looking through that same. If I think God's just an old angry God, you know, every time I read scripture, you know what I see in scripture?

SPEAKER_01 45:58

Anger. And I search out verses that show that he's angry.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

He killed this group and he killed that group and he done this and he done that. And yeah, you went all the way back to the Old Testament. Well, we're living in a new covenant. But don't worry. Why? Because you had to go all the way back to find verses to justify what you believe. I believe he's a good God. And then when you say, Well, I think he's angry, and I think this, and I say what he says here, God is love. God chose you before the foundation of the world. He looked at you and said, I'm gonna create you in my image after my likeness. I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

I mean, where does those verses fit in? With angry God.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

We have to choose which one we're gonna accept. And based on the lens I'm looking through, if I'm looking through that lens of anger and all that, that's what I'm gonna see. But you know, the more that I've studied and looked at the finished work of Christ, now when I approach scripture, everything I look at is filtered through a lens of the finished work of Christ. Every scripture. And that's why when I look now, I see scripture in all of Scripture, even the Old Testament. Because I'm guilty now. When I first got into New Covenant, I used to just think, man, take the Old Testament and throw it away. Back then that was my thought process. It don't mean nothing to me. Now I can go back and pull Old Testament scripture and show you why and how it is pointing straight to Jesus. It had its purpose. But see, I can see that now because even when I approach Old Testament, I'm still approaching it through a lens of finished work.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Whatever lens I look through, that's what I'm gonna find in the scripture.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

And we got too many people looking through an angry lens. And that's why they see an angry God. That's why they see condemnation. That's why they see guilt. That's why they see God, I don't want to get on this. But that's why, you know, they take these scriptures and they read them out of context, and it makes what Jesus done on the cross almost nothing. It may sound crazy that I'm saying that, but can we just stop a minute, not be religious, just use common sense? He went to the cross and he said, All died. He died, we've all died with him. We died with him, we were buried with him, we were resurrected with him, and now we're seated with him in heavenly places. He did that. He went to the cross for us. He died on the cross for you while you were yet a sinner. Well, he died for the ones that's got it together. That ain't what the Bible said. While you were yet a sinner, while you were yet somebody who had a distorted image, he died for you. To do what? To turn you back to the Father. He did this

Finished Work As The Filter

SPEAKER_00 50:10

for humanity, for all, not for one, not for a few, not for what religion it says of 450 or whatever, 450,000. He didn't do it for a select few, he done it for all. And most Christians will say, I believe that, brother preach, and then they'll step right over here and tell you that two-thirds of the people that he died for is gonna burn in hell.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

If two-thirds of the people is gonna burn in hell, then he wasn't very successful with what he did on the cross.

SPEAKER_00 50:55

Either this was sufficient or it was not. I just happen to believe it was sufficient. I teach that it was sufficient. I will always preach that it was sufficient. And I cannot say it is sufficient, but he's gonna fail. Let me move on, because if we get on that, we'll stay on that. There's just too many things we just need to open our eyes and just use common sense with when we're speaking about scripture. Let me get ready to close here. Scripture sometimes I think becomes too familiar. But when it comes becomes too familiar, it it stops sometimes being transformational. It's comfortable, but it's not confronting anymore. We read it, but it doesn't really reveal anything to us anymore. And I think this is where looking back to Jesus becomes so important again, like we said earlier. Because he doesn't just come to affirm what people already thought about God, he comes to reveal what they were missing about God all along. He said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You want to know what God looks like? Look at Jesus. You want to know what the character of God is? See, I've heard that cop out so many times of you'll say something, somebody say, Well, you don't really know what God thinks. Yeah, I do. Because I know what Jesus thought. Why? Because it says in the scripture. And he says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I am the replica of the Father. What that you see me do, I only do what I've seen him do. I only say what I've heard him say. So I would look at somebody and say, is that scripture? Do you believe that? If that's the truth, if we believe it's scripture, then I have to look and point everything back to Jesus. And I can't use a cop out and say, Well, that ain't, you don't really know what God meant. Yes, we do. That's the purpose of Jesus coming. That was the purpose of the three and a half years here on earth. To let people see. See, I picture him walking around down here on this earth. You know, other people's got their own image of him. I picture him walking around just having a good time, man, just tearing down religious walls and just saying, this is what it's like in daddy's house. Watch me. Don't take your eyes off of me. You want to know my daddy, you keep your eyes on me. And that's pretty much what he said. I put it in my own words, but that's what he said. If you want to know him, God, keep your eyes on Jesus. He comes to reveal what they were missing about God. And sometimes that means the word doesn't just comfort us. The word can be very comforting, but sometimes it's not there to comfort us. Sometimes it's there to confront us. There's another verse in the Bible. It says, Jesus was the rock of offense. Every time Jesus spoke, his words offended people. Religious people. Why? Because what he was saying did not line up with what they were teaching people. And every time he opened his mouth, it offended somebody. He was the rock of offense. So the word should offend us sometimes. I want it to offend me. If I am wrong in an area, and I guarantee you, I promise you, in a month from now, I'm going to come back and say, you know, I got a deeper revelation than what I taught you a month ago. I wasn't wrong, but more revelation comes. So I want God to confront me with the word, convict me with the word.

SPEAKER_01 55:31

Show me the areas that I may be off.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

We gotta want that. So sometimes that means it's not just comforting, but it's confronting while you're reading it. Am I allowing scripture to reshape me? Or am I only letting it reinforce what I believe? Because one leads to transformation and the other leads to confirmation without change. If my mindset is I'm just going to read this word to confirm that I'm right, that's a wrong,

Identity In Christ Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 56:10

that's that's a difficult posture to be in. But if I'm reading this word, and my posture is, God transform me from the inside out. Whatever is in me that may be off, whatever's in me that's wrong, get it out, change it, fix it, reshape me, real remold me into everything that you created me to be. And can I tell you this? Jesus ain't coming back to the cross again. So when I use the words, teach me who I am, I'm not saying Jesus come back and do it again. I'm saying show me who I am because of what he's already done. Finished work. He's finished the work, and I am a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. But maybe I don't see it yet. That's why we say it is our job to wake people up to what? To their identity in Christ. I look at everybody now, and I don't care what they've been through, I don't care what they look like, I don't care what they may have going on in their life. I see the word of God in them. I see what God has put in them. I see them as a child of God. And if we can just shake them a little bit and say, wake up. That addict is not who you are. Alcoholic is not who you are. Child of God is who you are. Now let's change what you're looking at. Let's change your perception and get you focused on who you really are. That's what our job is. Well, brother, he's done so much. You just don't know all the bad stuff that he done. Nah, maybe I don't, but I know all the good stuff that he's done. That's a posture that I'm taking. The posture I take is I'm gonna look here before I find all the dirt in you. Because it, that's why I can say this, I say it all the time, but maybe now you'll understand what I'm saying. I don't care what you've been through. I don't care how bad it's been, I don't care, it don't matter. Because what he done was more than enough. And if I choose to take that posture, then I'm always, always gonna look for the good before I start digging for the negative. Is the negative there? You better believe it. We all got it. We all got some things that you would not want to come up here and talk to the congregation about. But we don't have to anymore. Why? Because Jesus finished the work. And now all we got to do is we gotta wake up to the fact of who I am in Christ. That's the difference. Am I allowing Scripture to reshape me or just reinforce me? See, I don't believe Jesus is after a more confident version of an old lens. I don't believe he's looking at me and saying, I just want you to be more confident in what you used to believe. No, I want to reshape you, I want to give you new revelation. See, sometimes we want to just polish up the old. That ain't the approach God took. He didn't say clean up the old. He said you are a new. Somebody needs to catch that revelation. It did not say you are a renewed creation, you are a new creation.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:09

Old has passed away. Behold, all things have become fixed.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

No, new. Can you imagine if we actually began seeing that in ourselves? Can you imagine if I took that mindset and I took that perception with everybody that I looked at? How it would be different. Instead of seeing all the bad, I can look at them no matter how bad they are and say, man, they are a new creation. There's something on the inside. Can I just help wake them up to it? Because they don't see it right now. They are too buried in the dirt, they're buried in the chaos, they're buried in all the accusations, they're buried in the guilt. And sometimes, I said I worded this before, and I wrote a sermon on this before. We need to be Christian excavators. Sometimes we need to look at somebody and we need to go over there and we need to dig and dig and dig and help them get down to that truth and to that treasure. The Bible says there's treasure in earth and vessel. We need to sometimes dig through the trash, dig through the dirt, and help somebody find their treasure. Help them see who God called them to be. Because everybody else is just seeing the dirt. But I use the example all the time. If you're going, you got a metal detector and you're going along and you're, and all of a sudden that thing says B, beep, beep, beep, beep. You don't reach down and grab the treasure. You're digging the dirt. Why? Because the treasure is buried. And you gotta get your hands dirty. Sometimes we need to be the ones who help dig the dirt off of somebody. Look past the dirt to find the treasure. We can't see treasure because we're too busy looking at the dirt. He's called us to be different than that.

Digging Past Dirt To Find Treasure

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

When we look at finished work, when we look at who we're called to be, that is who we are. We look beyond all that mess. So he didn't call me just to be a cleaned up version. I'm a new creation. He's forming something new in us entirely. So the question remains, and it's one we have to be honest about. Are we allowing scripture to transform our lens or using scripture to protect a lens that I'm unwilling to let go of? Because whichever one we choose is shaping the kind of person that we're becoming. I don't look at P, I don't even look at it anymore as I mean, somebody can read a scripture that I'm reading and they can have a totally different interpretation of that scripture. I don't even look at it anymore as in right and wrong. I don't look at them and say, oh, they're wrong or I'm right or whatever. I truly look at it now and say, okay, what lens are they looking through? Why are they seeing so much condemnation when they read the Word of God? Why is there so much guilt and fear? I don't see any fear when I read the Bible. I truly don't. But that's because the posture that I've taken when I read it. I don't see him as an angry God that's out to whip me because I've done something bad. So therefore, I'm not fearful of him. Listen, I make mistakes, I've made mistakes, I still make them, and I promise you next week I'm probably gonna make a few more. But I still know who I am, and I still believe that when he said, I'll never leave you nor forsake you, there's not part of the verse missing that says, unless you do this. No, he said he'll never leave me nor forsake me. Even when I do stupid stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:43

People don't want to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

Oh, Pastor Brown's just giving them a license just to go out and sin, do whatever they want to do, live how you want to live. That is not what I'm saying. At all. Because I believe that you'll get to a point when you understand your identity in Christ, that those things, they won't be a desire to do those things anymore. But let's stop those things from the inside out, not from the outside in. Just telling you to stop it is not gonna fix it. It might, it might fix it temporarily, but did anything change on the inside? We want to go in reverse order. We want to fix the inside, and boom, now it changes things on the outside. That's the order it's supposed to be in. But church has taught us to do it differently. Church has taught us to look at the exterior first. Stop doing that behavior. Stop doing this, stop doing that. Then you can come to church. Then, if you stay in church long enough, maybe you can come to the altar and then you can get saved. And if you we're gonna check. After you get saved, we're gonna watch you, we're gonna put you on the watch list for a few weeks. And then if you done good, we'll baptize you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

Really? I mean, did I really need your altar to get saved anyway?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:23

Do I really need you to dunk me underwater? I need to quit.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

God saved me. Man didn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

I mean, I've I've literally had pastors, I'm calling local pastors, that said I shouldn't be preaching the word because I'm divorced and remarried. That I'm not a real pastor. You know what my response was? You didn't call me. You can't reject me. God called me. Because there's probably some things I could pick apart in their life. But I don't, I'm not going to. But can I tell you, I struggled. I struggled with that for a while. After

Fear Based Religion And Real Ministry

SPEAKER_00 1:07:25

it was first said.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:28

And I began to doubt myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:33

And I began to question that, God, did you really call me? Because I mean, maybe I'm not qualified. You got to meet certain expectations, and I didn't meet that expectation. Did you really? Did you really call me? But see, I knew down on the inside, I knew I was called. But I was letting man decide. Man didn't call me. And man don't have the right to. They can reject me if they want, but it don't do any good because I don't listen to it anymore. I don't know why I'm telling these stories. I guess because, you know, the finished word gives us confidence. It gives us a something on the inside of us that I don't worry about anything else. I don't worry what anybody says. I don't worry about what I worry what people hear. And what I mean by that is when people's hearing things, that's when it sparks something in me, and I want to go and correct it. It burns me up that there's people sitting in churches this morning all across Bacon County and all across this nation that's fearful. Fearful that they're going to walk out of this church and there's a slight chance they might stump their toe, say a bad word, die, and go to hell after they've been living for God their entire life. Walk out of church, stump my toe, say an ugly word, fall over dead, and I'm gonna burn the rest of my life for eternity. You know how stupid that sounds? Can I say that? Is that okay to say in church? Do you know how dumb that sounds? You know why? Because that is dumb. That is not the word of God. I am being too real this morning. We may not even better put this one on Facebook. That is crazy. But we have people believing that. And they are living their life in absolute fear that they may make a mistake, and that in the very end they might not make it through the pearly gates.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:53

I don't want to live life like that. Well, brother, you never preach on hell. No, I don't. Not going there anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:07

Why am I gonna preach to people about it? I mean, the purpose of you being in church and being here is the fact that you're supposed to miss it. So why are we gonna sit here and tell you every day about something that you're not even going to? That's crazy. Why? Because that puts fear in people if I preach on it. And fear sells. Fear works. Fear. Fear will fill up an offering plate.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:39

Fear will fill the seats. But we don't gonna preach fear. I'd rather you be understand who you are.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:02

Let me stop. I'm gonna get myself in trouble. I mean, we gotta confront some of this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

We gotta be willing to confront it. And why am I saying it to you guys? Because you gotta be willing to confront it too. It ain't just my job. He called the saints to do the work of the ministry. Not the pastor.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:41

The saints are equipped to do the work of the ministry. What is the work of the ministry? To me, the work of the ministry is to turn people back to who they are in Christ, to give them truth, to take them out of sin, out of a distorted nature, a distorted image of who they are, and tell them the truth about their identity in Christ. Let's pray.

Prayer And Final Charge

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Father God, we thank you. We thank you for your word. We thank you for what you're doing in this area, Father, what you're doing in this ministry. We thank you, Father, for the boldness that you allow us to speak with, for the clarity that you bring to each one of the words that we speak, Father. I pray that there's, even as there's questions, Father, that you answer them, that you speak to each person in here as they have questions, Father. Give them answers. Give them revelation. And Father, I pray that even as these messages go online, that they are opened up to more people. They go across the page to more people, Father. And that this word does not come across in an arrogant way or a bold way, Father, but it comes across as truth. That it opens the eyes of somebody who's bound, that it just gives truth to somebody who's been living in a place of uh of anger, in a place of fear, in a place of doubt. So, Father, I just pray that as these words go online, that you just send them to the right people, allow the right people to have access to them, Father. The short clips that we do just begin to begin to get into the right people's hands, Father. And we'll just continue to preach your word with boldness. We're not gonna back down from what we're speaking. We're just gonna sometimes be careful of how we do it and the process of it. But we're gonna continue to be bold. We're gonna continue to speak your word and challenge people and question people, including ourselves. It begins here in the house of God. And it will always begin in this house, Father. But I pray for every person that you open up their ears, Father, to hear your word, to hear the revelation that you're given to us. I pray that you open up their eyes to see, Father, bless them everything they do, everything that they touch, every word that they speak. We just call them blessed in the name of Jesus. And Father, we'll be careful to give you the praise, the honor, and the glory in everything. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.