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Hearts On Fire, Not Polished Cups (October 26, 2025)

• Organic Church • Season 2 • Episode 52

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If faith ever felt like an act you couldn’t keep up, this conversation is your deep breath. We take a hard look at the spirit of religion—the subtle counterfeit that loves clean cups and ignores messy hearts—and we trade it for a living relationship with Jesus marked by conviction, not condemnation. Grounded in Matthew 23 and 2 Timothy 3:5, we unpack why polished behavior can’t replace spiritual power, and how a genuine move of the Holy Spirit reshapes motives, speech, and habits from the inside out.

We share candid stories from the altar and the parking lot to expose how easy it is to perform holiness while resisting transformation. You’ll hear practical guidance on repentance that sticks, prayer that flourishes in private, and boundaries that protect your walk without shaming others. We wrestle with the urge for revenge, the pain of broken expectations, and the difference between correcting in love and condemning in pride. Along the way, we keep pointing away from self and back to Jesus—the only one who cleans what we cannot.

This episode invites you to tear down the altar of performance and build an altar of relationship. Expect straight talk about motives in ministry, why “fake fire” burns out, and how to “worship in Spirit and in truth” today, not someday. If you’re ready to move from optics to authenticity, from walls to bridges, and from denomination-building to disciple-making, you’ll find both challenge and comfort here. Join us, reflect honestly, and take one obedient step forward. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs courage, and leave a review so more people can find a faith that’s real and alive.

SPEAKER_00:

Father, we thank you and we praise you for the move of the Spirit to rest in the house today, Lord. Right now I am praying for hearts on fire. Lord, that as your word is spoken, that this body of believers come alive today, Father God, that we don't sit in our seats just listening to the words, Father, but that our hearts are absorbing those words, that we are prepared for the moves that you are making in our lives. Father, I cast out all doubt, all fear today, sorrow, shame, whatever it may be, Father, I am praying for renewal for the people of this house. Lord, bless us as we move forward with your worship. Father, just give us all of the understanding of your word. Father, I just pray that today, as we as we preach the gospel, Father, that as the ears hear, that they hear words directly from you. Lord, allow your spirit to flow in the mighty name of Jesus. And the church says, Amen. Amen. We'll let the kids head over to class. And as they do that, I did forget to mention something sort of important this morning. Um, we've been talking about this uh children's ministry director position, and I've had a couple of people interested. And I had two people come to me who are interested in the position that had this idea, and it's an idea that we have desired for a long time. So we've agreed to let these two go hog wild with this idea. This year at the Christmas party, we are going to have a children's pageant. We're gonna nobody's excited about this. We're gonna let the kids tell the Christmas story. And so if you are interested in having your children involved, you're gonna see Christy or you're going to see Jenny sooner rather than later. Because we're gonna fill parts and we're gonna start practicing with the kids every other week so that we can start getting a feel for what we're gonna do. Now, I have read the script, and let me tell you, this is gonna be fun. This is gonna, it's gonna be cute. We're going to love it. And honestly, we're getting to the point where there are so many kids we gotta do something with them, right? They aren't old enough to mow the grass yet. If they were, that's what we'd have them do, but we're gonna let them do this instead. She's got baby Jesus. Sold. I was just gonna use a baby doll in case it got dropped, but I mean, I guess that's not my responsibility. I don't know. All right, church, I've got a passage of scripture I want to start with this morning. It's Matthew 23, it's uh verses 25 through 28. And it reads something like this it says, What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites? For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy, full of greed and self-indul indulgence. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness. That's a tough statement. Amen? Jesus is speaking to the leaders of religious law and to the Pharisees, and he's telling them that you are so obsessed with custom and tradition, right? That you will make sure you wash your hands and you will make sure that the cup and the dish are clean, but inside you have no idea what's going on. Inside, you are lawless and you are hypocrites. Amen. I have always preached this and I believe this. I believe that organic church is a church for the hypocrite. I believe that we are a church for the broken, we are a church for the lost. Amen. So can I tell you that today I am not preaching to those people? Today I want to preach to the people who are in this building who cut so sinners, you're off the hook today. Is that fair? If you're visiting for the first time and you're like, I hope this guy doesn't point me out, trust me, I'm not going to today. Right? We're gonna talk about something a little bit different. I wanna I don't want to talk about the sinner on the street corner. I don't want to talk about the addict, right? All of the people that we want to look down on as Christians, right? Listen, you guys can pretend like you don't, but we all know we do. Right? Okay. Here's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the thing that likes to creep into our church in plain sight, but oftentimes under a shadow of darkness. Amen. I want to talk about a spirit of religion. That thing that oftentimes comes in wearing a suit, carrying a Bible, and knows all the words to every song, but oftentimes its inside is dirty, and it doesn't truly know or care about the word of God. Amen. Okay. Some of you are with me, some of you are not, and that is okay. We're gonna talk about a spirit of religion, a counterfeit to the true relationship with Jesus Christ. That's what it is, that's what a spirit of religion is. It is a counterfeit to a true relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, I posted on social media because see what happens is the spirit of religion, it satisfies man, right? The spirit of religion on the outside looks like a holy person or a person of good standing in relationship with Jesus, but in the spirit, they are really doing none of those things. It is all bark, no bite, it is all show, and they have nothing really going on in a relationship with Jesus. Amen. The spirit of religion always looks holy, but it always denies power. Right? All right, 2 Timothy 3 5, it says, they will act religiously, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. I want to say that again. They act religious, but they will, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Now, what does that mean? They they have potential. Can I tell you that when we talk about the sinner and the the drug addict and the atheist, they have potential, right? They are not losers, they are lost. Amen. They have potential. Can I tell you that they have more potential than some of us sitting in this building? Because they don't know who Jesus is, right? And when they when they come to know Jesus and they change their lives and they repent and they begin to follow Jesus and to worship Jesus in spirit and in truth, they surpass the spirit of religion. That's crazy, right? I've been in church my whole life. I've been doing this since I was just little, and all of a sudden, this person who knows nothing about Jesus can surpass where I'm at. Yep, that's how it works. Because the spirit of the spirit of the living God will only dwell in you so long as you dwell in the spirit of the living God. Amen. So if you show up and sit in a seat and all you do is warm the seat, you're not in relationship with Christ. You're in fellowship with other believers, but you are not in relationship with Christ. See, the spirit of religion, he knows how to act saved. Amen. He knows how to act saved, but likely he isn't saved. Because he sees what other people do, right? You know, you ever walked in and everybody goes one way, so you go that way? Like us men, we don't have this problem. But ladies, this is one thing that I used to experience when I was out at the theater all the time. You would see the ladies come out of the theater and they would go straight to the bathroom and they would get in this long line that would go, but they didn't know that there was a second bathroom 10 steps away that they could have gone to, right? Because, see, that's the way the herd went, that's the way they went. Amen. And so the spirit of religion will copycat whatever the relationship is doing, right? So they're gonna look holy, they'll volunteer. They'll be the first to volunteer, be the first one to put their name on the list for whatever it is that's going on, because they want to look like they are engaged and they are involved. But can I promise you something? It is all show, it looks holy, but it is not powerful. See, they say the right words, but they resist the move of the Holy Ghost. This is something that I I love this, and I watch it when it happens. So when we pray for people and we have people fall out in the spirit, one of my favorite things is when I get to see a pity fall. Anyone know what that is? Pastor Holly and I all talk about it. She's like, that was a pity fall, right? So you're praying for somebody and they like right? Come on now. Come on now. You ever been slain in the spirit that when you hit the floor? Listen, I watched Alona one time. Pastor Florence was praying for people. She had a line of people across the sanctuary. The people who were catching could not move fast enough. I watched Alona literally bounce off the floor and never moved. Just now I thought she had a concussion, right? Because she hit hard. She stood back up like it never happened. Right? That's not a pity fall, right? Because she was in tune with the spirit, the spirit was moving in her life, the spirit did something to her, and she was able to bounce back. Listen, we've seen some wild stuff when we do prayer, right? People fall. Dave just the other day went flying across the room when Holly was praying for somebody else, and he was supposed to be catching. That's not how that works, folks. But sometimes, but when you are open to what the spirit is doing, those are the things that can happen. But see, the spirit of religion will come up for prayer. They might run to the altar for prayer, right? And when you lay hands on them, God's like, Yeah, we really gotta do some work here, right? We need to inspect their hearts. We need to really, and then they just sit down on the floor because they don't want anybody to think that the spirit didn't move in their life. Amen. It's the truth. That's what happens when we have a spirit of religion. The spirit of religion often becomes comfortable in the form of whatever the spirit of a relationship looks like, right? They do really, really good at having relationships with people and doing all of the things and the volunteering, but they really can't find the fire. Do you know what I mean by that? Because, see, when God gets a hold of me, and a lot of new Christians are this way, when God saves them, they become on fire, right? How many of us have ever been on fire? Like you're just excited about what God is doing, and you're running laps around the building during praise and worship, and you're wanting to do all of the things and be invested in all of the things. That's fire, right? But you can tell when the fire is real and when the fire is fake, right? I just uh there's a house that has Halloween decorations up, and it makes it look like their house is on fire. Every window has these fake flames in the window, and they have this smoke that comes. It is the wildest thing I've ever seen. They actually posted on social media don't call the cops, our house really isn't on fire. It looks real, it's crazy, right? You would have a hard time telling the difference between that fire and a real fire. But not when it's a spirit of religion. Because oftentimes that lap around the building or that volunteer spot also comes with all of the words, did you see I'm gonna lead this? Or did you see that I'm gonna, oh, that'll never happen if I don't do it because nobody else is gonna do it. Let me tell you something. That is a spirit of religion. That is a spirit of because all you're doing is trying to puff up yourself inside of what Jesus has called you to be. It'll sing, Come, Jesus, come. That spirit of religion will know all the words, it'll do all the things, it'll stand here and praise and worship and lift its hands, and you will believe when you see it that there is salvation there. And then you see him stand up from the altar and go and say something to somebody that is just wildly inappropriate. Anybody ever been there? Anybody ever hit the parking lot with somebody that says something to you and you look at him and go, weren't you just at the altar? No, listen, I'm not trying to say any of us are perfect, right? I come to the altar and I stand up and do stupid stuff. It happens, right? We are flesh, we are living in the world, we are not of the world, but are in the world, amen. The problem is, is when you have a spirit of religion, you allow the world to take over. Once you walk out of the building, the spirit doesn't matter. The world is what matters. I want to remind you that when Jesus was entering into Jerusalem, everybody was standing there shouting, Hosanna! Hosanna, glory in the highest. Amen. And then days later they were shouting, Crucify. Probably a spirit of religion. Right? Now I've preached about this and I want to explain it again that when they were shouting Hosanna, they were expecting to be set free. Some of the people shouting Hosanna thought freedom meant political freedom, not spiritual freedom. And when they realized that Jesus was not intending to set them politically free, they couldn't care any less about him. Amen. Can I tell you something? That it is not Jesus' desire to have you live in the world, it is to break the chains of bondage to sin so that you could live freely in the spirit. Right? Freedom from the world comes because of freedom in the spirit. Amen. You don't become free in the world without becoming free in the spirit. So you get bound up in the world because your spirit hasn't truly been set free. Because then we talk about this thing called repentance. Right? That's not really fun. Amen. See, when you're doing something and you know you're doing something, and then you come to the altar and you lay it down, and then you go home and you do it again, we all fall short of the glory of God. But grace extends so long as you are in relationship with Christ, right? So you step out of that relationship with Christ, you come to the altar. I'm Jesus, I'm so sorry. And then you get up and you do it again. Questions have to be asked of your heart. You have to desire relationship with Christ and a true, changed, and repented heart. Amen. Okay. Whew. I had to turn the air on, folks. I'm sorry. It's hot in here. It was cold this morning. It was like 56 degrees in here this morning, so I turned the heat on. I regret that desperately. The spirit of religion will always hide behind its appearance, right? So it's gonna show up looking good, smelling right, doing all the things, acting a certain way, but it is always going to simply hide behind that appearance. It is never going to form a meaningful relationship with anybody who is truly living in the spirit. Why is that? Because when they do, their spirit of religion is revealed, right? Through discernment, that spirit of religion is revealed. And when that spirit of religion becomes revealed, somebody who lives in a spirit of relationship will reject that spirit naturally, right? And we will walk away from it. And then the problem is this is the part that I really want to preach about today. The problem is, is then you're a bad Christian because you broke a relationship, because you walked away, right? You ever felt that? You ever ever end a relationship with somebody because you don't feel like you're in the same place spiritually? Like, listen, I don't just come to church, I come to church, right? When I get here, I'm excited to be in the presence of God. I don't come here to socialize with you guys. That's a bonus of being in the body, is the is the fellowship, right? I I want to be with like-minded people, but the problem is, is oftentimes when that spirit of religion is hiding behind their looks and they start to become separated from those who are living in a spirit of of truth or in a spirit of relationship with Jesus, they will become angry or distant from those who are living in the spirit. And what happens is they'll start to blame Christians. Right? Well, you're obviously not a very good Christian if you would X, Y, or Z. No, I am a good Christian because I am in a relationship with Christ. I am not a good fleshly person. You can feel that way about me because I don't want to be your friend. Listen, friends love at all times. Pastor Holly keeps reminding me that. Friends love at all times, friends love at all times, and you're right. And sometimes love is not presenting yourself in that light any longer, right? Because sometimes when we're living in the spirit and we become friends with those who are living, um who are living in the flesh, who are living in a spirit of religion, we start to absorb some of the things that they are doing. It is easier for us to walk away than it is for them to walk to Jesus. In the flesh, it's easier. In the spirit, it's the exact opposite, right? Because I'll tell you, the best choice I ever made, the easiest choice I ever made was to follow Jesus. I mean, it was kind of a no-brainer, right? Like, Jesus is like, hey, I've got something for you, and I'm like, oh, that sounds fun. And then it wasn't fun, so I could have walked away, but instead, I embraced what Jesus was doing in my life, right? He's breaking off chains, he's taking away things that I enjoy. I don't like that, right? I want to still be able to enjoy, but I had to accept that I couldn't if I wanted to live in true relationship. I'm gonna tell you the truth, right? Many years early in my Christian walk, I probably had a spirit of religion because I didn't know any better, right? I thought that coming to church on Sunday, listen, there was a rule. Some of us will know this. Margie, Kathy, Alva, you'll know this. If you served with Florence when the building was open, you were here. It wasn't an option, right? So I'm talking that's Sunday morning service, that was Saturday night prayer, that was Wednesday night Bible study, that was Tuesday night, whatever else she decided to do, right? Tuesday morning prayer. I'm telling you that when the building was open, you were here, and it was not negotiable. I mean, you had to have a real reason. I'm talking like body part hanging off, real reason to not show up, right? And the expectation was that if you were serving in ministry, you should desire. You're not coming because you want to or because you have to, you're coming because you want to. Amen. Because your desire was to see the building grow, to see the body grow, to see great and mighty things happen inside of the kingdom. And you could not be in one accord if you were not standing in the building together. For years, my life was consumed by ministry, and it was before I was ever truly in ministry. But it's what prepared me for the season that God has placed me in. I told you guys last week, I mean, for like three months I didn't see my family at all. They didn't even like they had a they had my face put on a milk carton, they had a poster hanging at the post office that said, you know, wanted dead or alive, because at that point they didn't know. I'd come home late at night, I'd leave early in the morning, all they knew, because my phone would ping at the church or ping at work. They knew, oh, he's moved, right? It's crazy to think that so often the spirit of religion will appear in that exact same way. It will appear to be dedicated to ministry, it will appear to be dedicated to those around them, but oftentimes you find very quickly that that is not the case. Because what happens is when something does not go their way or the spirit of religion becomes agitated, the spirit of religion is being agitated this morning, right? Because we're talking about it. There's somebody sitting in their seat right now going, well, I know what he's talking about. I know what he's trying to say. He's probably talking about me. Probably. I mean, if you feel that way, chances are, yeah, I am, right? I probably don't even know it, but yes, if you're feeling that way, chances are I'm talking to you. Here's the point that spirit of religion will show up and it will look like it's dedicated to ministry. But really, as soon as it is agitated, as soon as it is irritated, it will do everything in its power, everything in its power to divide and conquer. But can I tell you that's not how Jesus works? That is not a spirit of relationship, that is a spirit of religion, and we have to know the difference because we have to make sure we follow the right one. Amen. So listen. Somebody once said to me, I understand that you want to go on the offense, but you have to remember that vengeance belongs to God. No, I want to run them into the ground. Right? Like my flesh says they shouldn't be allowed to do that. But the Spirit of the Lord says they're not allowed to do that. And you need to stop worrying yourself with it. And I'm like, well, then God do it so I can watch. Is that fair? We've all felt it, right? Amen. This is not made up. If I'm the only one feeling it, maybe I should just take a seat and somebody else should preach. Because I'm just saying it's true, it's a feeling, but the flesh feels it. But then I have to I have to realign with the spirit, right? I have to go, okay, flesh, down, boy, down. And I have to come back over to the spirit and say, you know, Lord, if you really, if this is really you, if Lord, if you want me to take action, then I need you to really give me the action to take. And oftentimes that action doesn't come. And it sucks, right? Because man, wouldn't it feel good to just get some revenge or just be listen? Oftentimes we don't even defend ourselves anymore. I don't like that either. I don't like sitting with my mouth shut, as you can see. The only thing that I when I run, it's my mouth, right? Listen, I want God to know that my heart is pure and that I am for him, but my flesh so often wants to take over and it wants, listen, I'm not lying when I tell you that I had that spirit of religion for a long time. Because when the when the Lord would say, Enter into the house with joy, I would enter into the house with motive. Right? Because when I showed up to the house, it was to do a job and get out as fast as I could. Because not that I didn't want to be here, but I had other things I wanted to do, things that the world wanted me to do and not the spirit. Amen. Listen, I shared my testimony with you guys a couple of weeks ago. I feel like I'm just telling on myself now, right? At some point, you have to understand that pastors don't rise from a perfect breed, right? Like we aren't like, there isn't some selected group of people that become pastors like it used to be in the Old Testament, right? It was a bloodline, it was family, it's not how it works anymore. God calls us and then he qualifies us. We are not qualified when we are called, most of us. I mean, I'm just being honest with you, right? I don't know that when God called me. Oh, shut up, Michael. I don't know if he knew what he was doing, that's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. The Holy Spirit does not anoint performance. I need you to hear that. The Holy Spirit does not anoint performance, he anoints authenticity. Right? So when we come to the altar and we reveal our hearts, if we are authentic in that, if we come to him and we say, Lord, change me, renew me, give me fresh air in my lungs, right? That is authentic. If you come to the the altar and you say, Lord, I'm up here because I need everybody to see me. I need everybody to think, Lord, that I have changed my ways, Lord, I need everybody to think that I am perfect and pure. The Lord is not ever going to bless that religion naturally, as we read in Matthew 23, condemns. Right? Religion will condemn you, but relationships will convict you. Thank you, Jesus. Right? That's it. Write it down, folks. I want you to hang that on your mirror, okay? The spirit of religion will condemn you, but a relationship with Christ will convict you. Any of you ever woke up one morning and you went, I gotta stop doing that? That's the Lord convicting you. Now, here's the thing. Then you go to work and you tell somebody at work or you tell your spouse or whoever, and you say, I was really praying last night that the Lord would reveal what he wants for me. And uh many of you don't have these conversations at work because you're too afraid to talk about Jesus, right? Is that fair? I mean, it's true, right? I had a lady at the bank find out yesterday I was a pastor. We only worked a half a day. She couldn't believe it. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I would hope that she sees that on me. And she started asking me questions, and she said, I had no idea. But she had seen my name and she knew that she knew me, but she didn't know why she knew me. And it was because the church that she attends, I preached that once. Right? Isn't that crazy how God will do those things? And so then we end up in a 45-minute conversation. I did no work yesterday. Hopefully, nobody at work is listening to this. No work yesterday. We just talked about Jesus, right? Do you know how good that feels when you go into the office and you can talk about Jesus? Right? It scares some people. Some people are afraid to do it. I will talk about Jesus anytime, anywhere. Because when I talk about Jesus and I go and I tell them those things, I don't get met with the spirit of religion. Because what happens is I go and tell them God spoke to me last night and he said, I really have to stop doing this. Because the spirit of religion or the flesh would begin to tell you, Well, I mean, but is it really that bad? Like, are you doing it all the time? Like, do you really have to give it up completely? Right? Spirit of religion. When your heart is convicted, when God moves upon you, when the Holy Spirit enters into your mind in your sleep and wakes you up with a desire to do something, can I tell you a secret? Do it. Nike logo, Nike check. Just do it, right? Because if the Holy Spirit is telling you, He is taking you to the next level, He is driving you to greater, but you don't reach greater if you consistently communicate and live in relationship with the spirit of religion. Who? It's easy to put on a worship face. Anybody ever yelled at their kids in the car? Like lost their minds in the parking lot. Like, if you don't get out of this car right now, why are your shoes off? Where are your socks? Right? Right? I'm okay. All right. Sid says that was me this morning. Listen. And then you come in the church and you're like, good morning, morning, morning. Hey, how are ya? Right? Been never done that? That's not good, right? It is not good. It is easy to put on a worship face, but have a hard heart. Now, I'm not accusing anybody of ever having gone through that having a hard heart. I'm a parent, I get it, right? Lord Jesus, one of them tempted me yesterday. I thought he was gonna meet Jesus. That's all I'm gonna say. He was going home. It is easy to post a Bible verse on Facebook, on social media. Your Twitter's just blown up with all of the I'm sorry, X is just blown up with all of the Bible verses, and your Instagram is all of the pictures of you with your Bible, and you still live in bitterness, right? Still live with that hard heart. You still live in all of those things that you know that God does not want for you. Let me tell you something. The Spirit will always reveal those things to you, and when he does, it isn't until then that you can heal those things, right? The problem is when he reveals them, you have to step out of the spirit of religion, into the spirit of relationship, and allow God to work. Amen. All of the things that we're talking about is the difference between condemnation. And conviction. When the Spirit speaks to you, you feel convicted, and you know in your heart, you know in your knower, you know whenever you get out of bed that this is something that I am supposed to be working on in my life. Amen. The spirit of condemnation typically comes from the flesh. I said, Well, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You shouldn't be doing that. Why are you doing that? Right? Somebody, you say, hey, you know what? I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take the youth kids to camp at my church, and somebody says, Well, that's dumb. Right? My wife is talking about doing that next summer. She's gonna take all the young girls to church camp. I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that. I'm sorry. I should yeah, she's not committed to that yet. But I said to her, I said to her, I now you are. I said it out loud. Listen, I said to her, I said, You aren't trying to drag me into this, are you? She looked at me and she said, Absolutely not. Those kids would have no fun with you around. It's the truth, right? So the Lord had convicted her, the Lord put it on her heart, but thankfully the Lord didn't put it on my heart, right? Now, here's the thing. Here's the thing. What'd you just say? I know what you just said, because I was getting ready to say it too. Here's the thing. I know what's gonna happen. I'm gonna end up going because the Lord at some point is gonna say, Hey, your wife is going, you need to go too. And here's the deal there better be lots of medication because I'm gonna need it. I'm gonna need it. Romans 8:1 says, So there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Religion says you can't come to God until you are clean. Have you ever heard that? Whoo! Well, I there's no reason for me to go to church because I'm so messed up, God would never receive me. Can I tell you that that's when he wants to receive you? When you are messed up, when you are dirty, when you are ugly? Let me promise you something. When God listen, just the other day we do a health fair once a year at work. And uh I signed up for the health fair because they give you a free PTO day if you show up. I'm gonna take a day off to go to health, right? Prick my finger, take a little bit of blood, they test all the things, but here's what I wasn't expecting. I get there, they prick my finger, they take my blood, then they how do they figure out BMI with this little thing that you just hold out in front of you? Anybody ever heard of that? Craziest thing I've ever heard. But she allegedly figured out my BMI. You know what she told me? I'm overweight. I'm like, all right, I already had a complex, but thanks a lot for that one. Appreciate you. Appreciate you. Listen, sometimes that's what the world will do to us, right? The world will make us think bad of ourselves, but when God wants you to change, he will convict you through the Holy Spirit. See, I can still come to God when I am dirty, when I am broken. That's when he does his best work, right? When he cleans me up and I think that I have reached the point of no return, he can't do anything with my heart because my heart is not open to what God is truly doing. Amen. Relationship says, come to God and He will make you clean. It has nothing to do with you or what you are doing, it has to do with God making you clean, with God redeeming your soul. Religion is man-centered where relationship is God-centered. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Listen, I know that oftentimes religion, and and I'm really careful about this now. I didn't used to be, but I am now. People will often ask me when they find out that I'm a pastor, where are you a pastor at? And I always tell them, and they're like, oh, we might have to check it out. And this is the next phrase that comes out of my mouth every time. We would love to have you, but only if you don't have a home church. I'm not trying to kill, steal, or destroy another church, right? All I want is if somebody is lost and broken, I want them to know that this is a place that they can call home. That they can walk through the door and be loved. I don't want them to feel like, feel like they have to, that they have to show up whole and already clean. So the spirit of religion will often say, look at me, where the spirit of God, whenever we're in a spirit of relationship, will say, look at him, right? My wife told me after I got my job at the bank, she said to me, Um, you're the only person that I know that can walk into an industry you have never worked in before, find favor, and get a promotion in the first five weeks. Right? And I'm like, that's a good point. But that is because I never point to me, I always point to him. When somebody says, I can't believe you can do that, I said, I can't. I have never been able to do that, but God has always given me the understanding, right? Now that sounds silly to some of us because, like, listen, today's we're we're gonna celebrate pastors today. Do you know how hard it is for like me to accept appreciation? I hate that, right? I don't want anybody talking good about me. I don't want anybody like you can talk bad about me all you want, whatever. But whenever you say nice things to me, I don't know what to do with it, right? Like, are you that way, Steph? Is that why you're shaking your head? Yeah, it's we're wired the same way a lot, right? Like we're practically the same person, Stephanie and I are. Like, we don't want hugs, we don't want, and a lot of that comes from just not knowing like what do I do with my hands, right? You come up and you say, Hey, high five, good job, Pastor Michael. My answer is always the same. That wasn't me, that was the Holy Spirit, right? That's what I say because I don't. Thank you. Doesn't seem appropriate because it wasn't me. So I'm always leaning back, I'm always pointing back to Jesus. The Pharisees love to pray out loud in the streets, but that was because they wanted to be seen by man, amen. They wanted man to see them so that they could appear righteous and holy. Amen. I bet so many of us, so many of us pray to ourselves through the day, and we never pray in public. We don't pray for people. Listen, one of the things that we haven't had here for a little while, and Pastor Holly and I have been praying about this and talking about this, you don't see a lot of ministry time happening in our building right now, right? And some people are like, well, that's weird, why did that stop? We don't know, but we allow the spirit to move and tell us when that is appropriate, right? Because if we force it, all we're doing is operating in our own flesh. We're not allowing the spirit. So if you come up to me right now and you say, Listen, this is why I don't I don't lay hands on you guys, it's the truth. That is not my gifting, and so then I get in my head and I'm thinking about all the right things to say to you, and all of the right things to pray about, and all of the right things that that God would have me say, and then the next thing I know, I'm praying that your waffle maker works again. Right? Like, what? It's just not what I'm good at, it's not what God has gifted me with. I'm a problem solver by nature, that's what God has gifted me with. That's why I have somebody so strong like Pastor Holly that'll lay you out on the floor and know what know what God wants for you before you knew what God wanted for you, right? That's a gifting. That is the beauty of what we do in this building, right? The problem is, is oftentimes people become offended because I'm not praying. I pray for you every day. Each and every one of you, but I don't do it in public because it's not what I'm good at, right? I pray for you behind closed doors. My ride to work is nothing but prayers for you. Now, I'm not gonna lie, I miss some of you sometimes, and I try to get through the list, and I'm like, and then I'll just say, Lord, if I missed anybody, touch their hearts today and let them know I'm thinking about them. Just allow them to know that I am I am praying for them and Lord that I just wish that you would move mightily in their lives. And I don't know if any of you have ever felt that. I hope that you have, because I believe that when I say that to God, God says, You got it, right? You got it, dude. Some of us. Some of us. The Holy Spirit will draw us into that secret place of prayer. Amen. We talk about that prayer closet. We talk about that secret place of prayer. Whenever I begin to pray, I don't need to pray in public. I don't need to be out on the streets praying for people. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. I'm saying that when I do it, I am doing it so that God will hear my prayers and that man doesn't need to hear those prayers, right? And listen, when I go to when I go to my private place of prayer, I pray for myself just as much. Lord, whatever it is that's happening in my life, Lord, whatever it is that's going on that is not of you, take it away today. That is a big bold prayer to pray. Because then when God takes it away and you're like, why am I not doing that anymore? It's because you asked him to take it away, right? And you ask for things like, Lord, take away my worry. Lord, the anxiety that I feel today, take it away. And then all of a sudden you're removed from friend groups, or all of a sudden you're removed from relationships, or you're removed from a job or a position or whatever, and you can't figure out why. It's because you asked God to remove those things from you, and little did you know that's what was creating those things, right? So my last day out of the hotel was technically just a couple of weeks ago because they gave me a severance package, right? So it was just a couple of weeks ago. And um, I'm gonna be honest with you, my heart was still very bitter towards that situation and just trying to figure out why it happened and whatnot. And I said to myself one night, I said, you know what? One of the things that we always did as a celebration when somebody retired or left after they had been there for a long time, there was always a poem written about that person. And I said to myself, they were always funny and lighthearted and whatever. And I said to myself, I'm gonna sit down and I'm gonna write one and I'm gonna email it to them on my final day. Because there's a part of that tradition that I will miss desperately. Amen. And when I sat down and started working on that, it was all I needed to release that hard-heartedness towards that situation, right? So God had given me a creative way to step out of that hurt and that anger and that frustration. It was the strangest thing I've ever done in my life. I sent it and immediately I get a response that they thought it was funny. I only sent it to one owner. And a couple of hours later, I get a second response from one of the other owners that was just absolutely shocked that I first of all sent it and did it, and that it was incredibly funny because there were a lot of inside jokes, right? In seven years of being employed there, we had a lot of inside jokes. And so we were able to, I was able to mend and heal through something creative that God had set me to do. I didn't have to be bitter, I didn't have to hold on to that frustration. Now, I'm not saying that if I saw them in public, my heart wouldn't sink, right? Because I still think that there is some of that that that rests inside of me, but I know that God would not want me to live that way because if I continue to operate in that spirit of religion where you are good Christian people, how could you do that to somebody? Because that is a spirit of religion, right? As a Christian, you're blaming Christians for doing things that are not great, but here you are falling short of the glory of God. Amen. I know that God is always going to show up and fix those things. He is going to build bridges and not walls. Amen. Amen. Walls, easy to build, right? You put them up, reinforced. Nobody's knocking these bad boys down, but I will tell you that a spirit of relationship will always build bridges. Anytime that spirit, a spirit tells you that you are not worthy, that you know, why are you doing that? They don't even appreciate that. That is a spirit of religion. A spirit of relationship will always build bridges. They will tell you, you are always welcome here. Come to the table, join us, fellowship with us. Religion separates, but the spirit unites. Religion builds denominations, but spirit builds disciples. Write that one down, right? Religion will build a denomination because you have rules that you have to follow, things that you have to do, right? But when you're in relationship with Christ, that's not how that works. Christ never called us to be in a building every week, he called us to be the body. We come here to get refilled so that we can go out and pour into the world. Amen. The Spirit will build disciples. John 4, 23 and 24. It says, But the time is coming, indeed, it's here now when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Can I tell you that it is our responsibility? Because I want to read that again. It says, indeed, it's here now. Right? Heaven here, heaven now. Right? That means that it is our responsibility to invite the kingdom of heaven into this place. Somebody smells good. What was that? Is that you? You smell like chili? Is that it? This dale. I just got a whiff of it, whatever it was. What? Oh, it's hand sanitizer. That's exactly what it was. I drank that stuff. It smells so good. Love it. But I'm sorry, I got off track. I gotta go back to my notes. Who? Oh, it is our responsibility to bring heaven here now, right? Listen, we can get into heaven whenever we decide to go home, whenever Jesus decides to take us, or we can live in that place today, right? We can invite heaven here by worshiping in spirit and in truth, by living in relationship with Christ and behaving Christ-like. See, we will not invite heaven here if we operate in a spirit of religion, right? That's not how it's gonna work because the Holy Spirit is going to reject all of those things. See, it is not performance and routine, it is not ritual and repent repentance. It is about truth and genuine repentance. Amen. It's not just ritual. You can't come up here when we open the altar just to say, I went to the altar. When you come to the altar, it has to be that place of exchange. You have to lay it down for Jesus. You have to lay it at the foot of the cross and pick up whatever it is that God would have you know in your life. Hallelujah. What time is it? I gotta, I gotta hurry out because we're gonna be, nobody's gonna get to eat if I don't finish up. Whoo! There's a bug. It's time that we start to tear down that altar of religion and build an altar of relationship. Amen. As Christians, we have got to stop expecting other Christians to be perfect. We can't look at them and say, Well, don't you go to church? Right? Because each and every one of us will fall short of the glory of God every single day. Iron sharpens iron. It is our responsibility to hold people accountable. But when you say to somebody in private, hey, I heard you do that. And I'm not sure if that's the if that's the person that I know. You know, Doug, I heard you say that the other day, and I don't know if that's the Doug that I know. Right, Mel? I don't think that that was a a godly thing to say. I don't think that the spirit of the living God would want you to talk that way about somebody or say that thing about somebody. Amen. There's a difference between condemnation and correction in love. Amen. And we just have to learn how to do it. It is our responsibility as the church to continue to support one another, but we support one another in love, not in condemnation. We support one another through conviction, right? Of the spirit, not condemnation of the flesh. Amen. Church, today it's about us, not about the sinner. Okay? It's not about the atheists, it's not about all of the people who are living outside of the building. It's about those of us who come in here every single week and forget what it is to live in true relationship with Christ because we are so wrapped up in all of the laws and all of the rules. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, I thank you and I praise you for a move of the Spirit in this house today. Lord, I am praying for repentant hearts as we're sitting in our seats and this prayer is being prayed. Father, I pray that you're just giving them guidance and direction. Father, that they're examining themselves and finding all of the things that are not happening the way that they should be happening in their life. And Lord, that you are giving them direction. Father, that you are bringing conviction into their lives, Father, and that they understand that it is not condemnation, that you are not rejecting them, Father, but that you are calling them to greater in the mighty name of Jesus. Father, that you are continuing to lift them up. You believe in them, Father, and you know that through the blood of Jesus Christ, that they are redeemed, that they are set apart from the flesh of this world. Father, we are not seeking glory for ourselves, but glory for the kingdom of God. Father, we are desiring a move of the Spirit so great that when it happens, the world cannot reject it as coincidence. We know that every knee shall bow at the mighty name of Jesus. And Father, I pray that when you return, every person in this room knows your voice. Father, I thank you and I praise you for continuing to guide us and direct us. Father, for all of the wonderful things that you do. We give you praise, honor, and glory in the mighty name of Jesus. And the church says, Amen. Love you guys. We'll see you across the hall.