Latest / First Love Revolution / One of Those People (Part 8): "Gratitude vs. Grumbling" | November 20, 2023

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One of Those People (Part 8): "Gratitude vs. Grumbling" | November 20, 2023 · First Love Revolution

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Revolution Church Message Series one of those people.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You can find the entire series in video and podcast format, as well as other messages, at FirstLoveRevolutioncom.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Here's Pastor Shane with today's message.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to our weekend series called One of those People.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: We've been looking at the killers of passion and the kindlers of passion, and this week we're going to be looking at another one gratitude versus grumbling, gratitude versus grumbling.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: One is a passion kindler, another is a passion killer.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: And you might be tempted to think, hey, this kind of sounds like a cutesy, trivial topic, given that we're heading in to the Thanksgiving holiday, a time that we stop once a year and we all give our platitudes of gratitude.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: But the biblical standard is not that once a year we make some statements of Thanksgiving.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It's not even once a week, it's not even once a day.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: First Thessalonians 518 says give things in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So what's the biblical standard for giving things?
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It's always, it's in all circumstances, which, if we're honest, seems impossible.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: That seems unrealistic.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: But have you ever considered the impact of gratitude versus grumbling on your passion level?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Have you ever met someone that all four chambers of their heart are just beating full on for the Lord, for God and for the things of God who simultaneously is a negative, complaining, grumbling person.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you you haven't found that before, because there are things that suppress the fire in our soul and in gratitude, and grumbling are major ones.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: But here's the good news this is not just a personality difference.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I know that we can look at those people who seem to be filled with thankfulness and gratitude and joy and all that, and just think well, that's their personality.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: And we can look at people who are negative and angry and criticizing and complaining and think, well, you know, poor them, they just got the wrong DNA pool or whatever.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: But here's the good news it's not just personality, it is perspective.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: So what we're talking about today, the good news is, is it's not just personality, it's perspective.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: One is wearing this lens, while another is wearing this lens.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: This lens right here is what we're going to call the Grace lens.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, not the most stylish of glasses, but they were very cheap at the gas station.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, this lens is called the deserving lens.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's two different kinds of lenses that people wear, and it's not about personality, it's about the perspective of which lens they are wearing.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about this deserving lens for a little bit.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: We need to understand what this lens does, because when we put it on, it certainly makes a spectacle of everything we see pun intended, it alters how we see everything that we see.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Because when we believe that we deserve good watch, what happens?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: When we believe that we we deserve these are the deserving lenses when we believe that we deserve good watch, what happens?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: The first thing that's going to happen actually is we're going to start to have ingratitude in our lives because there's just going to be a failure to recognize and give thanks to kindness received.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: Have you ever gone out of your way, done something for somebody and and just received no thanks in return?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: If so, it's probably a good sign that they actually thought they deserved that from you, not to like rub salt in the wound or whatever, but that's just probably what happened.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Well, god experiences this all the time.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: You're probably aware that over the past week or so, we crossed 8 billion on planet Earth.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I believe that God experiences this way more than 8 billion times a day.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: If there was ever a time in Scripture where you would think that that gratitude would just erupt toward God for who he is and what he had done.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: You would think that that would be from the Israelites to God whenever he delivered them from Egyptian slavery.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: But do we ever actually read in the Bible an instance of the Israelites, after he rescues them from slavery, saying God, thank you?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I took the liberty to look it up and double check this and in fact, no, we don't.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: They never do.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: There are some statements of praise.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: There's a song of Miriam in Exodus 15, some other statements of praise here and there.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: But you have to understand something Praise and Thanksgiving are actually not one in the same.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: You can praise someone for being something, being great at something, but not thank them.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: I have said words that praise Michael Jordan for being a great basketball player, but I've never thanked Michael Jordan because he had never done anything for me.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I could praise my boss for cutting my paycheck on payday on time, like you know what.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: You are a responsible human being.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I like that about you, way to go, but that's not the same as thanking somebody.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Is it why?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Because we don't thank someone for what's due, we don't thank someone for what is deserved.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: We don't thank somebody for what we have earned, or at least we perceive that we have earned with the glasses of deservingness, anything that is good, that's happening in life.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: It's not really a positive.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, something good happens, it's just even, steven, you know, like that's just net net and so there's nothing going to be coming out of our mouths in terms of speech that reflects hey, this good stuff is a positive.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Being alive, for example, when you have the lens of deservingness on, it's not a gift, that's not a grace, it's just due, that's just deserved.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: So there's no thanks that I'm still alive today, being healthy with the lens of deservingness.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It's not a gift, it's not a grace, that's just due, that's just deserved.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: So there's no thanks for being healthy, having a home, having food, with the lens of deserving this.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: That's not a gift, that's not grace, that's just due, that's just deserved.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So there's no thanks for having a home, having food.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: It's why the first sign that we have the deserving glasses on is going to be this lack of thanks.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: But if we leave those glasses on, what happens next is we will see that beyond in gratitude, which is how we see.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: We will move into negativity, which is how we think In gratitude.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't say thanks for what's good, it's because it just deserves whatever's good.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But beyond that, negativity is going to see anything that is not good that's happening in front of them as a deficit, meaning less than what I am due, less than what I deserve.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And so, with the Israelites, god rescues them, he delivers them, he brings them out of Egypt, but he doesn't just, you know, transport them into the promised land.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: And they have to journey through the wilderness, and he's providing for them along the way.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: But in their mind, they perceive the journey as being less than what they do.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: They see it as a deficit beneath what they deserve.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: They perceive it to be an injustice.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I'm doing this, I'm getting this.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: And so Exodus 1411,.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: They say well, is it because there weren't any graves in Egypt that you've taken us to die in the wilderness?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: So here they are, they're in the process of being delivered.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: What do they?
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Fixated on?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Dying in the wilderness, which, of course, is not what God brought them.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Therefore, you don't get much more negative than this.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And this negativity became very pervasive because they just left these lenses.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: On Exodus 16, 3, you have brought us into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Exodus 17, 3,.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: They grumbled against Moses and they said why now have you brought us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: So when they get hungry, when they get thirsty, when they lack their ingratitude, it moves into negativity.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: And when we keep those glasses on those glasses of deservingness, that will go even further than that.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Numbers 11, verse 4 to 6, the sons of Israel wept again and said there is nothing at all to look at except this manna.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: You see, beyond negativity there is complaint.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Complaint is when we're speaking out of our mouth what we have been thinking in our mind and seeing with our eyes, complaints about our circumstance.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So it's going so far.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Now they're even complaining about the manna.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: They're complaining about the blatant grace that God has given to them.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: It's like, yes, god, you're raining food down, yeah, you're supernaturally providing for us in the wilderness which would be impossible to live without.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: But you know what, back when we were slaves, we had vegetables of all kinds of different sizes and shapes.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, we had variety in our veggies and it was better than this.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I mean they're literally complaining.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Go back and read the text.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: They complained because they used to have onions and garlic.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, come on.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: It's like every time the journey gets difficult they do the same thing.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: But is this how a Christian should think about and expect life to be?
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: This past year I read I've actually started to reread Pilgrims Progress.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Anybody read Pilgrims Progress out there, a number of hands going up.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not surprised.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It was written in 1678 by John Bunyan.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: He was a preacher and he was imprisoned in England for 12 years.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: He was imprisoned for preaching outside of the Sancton State Church.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: He was 12 years of hard time Seems like a long time for preaching without a license, but that's what they gave him and it was during that time that he wrote this book, pilgrims Progress, which now is second only to the Bible itself in terms of copies sold for, like historical all-time bestsellers across the world.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty wild.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So when I first picked it up and I read it just based on a prompting and prayer I started to notice that the things being like you know, the things described in this similitude of a dream was kind of the language used to describe it.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I just started to notice this really resembles the speaking of God that we've become familiar with.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Some of you know our story of the last five years or so.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Just, you know, god's been doing a lot.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: But he started giving like visions and dreams to people, like what we would read about in the Bible.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And so I'm like, wow, this sounds familiar, this sounds similar.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And so I just kept reading this book, intrigued, and I noticed that John Bunyan, who wrote it, he ended every chapter saying and then I woke up and he starts every chapter saying in my dream, you know, I saw, and so this is the way the whole thing's written.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: And it just started to become clear to me that this man's actually claiming to have received these as a sequence of dreams from the Lord.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It's not just writing in the similitude of a dream, as it's always described.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Now, of course, he knows he had to piece some things together and, you know, try to remember things and he doesn't claim that 100% of what he wrote is from God, but he is claiming that the bulk of this was these dreams that I had.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, as I read this, I was struck by how different the pilgrimage of a Christian is described in this sequence of dreams than the pilgrimage of a Christian is really thought about in the Christian church today.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: The entire sequence of dreams it describes this journey of a man named Christian to escape the city of destruction and make his way to the celestial city.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: And all along the way of this journey it's filled with ditches and deceptions and dragons and discouragements and difficulties, and on the list goes.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: It's really a picture of an arduous journey, like all of hell is trying to turn Christian back from this pursuit and Christian needs to persevere in his faith and persevere in faithfulness to his Lord through all these trials and temptations and difficulties.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And when I finished reading I just thought you know, if we really understood that the journey of a Christian, a Christian pilgrim, is to be like that, which I would argue is entirely in alignment with New Testament Christianity, I think a lot of this ingratitude, a lot of this negativity and complaint and lack of passion amongst the people of God, it would stop dead in its tracks.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: By the way, if you haven't read it, I do recommend that you read it, but if you do, I would recommend this version that I'm putting up on the screen.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: It was, it's a modern English version, kind of redone by John Vermille.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: That way you're not reading old English.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: But anyways, back to this whole picture.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Exodus, the Israelites.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: They're on a pilgrimage.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Similarly, they're on this journey, they're leaving the place of destruction, they're leaving the place of captivity and they're headed into the promised land of God, the thing that God has promised for them.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: All along the way, there was difficulty, there was lack, there was threat, and every time they saw these difficult things they saw that as a deficit against what they were due, less than what they deserved in the negative, and so they vocalized their complaint.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: And so in the Old Testament we have this picture of this path to the promise of God being one that has delay and setback and persecution, and being pursued by enemies, moments of lack and difficulty.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: There's giants in this journey, there are walls to be overcome in this journey.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: There's battles from without and there's battles from within, all to partake in the promises of God, the promise of a better land.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: But there's also in the Old Testament all the victories and the testimonies of God's activity and the way he shows up all along the way.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: When you get to the New Testament, well, our promise is better, our land is better, the city that we are headed to, the New Jerusalem, is far better.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: And yet the story is also told that along this journey for the Christians, in this journey, there are imprisonments and there are persecutions, and there are lashings and there are scatterings, along with the testimonies of the victories of God and the activities of God all along the way.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: It's pretty consistent, wouldn't you say?
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: Old Testament, new Testament, the journey, the difficulty, all along the way.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And yet, somewhere along the way for us, there's this false teaching that is swept in, which teaches believers that the way is supposed to be easy for us, that the way is supposed to be without striving for us, that we are just supposed to be sitting back soaking in the finished work of Christ, despite the fact that our Lord was crucified, that the apostles died while founding the church and we were promised by our Lord not to be treated by the world any better than he was.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: We need a revolution that returns to its roots.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: If we are going to prepare a generation to be able to persevere in persecution, we need a revolution that returns to its roots, amen.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So anyways, these glasses they lead to know we're good.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: If we keep them on, we'll go beyond complain about our circumstance.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: We'll even end up criticizing God Himself.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: As it will be seated in our hearts, these glasses will poison the well of your relationship with God.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: They absolutely will With Israel.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: We see it, moses sends out the spies into the promised land.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: The spies get back and they confirm what God said the land is a land flowing with milk and honey.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: But of course, outside of two of those spies, the rest all add this bad report.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Now things take a shift.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: So, with the lenses of deservingness, ingratitude is no longer the only thing that is filling their soul.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Not only have their minds become negative and their mouths begin to complain, they're now going to actually move to criticism which targets character, and in this context they start targeting the character of God.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Pay attention, numbers 14.3.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: They say why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Our wives and our little ones will become plunder.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: So they're not even shrouding their feelings toward God behind attacks at Moses anymore.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Now it's just full on.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: The Lord's the one who brought us here to kill our children on this new land.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: In God's response Numbers 14.22-23, he says surely all the men who have seen my glory and my signs, which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the task these 10 times and have not listened to my voice shall by no means see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who spurned me see it.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So now God's had it.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: They're not going to get to experience anymore of His glory.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: They're not going to get to see anymore.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: They're not going to get to receive anymore because God and all of His goodness, it's not only been taken for granted, but here's the thing about God.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: You just need to understand.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: He's no more drawn to negativity than we.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: God's no more drawn to complaint than we.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: He's no more drawn to criticism than we.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Which spouses just take note on this.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: If you're trying to draw your spouse to you through being negative and complaining and criticizing, you're probably finding them propelled from you.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Don't do that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Even when it seems like it's working for a minute, it's not actually working.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: It's how you poison a marriage.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It's how you poison any relationship.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: It's also how you can poison your relationship with God.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: It's the same with Him.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: We think he's going to be drawn to prove us wrong with all of our negativity and complaints and criticisms, but he's not drawn to prove us wrong about those things.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: However, he is drawn to prove right those who have confidence in Him and in His character.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Numbers 14-24,.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and he has followed me fully, I will bring him into the land which he entered in his descendants shall take possession of.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: It's like do you want God to draw near to you?
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Draw near to God with thanks.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: How do we do that?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: How do we become this person of Thanksgiving, of continual, consistent gratitude?
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: To do that, you're going to need to put on these other glasses.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, we've got to switch the lenses.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: There is a different way to see the world, this different way.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: By the way, it's the only way that is sanctioned in the kingdom of God.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: It's the only way that is appropriate.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: It's not wearing these deserving glasses, it's wearing these glasses, those wearing these glasses.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: They just look and everywhere they see, they just see the provision of God, god's providing, god is doing God's protecting God.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I mean grace, grace, grace.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Everywhere they look, god is so good, and don't forget what grace means.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: It means they see something undeserved, undeserved, undeserved.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Everywhere they look, you see, when a person is wearing these glasses, they know the gospel.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: They know the gospel.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: The gospel is that we are all sinners, that we all deserve separation from a holy and perfect God, because we're not.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Because of what we've done as sinners, we are rightfully doomed to a life and an eternity.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Apart from God, from whom all good things come, the gospel is that in that condition Jesus came.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: In that condition Jesus died for us.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: He died for our sins, even though we were enemies of God, living our lives in service of his enemy, according to the scriptures.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: And yet Jesus did this in order to save us from our sin and from the consequences of our sin, which is death eternal death.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Eternal separation from God, whose life to be spent with every other angel and person unredeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: That's the gospel.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: These people wear these lenses, they know the gospel, but there are many Christians today who don't actually believe the gospel anymore.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: They believe that they are deserving.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: The gospel is that, although I was not and am not deserving of God's grace, but I am deserving of hell, I'm deserving of an eternity separated from him.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: That still, god loved me and he gave himself up for me, and he continues to do so, making it possible for me to be forgiven and reconciled into a relationship with him.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Those who believe the gospel they wear very different lenses through life.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: They wear grace lenses and so, everywhere they look, they're just seeing God at work.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh wow, there's something undeserved, there's something unmerited, there's something that is undo, and yet God is doing it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: It's the opposite of what I deserve and yet, look, believer, the enemy wants to come and he wants to take these glasses off and he wants to put these glasses back on.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: You Do not allow that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: You don't want to do that.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So many Christians do this.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: It robs them of their joy, it robs them of their passion.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: How does it happen?
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: There's two primary ways.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: If you're a Christian in the room, there's two primary ways.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: The enemy will try to get you to take these glasses off and live your Christian life with these glasses on.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: One of them is through an over-realized eschatology, which is just a very fancy way of saying all of heaven here, now.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: This is one of the ways that the enemy will do this.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: All of what God has promised is a head for those who have been forgiven through Jesus.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: All of that, excuse me, but right here and right now.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So the end of all pain here and now.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: The end of all sickness here and now.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: The end of all suffering here and now, the end of all wrongdoing in this world, here and now.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: In various ways, this over-realized eschatology will say hey, jesus died to give us all those blessings here and now.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And so difficulty and trial and sickness and death and persecution and hardship and suffering, well, they're not supposed to be a part of this deal.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: That was for Jesus, not for me.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: The conclusion is I deserve what Jesus died to give me.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: It's the basic mentality that will flow out of this over-realized eschatology I deserve what Jesus died to give me.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: So out of this you're going to find it'll take place in a number of forms Prosperity, gospel, name it, claim it.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: You'll find word of faith, dominion, theology.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: You'll find decreeing and declaring dominionism.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: You'll find a version of Christianity that removes sacrifice, removes cost, removes striving, removes enduring, removes persevering from the picture.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Because if you expect all of that here now, if you think you're actually entitled to all of that here now, then you will not have grace lenses on at all times.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: You will now have deserving lenses on at all times, even if you believe that you deserve it on account of Jesus, because it's what Christ did to give you here and now.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And so what happens is those that use the Bible wrongly end up in the same place with the people who refute the Bible altogether the place of deserving this Church.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: We are an already not yet church Sometimes, I think, because we experience the God doing miraculous things and breaking out and heavenly things happening here.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Just last night teenage kid came up level 10 pain.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: I mean just hand trembling, shaking so much like I'm not to go to the dentist, whatever.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Maybe they would give him a root canal Team, literally just praise once.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: 100% of the pain was gone.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: 100% of the pain was gone.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Kevin Ross actually texted him this morning and he said it's all gone, it's stayed gone.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I mean we see God do the miracles in our midst church.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: But don't mistake that for thinking we're one of those people who think we're entitled to all of heaven here now.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: We're not.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: We're an already not yet church.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: We believe that the kingdom of heaven is at hand and it's breaking out and busting out in.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: The signs of our future are happening here and we want as much of that as possible, but we do not believe that that will be complete until Christ returns.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: That's one of the ways the enemy will get you to put these lenses back on.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: There's another way.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: The enemy will try to get you to switch your perspective by switching your spectacles, and it will be by saying the fall, meaning the fall in Genesis, chapter three, when sin into the world.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: It just kind of has this view of the fall like the fall wasn't that bad, okay, it wasn't that consequential.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: We've got a really bad definition of good going around today.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Ever hear people say, well, he's a good person, she's a good person.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: This is just the way we live now.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: But that's speaking in a very different way than how God speaks, wouldn't you agree?
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: The alarm system agrees.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So many are saying you know what?
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: The fall didn't change things that much.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: It's like the world is still basically good, people are still basically good, and if it's all still basically good and there's so much bad, well then he's not giving us what we deserve.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: We know Jesus says that no one is good but God alone.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: But we reinterpret Jesus to mean when nobody's flawless but God alone, nobody's perfect but God alone.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Now God says we are enemies of God apart from him.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: So this spectacle says no, everybody's good and everybody has good intentions and they're all just wounded, misguided, whatever God says.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Romans 121,.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Although they knew God, they didn't glorify him as God, nor did they give thanks to him, but their thinking became futile.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Their foolish hearts were darkened.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: You see, this modern humanism take on anthropology will put these lenses on you as well.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: You know what will end up happening.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: You will end up heralding that people are good and that God is not.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: That's where it will end, because look at all the bad that's happening to good people.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, there's a question who do you believe is good, god or people?
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The Bible says God.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: God alone is good.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: God alone is the source of good, and when he breaks into this world, when he moves in compassion, when he moves in mercy, he's not doing what is deserved, he's giving grace, he's giving what is undeserved because he's good, because he's that good Church several decades ago.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You just should be aware of the shifting of the landscape Several decades ago here in America and in the West, in an attempt to reach more people with the gospel.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: We actually got away from the gospel Because there was this hellfire and brimstone preaching and people wanted to get away from that.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: We just try to scare the hell out of everybody.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: People wanted to get away from that.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: We actually stopped preaching about the reality of hell altogether.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: It's rare to even hear it mentioned.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: We stopped preaching about our falleness, that we are sinners, that there's consequences to our sin, all of that.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We just stopped talking about it and I fear that we have lost more than we have gained.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Basic theology, basic local theology it's gotten turned upside down.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Terms have gotten confused and replaced Today's theology.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: If you have ears to hear what is really being said in today's theology, it's that we're not the sinners, that God is and that God's not the good one.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: But we are.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: But true biblical theology understands the significance of sin, the significance of our rebellion against God, both now and eternally.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Grace glasses they've got this bit.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: True biblical theology they're just clear God is the one who's deserving.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: God is the one who is due.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: God's the one who deserves what we have withheld and what we have robbed him of and continued to do day after day.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: These lenses understand that what we are due, what we deserve, what's just, is punishment for our sin and separation from him.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Those who have grace spectacles on they think about this If the God of grace didn't give me grace today, what would I have?
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And they quickly conclude it would be nothing, nothing good, including life itself, and from that place, the hearts are filled with gratitude and their mouths begin to be filled with thanks and continue to give thanks.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: That's a biblical worldview, for what it's worth.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know Nobody's recommending this these days either, but I recommend that you actually take time and you meditate on the scriptural passages about hell.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I recommend that believers read more about hell.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, jesus talked about it a lot, one of his most common themes actually and I say this because I think believers need to understand what actually is.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: When God's grace is removed from the picture, when he's no longer giving what is undeserved anymore, what would happen?
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: That's what hell is.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: Do you know what?
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: An amethyst who no longer has God's grace flowing through them?
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: That's a demon, and there is nothing worthy of compassion in a demon.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: There is nothing worthy of pity, nothing good.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: That's what's left without the grace of God.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: In the last, we think of people all made in God's image.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: We don't understand.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: The image of God is unalone to us.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: None of the image of God flowing through our lives, none of the grace of God at work in us is going to survive death, apart from the redeeming work of Christ.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: What do you think a person in hell is, do you think it's any different than a demon who was once an angel?
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: There's nothing even worthy of pity anymore.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: There's nothing worthy of compassion.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: The grace of God is not flowing through their lives anymore.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: You see, when God is not shining his light on a place, when God is not providing his love and his life and his presence, what is it like then?
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: What would the world be like if there were none of his grace, none of his undeserved favor on us?
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It's terrifying to think about.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: There's actually a woman who died last year.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: She wrote a book about this and she claimed that this was given to her as a series of dreams back in 1976, where Jesus showed her what hell was like and just gave her this mission to spend the rest of her life telling people.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Like it's real, you really need to repent of your sin and believe in Jesus.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: And she did.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: She spent the whole rest of her life doing that.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: The book's called the Divine Revelation of Hell.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: So I've read it, you know.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Can I say whether it's, you know, truly given to her by the Lord?
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: I can tell you there's nothing contradictory of the Bible in it, but I think it's worth reading just to contemplate what a reality would be like where God's grace is no longer showering on us.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: It might open your eyes to see how much grace is being given.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: You see, whichever lenses you wear, they will alter everything that you see, everything that you see.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: It's either all going to be, hey, undeserved, everywhere you look, oh man, that's undeserved, that's undeserved, that's undeserved.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: Or it's going to be this well, that's underserved, underserved, I'm underserved.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Depending on which ones you wear, how do you see life?
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Is it undeserved or is it I'm underserved?
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: That will tell you which lenses you've been wearing.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: As we close today, I'm just going to share.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: At most points in my Christian life, probably at all points, god makes me aware of something I need to grow in some chink in my arm, or you know some, maybe some truth of his that I don't have the kind of confidence in that I should, maybe a gap in my understanding, in my understanding, and what I've found to be one of the most helpful things when God does this, is to develop a daily affirmation to overcome in that season.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to give you an example and then I'm actually going to give you a daily affirmation that you know could fit this message, so my 2022 daily affirmation that I wrote at the beginning of the year.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: It's a part of my prayer list, the end of my prayer list.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I daily say this affirmation, but I'm going to share it with you.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: So my challenge was to learn to hold hope very high this year in the face of a lot of spiritual attack.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: And so here's what I wrote and daily affirmed I'm a soldier in war, behind enemy lines.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: I expect to get shot at today, I expect hard today.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: I expect attack today.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: In fact, I will attack today and I will provoke the enemy.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: In fact, if things are too easy, that I'm not taking any territory.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: And my God is great, he has promised great, I am praying for great and I am expecting great, good, powerful, loving demonstrations of the character of God today.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: So to spend hundreds of days, you know, meditating on a daily affirmation, when you have, like, some gap in your armor, it can really make a difference.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: So my encouragement to you is, like in your journal or wherever you might be able to go and spend time and in access, when you're spending time with the Lord, I would encourage you.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Would you try a daily affirmation, maybe even this daily affirmation I'm about to give to you.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: It will fix these lenses on your face and it will thoroughly, you know, throw these spectacles in the receptacles, which is a good thing, and I'm proud of my poem.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Alright, I'm going to move out of the way.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: You can take a picture of this if you want to keep it, if you want to use it.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: So this is an idea of a daily affirmation that could apply this teaching of putting those lenses on God.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: I recognize that every good and perfect gift is from you and that there is no source of good apart from you.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I affirm that my sin and our sin against you is deserving of death separation from you, who is life.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Therefore, every good and perfect gift is also grace, not only undeserved, but the opposite of what I deserve.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: So I give you thanks for every good and perfect gift, for your love.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: It's grace for your presence, it's grace for your provision, it is grace for breath in this moment.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: It is grace for every kindness in this life.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: It is grace, and I want to say thank you, god, as the source and supplier of it all.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as we close, I'm just going to invite us to bow our heads and close our eyes, and I would just encourage you to take a moment and just thank God for every good and perfect gift.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe some things you haven't thanked him for in a while Draw near to him.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: With Thanksgiving, he will draw near to you too, and I also want to share with you if you're here and you're like.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I lack confidence that I've ever received the gospel.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I lack confidence that I have received this forgiveness that Jesus paid for me to receive.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I lack confidence that I have peace with God, that I've been reconciled with God and that I'm going to spend all of eternity with him.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: The good news is is you can leave this room with that, with that knowing, with being reconciled into a relationship with God.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: You can leave this room being forgiven of all of your sins.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: The Bible says that the way to do this is by faith in Jesus Christ.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: It's by faith you are saved, by faith in Jesus for who he is and what he's done.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: When you look to Jesus, believing that he is who he says, he is Lord and savior, and you believe that he came and that he died on the cross for your sin and rose, promising life in place of death for all who put their trust in him.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: That's how you receive the gift that he paid for.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: That's how you receive the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation into a relationship with the Holy God.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: And so, if you're here with heads bowed and eyes closed, no one's looking around, no one's going to do anything weird to anybody.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: But if that's you and you want to say yes, you want to receive that today, I would invite you just to raise your hand and hold a high for a moment as your way of saying yes.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I can see that God has extended his hand down to me to forgive me, to save me through Jesus Christ, and I want to leave this room knowing that my hand is in his hand.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I see your hands.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I see your hands.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: You can put your hands down, by the way.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I just want to wait a moment.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Is there anyone else?
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And I want to share something, and I share this with sensitivity.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: This world is fallen.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: It's filled with evil, and that means a lot of just terrible things happen in this life.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: As we were praying before service, someone on our team felt like the Lord showed them that there was going to be someone here today, that something happened in your life both 10 years ago and 5 years ago, that whatever happened 10 years ago anger kind of set into your heart.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: And then whatever happened 5 years ago that accusation set into your heart, accusation against God, and these things are keeping you from running to God.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: And that's all we heard.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: But I just want to share with you that God loves you, he has compassion, he is a God who redeems and receives.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: And God loves you, he has compassion, he is a God who redeems and receives.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: He is a God who redeems and restores and brings justice.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: In the end, when he returns and I think that he's just.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: He's drawing you and I would encourage you would you be willing to lay the anger down, lay the accusation down, and would you receive him today?
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Is that you?
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Is there anyone else who wants to say yes to Jesus, yes to what he's done for you?
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I would just invite you to raise your hand as well.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: If you're listening online, there's a place for you to indicate that that's the decision you'd like to make.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Also, I'm just going to lead you in a prayer for those that raised your hand to just come to the Lord and from your own heart and say to him God, I want to be in relationship with you, I want to be in relationship with you in this life and I want to be in relationship with you for all of eternity after.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: And God I'm not too proud to admit that I've sinned and that I need to be forgiven and Jesus, I believe that you being God, you came and you died for my sin.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: I believe you rose from the grave, promising life and place of death for all who would put their trust in you.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: And the best way I know how I'm coming to do that.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: Today, I'm looking to you to be the one who can be the Lord of my life and the savior of my soul.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: I'm trusting in you, jesus, to be the one who can lead me and forgive me, and I'm asking would you do that for me today?
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Please forgive me of my sin.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Please give me the gift of eternal life in relationship with you, the source of all life.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Jesus, if you've been knocking at the door of my heart, I'm opening up the door and I'm saying please come in.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I want to know your presence today and all the days of my life and for all of eternity.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you for forgiving me, thank you for dying for me, thank you for saving me.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: In Jesus' name.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Amen Church.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Can we just give a hand to those who said yes to Jesus for the first time?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: That was so awesome.