Transcription
[Music] Hi there everyone. It's Chad again here on the Marketplace Network, bringing you some more teaching on Back to the Basics. In fact, this will be our last session on Back to the Basics. And it's funny because we started out months ago with me talking about how important Back to the Basics were going to be for a winning year for you and for me. And it really, the gravity of it didn't hit me until I started working with part five today and how important it is for us to grab hold of these concepts.
So I'm going to work through very quickly some of the earlier parts of these teachings. And if you want more, you'll have to go back to those videos. And I'll mention what part that they were given in. So, uh, Back to the Basics, part one was working with justification versus sanctification. Now, for me, even in the ministry 30 years ago, as a teacher evangelist in the Assembly of God Church, I'm on a pastoral staff. I kind of struggled with the clarity of justification versus sanctification. Now, the concepts aren't hard necessarily to understand, but the problem is, Paul is talking about these two things and only using one word: righteousness.
So with justification, we see it's a positional righteousness thing. It has to do with our reconciliation with God through the finished work of Jesus Christ and nothing else. So, so positional righteousness or salvational righteousness is justification. Sanctification comes after the work of salvation and is a work of the Holy Spirit. This is where he begins to conform us into the image of his dear son. And so this is practical, everyday righteousness in our lives. It's our thoughts and our words and our actions coming into alignment with the will of God.
Now, the issue is, Paul, when he speaks of these two concepts, he only uses the word righteousness in his epistles, his letters. And so we have to look at the context in which the word righteousness is found to understand, is Paul talking about positional or salvational righteousness, or is he talking about practical righteousness? It's very important for us to do this. You know, Peter warns us in Second Peter 3:16 to be careful with Paul's writings. I would almost like to see believers develop their relationship without Paul's writings and then try to incorporate Paul's writings back into everything you understand. And if you can't fit Paul into that big jigsaw puzzle without forcing those pieces in, then you're not understanding Paul correctly. So that is part one. If you want more on that, go to Back to the Basics, part one.
Sin and law was dealt with in part two. I wanted to give clarity and a word, simple word picture on both of these words in the original languages. To work with the original languages of the Bible is awesome. It helps us gather word pictures that helps us understand these concepts. So sin, in Hebrew, means is sin. In Hebrew, the word is *chatta'ah*, and the Greek word is *hamartia*. They both basically mean the same thing. They mean to miss the mark when it comes to God's teachings, that is God's Torah. 1 John 3:4 in the King James version, I think, does a real good job of defining sin for us.
Law, on the other hand, in our Bibles, and sometimes in the NIV, it will have teaching where the word Torah is used in the Old Testament, only when it doesn't mess with their theology. But law in the Hebrew is Torah, and in the Greek, it's *nomos*. And simply put, it is God's teaching that hits the mark. It is God's teaching that's properly un properly understood and applied in our life. In fact, if you want to see Jesus doing this, you go to Matthew 5. In Matthew 5, he's going to give us a beautiful example of teaching Torah. He's going to say, "You have heard it said by the rabbis, but I say unto you." And he works through a Torah teaching process through Matthew chapter 5, which flows beautifully, which which is before that. Um, when we understand what's being said before that, the Torah is not being done away with. He's actually bringing clarity and light to it. And you know, what's funny, the rabbis were look, they said that we don't understand Torah completely. We know we're misapplying stuff. And and when the Messiah comes, he'll straighten it all out. So if I was a rabbi and you were a rabbi, and we were discussing scripture, the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament, and we were we were covering a verse, and I said, "Hey, I think it means this, and this is how we're to apply it." If you thought that I messed up, you would say, "Chad, you're destroying the Torah. What are you doing?" But if you thought I correctly understood and applied the Torah, you would say, "Ah, you have fulfilled the Torah." So when you read fulfill and destroy in Matthew 5, that's what's going on there. And that's why it flows so beautifully with the rest of the chapter when Jesus goes into a Torah teaching. So anyway, more on that, part two, Back to the Basics.
Now, part three, if you haven't seen any other thing than what I'm talking about today, part three, I believe, is probably the most critical teaching and principles that you should see. There's only been one way for mankind to be saved from Genesis to Revelation. In John 14:6, when Jesus says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me." That statement is not time-bound. What do I mean by that? It's always been him for mankind. It was they may have not known his name, they may not have known everything, but it was the one in the beginning. It was the one who was to come. And when we finally get to the disciples, it's the one that was with them that they witnessed. And for us, it's the one who has come and is coming again.
So it's so important. I grab the first people that sinned and rebelled against God and died spiritually, Adam and Eve. And in John 3, uh, excuse me, John, what am I saying? Genesis 3:15, God gives them the first Messianic prophecy. And they hear it and understand it. And by faith, they both make some actions. Remember, James tells us that our faith is perfected in action. And so there's some actions that both of them do to demonstrate their faith in the coming one. If you want more on that, please go to Back to the Basics, part three.
Back to the Basics, part four was the last one we taught on because when it comes to conviction and repentance, I think a lot of us in the church have the wrong word picture in our mind and misunderstand what conviction is all about. It's not to make us feel bad. It's not necessarily, well, not necessarily, it's not supposed to make us ashamed. We're not supposed to expect a lightning bolt from heaven. And God's not trying to punish us. Actually, it's quite the reverse. Conviction and repentance is a tool of the Holy Spirit for the process of sanctification. That's right. It's a process. Those are tools that the Lord uses to align us with his will and his ways. And so if you want more on that and you haven't seen part four of Back to the Basics, I encourage you to go back and take a look at that.
Today, we're going to look at defining the basic meaning of holiness. Now, let's just stop here for a minute. And if I was to ask you, can you please define for me what holiness means and how it applies in my life? Could you give me a simple definition and understanding that I could grasp on that? I'm not trying to belittle anybody because I don't think we've done a good job of teaching this. And so we're going to give some real easy teaching, some stuff that you can really grab hold of that's tangible. And then we're going to talk about our identity and purpose in Messiah. It's more than just a ticket to heaven. It's much more. And it's an exciting ride. There's a joy in the journey. And we're going to talk about that. So stay with us here. You're going to love this stuff.
So, you know, I talk about going back to the original languages and developing word pictures. That's an important component. But again, foundational teachings are critical. They're very important. Jesus speaks on this in Matthew 7 and in Luke 6 in the synoptic gospels. We must make sure we build our house on a solid foundation, a rock, and not on sand. Some of us may have mixed foundations. We may have a little rock, we may have a little sand. This is in our soul realm, by the way. And we'll touch on that later.
So what happens is, as God starts to sanctify us, and you start stirring up the gifts of the spirit, and he enables you to get into ministry, and he starts, he starts moving you up in ministry, more and more glory, more and more glory. The word glory in Hebrew is *kavod*, and *kavod* has a weightiness to it. And that weight is pressing down on your foundation. So if you're involved in a very powerful ministry like IHOP Kansas City, if you have a foundation that's got some sand in it, watch out because you're vulnerable. We see that in what happened. Remember I talked about IHOP Kansas City on my first video called The Soul Realm and said there was a shaking coming this year. And I called out that ministry saying it was going to be shaken. Now, do I love IHOP Kansas City? Absolutely. Do I still use them for for music at night when I go to bed and and their prayer? It's awesome. I love IHOP Kansas City. But a few individuals there have gone through a shaking. One of them specifically had some, apparently, some sand in their foundation and and was one of the leaders. And as that *kavod* built up and up and up in IHOP Kansas City and became more and more of a powerful ministry, the weight of that found, that weak spot in the foundation, and it cracked. And unfortunately, this person will have to go through, you know, some repentance and being restored. But it'll happen. It'll all be good.
So the problem is, when we have beautiful weather like I do here in Seattle, it's wild. It's April 3rd, and I'm looking outside and I got blue skies. It's been a beautiful day. We're ending up today. It's actually, uh, about 7:30 here, and it's still sunny out, and it's beautiful. That's not normal in Seattle. But that's what we see on the right-hand side. And when it's, when we have that kind of spiritual weather or, uh, circumstances in our lives that everything's going smoothly, it's all blue skies, really can't tell if you're built on the foundation of a rock or if you're built on sand. It's only when we see the left-hand side, which is normal weather for Seattle, right? Storms and wind and gray skies. When we hit those times in our life of crisis, I'm 63. If you haven't had any crisis in your life, just in a fallen world alone, believe me, you will have crisis in your life. You don't even need the enemy to get involved because we live in a fallen world and it just happens. So we need to have a strong foundation, especially when the enemy gets involved and comes against us like a roaring lion, like Peter says, he's looking to and fro, he's looking for weakness. He wants to come against us like a roaring lion. Let's make sure we have some solid foundational stuff. And these Back to the Basics teachings can really help.
So anyway, we're going into part five now, and we're going to start with defining the basic meaning of holiness. You may or may not have heard this before, but really, the most basic meaning of holiness in our lives is just imitating God. It's that simple. Holiness in our lives is imitating God. That's imitating him in our words, imitating him in our actions, and imitating him in our thought, our not life. And so, you know, this is what God is striving for for us in our life too. Jesus says he can do nothing without seeing the Father do it first, right? So he's operating and imitating God the Father. And then Philip says to Jesus at the end of the Gospel of John, he says, "Jesus, just show us the Father, and it'll suffice." And Jesus says, "Philip, have I been with you so long and you still don't know who I am? When you see me, you see the Father." Because remember, he's imitating the Father completely, 100%. You're seeing it in the flesh, right? It's the second part of the Godhead. And then lastly, Paul encourages the Corinthians to imitate him as he imitates Jesus. So, so to imitate God in our lives is holiness. That's how easy it is.
Now, I'm going to throw in a bonus here that I didn't even mention, and it's about worshiping God. Now, for most of us, and it's not a wrong answer, but most of us, when we think about worshiping God, we think about it in our time of praise and worship, right? Praise and worship. And we leave it right there. That is true. That's worship, but it's a small piece of the pie. In actuality, it's much broader than that. We worship God, or we have the ability to worship God in a much broader sense. So in Hebrew, the root word which is used for worship is *avod*, and what's built off of it is very interesting. The word *eved*, which is just a changing of the vowels, is servant, which would be to serve the master. That's why we see the apostles calling themselves a bondservant of the Lord. Because in reality, as we serve the Lord with our life, as we set aside our lives, as we die daily, as Paul says, as we renew our minds, as Paul says in Romans, right? And Romans chapter 12, as we do these things, and we come in alignment with God, and we start speaking words that are in alignment with God, we start doing things that are in alignment with God, not just in worship, in worshiping him in praise, we're actually worshiping him. Isn't that awesome? So remember, you know, we're bought with a price, so we're to honor and glorify God with our body. That means everyday life and circumstances. You can be worshiping God. I want you to think about that. So if you're imitating God, if you're serving God, if you're led of the Spirit, you're worshiping God. It's awesome.
So salvation and reconciliation. I'm shifting gears on you just a little bit here on the last line. Salvation and reconciliation that Jesus provides in his finished work is only the doorway to our calling and destiny. Remember, Jesus said says he is the door in the Gospel of John. And so he says he's our Shepherd as well. So there's much more than this simple ticket to heaven. You see, we do have a ticket purchased by Jesus for a destiny to heaven in the *yam haba* as they say in Hebrew, the world to come. But it's much more than that. And Satan wants to diminish this finished work, work that is beyond just our ticket to heaven. That's his main goal with the believer is to diminish the work of Jesus in our lives. What is this work I'm talking about? It's so critical for us to allow the work of sanctification in our soul realm by the Holy Spirit in our lives. Now, again, if you haven't, uh, looked at my teaching on sanctification, Back to the Basics, part one. If you want more teaching on the soul realm, you can go back to the very first video I ever did on the Marketplace Network in early January. It's on the soul realm. It's been very popular. And so the reason is, when we're born from above, we receive the Spirit of God in our spirit, right? But the soul realm is a different area. That's us. That's our character. That's where our thoughts, our decisions, our emotions, our will, all of that lies in the soul realm. And it's the Holy Spirit that wants to break out where he's where he's one with our spirit and begin to work on our soul realm so that we can be conformed into God's will and ways, that we can be conformed into the image of Jesus. And so this is so important for us. In Hebrews 12:14, this is how important it is. Listen to this: "Pursue peace with all men." And without sanctification, without the process of sanctification, holiness in your life, you don't have to arrive, but you have to be going through the process. Without this, no man will see the Lord. So it's important to cooperate with the Holy Spirit when it comes to conviction and the action that follows repentance.
Now, do you see the important, how important it is for us to understand these terms that we've been talking about and Back to the Basics? You know, this stuff about sanctification and holiness and conviction and repentance and on and on. If you haven't been really paying attention to this, really haven't got it soaked in, go back and view it again through the earlier parts that I've talked about.
Paul tells us that before we were saved, we were in the lineage of the fallen nature of the first Adam. We were born spiritually dead. We had a propensity to sin. Our actual nature was a sinner. And because of that, we inherited all this junk from Adam. And you're saying, "Well, I don't deserve that. I didn't do that. Adam did that way back then." That's right. But let me tell you the good news. You know, gospel means good news. Let me tell you the good news. Because we died to that lineage and we were reborn or born again into the lineage of the last Adam, receiving the Spirit of God, the Spirit of holiness in us, the Spirit of Christ in us. And it's bound to our spirit. Now we've come alive in the last Adam. Now we inherit all the blessings, all the promises that go with that. Now, I've given you scriptures here in Romans and First Corinthians, and you can go check it out if you want.
Now, here's the interesting part. The assignment that God had given before the fall to the first Adam, and was to be to his descendants, was wrecked by the serpent when Adam disobeyed God and came into agreement and covenant with the kingdom of darkness. But the good news is that that assignment for us has been restored, or is being restored for us through the last Adam and the finished work that he did, who is Jesus, who is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Now, think about this for a minute. He's seated at the right hand. I've given you Colossians 3:1 here. "Since then we've been raised up with Christ, set your hearts on things that are above, where Christ is, who is seated at the right hand of God." He's seated up there because everything is done. Remember, on the cross, he said, "It is finished." Everything that we could need as children of God has been made available to us. We just have to access it.
This is very important for us to understand. I'm going to touch on this in just a minute. But it's funny, have you ever heard this saying, "You could be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good"? I remember when I was an early believer, and somebody tried to tell me that at work because I was really excited about God. You know, "Well, be careful, you know, he's supposed to be a man." You know, "I've been in the Lord 20 years. Be careful with that chit. You can be too heavenly minded to be any earthly good." And I said, "No way." Well, I was right and I was wrong, because there is an earthly good that God wants to do with us. So again, Jesus didn't just buy a ticket to heaven for us and say, "Here you go. Here's your ticket to heaven. I know life's going to be rough, but here you go." No, he provided the Holy Spirit within our spirit to restore our soul realm with the intention on putting us on display, his handiwork that he's done in us. He wants to put us on display. Is that awesome or what?
Check it out. Let's go over to, uh, Matthew. Let me turn on my light in here. It's getting, sun's going down. Matthew 5. I actually want to read this because it's so important for us to take hold of this. So in Matthew 5, he says that you and me, we're supposed to be the light of the world. We're supposed to be a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. That's God's intention for you and me. He says, "Does anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket where it's hidden? Right? No, but on a lampstand that it gives light to all who are in the house." So Jesus wraps it up: "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." It's the intention of God to put us on display. He wants us born from above. He wants us equipped with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that dynamite power from God. And he wants us to allow the Holy Spirit, that we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the process of sanctification. And that we stir up the gifts. Find out what gifts you have. Ask for the best gifts. Paul says, right, in First Corinthians, "best gift." He says, "It's the gift of prophecy." I believe what it actually means in our day and age language is, uh, a gift that's very cool. It's a word of knowledge that you can speak a word of knowledge over people, the hidden things. Because remember, Paul says, "Man, if he comes in, if a non-believer comes into a church and you're all speaking in tongues, he's going to go look around. He's, you know, this is a house of crazy people, and he's gonna boogie, right? But if he comes in and God lays on your heart something secret that nobody knows about this person, and you tell him, he's going to say, "Surely God is in this place." You know, I minister with a person named Alberta Quigley, and she has that unique gift of the word of knowledge and healing. And it's so fun and exciting to see it in operation. So if you don't know what your gift is, I want you to pray for, uh, a revelation of what that gift is. It may come through preaching that you hear and understand what your gift is. It may be through reading the text. It may be through prayer, your private time with the Lord. It may be somebody speaking over you, like Alberta, telling you what that gift is. And you're going to stir that gift up, and you're going to start operating in that gift because God wants to put you on display. He wants to put his handiwork on display. All of creation is groaning to see the sons and daughters of the Living God. That's what Paul tells us.
So here in America, and I spoke about this, a prophetic word on on this channel here on YouTube, and I really need to focus in on this again. You really got to get this. This is a little more sobering, this part of my message, but this is very important. You got to get this. Here in America, we are the Laodicean church spoken of in Revelation chapter 3. Well, why do I say this? Well, if you look at the churches that are given, specifically the last two churches, it looks like we have a prophetic timeline developing. If you look at the church of Philadelphia, notice in Revelation chapter 3, what Jesus says. He says, "Behold, I'm coming soon." In Laodicea, the next church, which is the last church, Jesus tells them, "I am at the door." So he's moved prophetically of coming soon, that he's right here at the door. Isn't it interesting that now we have the nation Israel back and alive that was dead and gone? In Ezekiel, those bones that Ezekiel prayed over, those bones have gathered and flesh is on them. All we're waiting for is the breath of God on Israel, right? The Holy Spirit for that prophecy to be fulfilled. Look over at Zechariah at the end of Zechariah chapter 10, 11, and 12. You'll see that when Jesus returns, the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out corporately on Israel, and they're going to receive him as the Messiah. They'll repent and receive him as the Messiah. Israel is a unique nation that we've been grafted into the believing remnant, and we are a part of the commonwealth of Israel, as Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 2. We're a part of this thing, and it's Israel's thing, but they are a unique nation. We have been receiving the Spirit of God individually by his grace, as a gift from him, not of ourselves, right? But this gift is going to be poured out corporately on Israel. And we're close. He's at the door. And so we, as the church, need to see what Jesus is saying in these last days.
There's three things I want to focus on. Three things. We think we have everything together, spiritually, physically, emotionally. Everything. At least that's the face that we put on to everybody. But Jesus says we're in need of much. And I think I'm, I'm using that term in a very gentle one. One thing I didn't put in here. You know, he wishes that we were hot or cold. But he says because we're not real zealous for him, he's getting nauseated and he wants to throw us up. He, he's not real pleased with the Laodicean church. Are you getting that picture? But you know what? He still loves us. So what he asks of us is that we purchase or buy gold tried by the fire. Now, when we think of that terminology, purchased or buy, it reminded me of a parable that Jesus tells in Matthew 25 about the end times. Again, maybe Laodicean time, about 10 virgins, five wise with oil, five foolish. They have no oil in their lamps. They're waiting for the bridegroom. The bridegroom arrives, and the ones without the oil reach out to the ones with oil and say, "Please give us some wine, uh, give us some oil, excuse me, give me, give us some of your oil, please." And they say, "No, it's got to be purchased." Isn't that interesting? So while they were away at the market, they missed, they missed out. And so Jesus is asking this, this last church, this church age that we're living in, to purchase or buy gold tried by the fire. That ain't a fun thing, but it's a necessity for us. I'm telling you, it's a necessity for us. I have a teaching called "The Shaking, The Laodicean Church, and the Valley of Baka." You want a sobering teaching? Go check that out. I did that recently here on the channel.
The other thing Jesus says is that he is knocking at the door of our heart. Now, a lot of people like to use this scripture to non-believers. That's not the context here. He's speaking to the church, clearly. He's speaking to the church of Laodicea. It's not to non-believers. He's telling believers, "I'm knocking on the door of your heart. Open up to me so I can come in and I can eat with you." Now, eating in the ancient world had different meanings than it does today. When you ate in a religious context in Judaism, it meant that you had a covenant relationship with that person. So Jesus is saying, "Open up, open up to me, open up your heart so I can come in and develop that covenant relationship with you."
It's interesting, I've always struggled with Matthew 7:21-23, where many will say in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not done this and this and this in your name? And done many mighty works." The word is *dunamis*. It's the same word that you get baptized in the Holy Spirit, this dynamite power. And Jesus answers them and says, "Away with you, I never knew you. You workers of lawlessness." Now, the word to know, and I've covered this in the past, is the word *yada*. Now I can know Dr. Ken, but that's not what Jesus is talking about. It's not knowing somebody. That's not what Jesus is saying. To know your wife, like like we see Joseph knew Mary, that's a that's an intimate relationship with the wife. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. The deepest level of the word *yada* is used in covenant. And so Jesus is saying in Matthew 7, when he says, "I never knew you, I never had covenant relationship with you, even though you did all these things in my name, I never had covenant relationship with you." So I think we better take this scripture in the book of Revelation seriously.
Now, myself, I didn't ask for it, but I've been going through the fire so that my gold can be purified for the last three and a half years. I'm still in it. I'm still in the Valley of Baka, the valley of weeping, on my way, journeying, journeying to Jerusalem to the presence of God. For more of that, you can go to that teaching I talked about, "The Shaking, Laodicea, and the Valley of Baka." But this is so important for us to get a hold of, guys, so important.
So again, Jesus didn't just buy a ticket for us to heaven, but he has provided the Holy Spirit within our spirit to restore our soul realm with the intention and the goal of putting us on display, to show the world the work that he's done in us. And that we're to take dominion over the earth. The original Adamic, uh, directive is now on us because it's been corrected through the last Adam. So that's the ending of our teaching here. I hope that you've enjoyed our Back to the Basics series. I think we're going to have a lot of fun with the next series that the Lord's laid on my heart. It's going to be called "The Defenders of the Faith." And we're going to take some common mistakes that have been made in the church when it comes to pronunciations of of Hebrew words and some common teachings that can't be supported by scripture. In my text, I'm using Jude 3, that we are to, that we are to fight the good fight for the faith that was delivered early on to the apostles. You see that in Jude verse 3. And remember that we learn in scripture, it's the little foxes that can spoil the vine. And I may go through these teachings, you're like, "It doesn't have any relevance or it doesn't affect my faith." Yeah, it may not affect your faith, but what about those in the world? What about those that Jesus wants to touch? If you offend them through the language that you're using, or they have word pictures that associate that are that are that can offend them, then we're not operating in love. And if we're not operating in love, we're not loving our neighbor, which is the chief commandment of all the commandments given, right? So it's important that we go through some of these studies. You'll see, and I think you'll love what we'll do with "The Defenders of the Faith." Us in the charismatic movement, that now we would call ourselves revivalists in these last days, we need to take a lead because sometimes people think we don't take our scripture seriously. We need to take our scripture seriously. We need to, uh, apply proper hermeneutics, that is, is the proper study and application and understanding of the scriptures. We'll talk about that maybe into Defenders of the Faith. I'm not sure, but we need to go into this direction. This is where the Lord wants us to go.
So I know Dr. Ken likes me to pray at the end of each session. So I'm going to pray for you. Father, we just thank you for all those that have stuck with Back to the Basics and have gone through this. Father, I pray that you would bless them. That you would help them with their foundation. Lord, look through their foundation. If they have any sand, any weak spots in their foundation, Holy Spirit, we ask that you would go and help shore it up for them. Lord, so that they won't be ashamed or have to backslide or fall into some sin. Lord, Father, we ask for this for our body today. And a Lord, I ask that you would wake us up. Wake us up, Lord. We're in the Laodicean age. Father, help us. Help us with this. Father, we want to hear, "Well done, good servant." We want to be able to take the talents that you've given to us and invest them wisely, Lord, and make money on what you've invested in us. Father, we want these things. Help us, Father. And I pray this in Jesus name.
Thank you again for sticking with me. And look forward to the Defenders of the Faith series. I think you're really going to enjoy it. And thank you, Dr. Ken, and Bishop, once again for allowing me to be on the Marketplace Network. If you like these videos, hit the like button. And please hit the subscribe button to this channel if you haven't already. Thank you guys, and I'm sure we'll see you again in the future.