Transcription
Talking about being what with him, so communion, union, relationship with God. We've got a lot of sessions; we can't cover it all in one session. I, I have, I have a couple of opportunities and privileges to just given me with you guys. I think tomorrow morning, tomorrow night, and Saturday morning. So I'm here a bunch. We can talk about this. Like, like, look, you're not going to be with him unless you see yourself the way he sees you. If you see yourself the way he sees you, through the blood, it'll take the veil off your face, and you'll have confidence to be with him. If you see yourself based on your yesterday, based on what life has implied or others, you're probably insecure, and you probably don't feel worthy, or you probably don't feel real excited about even being alone with him.
And sometimes we let the things we do take the place of knowing him. Sometimes we just hang out in Christian atmospheres because we have this need to be with him, but we feel uncomfortable alone with him. Why? Because we have a great view of who we are in him. Sometimes you sing Christian songs, we'll do corporate prayer. The Bible talks about men that do things in public and open; they have their reward already. But when you go pray, go secret, where he who is in secret will see you there. I've pastored, I've asked questions, I know people that say, "Well, I tried to get alone, and then I just don't know what to say, and everything just..." And I don't know. Well, sometimes I just feel bad, so I end up praying about my stuff. Laughs. See what I'm saying? And it's like, "Oh my goodness, you gotta..."
Okay, let me just paint the worst scenario. You've been messing up, you've been nonchalant, lackadaisical with spiritual things, you've been crossing lines and messing up. I'm just being general, but you get the point. And your convictions say, "Man, this ain't it. This ain't cutting it. This thing, I can't live this way." Right? So what do you do? You turn to be with him. You can't change any of this to qualify to be with him. You just got to turn to be with him. And it might look something like this: you just get alone, close the door, take a walk, sit on a rock by a lake, I don't know. But go be alone. Shut off everything. Just go be alone, right? "Lord, I've been this, I've been all this stuff. And the truth is, my life is more than that. Why? Yet a sinner, you paid a price and you shed the blood of your son to get into me, to redeem me, and to live in me and shine through me. This is not who I am, and none of this is satisfactory or acceptable. I'm just renouncing it. I'm separating myself from it. My life is more than this right here." And God, I thank you.
And now, now you're going toward him. Now you're coming after him. And he's paid for this place for you to step into through the blood of his son. While you were yet a sinner, he sent his son. He didn't say, "While you were starting to get it straight." While you were yet a sinner. Why? He doesn't see you for sin. He sees you for his son. He sees you for created value. He sees you for purpose. You've got to separate from where you've been to where he's been, and start living toward purpose, start living for true identity and true destiny. The only way to do that is by faith. You've got to put off the old, put on the new, and let your desire for that be enough.
Here's what I've learned: nobody that feels bad has heart trouble. If you feel bad, your heart's alive. We think because we're condemned, we're cut off. The fact that you're condemned, just the way you're handling your feelings are misguided. Condemnation is zero. But the fact that you're condemned means you care. And condemnation actually has something to work with called life inside of you. Because if you, if you didn't care, you couldn't be condemned. You'd say, "Whatever." People come to me as a pastor, crying, they get confidential. I just had it last week in a big way, weeping and confidential and sharing stuff, right, with tears. Who's ever had that? And I'll look, and across the board, I say it all the time. I say, "Man, I am just excited to see how the gospel has purified your heart." And they say, "Purified my heart? Didn't you hear what I just said?" I did. So they're judging themselves and their value based on their story. So the tree can never change; the tree's already identified. So the fruits are given. See, if you don't make the tree good, there's no hope for the fruit. "You know them by their fruits." That's not condemning. What it means is you know how they see themselves by the way they live. This isn't, "Buckle up, man, straighten up, shape up, or ship out." This isn't, "Try harder, do better." See who you've become now that he came. See who you were from the beginning. Let the standard of your identity and purpose and destiny raise beyond your former actions, so a new thing can come into your life and grace can work in you. Are you hearing?
Come on, you're gonna put off the old. You gotta make the tree good. You gotta say, "My life is more than this. My life is more than just being driven by sexual perversion and fantasy and pornography. God, I feel so defiled in this place. It can't be the truth. You did not shed your blood for this. You shed your blood to get me out of this. This is not who I am." And you've got to step over. You don't need healing and deliverance; you need to see yourself in a higher place than that. You gotta believe you're worth more than that. But the trick is that you identify with this. And because you did this, it's the strong statement of you. No, no, no. Take it off. Make the tree good. And come through the blood. See, that's not an excuse to stay there; that's a reason to step out. Are you with me?
You ought to see some of the emails I read and some of the testimonies I've been getting about this simple, simple gospel. Thirty years pornography, twenty years pornography. Pornography, especially, because I preach from pulpits. I say, "A man bound in pornography, it's a simple giveaway. He has no clue who he is." He doesn't need some spirit of addiction cast off to him because if he ever sees the truth about who he is, he'll wonder why he was even enticed. And if he sees the value of his life and his calling, it'll change his desires and his appetite, and he'll look at the same thing and see it so different because he's changed where he's concerned. Are you with me?
That's why Jesus told a man to deny himself. He's not a legalist; he's truth. It's not works. Deny yourself. Why? You were never made for you. Anything that just feeds you is outside of God. It's all about his kingdom. Seek ye first, first, not second, first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That's what he rules his kingdom by, a scepter called righteousness that keeps you in right standing with no consciousness of guilt or shame. Yeah, you put it on every day, you present yourself a member under righteousness, and it'll work its fruit to holiness without you trying to be holy. It's the gospel. I've read it. It works, man. It's amazing. You put it on, you don't let anything change your mind, and you realize you're more than this. He paid for more than this.
So, see, I haven't found a way to sin and get away with it. I'm not preaching some grace that says, "It's okay, God forgives you." No, he transforms you. I didn't find a way to sin and get away with it; I found a way to be free and to live in him. Yeah. Not preaching some weird grace that entitles you to live the way you've always lived and lay claim to his love. I'm not talking about that. You preach grace that doesn't transform you, you're preaching perversion. Grace changes me. Mercy brought me in. Grace says, "Now I'm going to have my way." All I do is like clay; I just yield and stay pliable. Yeah. Are you with me? You're laughing at me, and you see, but I'm secure. You can laugh at me. Go to First Corinthians 13. What time do I have till four? No, stop, stop before 4:20. 4:20. That isn't out of time to get high. 4:20. [Applause] Okay, I thought, man, brother, you're corrupting me. 4:20. Amen. Yeah, I'm so naive.
You know my favorite place to minister is rehabs and recovery centers. My favorite place on the planet. And I've never had a drug addiction in my life. I've, I've never smoked pot in my whole life, not even tried it. I'd be in a car, and everybody's passing the bongs and the bowls around, and I did. They just knew I wasn't going to smoke it, and they'd pass it right past me. I just never wanted to. My dad was an alcoholic. I decided I'm not going to drink. I saw what it did to his life. So I didn't find an excuse to drink; I found a reason not to drink. "Well, I just do it because my daddy did it." Well, that's probably a good reason you shouldn't. See some of this stuff, it's weakness of flesh, it's just justification. We're just following after flesh, and we find a reason, we get permission. "Well, I'm just smoking pot because it was in the house when I was a kid. They were always smoking it." It's hard to smoke it because my parents smoked it. Well, when you look at that memory and you look at their lives, there's probably a good reason not to put it in your mouth.
But yet, my favorite place to minister is rehab. I don't have to have been a drug addict to see drug addicts get free. Because I don't see them as drug addicts. They're, they're waiting for the kingdom and don't even know it. They just need to see the truth of who they are and what they're created to be. It's one of my favorite places to minister. Why? Because there's so many lies embroiled with those kind of cycling lifestyles, and the condemnation is rampant in the cycles, and what it does to the soul, and the defiled, and the worthlessness of it all. And it's where the gospel just shines. It's where everything can become new. So you, you rip off the old and you paint the new through the truth, and they go, "Yeah, whoa." And all you got to do is get them to just believe. Just, wow. God begins to do a work. I just love it. And, and, and I've never done any drugs, man. You know, because God sees people for who he created them to be. Let's just get this. This is why love never fails. He doesn't see you for where you've been. He sees you for what he created you to be. He's the light of the world. In him, we find light and life, right? He doesn't see you for where you've been. That's why, why you would get a sinner, he sent his son to get you from where you've been to where he's created you to be. He sees you for your potential, not your mistake. He sees you for your purpose, not your blunder. So wonderful, man, believes that, and here's the gospel. That way, and comes to God for that truth, and it puts everything behind him, and all of a sudden, he's not looking back; he's looking up. Yeah.
See, no preacher ever told me the truth about the cross in my whole life growing up. They all said, "Jesus died on the cross because I was a sinner. We had to die because I sinned." That's not a play on words, but he didn't die on the cross because I'm a sinner. He died on the cross because my purpose was lost, my destiny was lost, my identity was lost. He died on the cross to restore what was lost, to save that, not who, that which was lost. He didn't die on the cross because I was a sinner; he died on the cross because I was a lost son. So he took my place to get me back. He became what I was so I could become what he is, a son from the beginning. And we've turned it into ratchets and sin, sinners, and you're always gonna sin, and it's a wonder God considers us. "Try hard, and maybe you'll make it." I'm not growing at people, but I am ground at that lie. Are you all good? Come on.
So please come to God that way. On your darkest day, he didn't lose sight of what you're created to be and who you're created on. On your darkest day, where sin abounded, my Bible says grace came greater, not to empower the sin, to empower the truth. Yay! He's not just covering over sin and winking; he wants to get you out of it and show you who you really are. And he knows from the beginning. Let me just see. See, the cross of Christ was never intended to simply expose your sin. Most evangelistic people preach to people based on their depravity. It's the goodness of God that leads men to repentance. If you can teach people who they're created to be, you can separate them from what they're living. If you just tell them they need to clean up, they're probably going to get condemned because they don't know how to clean up and they feel too dirty to clean up. So we probably ought to just let them become new. Sound gospel. Probably ought to put off. Didn't fit you good anyway. And put on. Yeah. Amen. Did I turn you to First Corinthians 13? Okay, man, that is the gospel. Makes you happy inside. Yeah, I feel happy inside because it's the goodness of God that leads you to change, not the reprimand. It's not the judgment. It's the goodness of God. He didn't die to expose my sin; he, he died to remove my sin, to expose my value and restore my destiny in him, not apart from him, in him. Are you with me? No preacher ever told me that in my life. So I never understood the gospel. I always wondered why he'd die for somebody like me. Can't imagine why he would love me so. Because I couldn't see his first love, I could never respond to love. I just felt indebted. So because I couldn't have relationship, because I didn't feel worthy, I would be reduced to serving him instead of knowing him. And now I'm a concubine; I'm not even his bride.