Transcription
Praise the Lord, everybody. Wow. We can do better than that. Praise the Lord, everybody. How many of you are excited for this, the second service of this new year? This praise team is going to lead us in worship. Why don't we quickly pray for all of the, uh, all of the, um, Sunday school classes and and different breakout sessions we have going on as they come to sing.
Lord, we ask you that you would touch these classes. God, you ask that you anoint the teachers. Help them to learn and glean from what they have to say in Jesus' name. Worship with them as they sing.
To the Christ before us to go. Those pearly gates will open. We will walk on streets of gold. The light coming and I can see the day on.
When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout the victory onward to the prize before us. Soon is beauty will behold. Soon those pearly gates will open. We will walk on streets of gold.
I can see the light coming. Yeah. I can see the day on. Yeah. When we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout the victory. Oh, we will sing and shout, Lord. Oh, I can't wait for that day when we rise. Every tear will be wiped from our eyes. And we're going to see you and sing. Holy, holy. Mountains will shake. Every curse will be broken. We're going to see. Every word you have spoken. All of the earth will be filled with your glory. Oh, I can't wait for that day when we rise up. Every tear will be wiped from our eyes. And we're going to see you sing. Holy, holy. Mountains will shake. Every curse will be broken. We're going to see every word you have spoken. All of the earth will be filled with your glory.
When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all seek Jesus, sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout loving glory.
We will sing a shout, Lord. Oh, I can't wait for that day when we rise up. Every tear will be wiped from our eyes. And we're going to see you and sing Holy, holy. Mountains will shake. Every curse will be broken. We're going to see every word you have spoken. All of the earth will be filled with your glory. Oh, I can't wait for that day when we rise up. Every tear will be wiped from our eyes. We're going to see you and sing. Holy, holy. Mountains will shake. Every curse will be broken. We're going to see. Every word you have spoken. All of the earth will be filled with your glory.
When we all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing. That will be all. When we all see Jesus, sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout the victory. We all get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout the victory. Sing and shout the victory.
How many of y'all enjoy this youth praise team? They're doing such a great job. I'm excited to hear my pastor. I love Brother Tuttle and and Brother Cody Fedrick, but I'm excited to hear Brother Copeland this evening. We're uh going to go ahead and give you an opportunity to be blessed. If I can get some ushers to help me, and they're just going to play. We're going to cut it a little short. Give Brother Copeland as much time as he needs this afternoon.
God, we ask you take this offering, use it to the furtherance of your kingdom. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Praise the Lord, everybody. God bless you. You can be seated. I've got a lot of scripture today. So, I'm not going to leave you standing for the word. [clears throat] I have uh 42 pages of notes. So, y'all pray for me. Y'all took that with such a good spirit. [clears throat]
I want to go to Acts chapter 16 and verse 30. Acts the 16th chapter and the 30th verse for your consideration today. Now, I know that y'all just ate lunch and it was phenomenal. That was some more of that brisket, wasn't it, Brother Arie? Phenomenal.
This is the the context of what I'm going to read. If I can get that piece of pepper meant down without choking on it. The context here is Paul and Silas in prison and angels came and brought a jailbreak. And when the prisoner, the man over the prison, not the not the prisoner in prison, but the prison keeper realized what had went on and that everybody was loose. He brought Paul and Silas out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" What must I do to be saved?
One more passage in Acts 9 and 6. And I want you to notice this question. What must I do to be saved? We're going to go to Acts 9, Acts chapter 9 and verse 6. This is the context of this reading is Saul who would become Paul struck down on the road to Damascus. And when he realizes that this light that struck him down is Jesus or God, he says trembling and astonished, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" And the Lord said, "Arise, go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do."
I want you to notice the difference in the two questions. One says, "What must I do?" The other one says, "What will you have me do? What would please you?" I want to talk to you for a few minutes. From the subject of motives. All Christianity, all holiness, all lifestyle living for God starts with motives. What is your motive in being a part of Pine Grove Pentecostal Church? What is your motive in seeking Christianity? What motivates you? Would you lift your hands and just ask the Lord to speak to you for the next few minutes? Would you do that? Everybody here, reach out and talk to the Lord.
All right, there we go. Never put the mic on up here. I hope it works. All right, man. That makes it easier not to have a hand a mic in my hand. Thank you, brother, sister. Wow. Isaiah, you look totally different. [clears throat] You must have got the Holy Ghost this morning. [laughter] You talk about being born again.
The Philippian jailer and Paul and Silas. Um, Paul and Silas have been kept in prison by the Philippian jailer. And when all the prisoners are gone, the Philippian jailer believes that he's probably going to give his life because they've he he's that was the tradition then. If you if your prisoners escaped, it was your life for their life. And so he felt like that he was going to die. He said, 'When they're going to execute me, when they realize that I've let all these prisoners loose, I'm going to I'm going to be executed. And so he decided that he better make peace with God before he went to meet him. So he said, you know, I got these two preachers that are in prison. I better ask them, if I'm going to see God in a little while, I better ask them, what must I do before I meet the master? And the Philippian jailer is never heard from again. That is the last time we hear from the Philippian jailer. We don't know what happened to him. We do not know what the end result was of the Philippian jailer's life.
But then in Acts 9 and 6, Saul, who was a killer of Christians, was on his way to Damascus to do more slaughter. He was going there to execute Christians and a light strikes him down on the road to Damascus. It blinds him. He is completely blind and having to be led around by servants. And he says, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? What, in other words, what would please you?" And as a result of that, you can't hardly turn a page in your Bible after that that his name is not mentioned. He is the author of the epistles. And from that time until his death, he dominates the New Testament.
And the difference is all in the question. One wants to know what is the least I have to do. "What must I do to be saved?" You hear the minimalism in the question? What is the least requirements? I want to ask you today, what is your motivation in the church? Because it's going to define what happens to you from here on out. What motivates you about the Bible? What motivates you to sit on this pew today?
I am amazed at the people who live their entire Christian walk wanting to give the least that they have to give. I mean, they're just fearful that they're going to pay too much for their salvation. They're scared to death that they're going to give up something that they could have kept. They're just frightened. They just can't imagine a preacher requiring them to do something and and just just weeping because I could have kept that. That preacher asks too much of me. That amazes me as a pastor. And I'm going to tell you, I'm going to talk to you about why today.
One of the reasons that we battle this is because we do our work in the on the wrong end of the plant. A lot of people and preachers spend their time cutting [clears throat] off the buds. They spend their time trimming and pruning the bush. When the problem is not in the buds, it's it's in the root system. You got to work on the root system. And this is what gives us the name as Pentecostals that we're legalists. It's what gives people the impression that we think we can be saved by our standards. That's right.
One of the most tragic [snorts] tragedies of Pentecost is preachers that are consistently closlining the crowd and preachers that walk around condemning people because they do not live up to a certain standard. That gives a false impression that somehow we're in control of our salvation by how we live. Well, is separation necessary? Absolutely. But you got to have the right motive when you go about it.
This is exactly what Jesus said when he said, "I'm going to tell you what the problem is." He said, "The problem is that you've got the outside all cleaned up, but on the inside, you're full of dead men's bones." You see, righteousness has to start from within and then affect the outside. If you clean up the outside and you don't keep the Holy Ghost on the inside, you're going to have long sleeves, but you're going to be sad. You're going to have your hair cut right, but you're going to be mean. Am I making sense to you here today?
There's no worse testimony of Pentecost than a mean, harsh, critical apostolic. That's right. [cheering] Nothing ruins evangelism like somebody with their hair piled up on their head, the Pentecostal hairdo, but walking around town frowning that has no joy and no peace and no happiness in the Holy Ghost. They have standards, but they're mad about it. And they can't speak to one person that has a lower standard than them. You pass someone in Pentec in in town that happens to be a Pentecostal too and you don't think they live up to your standards, you say, "I ain't speaking that charismatic. [snorts] Nothing is a worse testimony." And you can't win souls like that. Your church will never grow.
Righteousness has to start on the inside [snorts] and show itself on the outside. And so we we we the problem if you're battling separation, if separation is an obstacle for you, if you're coming to church and you're sitting on that pew and you're living for God and the biggest problem you have is the standards of separation, then you need to forget the standards of separation and do your first works again. The work that you need to be done that you need to be doing is in the root system, not at the level of separation. It's not that you need to learn how to live with the standards. It's that you need to get in an altar somewhere and say, "God, fill me so full of the Holy Ghost that my desires change. Fill me so full of the Holy Ghost that my desire is to please you and not please the world."
You see, your motive has got to be right. I want everybody here to hear me. If you're sitting on the pew full of the or you claim to be full of the Holy Ghost, you claim to be living for God, but when it comes down to your motivation, your real motivation is still to please your friends, then you've got a root problem. You haven't got a righteousness problem. You have a root problem. Don't try to clean up the outside. Get the inside right. [applause]
Are you understanding what I'm saying? You got to get somewhere and get really get the Holy Ghost. You see, here's here's the way here's the way Jesus said it. Jesus said or or through through the writer in the New Testament, he said, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, He didn't say there was a problem with the outside. Anybody know how to quote it? If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in the problem's not the outside. [applause] The problem's not the outside. The problem's not your sleeves or your hair or your dress length or your hair length. The problem is on the inside. The love of the father is not in him.
You see, there's two competing worlds and only two. There's two competing competing worlds and they are going to finally be at war in the battle of Armageddon. And that is the that is the world of the church whose father is Jesus Christ. And then there is the the the the world this world and their father is Lucifer. Are y'all with me here now? You've got to you got to comprehend what I'm saying. And I wrote that scripture down somewhere and I'm looking for it. But there's two we have two we have two competing worlds. The Christian world whose father is Jesus Christ and this present world whose father is Lucifer. And somebody said, "I I thought God created this world. I thought God was the uh the the author." Yes, but Lucifer stole title deed. When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, Lucifer stole title deed. And he has got a counterfeit kingdom called the kingdom of this world. Y'all y'all are we doing all right here? Y'all y'all following all this?
There's a counterfeit kingdom called the kingdom of this world. Listen to me. It's not a real kingdom. It's not a real world. It is a fake world. It is a counterfeit world. It's a knockoff from the real world. Lucifer is not a god. He's parading as one. Lucifer is not a father. He never fathered anything. But he's parading as one. It's Stockholm syndrome. Somebody wrote the other day and said, "The most terrible thing about sin is it's so counterfeit that in the beginning, sin makes you think you're free, only to find out you're a worse prisoner than you've ever been before. It's a counterfeit kingdom." And these two kingdoms are going to clash at the Battle of Armageddon. And here's the sad thing is that there's literally people in the church who are in love with a counterfeit kingdom. Wow. And that's why they can't live holy. They they can't have holiness because they love this present world. And they're far more interested in pleasing the counterfeit kingdom than they are the kingdom of God.
And so I want to ask you, what is your motive in living for God? What is your motive? All of this will cause you to ask the wrong questions. Lucifer loves to give people the wrong question to ask. That's really what he does. You know, the amazing thing about Lucifer is he don't falsely accuse God. He tricks you into doing it. Lucifer didn't say God lied. He as he got Adam and Eve to ask the right question to where they would get there on their own. Here's the amazing thing in James. Lucifer won't even claim there's a trinity. He's too scared. He is too afraid to claim there's a trinity. But he'll sure let you do it. The Bible says that he believes there's one God and trembles. Lucifer is a one God believer. Yes, he is. And Lucifer don't believe God lied. He never tells Adam and Eve that God's a liar. He just asks, "Did God say?" He just gets you to think on the wrong things, because he's too afraid of God to accuse him.
All right. Here's the thing I want to throw to you today, and I want you to grab a hold of it. Lucifer is more afraid of God than you are. You've got more boldness to come against God than Lucifer does. He just asked He just let you ask the wrong questions and then let you run with it. And here's the wrong question that people ask. Will fill in the blank send me to hell? Preacher, you mean to tell me if I do so and so that I'm going to go to hell? You mean God's so judgmental that if I do this little bitty thing, he's going to burn me for it, preacher? Will me going here send me to hell? Will me doing this cause me to go to hell? I mean, you preach against this. By you preaching against, are you indicating that that I'm going to go to hell if I do it? And you see, all this stuff falls along the lines. And there's there's some of you sitting here that fall prey to that because you got charismatic friends that do you that way. Oh, you go over to that church where you can't do this and you can't do that and everybody's going to go to hell. And of course, I'm going to hell because the way I live, you go to that judgmental church. And what you don't understand is every one of you are falling prey to the same thing that happened to Lucifer that that Lucifer did to Adam and Eve in the garden. It's planting seeds of doubt. You mean a loving God would send some of his creation to hell over how short or long their hair is? You mean God would send his creation to hell because they wear a skirt that shows their knees? It all comes out as some kind of form of intellectualism that suggests that we're stupid, that we're backwater, that we're some kind of fools, that we're caught in religious tradition. Yeah, go ahead. And when you do that, first of all, you're asking the wrong questions. And second of all, you're doing a work on the buds and the branches that the real work has to be done in the root system.
You see the problem with anybody that's str Now listen, I understand what I'm about to say, but it's the truth anyway. If you're struggling with separation, you need the Holy Ghost. Because when you're born again, you become a child of the other kingdom. [applause] And if you want the world and you want the things that are in the world, you're just revealing that you're a child of that world. The reason you want that world is because you're of that world. Wow. The work has to be done in the root system. You need a brand new baptism. Here's the way Paul says it. The infilling of the Holy Ghost is not a one shot a do you deal. The teaching of the New Testament is you have to have a renewing of the Holy Ghost over and over and over again. All right?
You know, one of the most disappointing things is to go buy a new car at the car dealership and pay too much for it. And you always do, no matter how much you brag when you leave, I don't care how much a deal you thought you got. Take it back and try to trade it in in two years. Go ahead, sir. And go back to the same dealership and let them do that to you again. And they give you a free tank of gas. They give you a $100 free tank of gas for charging you 10,000 too much. And the most disappointing thing is before the week's out. Yeah, [snorts] cuz you enjoy riding in your new ride. Before the week's out, you got to go back to the gas company. You got to fill that thing up again. I don't care how new it is. You got to go back for another fill up. I don't care how much you like it. I don't care how what brand it is or how much you pay for it. It's going to run out of fuel. And the reason that people get to looking back toward the world is because they're not filling up soon enough. They're running on empty. And when you run on empty, you will lose the wonder of your relationship with the Lord.
And so where I'm going with this motive deal is it's all about relationship. I want everybody to hear me. It's all about relationship. Whether you're saved or lost is not going to be on a technicality. You see, we live in such a technical world. We live in such a technical world that we think we're going to get to judgment and say, "Uh uh uh no, you can't send me to hell. I did talk in tongues." And what gets the what gets the legalist clap crowd in trouble is I I lived every standard my pastor preached. I mean, I wasn't happy about it, but I did it. Not only that, but I looked my nose down at everybody that didn't live the way I did. I could pick a charismatic out in a heartbeat. Man, I had the standards down. I didn't even speak to them people that wasn't living right. I stayed away from them. You can't send me to hell because I got you on a technicality.
But you see, that's not what it's about. Everybody hear me. It's about love and what motivates you. You see, when you fall in love with Jesus Christ and you fall in love with his kingdom, your number one goal is to please him. Are you following me? Your number one goal is to please the Lord. What motivates you is pleasing him. And the more you can please his kingdom, the happier you get. And you start reading that Bible trying to find ways to please the Lord. That's good. And things of this world just start melting off of you. It's not a conscious decision. It's not something you have to wrestle with. It's not something that you're sad when you have to give up. You get so full of the Holy Ghost that it that literally everything you give up for the kingdom is a joy. [applause] It is a pleasure because it's pleasing to God. It's an amazing thing that all of a sudden your life starts matching what the pastor's teaching. Yeah.
So you say, "Well, Brother Copeland, why if it works like that, then why do you teach standards at all?" Well, you teach standards for a number of reasons. And that is that most of your life in living for God, if you will have a prayer life and you will live right, most of your life in living for God will just be a normal walking away from the world. You will just be amazed that the more you pray, the more you talk in tongues, the more you read your Bible, the more you'll start looking like an apostolic. You'll find that what we teach is Bible based.
Well, then why do we teach standards? Why do we teach separation? Here's the reason why. Because you're going to go through those dry times where it's going to be what your pastor teaches that hold you until your renewal happens. Why do we teach standards of holiness? Because there's kids that grow up in this church that hadn't got the revelation yet. We need something. We need some kind of rules. We need some kind of fences to help them until they get their own relationship with Jesus Christ. I mean, let me ask you this. Why do you have a fire screen around your your fireplace? Don't you know it's hot? Don't you know it'll burn you? Any of y'all like to go stick your hand in flames? So, why do you have doors on it? Why do you have a fire screen around it? What's it there for? It's there for accidents. It's there for the time you stumble. It's there for the babies that are crawling around your living room. It's there for the children. It's there because we're not always on guard.
And somebody said, "Well, well, the the standards of the church are legalistic. They're confining. They hold people in. They do if you have the wrong motive." Okay, that's right. But this is the illustration I like to use. How many of y'all know that a a baseball diamond always has a fence around it? Raise your hand if you ever seen a baseball around the baseball diamond. Is it there to confine the players? Is it there as a prison to to prison them in? What's it there for? It's there cuz so they can play the game. If the fence wasn't there while they were playing, they wouldn't know where the where the field ended. Somebody wind up out there and hey, come come back. It shows the line of demarcation when you get so involved in the game that you don't know where the line is. It also keeps the ball in bounds. If the fence wasn't there, you'd have to use $1,000 worth of balls every game. The backboard fence is there to keep the popup flies back. It's not there to confine anyone. It's there to make the game more pleasant.
You say, "Well, I don't like all the rules of the church." The church just has so many rules. Why do you have to have all the rules of the church? Why does the church have so many rules? Well, let me let me use the same illustration with baseball. What would happen to a baseball game? How much fun would they have if the game didn't have a rule book? I mean, let's just back up to a baseball diamond. You know, you've got the you got you got the fence, you got the backboard, you got the the home plate, you got the the bases that you can run, you just dump a bunch of baseballs and and baseball bats out. But nobody has them rules. Nobody knows how the game's played. Nobody knows how many people's supposed to be batting at a time. No one knows what order it's in. No one knows where anybody's supposed to stand in the field. And you just let them just start hitting baseballs. First of all, how long's the game going to last? Within 15 minutes, everybody's going to lose interest and they're going to say, "What does this mean?" All right, brother. What is the meaning of this? How is this supposed to work?
The rules are not there to confine. The rules are there to give purpose. [applause] And because no one knows where anybody's supposed to stand, no one knows how many people supposed to be batting at a time, somebody's going to get hit with a baseball bat. Somebody's going to walk up too close. Somebody's going to be bats trying to bat. There's going to be opposing batters on home plate. Somebody's going to lose their teeth. You're right. The guy that's pitching, he don't know where to stand because there's no rule book. He's going to stand too close to pitch the ball. He's going to get a baseball right in his eye. Why? Because there's no rules. The rules are not there to confine. The rules are not there to pin you in. The rules are not there to make you feel confined. The rules are there to give the game purpose. The rules are there for protection. They're there so that you can enjoy the journey of life.
And let me tell you something, it's not the church that is hard. It's not the rules of the church that are tough. It's not the rules of the church that are confining. [applause] THAT BIBLE'S NOT WRONG. AND THE BIBLE SAYS IT'S THE WAGES OF SIN THAT ARE DEATH. THE WAY OF THE TRANSGRESSOR, THAT'S THE WAY THAT'S HARD. [applause] Let me tell you something. The the the ones that have a hard life, that's not the boys and girls that sit up here on this front row and and obey the dating rules. They're not the one that's got it rough. They're not the one that's confined. Just find out how hard it is when one of them gets pregnant. You talk about hard. It's a lot easier to go to college and work your job and and have a nice life whenever you've lived according to the rules and you go into a marriage and you hadn't already got a child. You want to talk about hard, talk to some of these that wasn't in the church and got pregnant out of wedlock and there is no husband around and they're trying to raise one or two babies with an alcoholic dad that's out somewhere and won't support the family. Find out if that's hard. Find out if that's harder than obeying some rules.
The rules are not there to confine you. The rules are not there to pin you in. The rules are there [applause] to bring protection. Here's the way Paul said it. Paul said, "Laws are for the lawless." That's right. The laws of the church are not for those living for God and having a prayer life. This is what Paul meant by the laws are for the lawless. He said, "We I I don't have to have laws for people who are praying, right? I don't have to have laws for people who have relationship because in that relationship, they need no law. You see, because I love my wife, I don't have to have one law that says I have to come home at night. I don't have to have one law that tells me to support her. I don't have to have one law that tells me that she's as welcome to my money as I am. My wife has just as much right to spend what's in my checking account and bank account. Nothing is hidden from her. Because we're one, we're one flesh. That's it. It's not my money and her money. We're one flesh. We're one person. And because I love her, I need no laws. Everything I do is motivated by love. Nobody tells me have tells me how I got to treat her. Love does that. Love love love gets so deep that I don't even have to think about it. It come because of love. It comes natural. Yes. You know what my number one goal to do every day of my life is to please her. Right. There's certain weeks every month it's impossible, but I just keep working on it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make y'all uncomfortable, but y'all know I'm working overtime. Come on. And and I need no rule book. I need no laws. I need no dos and don'ts. It's all motivated by the love that's in our relationship. And the same is true of her. She wants to please me. And I've used this illustration several times, but you know, here's the deal. No other motive is going to work except the love motive. Here's what the Bible says about it. The Bible says what the law couldn't do in it that it was weak. Love has done. And so these preachers that try to run their church with rules and laws. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. You know what you're going to have do? You're going to have a bunch of snoody, arrogant, hard people. who are living rules and they're living standards, but they're certainly not happy about it. They just don't want to go to hell. And that's why the question, "Will this send me to hell?" is the wrong question.
And here's the illustration. Here's the illustration. I'm out running around the yard working in the backyard and it's just rained and the grass is just cut and so my my shoes and or boots or whatever I'm wearing is full of mud and grass and all that and I I walk up to the back door to go in the back door and my wife meets me at the back door and says, "Could you please pull your shoes off? I've just swept and mopped." And I say, "Is this a law? Are you going to divorce me if I don't? If I walk in there with my these muddy shoes on, are we going to get divorced?" And she looks at me and says, "Well, no. I mean, it's not like that. I mean, it's not like you're going to be divorced if you walk in here with your shoes on." And then I just pushed past said, 'Well, then I'm coming on in then. I mean, if this ain't going to get me divorced, then why should I pull my shoes off? I mean, I don't care how you feel. I just don't want to be divorced. I'm not worried about your feelings. I'm not worried about inconvenience in you. I don't care how I make you feel. I just don't want to get divorced. And that's what you're telling God every time you say, "Well, would this send me to hell?" Well, my God, if I if it's not going to send me to hell, then why are you asking me to do it? Because I don't care how God feels. It don't matter if I make him happy or not. I don't care how he feels about me. I just don't want to burn. And so as long as he's not going to torch me, I DON'T CARE HOW GOD FEELS BECAUSE I LIKE LOOKING LIKE THE WORLD. I want as much OF THE WORLD AS I CAN have and still go to heaven.
What is your motive? If your motive is all, if your go-to motive is to look like the world and please the world and be as much like this world as you possibly can, you're not going to be saved. It doesn't matter how much you talk in tongues. Sure. Talking in tongues is not a is not a technicality. Having the Holy Ghost is not a technicality because here's the bottom line and I'm done. It's 3:51. Here's the bottom line. You're going to spend eternity with what you really loved. That's right. You're going to spend eternity with whatever kingdom you're really a part of. That's good. And your desires of what you want to please reveals what kingdom you're really a part of. It's not the opposite. I don't live holiness because it I think it saves me. I live holiness because I'm saved. And who am I to bargain with a God that gave all? He gave his life. He gave his blood. He gave his kingdom. He got up off his throne in heaven and took his crown off and took the scepter out of his hand and laid it down and disrobed himself of his kingship and his lordship and came to earth in a stable as a lowly carpenter and lived and went through all the things that I'm going to suffer in this life to redeem it. was wounded and and and and and experienced every transgression that we would experience not as a sinner but the feeling of it and then was crucified, stripped naked in his embarrassment and humiliated, bruised and beaten and wounded and spit on. They spit in his face and plucked his beard and he died in shame on a cross to redeem me. And my response is to constantly be negotiating of how much of that other world I can have and still go to his kingdom.
You see, righteousness and holiness are two different things. Righteousness just means right living. Holiness is the gift of God. I can't even attain unto it. I'm fallen nature. In my best, I can't have holiness. You see, people misuse those words. Well, I'm holiness. You are. How do you get holy? Your fallen humanity. How do you get holy? Holiness is the gift of God. The Bible says it's gifted. It's imputed unto us. And so what happens is is I live as righteous as I can live. And the more I pray and the more I read the Bible, the further I can go down the road of righteousness. Come help me right quick, Lyndon. Trying to keep you from falling asleep after that brisket. Stand right here just a second. You see, all of us start so far from holiness. We're so we're so broken in our unrighteousness. But we start on a road we start on a road wanting holiness. But with us, all it can be is righteousness. It can just be right living. And we read the Bible and we pray and we love God. Come here, Cam. Represent the represent the world on the other side. We're coming out of the We're coming out of the world. These are two opposing kingdoms with two opposing fathers. Okay? And and the day is going to come that they're going to clash on the battle of Armageddon. And we know who wins. Why would you want to be a part of a kingdom and please a kingdom that is destined to fail, that's destined to be destroyed? But every one of us pray through out of this world and I got to get done 356. I do this in four minutes. We get full of the Holy Ghost and we start on a road to holiness to to the kingdom of God. And the further we move from that kingdom, it's like a magnetic pull. It's like a field. It's a it's frequency. It's a frequency field. And the more you pray and the more you seek the Lord and the more you move away from that kingdom, the more of the desires and the feelings of that kingdom start falling off of you. That's right. You don't want that kingdom now because now the pull of this kingdom's on you and righteousness is taking hold. And all of a sudden, you don't want to look like the world. You don't want to dress like the world. You don't want to act like the world because you're under the draw and the influence of another kingdom. Am I making sense to you?
But you can only get so far in righteousness. And the deal is we're looking at how far we've got left to go and realizing that the catching of the the catching of the church is about to take place. And the frustration is I've still got so far to go to be like the Lord. I've still got so far to go to really be a part of that kingdom. And the catching way of the church is going to come and I'm not going to have been there. And that's what the cross is about. Because on the cross, he got between his kingdom and where I can get in my righteousness and stretched his arms out and said, "It is finished." AND HE FINISHED THE DISTANCE FOR ME AND GAVE ME HOLINESS ON THE FACT THAT I'M WILLING TO BE RIGHTEOUS. [screaming] [applause] But that only works if I'm headed this direction. The minute you know that you've turned around and you're headed back toward the opposing world is when you start desiring to please the world again. When you start thinking, "Well, I wonder if if this would be all right. I wonder if I can, you know, I've been living for God. I've been doing so good. I could probably handle doing this or going there or going to this place. It's not about whether it's right or wrong, whether you can handle it or not. It's backsliding. If you ever gave it up, you better keep it gave up. You better get somewhere in an altar [applause] and say, "God, there's things trying to get a hold of me. I need renewing. I need washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. You're right.
Let me close because the only way I can be saved is for my motive and motivation to be to please God and his kingdom. And I can have no motivation or pull to please this world or the God of this world any longer. Stand together and lift your hands, everybody. Everybody all over this house, would you lift your hands and worship the Lord together? Come on, everybody, would you lift your hands and praise him? Come on, somebody magnify the Lord with me. Come on, worship him together. Magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you so much for hearing me today. It is my prayer that this message helped you. Can anybody raise your hand and say, "That was that that helped me." That's very explanatory. I see it. I see it. God bless you. We'll see you Tuesday night, church. Wednesday night family prayer. God bless you in Jesus name.