Transcription
Yeah. Well, I I I did then go to Colossians 3 that you put off and you put on. That was my illustration. That's actually what I explained. The first point I said is you have to want to become love. So, if you don't, you know, and that sounds funny to people when you say that, but I've been I've been pastoring for a long time. I've been traveling and preaching a very long time. I've been saved 30 years. I've actually met a whole lot of people that are even in leadership that when the rubber meets the road, they don't want to become love. They hold on to their own rights, rightness, facts. He said, she said, well, I wouldn't if they didn't. Well, they're the ones that well, they put me in this position. And all of a sudden, we're being dictated by other people's responses in life.
I want to have a faith. I want to I want to I want to have something in my life that's stronger than being dictated by the environment around me. If I if I let the weakness around me make me weak, that's not cool. If I say I'm this way because they're this way, then I'm being dictated by the way their life is. So I'm actually codependent on their life. Their actions are determining my outcome. And we've lived that way and not even realized it. You know, we say I I've counled countless people that say, "Well, you don't know what it's like with my spouse." And and they're just all tortured and they got all these facts to justify. have a story that justifies their disposition and then we validate it. And I'm like, well, yeah, but what's any of that have to do with what we're preaching about? What's any have to do with Christ? Like, you can't let what one man or one woman says dictate dictate and determine how well you're doing when that person isn't Jesus. Like, we're following him. He's the Lord. And we don't realize that it's actually a it's a form of idolatry. It's actually letting something matter more than what matters most. It's letting life speak louder than truth. It's letting a person have access that you're not even letting the Lord have. And you're saying, "I'm only this way because of what they did." Well, why only aren't we a certain way because of what he did?
So, when I said this morning, I shared about becoming love and I really talked about it a lot and about becoming love and I gave a lot of examples in workplace stuff. So I said at the end just to qualify her question and give some stronger answer to what she just said, you have to want to become love. I've I've seen a lot of people that I believe sincerely believe in the Lord that are that are that are needing the forgiveness of their sins and understanding the cross, but they don't want to give up that thing. There's like this rightness thing or this, well, we have rights. I'm like, no. How do you deny yourself and have so many rights? When you deny yourself, you have the right to be like him. I've done countless marriage counseling where it's like, "Oh my goodness." I'm not being critical. Don't hear this wrong. It's just put yourself in my shoes. I'm ministering this stuff and preach and then I get in a marriage counseling session and they're talking to me like they've never heard the gospel and they're just all caught up with each other and each other's actions and words and they're fed up with each other or don't want to even hear each other or I've had enough of each other. And I'm like [Music] like have you guys even ever heard the gospel? I mean, I asked a married couple one time if they were born again, and they said, "We've been coming to your church for three years. What are you trying to pull?" I said, "Come to the church for three years doesn't make you born again. Born again is Christlike, and there's nothing even remotely that looks like him right now." They wouldn't even look at each other in the counseling session. And I'm like, "How can you tell me you've surrendered anything? You're letting the person in your life that you have all these unspoken expectations upon that is failing your unspoken expectations horribly. So you're manifesting your failured expectations. How is that surrender? And how is that love? So we just talked about a lot of stuff this morning.
See, a relationship is I love you. It's not do you love me. Marriage will work amazingly if you wake up every day and you're married. Let me just give you a little insight on this. I've been doing this for 30 years. My wife can tell you it's true. It makes her so free. She has no obligatory in her life. She's no should, to ought to, need to. It makes it opens her life to respond to me. She wants to love me. Like my wife would lay down her life for me and she owes me nothing. I think she'd jump in front of a car so it would hit me. Well, that's because she doesn't want to live without me. She wants She wants to go first. She said she wants to go first. I'll let her go first if it's easier for her. She's greedy. She just wants to get to Jesus first. Yeah. No, but I I wake up every morning. I don't even think about my wife owing me a thing. I don't wake up for my wife to live a certain way towards me. I wake up to be like him. I wake up in fellowship with him, in communion with him. And I have zero expectations on my family. my expectations from the Lord and that I live Christ in the face of whatever I'm gonna face today. That's the only expectation I have. And that if you hand me a mic, I'm going to preach the kingdom, right? I mean, there's a few expectations I have, but they're not on people. So, nobody's set up to fail me. Like, it's kind of ironic that we're not to put our trust in any flesh, but yet we're all supposed to live trustable. I'm supposed to live trustable, but you're not supposed to put your trust in me.
So, if you start making your joy dependent on my actions, if I'm a leader in your life or a pastor and you let the way my life unfolds dictate how hungry you are or how much you're going to follow God, do you ever see a pastor fall into something crazy and people let go, give up faith, don't know what to believe anymore? Do you ever hear anybody get so dist distracted by that stuff that they say, "Well, I don't even know if I believe in God anymore." I'm like, "Well, that's an indictment that you've never known him. You've just been going to church. You've been doing church. How can you say I don't know what to believe if you've been with him?" Come on. That's convicting. We're talking about knowing him.
So what I did in the end of the answer was you you have to first want to become love because because if you don't want to become loved, you're not going to seek God in an intimate place. You're not going to deal with the things in your heart. You're not going to put off and put on. In Colossians tells you to put off these things in your life that are wrath and anger and malice and blasphemy and filthy language from your mouth. Put to death your members which are on the earth and your flesh, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire. It's all idolatry. It says it's all idolatry. It's all living for something you're not here for. Now, that list is in everybody's life before they're saved. Some more apparent than others, some more evident than others, some more extreme than others, but that list is in everybody's life before you're saved. True. But after you're saved, scripture expects that that list is no more more in your life because he didn't say moderate, balance, or find a healthy place. He said put it to death. Kill it. Kill life as you know it. That's incredible.
See, it's the way we preach the gospel. Unfortunately, we always make it about getting something. So, if you say pray this prayer to go to heaven, if you don't know where you're going, if you die tonight, don't know where you're going. And I I'm not bashing anybody in the way. I'm just saying let's give the whole story like it's not totally wrong if you don't know where you're going tonight and and you know, pray this prayer, but then you're making the motive what you get. It's all about going to heaven and and and making sure you don't go to the wrong place or go to hell. So, is that the motive? We're coming to God so we can go to heaven and don't go to hell. Some people would say, "Yeah, no. That's not the motive. We're coming to God. We're coming to God so we die to everything we've been so who he is can live in us and be in us." We're not just coming for provision. We're not just coming for protection. We're not just coming so he makes our life work. Come on. That's why you get discouraged if you get discouraged. You You can't tell me that if you're discouraged, you're not selffocused. Come on. Like he's the guy. I don't think they heard you, but that's okay. He winced. I said, "That's an indictment right there." But think about it. How can you convince your own soul that if you're discouraged, you're not so focused? Are you with me? Then it's all about you and how your life's going. How what ain't working? How come? When does that stop? Where does that stop? When does it roll over even into God? And you're just assuming and assessing in the court of your mind. You know, where have you been? Why ain't you answering my prayer? Why are you letting this happen? And now you're playing charades. And when you have 14 questions, you don't have revelation. So, it's a trap. And then the enemy takes advantage, seeks who he can devour, and he's playing on the weakness. And the things you don't understand, he's poking all the more. As soon as you complain, you reveal that you're not satisfied, you're not happy, and it's all about you. That's why Paul said, "A Christian never complains."