Do Not Be Deceived [Deception and How to Avoid It]

we've been praying we're not passing offering baskets but we are praying because we cannot lose sight of the one who is our sustainer he protects us and watches over us and delivers us and cares for us if he has to put manna on the ground he will if he has to bring water from a rock he will amen he's not dependent on the systems that we typically look to and one of the challenges of this season is we've had to redirect we have trusted the wrong things those of us that have sat in churches and sung the choruses and read our bibles have been idolaters we have put our trust in something other than the lord to secure our future and our children and their futures and god is awakening us he is our security hallelujah what a gift what a gift so we want to pray will you stand with me whichever sanctuary i can see you through those screens i have a harder time seeing you through the phone screens they're smaller and i have to squint but that's not true this is not really true don't somebody will start a new rumor pastor thinks he can see through screens oh father thank you for this day for the honor and privilege of being together for the freedom to do so that we have places to worship and we can gather lord we are so thankful for it and we just want to acknowledge you today as the one you know us by name and you know our circumstances lord we trust you with our lives with our strength this day and the provision for this day all that we need lord give us today our daily bread and we'll trust you with tomorrow we praise you for it lord we pray for our nation we're a people in need of mercy turn our hearts back to you awaken the fathers once again to turn their hearts to their children not as entertainment but to to shepherd them and to help them grow and mature in jesus christ we thank you for it today we worship you the lord for what you're doing in our midst we thank you that we can trust you with all that we are and all that we have and all that we're becoming may jesus name be exalted in all the earth for it's in his name we pray amen hallelujah you may be seated if you watched online we had church outside last night hot dog we were done by the time the sun went down too i was born at night but it wasn't last night so that four o'clock sun is a nice thing this time of year the lord is good to us i want to make a declaration and i'd like to invite you into it it's something you can repeat through the week put it in your heart and your devotionals let the awakening continue let the awakening continue think of the difference in your perspective today compared to last january think of the things you took for granted the things you presumed upon the attitudes you held and think of what those things are today god is awakening his people and let the awakening continue i thank you for your enthusiasm on that i appreciate you managing the discipline to not be disruptive to the people around you your enthusiasm is a parent may god's spirit continue to stir us to separate us from things that hinder or entangle or diminish our faith we're in 2021 and the challenges haven't yielded we're still having church services outside and inside but we're still listening we're still following we're still growing we're still turning loose of destructive things we're still opening our hearts to the direction of the spirit sound right we don't intend to stop we're not going back to some previous set of habits god's called us to a new life a new path a new way to walk we're still trying to find our comfort level with that but it's true and this week we have a new president a new administration a new attitude in the media they got happy all of a sudden prozac for all i'm kidding don't it's important to remember that we have the same lord the same god the same spirit within us and the same assignment to tell the untold about jesus those things haven't changed but we just went through one of the most bitter election cycles certainly in my memory and there's plenty of shared responsibility for that nobody in in that season should stand on the sidelines and say it wasn't me and i'm very much aware that we have a bit of work we need to do those of us within the church we have to forgive we have to overcome we have to turn loose of anger and bitterness and resentment you cannot afford to hold feelings of injustice that you were treated in an unjust manner in fact if you're not willing to drop your disappointment you can't have a new appointment and it lingers within us you know the circumstances have changed but we're still holding on to some of those emotions and feelings and attitudes and they're toxic they will disrupt god's purposes for you and you can't argue that you're justified in holding them or that they are true even if circum and far beyond any election you know if when you hold unforgiveness or resentment or bitterness i'm not saying you weren't wrong that there wasn't something inappropriate that was expressed towards you or perhaps even something evil directed your way but whatever the source of it our assignment is to forgive and to release so that we can be forgiven and we can be released when you hold anger or resentment or bitterness or hatred or a sense that you've been dealt something that wasn't just and you cling to those things they they capture you you're chained to the event you're chained to the emotion you're chained to that point in time and you're not free to pursue what god has for you now that truth is is equally applied on a very broad scale but right now we need to apply it with the events that surround this election so i want to ask you a very pointed question are you willing to forgive are you willing to release your anger and your bitterness and your hatred and your whatever else you may be feeling you'll have to lay down a bit of self-righteousness and that's sanctimonious but i'm right duly noted will you forgive well i don't like what happened okay will you forgive well it wasn't fair okay will you forgive you see i trust god to watch over his purposes in the earth he raises up leaders and he puts them down i trust him with the outcome but in order for us to be participants with him we've got to keep our hearts in the right place i brought you a prayer i'm just going to let you repeat it after me and i apologize i wrote this the sentences are too long to repeat after me but you're smart you can do this if i can write it i'm quite confident you could say it all right but in all seriousness it's time to unload some of that baggage it has some of you completely some of us completely frozen in a place and we need to be able to move so let's pray this together wherever you're watching from say it out loud if you're by yourself watching it say it out loud with me heavenly father forgive me for imagining deliverance from anywhere but you are my god and my deliverer forgive me for any attitudes which are displeasing to you if anyone acted deceitfully or illegally in our recent elections i forgive them i turn loose of all anger all bitterness all resentment i accept your new appointments for me and i renounce all disappointment its authority over my life is broken let righteousness reign upon our nation every city every neighborhood every person every state capitol upon washington dc upon our military wherever they may be serving upon your people throughout the earth let jesus name be exalted and righteousness reign upon us all amen hallelujah now if that's been a struggle for you in recent days or weeks or months you may need that prayer again it begins with a decision of our will but it'll take a little time for your emotions to catch up it's posted online you can if you need to pray it morning noon and night take it like medicine until you're free do not let disappointment derail you don't let those destructive attitudes don't give them a place in your heart stop talking about it don't stop being vigilant don't stop watching don't stop thinking don't stop acting but don't stand in a bitter place the title for this session that's just free and post paid that's just warm up that's like spiritual stretching before the workout okay the title is do not be deceived do not be deceived sometimes i meet christians that don't think they can be deceived and they already are if you believe it's impossible for you to be deceived because of your intellect your pedigree your church affiliation your tenure you're already deceived so the theme is deception how we're going to avoid it and the reason i think it's so imperative right now is we're walking through a period of dramatic deception really unprecedented deceptive statements are flooding over us on a daily basis and they approach us it seems to me from every ideological or spiritual direction the result is it's just completely disorienting it leaves us feeling unstable we're not sure what to believe or what to think or where to look for for truth and it leaves us feeling weary emotionally weary spiritually weary and physically weary often our response is a desire just to get past this let's not quibble about what's true and what's false let's just get past this because if we could get past it perhaps we'll land in a more stable place a more clearly defined place well you can't negotiate with evil the only thing evil will yield to is a power greater than itself so the solution the answer to this dilemma is truth but this avalanche of deception if you're not aware if you're not listening if you're not watching if you're not thinking you you'll miss it and you'll be swept along by the tide i just started a short list it's by no means inclusive but there are the the deception around colvin the culvert is real it's a real threat it's a real virus it's a real illness it has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and far more people have been sick but the information we've been given around covet has changed day to day and week to week and month to month and from state to state and city to city and nation to nation china was not honest about the circumstances there and we just kind of shrugged our shoulders and said whatever great nation they just lie about pandemics go home for two weeks and you'll be good to go you can go back to normal well we need to stay four more weeks but then you'll be okay the curve will be flat and there's no problem and you can fill in the blanks it's hard to trust we know there's a problem we want to work together we want to help one another but there's been a lot of deception wrapped up in it as well we just finished an election season election seasons in our nation right now on a national election the campaigns that go with them are the they are the substance of deception how do we convince this group that i believe what they want me to believe in this group which is on the opposite end of the spectrum that i believe what they want to believe candidates are experts at it it's the nature of the beast and we watch that and we think how could they say that here and say that here and say that here it's disorienting christian messages in this season are confusing vote do not vote don't vote for this candidate vote for that candidate it's just as evil the media wants a very trusted part of our culture and our society we look to them for accurate information to be a point of accountability for all of us no longer they're no longer a neutral source of information they are propaganda producers it is disorienting science my father's a veterinarian my college career began in the basic sciences i'm an advocate for science but when science is politicized it becomes a tool for deception whether it's the politicians politicism it's making political the information around copen i'm from tennessee deal with it okay or it's the information around climate there's no doubt there's climate changes and climate activity but it's been elevated to a point of a religion that everything should be subordinated to it it's objected to it and science has been made political to enforce the opinions that you prefer sexual orientation they're trying to find scientific evidence to suggest we should be gender flood this is not a new thing folks the manipulation of science for political agenda is not new don't be naive if you weren't paying attention in school now you're gonna have to pay the stupid tax and go back and learn a little bit but you can't afford to remain ignorant and the church has had hands in this we're not with our hands aren't clean either galileo ever heard of him he's not from middle tennessee okay you won't find him on twitter he he had this notion that the earth revolved around the sun what a notion that the sun was at the center of our our little planetary system here but that idea was in disagreement with the prevailing idea of the day because prior to that the imagination was that everything revolved around the earth and the church at that time the the pretty much the universal church in the west agreed with copernicus's theory so galileo was tried as a heretic oh he had the right answers you could follow the science and get you to the right place but but the debate was so political it had jobs attached to it and status attached to it and when science becomes manipulated by political agendas and ideals you can't afford to follow the science or you'll be deceived i'm not asking you to to tear your brain out and ignore your wisdom use it censorship in ways we have never seen it the hiding of the truth the manipulation of the truth to keep large popular parts of our population from knowing what is real and there's no apology for it there's no embarrassment for it trampling on our first amendment rights without any reluctance whatsoever it's deception it's crashing over us like waves at the beach there are predictive voices around us many of them many voices from many spheres of influence predicting the events that are going to unfold before us it comes from christianity the prophets declaring upcoming events with absolute certainty and determination and repetitiveness it comes from other arenas economic arenas political arenas they're experts in these categories that have inside knowledge and they're predicting future outcomes and the outcomes don't come to pass whether they've been spiritually identified or economically identified it leaves you disoriented churches in a widespread way whole denominations are rejecting orthodoxy fancy language it means they won't accept the biblical worldview the divinity of jesus his redemptive work his crucifixion his physical death on the cross his resurrection the fact that he's unique the incarnate son of god whole denominations rejecting biblical world views around human sexuality well the label says church but what's being espoused from those places is so widely divergent and some of it's so deceptive it's disorienting church is refusing to provide leadership for their believers in seasons of challenge politicians and leaders who don't put our national interest first but prefer personal gain accumulation of power and therefore they don't uphold the truth the list could go on and on and on on a daily basis deception cascades over us so what are we to do how do we find our way how do we navigate this how do we regain our balance well fortunately jesus has given us some really good advice isn't that good to know i'll tell you i'm not a beginner i'm not in the sense that i've accumulated all wisdom i've just i've had enough birthdays you know there was a time i was reluctant to say i believe in jesus i was wise enough to know it wasn't a fully held view and i thought i don't want to diminish my opportunities folks from the place i stand today you will never regret identifying yourself with jesus and i've been in academic settings and i love to learn and study and i'm grateful for all the opportunities i've had i've been in settings where jesus wasn't welcome and i turned down the volume to do what i needed to do in those settings and i regret it so whatever your life calling whatever your mission whoever your circle of friends is let it be known you're an advocate for jesus if the awakening is going to grow and we desperately need it to grow it's going to be a grassroots initiative where you and i as advocates for jesus are unrelenting we will not be silent and we will tell the god story that we have to tell in all of our brokenness and all of our weakness and all that we're not we will advocate for jesus don't you stop and if you haven't been willing to do that before the day is done get on your knees and tell the lord you're sorry because there's a day ahead of us when you're going to want him to call you friend you won't want to be some distant idea perhaps you'll want to be his friend well jesus warned us in fact in the scripture almost every passage which deals with the end of the age deals with being deceived they go together it is an overriding characteristic of the end of this age and we are in that season in matthew 24 and verse 4 jesus said watch out that no one deceives you for many will come in my name claiming i'm the messiah and they'll deceive many he's warning his closest friends his best followers the best of the best the most trained the ones with the most experience watch out that no one deceives you now jesus is a true prophet of all the hebrew prophets and there are many he's the greatest in that same chapter matthew 24 and verse 22 it says if those days had not been cut short no one would survive but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened sounds to me like the elector going to have to go through some things hallelujah i promise you my bible says god will never ask you to walk through something that he hasn't given you everything you need to walk through it triumphantly so wherever you find yourself god's given you what you need i read once for mother teresa said sometimes i wish god didn't have so much confidence in me you may share that feeling verse 23 at that time if anyone says to you look here is the messiah or there he is don't believe it for false christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect if that were possible see i've told you ahead of time it did critical junctures in the unfolding story of god in the earth in dealing with the descendants of adam god gives us critical information to help us flourish in those seasons of transition and jesus is cautioning us the deception is real there's a couple of very important lessons one is that miraculous signs do not prove a message is true and we're incredibly vulnerable as religious people to this if there's attestation supernatural evidence that something is happening we tend to just blindly go yes and jesus counsel and the larger council of scripture is very clear the antichrist will be a supernatural character will be a religious figure that is one of his most trusted assets allies a false prophet doesn't mean that miracles aren't important we will need them avoiding miracles is not the right pathway we won't finish this course well without the supernatural intervention of god and if you've avoided the supernatural because it was a little messy to your intellectual neatness tell the lord you're sorry you will need his help we may have lived in a place where through your strength and your logic and your reason and your effort you can navigate the challenges of life we have left that place we will need the supernatural help of god and then jesus said even the elect would be deceived if it were possible the elect are god's chosen ones it's an interesting proposition why can the elect avoid deception because we sit in the right churches we read the right translation we know the dress code no because god chose us it's as simple as that because god chose us our security is not in our education or our denominational affiliation or the congregation where we participate it's god who secures us that's why the awareness that jesus is lord that we serve at his pleasure that he establishes our priorities that we serve in whatever capacity he asks us to serve him we don't ask him to serve us because then we can trust him to secure us there's a question asked it was an interview between jesus and the roman governor some of you remember his name was pontius pilate and pilate's trying to sort out what to do with jesus jesus enemies in the jewish community are asking for his execution and pilate has the authority but he senses that he's innocent and his wife has a dream and she comes and intercedes on behalf of jesus and pilate is in a very difficult political circumstance you better work out what your allegiances are before you get into difficult positions because if you wait until you're in the pressure of the moment before you decide in whom you believe it's highly improbable you'll have the courage to make the right choice you want to exercise that muscle on small matters before they become matters of life and to determine your destiny think of the difference for pilate if he had said i agree you're the king of the jews he'd be more than a historical footnote he had an opportunity he liked his position he liked his power he liked the wealth it brought to him he liked the authority it gave him he was afraid of those in authority over him so regardless of what he felt regardless of what he knew to be true he capitulated before we point fingers at him over the centuries we need to look in the mirror and begin to say to the lord may i have the courage to tell the truth to be a person of truth may identify for you and stand up on your behalf jesus answered pilate says you're a king then and jesus answered you're right in saying i'm a king in fact for this reason i was born and for this i came into the world when jesus said that he signed his death warrant he was aware of it the one thing for which without question you could be crucified is if you put yourself up in opposition to caesar and when jesus said i'm a king he didn't deny think of all the ways he could have answered he could have answered in mystical language he could have answered in so many ways that would have deflected the question and we would have called him clever or witty but he didn't step away from the truth denying the truth will not put you in a better place it seems that the price for jesus was high because he owned the truth but because of that in philippians 2 it says god gave him a name that's above every name the name of jesus every knee will bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and when you're willing to stand for the truth for righteousness for integrity if in the moment you forfeit something the creator of heaven and earth will see to it that the scales tip in your favor amen for this i came into the world to testify to the truth everyone on the side of the truth listens to me and pilate asks the question that is echoed through all the ages of human history what is truth what is truth we can't tell from the context if pilate said it as a skeptic mocking jesus or if he said it as an inquirer who was genuinely anxious to know it's just not we can't tell only in eternity will we know that but the question has never been adequately answered by philosophy oh there have been many attempts and many would submit that they have but the bible gives us an answer and we're talking about deception understanding how identity to identify the truth is important now the bible doesn't give us a simple answer in fact as i understand that the bible gives us three aspects or if you prefer three coordinates of the truth and you need all three coordinates to be in place to identify something as true the words aren't complicated john 14 and verse 6 jesus said i'm the way the truth and the life so jesus is the truth there's no truth apart from jesus if someone says he isn't the son of god you can know they don't hold the truth they may be smart and well educated have letters after the name be influential and powerful but they're missing a key component john 17 17 says sanctify them by the truth your word is truth so god's word is the truth our bible say it was written by people it was but it was directed by the spirit of the living god now it was it's been written and translated and copied you don't want to build your worldview off of one sentence in the bible or where a comma is placed but through the pages of your scripture the character of god and the purposes of god are revealed in first john 5 6 it says this is the one who came by water and blood jesus christ he didn't come by water only but by water and blood and it is the spirit who testifies because the spirit is the truth that's the third coordinate the spirit is truth the truth is jesus the truth is the bible the word of god and the truth is the spirit in order to know the truth you have to have all three coordinates now that's important because you can hear someone preach a wonderful message talk a great deal about jesus jesus this and jesus that but you need to check your bible to see if what was said is the truth because saying nice things about jesus doesn't always mean it's true or you may hear someone talk a great deal about the spirit and the moving of the spirit of god and how to know the spirit of god but you need to check your bible if it can't be substantiated it isn't the truth even if it's what you want to hear or someone may preach a biblically accurate message quoting chapter and verse but if it lacks the presence of the spirit that brings life to god's word it's burdensome and not freedom to ensure you have the truth you need those three things to be in place is it true to jesus is it true to the bible and does it have the witness of the spirit that's why more than a casual knowledge of your bible is important it's why daily exposure to the word of god matters even the parts you don't even the genealogies matter why i don't have time today now there's another component of deception that is very prominent and it has to do with another jesus i want to read a passage from corinthians it's a church but i would remind you that the corinthians are very spiritual people the movings of the spirit the gifts of the spirit the miraculous was all a part of the corinthian church and yet they are warned repeatedly about deception so you can be supernaturally spiritually aware born again and still be vulnerable to deception second corinthians chapter 11 verse 2 i'm jealous for you with godly jealousy i promised you to one husband to christ so that i might present you as a pure virgin to him but i'm afraid that just as eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to christ adam and eve were in the garden of eden god came and spent the afternoons with them walked with them the deception came to them and paul's saying if it came to them it could come to you for if someone comes to you and preaches a jesus other than the jesus we preached or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted you put up with it easily enough and in our world today there are many versions of another jesus there are the language is used but the presentation is very different from the biblical narrative i can't list them all but i'll give you a couple of examples there's jesus as a marxist revolutionary there's a whole theological school built around this there are university systems built around this it's not the jesus of the bible now it's praiseworthy to have a desire to help the poor and those less fortunate than ourselves but the approach that this particular theological perspective has taken is not biblical the technical label for it is liberation theology and it it it has holds on entire nations entire political systems but it's not the jesus and the gospels and then there's jesus as an oriental guru in an attempt to align jesus with buddha or socrates or other great dispensers of wisdom and thought and understanding i mean the general box that this notion goes in i suppose we would label his new age but jesus is not a guru he's not a dispenser of wisdom he's not just a wise man he's not just the founder of a religion he's not just a miracle worker or a healer or a sage or a provider for you when you're in a desperate place he is the son of god and the savior of the world and it's important to understand the difference and then there's one that's had a lot of influence in american christendom it's jesus is the benevolent uncle he kind of walks amongst us when we gather saying be happy and don't worry smile he doesn't mention sin very much or talk about judgment very often and often he will infer if he doesn't say it directly that all religious activity leads to the same outcome folks jesus is a conquering king and the judge of the living and the dead and he's not just your benevolent relative the numbers of people currently deceived is in the millions it's why your advocacy is so important there are people you know that are living in deception and we have lacked the courage to tell them the truth not in condemnation not in anger not as a rebuke we have been reluctant to have the dialogue because we didn't want to deal with it tell your god story talk to people about what jesus has done for you tell them what you know say i don't feel like i know enough when do you think you will i'll tell you a funny story i was a few years ago haven't been too long last four i know five or six years i was in jerusalem for a celebration of the feast of tabernacles and there was hundreds of thousands of people gathered from around the world and i'd been invited to speak and there were three sessions that morning and the persons on either side of me were heroes in my life further along with the way than me more experienced than me i sit at their feet to listen and i'm sitting in the auditorium early that day before anybody had come in and i'm complaining to the lord in fact i'm thinking of going to the organizers and saying let's split my time between these two people because i'd rather hear them and i'm really complaining lord says lord i don't feel prepared and i heard that little voice inside of me said when do you think you would be prepared because by then i was well into my 30s i mean really well into my 30s and it occurred to me if i didn't feel prepared soon i was going to step off the stage before i ever got prepared so i'd put to you the question that the lord put to me when is it exactly you think you'll be prepared and what is it that's hindering your preparation if it's urgent enough that our destiny is going to be determined by what we know about jesus when exactly are we going to be prepared to talk about it now let's take a minute i have far more notes than we have time so just i'll quit before lunch we'll just hook up and work on this a little bit more but how deception enters how does it come into our lives what makes us so vulnerable why is deception such a persistent problem in century after century culture after culture doesn't seem to matter what point in time or history what is it well the one there's one primary door that's identified in scripture you want to guess what makes us so vulnerable to deception it's pride pride behind all deception i would submit to you is pride it opens us up to deception the great deceiver lucifer was an archangel many scholars would suggest the most beautiful and the wisest of all the angels he had authority and power in the kingdom of god and in his pride he led a rebellion it's almost unimaginable his pride led to rebellion and it ended in deception it was a very he found himself so deceived that he led a rebellion that wasn't going to succeed if it happened to an archangel may i humbly submit we should all be cautious now you see expressions of this if you if you pay just a bit of attention the attraction of almost any cult of any false religion and i'm not talking about things that you identify as wicked i mean deviations of christianity that take you away from the redemptive work of jesus the attraction principally is join us and you'll be a part of the super group it appeals to our pride well i'd like to be a part of the super group people in these perspectives often will say well the church has been a little ineffective a little misguided but if you join our group you'll be more right than everybody else you see the lie the first lie which satan turned on the human race is you can be like god you can know right and wrong you can be the arbiter folks we are the sheep of his pasture it's why listening is the primary characteristic of the people of god in every generation and if you've imagined that your theological system was so tight so perfected that you need not listen any further you're already deceived beware of anybody that tells you there's a group that has gone further than any of the others and when you hear that they're typically critical of the preceding generations of christians what arrogance do you know the tremendous sacrifice that has been paid for you and i to be able to embrace our christian faith today the tremendous sacrifices that have been made so that we can have the word of god that the jesus story would be told from generation to generation to generation we are the inheritors of a sacred trust how dare us talk about our faith in terms of comfort and convenience how dare us be more concerned about our children learning athletics than learning to fear the lord and to understand how to hear the voice of his spirit what has come over us how have we become so sleepy so disinterested so groggy the lord is awakening us any group that says to you to be correct you have to join us you can know one thing for certain if you join them you're wrong because correctness doesn't align a lie in any single group now jesus has chosen a group how many of you like to be a part me too well it's not a super group i'm going to warn you that only jesus would have chosen a group like this but they're described for us in the scripture see if you can pick out where your name should go it's first corinthians chapter 1 and verse 26 brothers think of what you were when you were called do you know god called you so he called you before you drew your first breath he called you when you were still in your mother's womb it's why we stand for those little people think of what you were when you recall not many of you were wise by human standards not many were influential not many were of noble birth but god chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise he chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong he chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him it is because of him that you are in christ jesus who has become for us wisdom from god that is our righteousness holiness and redemption what makes us righteous jesus what brings holiness to us jesus what's the source of our redemption jesus to be one of god's chosen people you've got to be in that list that means you've got to be weak foolish lowly based despised so if you're listening to this and you think i'm too broken to be one of those come on in we've got room for one more there's no boasting in ourselves we need to get over ourselves a little bit you see it's our compassion for people that motivates us to share our jesus story not our arrogance now there's one more component let's unpack this one at least the topic is deception and how to avoid it and there's a toxic combination of your flesh your carnal self that part of us that is unredeemed your spirit's born again made alive to god but your old earthly nature fed by your emotions and your thoughts that carnal part of us combined with deceiving spirits that are present in the earth is a significant doorway to deception in our lives ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 says it was he who gave some to be apostles and some to be prophets and some to be evangelists and some to be pastors and teachers to prepare god's people for works of service so that the body of christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of god and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of christ now the objective is the maturing of the body of christ and it's worth noting that maturity comes in community it's not a trick to get you to come to church you can sit in church and not grow up just like you can sit in the gym and not get healthy but it's hard to get healthier if you don't ever find where there's the equipment to help you or the experience to help you or the expertise to help you and you will not reach maturity alone we need one another not my idea it's biblical so if you don't like it get mad at god but it clearly tells us that god's provision for his church for his people now jesus is the head of the church but he has put in place in the church some things to help us mature it said he's given us apostles prophets evangelists and pastors and teachers some will take pastor teacher and hyphenate it some separate it doesn't matter to me so those gifts exist in the church and you can't logically or rationally from a biblical basis say well i believe in pastors but i don't believe in prophets or i believe in teachers but i don't believe in apostles because they're all presented to us in the same place for the same purpose for the church to have the strength we need and to accomplish our mission we will need those five fold ministry gifts in play in the church now we need to understand what they are your definition or what grandma thought may not be fully accurate and i'll tell you everyone who calls himself a pastor doesn't necessarily care for and strengthen the flock i'm not throwing stones at anybody that's just reality in the same way everybody calls themself an apostle or calls themselves a prophet isn't necessarily standing in that place called by god they just got business cards printed labels and titles don't guarantee authenticity now that's just factual and you need to be aware and not naive sometimes as christians we check our brains in the parking lot please don't do that there's just some practical issues around this that we need to unpack for a moment or two how error can enter our lives through people under the guise of those labels after all prophecies high sounding stuff how could you act against something that someone said to you and tagged on thus saith the lord well the primary purpose of prophecy in scripture isn't to foretell the future it's to give us an accurate perspective of how god sees the circumstance if you'll go back through the prophets and read it with that viewpoint it will be imminently helpful that does the spirit of god give it application to the future yes he does but there's a very fine line between biblical prophecy and fortune telling and one is directed by the spirit of god and one is not god doesn't promise to reveal to you everything about your future if you knew it wouldn't be helpful and if you have a desire to know and you spend your time seeking it it's a high degree of probability you'll end up in the occult and filled with deception so it's not an easy thing and that combination of our carnal self and deceiving spirits makes us vulnerable so the bible gives us some safeguards first corinthians 14 29 it says two or three prophets should speak and the other should weigh carefully what is said first the less thessalonians 5 19 don't quench the spirit don't despise prophetic utterances you need to hear that because once you've been burned by some people in the using the name of the lord in destructive ways you're going to think i'm just going to push the whole thing into the rubbish heap but the bible says we can't despise it we need god's perspective on where we are somebody has to tell us the truth the truth is the antidote for deception so prophetic messages shouldn't always just be encouraging happy things about promotions and good hair days anybody who participates in prophecy has to be willing to be judged now what's the standard we judge by how you feel about it if it suits your preference for the future no isaiah 8 19 gives us a clue what they're to say consult the mediums and the spiritists who whisper and mutter should not a people consult their god isaiah is saying why do you go to sources other than god to get information about the future i'd put the question to you why do you read horoscopes why do you play with ouija boards why do you go to fortune tellers why do you use systems other than god to anticipate the future the answer is it's not the holy spirit and if you've been involved in it no matter who blessed it or how religious it may be or if it was put under the umbrella of christianity you need to renounce it repent renounce it'll bring freedom to you where was i should not a people consult their god should they consult the dead on behalf of the living seances to the law and to the testimony if they don't speak according to this word it is because they have no light we judge what is spoken by the word of god now let me add another piece to this because we talk about those five-fold ministry gifts it impacts us it impacts the world in which we live the systems in which we participate and one idea that is proven helpful to me is that spiritual leadership needs to be in proportion to the faith of the individual and in the the original in the in in greek faith and faithfulness are interchangeable they seem different to us faith seems like some mystical formula and faithfulness is something else but in the wording of the new testament they are interchangeable if you want to know a person of faith you'll need to know a faithful person you can't be a person of faith and not be a faithful person in romans 12 and verse 6 it says we have different gifts according to the grace given us if a man's gift is prophesying let him use it in proportion to his faith a helpful little idea for you for all of us is not to go beyond our faith or our faithfulness serving the lord can be emotional whether it's prophesying or teaching or leading or whatever gifting you may have and you may say you may aspire to something you may have a ambition within you that is motivating for that and ambition isn't evil but ambition has to be yielded to the lord selfish ambition is destructive and if you combine the awareness of godly things in our carnal nature it's easy to have ambition that goes beyond the place of our faithfulness and it puts us in destructive vulnerable places stay within your allotted proportion of faith now you can grow in your faith your faith can be strengthened watch the disciples through the gospels into the book of acts watch them grow in their faith listen to your heroes in the old testament david when he hears goliath bellow his challenge and the bravest most effective warriors in israelite army are hiding in their tents and the little shepherd kid rolls in and says i can take him and when he's interrogated about it remember what he said he said he's challenged the armies of the living god he didn't challenge the army of saul he called god out and he said i had an assignment to care for my father's flocks and if a bear came against the flock i took the lamb away and killed the bear and if a lion came and took a lamb i took the lamb back and killed the lion and this clown is no different than the lion or the bear he didn't wait to figure out how his sling worked when he heard goliath start to speak you want to strengthen your faithfulness to the lord we have to let go of this notion that i'm mature because i can spell the 12 tribes of israel in their original language i'm an advocate for knowledge spent most of my life studying and hope to continue to do so but we want to grow in our faithfulness to him can you be trusted in the place where you stand are you trustworthy in all of the circles of influence god has given to you are you just trustworthy in attendance you see grow in your faithfulness and then we can become conduits for all that god wants to do but be aware when you listen be aware when you follow pay attention i'll give you one example i'm about done there's hope acts 16 paul and his team once we were going to the place of prayer we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future she has an unclean spirit a demonic spirit that enables her to predict the future and with enough accuracy that she's producing a significant income did you know that spirits have awareness that you don't have you see some of us are still stuck arguing over whether there's unclean spirits spirits have information and insight and understanding that often we don't have so you'll hear something you think well that's true but it doesn't necessarily mean it's the holy spirit she earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune telling and the girl followed paul and the rest of us shouting these men are servants of the most high god who are telling you the way to be saved that's a pretty good label most of you would be content with that message on your desk servant of the most high god i can tell you how to be saved in fact she's the first person in philippi to recognize that there are no converts yet she kept us up for many days finally paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit in the name of jesus christ i command you to come out of her. and at that moment the spirit left her now some of you know the rest of the story when the owners of the slave girl discover that they've lost their golden goose they're very unhappy with paul but it's the circumstances before that i think that are most helpful to me every word that we have that that woman said was true it was the truth but it wasn't the spirit of god it's very clear in the context it was a divining spirit a fortune telling spirit most of us i suspect confronted with somebody if we were on a mission's journey or we went into a new office or some new settings of people and we found somebody that would make that declaration over them us we would make them first chair at the table founding members after all they've got a tremendous grasp of the truth we need discernment we need those multiple coordinates because the best deception begins with the part of the truth and almost every deceiving spirit has some truth and we're going to have to be more sophisticated well pastor i don't really like this this sounds like hard work can't you just tell me the two verses i need to memorize so i can go to heaven i just don't like to think about all the spiritual stuff bless your heart in all honesty i understand the feeling and there may have been a time and a place when christianity was such a pervasive influence in our culture that you could find a way to flourish on the blessings of generations who had preceded you but we're not there any longer and if our children and grandchildren are going to know truth and live with freedom it's going to require greater discernment from us we have we have labored beneath deception for far too long now there's some more i'd like to say we'll do it in another lesson some keys on how to be free from deception you can walk out from under it when you recognize you've been deceived it doesn't define your future hallelujah see the point of the cross the beauty of the redemptive work of jesus is no matter in which way sin or ungodliness or wickedness has touched your life you cannot only be delivered from it you can be redeemed that is the good news of the gospel it's why we love jesus it's why we advocate from it's not because we're bored on sunday mornings and we need a little side activity to make us polite or tamed the church is not being called to be tame and it's not polite to follow the lord in fact until you're desperate enough that you don't you're willing to lose the facade of being polite you won't follow him very far but it is good news for everyone who will receive the truth now i want to close i want to give you two verses of scripture and i'm going to ask you i think they can put them on the screens we can say them together as a proclamation over ourselves over our families over our church over our community over our nation over god's purposes because we want the awakening to continue we intend to participate with people from every nation race language and tribe wherever god gives us the opportunity to stand with those who are saying yes to him in this season amen why don't you stand with me vaughn we're going to sing in just a second we're going to read these verses together and then i'm going to kneel and pray von's going to sing a chorus and i don't want to direct your prayer i want you to talk to the lord you invite him in say lord if there's any place i've been deceived any place i've made room for a false jesus any place i have pursued insight from an unholy source i am sorry i repent i want to be clean i want it to have nothing to do with me i'm not going to give you a long time he's going to sing a couple of a short chorus and then i'm going to say a brief prayer but we're taking a step towards freedom today we're not just gathering to pat one another on the back and say aren't we good we're in training we're gaining strength the spirit of god is helping us have you got the verses isaiah 45 and verse 8 very good let's read it together your heavens above rain down righteousness let the clouds shower it down let the earth open wide let salvation spring up let righteousness grow with it i the lord have created it and now from hosea chapter 10 and verse 12 it is time to seek the lord until he comes and showers righteousness on you let's say that one again it is time to seek the lord until he comes and showers righteousness on you if you want to stand and pray good if you want to kneel and pray it's okay you can't come forward not enough distance but you came forward you got to church we're going to count that biggest altar call you've ever seen it's in about 250 000 square feet i hear the savior say thy strength indeed is small [Music] jesus paid it all all to him i hope sin had left a crimson stain he washed it white as snow jesus paid it all all to him are you [Music] lord jesus forgive us forgive us for our pride in our rebellion forgive us when we've elevated ourselves or our will or our choices above yours we come in humility today to turn aside forgive us for any time we have sought direction or instruction or guidance from a source other than you we renounce it we repent of it we choose a new path and i thank you that through the blood of jesus we have been delivered and redeemed and cleansed only you can keep us only you can secure our future only you can chart a course that will lead us triumphantly through what is ahead but we trust you today invite you into our hearts and our lives as never before give us hearts that can receive and ears to hear and eyes to see give us a new boldness a new courage a new authority from you give us a love for your word that cannot be quenched we thank you for it i thank you for your great love for us and your provision for us that you have good things ahead for us in jesus name amen hallelujah god bless you

Channel: World Outreach Church

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Keywords: World Outreach Church, World Outreach Church Murfreesboro, Pastor Allen Jackson, Pastor Allen Jackson Sermons, Online church service, live church service, christian sermons

Id: y8OikVPVv28

Length: 60min 19sec (3619 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 26 2021