"Hit the Bar" Episode 11 (Part 2): Chris Hodges Twisting the Bible to "Get You Dreaming Again!"

[Music] i want you to go home at least start a bucket list everybody just get it started have some fun things on there have some meaningful things that will change the world as well there are five oh they're equal yeah some fun things some things that will change the world you know whatever god is going to drop dreams inside of you this is what the church does can i hear a better amen everybody oh shut up in the says what verse i know [Music] it makes me want to cry because because he's hurting people don't be disappointed god be disappointed in false teachers like this guy fire in my jingle again welcome to another episode of hit the bar i'm steve kozar and this is my wife paulette kozar who is finishing some m ms as i introduce part two of our chris hodges video she didn't know i was going to do that i thought it would be kind of funny i just want to say we bought this giant bag i bought this bag about a week ago and it's there's somebody who's coming down to my basement studio and eating our m ms and i don't know who it is so if anybody has any information about that please share that with us and lucy yeah it's probably lucy okay so what are we doing today honey we're watching chris hodges this night and i got a glimpse of the second one it's worse than the first half i think well it really is that's what we're about to find out and i also wanted to mention uh in the beginning of the previous episode i talked about the arc and i mentioned clint adams and his blog post his his website um the ernest layman and i just noticed that our good friend daniel long just put up a video where he interviews clint and it's an hour and a half interview talking all about the arc hour and a half i think an hour and 25 minutes doesn't matter so i'm going to make sure that there's a link to that but that's the long for truth channel a lot of you are already subscribed to dan's channel but i just highly recommend that you do uh and uh was there something else we have we have we have these just giant list of names of all the people who are telling us what campus hey shout out to all of our campuses and we're writing them down where's our latest campus from honey i have to get the book okay well what's the most obscure we just got something from paris paris france the real paris yeah so and the uk and south africa south africa the uk and the virgin islands new zealand new zealand um and there's australia of course we don't have anybody from sheboygan yet no sheboygan i was hoping we'd be very big and should we nights very big at sheboygan they loved it you know big deer wisconsin so cool to see thank you for letting us know you're here yeah and we do want to have a as as the weather gets better and as the restrictions are lessened lifted lifted restricted lifting the restrictions lift or lifting it's lifting then we hope to do something with this idea of getting together and having meetups in the united states first obviously right here in wisconsin in fact the the really exciting idea that i have and i've talked to my church council and my pastor about this is to have an actual conference which wouldn't be a really big event it would just be a one-day event and it would be a saturday it would be at our church here in mcfarland right outside of madison we're like five miles outside of madison yeah so easy on easy off i don't know if we can get to that this coming summer or fall but that's something that we're just in the beginning stages of talking about so we really appreciate all of your interest and we really are glad that so many of you have found this stuff helpful yes very much because it's super confusing it's confusing and we are going back to chris hodges because he's one of the leaders of this whole thing and we're going to just go right to where we left off and i want to point out a couple things in the first few sentences here but i also i learned something that day lit seriously that i would never say never ever again and i would allow my heart to dream and god has so much more for us than just plain rides i promise you that but i learned a beautiful spiritual truth and i want to stir it up inside of you please look at my eyes and hear this because if you do you're going to feel health trust me when i say it you won't know it till you do it that phrase right there the the cadence the pitch of the words for those of you who have been in the church for a long time i want you to listen to this again trust me when i say it you won't know it till you do it let me do it he kept asking me what is this i'm like i don't know inside of you please look at my eyes and hear this because if you do you're going to feel health trust me when i say it you won't know it till you do it when you start allowing your heart to dream connecting with your liver that is an altar call without being an altar call i want all eyes closed you won't know what till you do come to the front it's just between you and god he's he's adopting the language and the the cadence i would even say the emotional manipulation techniques in some cases of the of the kind of traditional revivalistic evangelical world and now instead of inviting jesus into your heart you need to actually build up the dreams within your heart so that god can do whatever he wants to do otherwise it's sinful i mean i mean you know he wouldn't use that word no but that's negative that's true yeah living god who is speaking to you and has wonderful things to tell you and he has a place he has wonderful things to tell you where in your heart in your dreams and your visions for your own life he doesn't have wonderful things to tell you in his word per se so what does scripture say about our heart it's not good yeah so when he says that it makes it's it's very confusing it is confusing because you think oh my heart's good and then scripture says it's not so then who do you believe and if you take his ideas to their logical conclusion you will really mess up your life because you you're being told that your heart is where the truth can be found and god speaks to your heart you should believe it and we have stories to tell like many of you about the dumb things we did the financially dumb things the spiritually dumb things the emotionally dumb things yes harmful things yes the um potentially disastrous things that we did because we were taught that we hear god in our heart and when we have a dream of something big and something so big that it doesn't seem possible it's god it's definitely god that's that's how you can really ruin your life yes in his grand design made for you you got to get yourself dreaming again so you have an assignment i want you to go home at least start a bucket list everybody just get it started by the way i looked up that movie it was from uh 2007 2006 maybe 2008 and that movie came out and then he did that plane ride two years later so he's been milking this story for ten years these are eleven this is from uh a year or two ago at the latest and um the movie has really bad reviews and jesus never said make a bucket list no he did not i mean it's so dumb if you want to have a bucket list if you want to write down yeah go but go ahead don't say it's as imp as it's as important as understanding scripture and knowing what god wants for your life absolutely and that's what he's um putting on the same level as which is super wrong and it confuses a lot of people especially people who are um experiencing god for the first time and god's calling them and in these types of environments and they're hearing this but then if they're reading their scripture there's confusion and and there is a lot of things that don't jive and so then you kind of wonder i know she's sleeping already can you get her close to the lake she stopped no she's going we need to get her a little lapel like okay i'll make a lightweight jacket okay let's keep going yes have some fun things on there have some meaningful things that would change the world as well they were oh they're equal yeah some fun things some things that will change the world you know whatever different types of people in our auditoriums today at all of our churches there's there this is where i saw i showed you the outline he's got five different types of dreams dream people and outline what he maybe you'll go over the outline later and i i don't really want to it's so dumb bottom line what is it it's just well you'll hear him say it okay the first type of person is someone who has no dream you have none so you have no dream you have no vision for your life pitiful you and i'm not trying to be ugly i'm not really of a confrontational type of a preacher but chances are if there's no dream there there may be no god inside of you no no isn't that awful that's awful yeah this is confrontational needs to be about your sin not about not having a dream this is basically flipping everything we know as christians upside down and saying if you don't want more for your life if you're not making big goals and asking god to give you big things then you're not really a christian and i also wanted to mention that there's an excellent podcast that again daniel long i keep mentioning him he's a good friend and the messed up church podcast some of you know about some of you don't but we also have a podcast that we just started producing content for just over the last month or two and he did an interview with gene beef and they talked about the lutheran doctrine of vocation and i think for some of you who are wondering what's the will of god for my life because this is one of the biggest topics in church struggled with it personally forever me too and this guy is the kind of guy who you do not want to listen to on that topic because he will he's doing it right here you know he's telling you everything wrong about how to know the will of god so i want to encourage you to listen to dr jean vice interview with with daniel long and the messed up church podcast from just about a month ago and i think that'll really help but i don't want to try to explain everything because then you won't need to listen to it but vocation people always think about their jobs yeah it's just it's just but it's more than that and it kind of goes compass is more than just a job if you're if you're a mom and you're raising kids that's your vocation that's right and your focus is on just doing that simple task that's simple but extremely important and very hard yeah and and this kind of a preacher will tell you well yeah that's important but it's also important that you volunteer at church and yet you give give give and you do all this other stuff and they will always make you feel basically guilty because you will always feel like you're not doing enough so we're here to tell you that god is not interested in uh placing more and more burdens on your shoulders that's that's not what the purpose of the church is the purpose of the church and the purpose of christ redeeming us is to take burdens off of our shoulders and to have this dream somewhere that you don't know yet and you have to find it and what if you're missing it that's a burden and that's something that i carried for years and uh anyway yeah listen to that podcast okay let me just go on another tangent like i keep forgetting um some of you don't know i'm a painter for a living i'm an artist i'm not a podcaster or a pastor or anything and i make i make very realistic paintings and what was that you just showed that's a that's a print but this was originally a watercolor painting there you go uh i just grabbed a couple of these and i forgot to show them but i've done farm scenes i've painted here's a one i did about a year ago and so my dream was to be an artist and to be a really successful and good artist before was your dream whose was it my mom's it was it was mine oh i forgot about that honey yes she wanted she we dated in high school she was very um encouraging and wanted me to be an artist and so it's a long story but it was very confusing for me because i thought well i've got this talent and i've got this dream now i'm going to you know with god's help he's going to make me successful and i'm going to go out and change the world and here i am 30 some years later and i haven't changed the world and i have some success as an artist but it's really not that big and it's mostly disappointment i'm thankful for what i've done i'm thankful that i've been able to make a living at it for the most part just 10 times harder than i ever thought it would be but my experience has been this idea that you have this big dream i'm kind of the poster child of the guy who should have seen all this wonderful stuff happen in his life and i didn't and i'm the poster female child yes we both are and so we're not bitterly saying you know oh we're so mad we didn't get our dream you know what a no we're saying we were taught wrong from the get-go and we worked very hard for over 30 years and we were set up for disappointment because we were told that god is speaking when he wasn't i think that's kind of the bottom line god was promising stuff to us when he actually wasn't promising stuff to us he was promising us redemption he was promising us some good things but it wasn't this dream that you're going to have this incredible career and change the world like this guy is saying there there may be no you're not connected with the living god let me say it this way you may not have faith in god the hebrews 11 is very clear it says that that faith okay did we have enough faith to believe god could actually propel your career and fulfill all according to him he will be saying no it's our fault right our fault yeah and that's what we've had to deal with for years anyway and then you have to you have to maybe go on this fasting program yeah maybe you need to tithe more right and we've done it all we've done it all and that's why i think it's been really hard for me steve's been wanting me to do this with him for a while and i knew we'd have to visit all of these places that were very harmful this is where i'm going to insert barbra streisand singing [Music] no no it's true it's been really hard yeah and you know making light of it is fun but on the other hand it's like no because we could not have done this in the past because it would have been too painful very enough time has passed now that we can talk about it and it's it's still hard for me just saying do you want to quit no okay look good as long as you're laughing when you have faith it is the substance of things hoped for no that's about jesus as you get close to god god is going to drop dreams inside of you in the in the ear it says what verse i know we could we could stop every sentence of this guy every two words yes early church when god established this church the first thing that happened in the outpouring of the church in acts chapter two no it was the fulfillment of a prophecy that you're gonna dream and prophesy and have visions this is this is what the church does can i hear a better amen everybody oh shut up you know it makes me actually want to cry it makes me want to punch him it makes me want to cry because because he's hurting people he's hurting people big time and it's just not true everything he says is not true so when when that uh verse from joel was used by peter he wasn't talking about all people for all times are going to have to conjure up dreams within themselves so that they can have a better life so that god can do whatever god wants to do it's just totally wrong he was prophesying he was using that verse to point to what was taking place at that very moment he was saying that this has been fulfilled this is right right now this thing is happening so you can't say almost 2 000 years that it's got to happen more it already happened that's what it was about it wasn't about us conjuring up dreams and getting excited about having this amazing life where everything is going to be you know wonderful and magical this is this is walt disney this is not christianity you mean you don't believe in dreams oh why everyone believes in dreams you see that's the only way dreams can come true i bet all our pals out there believe in dreams don't you and walt disney is not our model in case you didn't know what we do we when we connect with our living god we dream again no and for some of you you need to take that we we are aware of the great gift we've been given that's what happens that's what happens when you're when you're redeemed by god you realize that you have been given the free gift of salvation you don't start dreaming again now maybe it does mean that you do have some things in your life that are better for sure you know like maybe you're now going to clean up your act in some ways that's great you know the people had addiction problems people that had really bad habits and now they're going to church and they're learning how to live better those things are great when that happens i'm not against that at all but he's making it sound like christianity it's about getting your dreams i'm sorry that's okay you know if everybody just sends twenty dollars she'll stop crying you have to have more mascara okay this this is i'm sorry but it is really hard because it not only affected us it affected our kids and it affected our relationships and affected our most importantly how we saw god and that's really grievous because um everything steve's saying is true i mean um it just took us so many years to get there and i know when these people are so big and they're talking to millions of people it's just really heartbreaking so ready yeah that's steph you need to you need to say you know what i need to get close to the lord i need to maybe maybe i'm not even hearing god because i have so many competing voices going on in the inside yeah like you and sometimes in order to hear god's voice you have to turn down the world's volume and allow god to speak to you and i'm urging the world to be close to the lord again jeremiah chapter 33 says call to me this is god speaking call to me and i will answer you and watch what he does when i answer you and i will show you great and mighty things which you do not know that was available just begging us to get close to him in prayer and don't let just to come yeah he's taken a verse that doesn't say universally that god's just begging us to to dream dreams it's it's a verse in jeremiah where god was speaking to jeremiah it doesn't apply but what do you what was he saying to jeremiah though why was it i just looked this up you know they're so good about pulling stuff out of the old testament that proves their point but then the old testament talks about things that they won't talk about because it won't prove their point it'll actually contradict their point which is why it's so important to know really the context of scripture and who was speaking it and why and what was going on in the history because this is actually historical not just a religion um you know what happened to the jewish people and and and what did the prophets say or the kings and what did they do so i that's one thing i've really come to understand and believe is that as long as we use scripture in context we are hearing from god but if we pull it out of context and put it in our story or our message it's god's word but it's not properly utilized the word of the lord came to jeremiah a second time while he was still shut up in the court of the guard quote thus says the lord who made the earth the lord who formed it to establish it the lord is his name call to me and i will answer you and i will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known so he's talking to jeremiah and it's it's about what jeremiah is going to be prophesying and seeing to tell the people so he's just taking this one verse completely out of his context and saying this is actually about how god wants to show you all the dreams but you have to you and you have to conjure up the dream so he wants to show them to you but they're not really there until you do the work to get excited about your future and start imagining a bigger house or having a better career or whatever it is conversation going one direction well i'm just gonna dump all my problems on god no no pray and listen i pray and keep a pad near my where i pray in my in my home office because god speaks to me and gives me ideas and god desires the same thing for your life as well so [Laughter] this is going to be really hard yeah if you want to hear from god you just read his word and i know people are sick of us probably saying this but it's the truth it's the truth and it's safe if you think that god is speaking to you in his word and he's speaking to you in your thoughts and ideas how are you going to know if it's from god or if it's just from you you won't that's the bottom line you won't so go for it if you want to try to decipher every thought that pops into your head if it might be from god or it might not be from god no there's a good way to actually know use scripture in which case you know your ideas or thoughts okay go back to scripture is it a scripture verse or is it something that god has said in his word somewhere if god brings to a cream brings to your mind a scripture verse that's right then you don't have to wonder is this from god or not because it's already in god's word but if you know i think i want to start a home for disadvantaged children in brazil yeah right and i don't know anybody in brazil and i don't know anything about starting at home and i don't have any money but i just really think god gave that to me well there's no verse that's going to give you any clarity on that so you're just going to have to really really struggle it would make more sense for you to kind of work within the realm where you already live in the church you already go to and this idea and the i think the reason people start getting these ridiculous gigantic ideas about something that doesn't make sense is because they've been told that's how god works right they've normally i don't think people on their own would want to do something so risky that they're not good at that they don't know anything about but that's what these guys are telling you and it's not from the bible there is no verse in the bible that says try to do really difficult things that you have no background in and you have no money for and if you just outside of your field of expertise and if you do it's because god's calling you to do it and you know it is because of all of that because of how hard it is how impossible it is yeah and we've talked about this in other videos so let's keep going some of you in this room today at one of our churches you have that you're you're this type of person you have a wrong dream and when i say a wrong dream i'm not talking about a bad dream or even a sinful dream i'm just it may be good it's just not god you've allowed yourself to dream about something that has only earthly pursuits in it and there's nothing connected to god that god does not mind you pursuing like flying in a plane well he's going to say that that was this is so confusing because it is saying it's okay if you have a dream about some earthly worldly non-spiritual thing that's fine bucket list but you better not have a earthly dream that's not about spiritual things because that would oh he he's contradicting himself incredibly exactly that gets me mad who thinks but i have you have to hear this that god has so much more for you i want you to experience the joy of knowing that you're okay there are three words why is he why did he show a video of him 10 years ago flying in a jet plane as an example of how you should have a dream when that's not really important right or part of something that god is doing on the earth everyone paul said in acts chapter 20 verse 24 however i consider my life worth nothing to me if only i may finish the race and complete the task the lord jesus has given me paul literally said i have found the greatest joy of my life doing that which god asked me to do okay and he's going to say that paul had a dream just like we should have a dream that's what that's what he's trying to do galatians and galatian even talks about the galatians girl paul saying paul's saying that god called him while he was in his mother's womb to be who he was and that jesus actually appeared to him to give him the gospel message it wasn't any of the apostles it was jesus christ himself who came to him and it wasn't paul conjuring up a dream no it was jesus coming to him and saying okay you're going to go to the gentiles paul what are you excited about and it wasn't he was excited about killing christians that's what he was expecting according to this guy paul should have been you know continuing on with his dream dad knocked him on his butt yep and showed him no this is what you're gonna do you're zealous and you're passionate and you're wrong and you're wrong and you need to repent and i'm gonna turn your life around i'm gonna make you do stuff that you never planned on so was that a dream no it's the opposite that's what gets me so freaking mad this guy should know but he doesn't no he doesn't i mean he doesn't care about the bible okay you know i'm gonna i'm gonna hopefully talk to justin peters this week and do a podcast and i hope that if i'm saying this i don't confuse people because if we don't get it done in time and you're looking for it but eventually look for it i know that justin has talked about how he's been really clear in his videos even though he is the sweetest nicest guy he has said these people are not christians because they are saying things that are so contradictory to the word and and they you can't be a christian and teach things that are contrary to the very bible that you claim to be teaching from i i think i've heard him say that and he's been really strong in these points and i want to i want to kind of pick his brain on that a little bit more because that's a really common question well why is he doing this why is chris hodges doing this and i i have to say i don't know i don't either i just know it's extremely hurtful and it's not biblical and it's incredibly confusing tricky and confusing and he's in the church he's not outside the church and that's where the devil works the most he's inside the church so so let's keep going chris how do i get to that place how do i get to a place where i have a god dream i don't know how to say it any other way other than to surrender your life to jesus and what i mean by that i say god you can have my life that's why it's connected you can have my things and you can have my possessions and so surrendering to jesus giving your life to jesus is a component for sure of what it means to be a christian but it's not enough according to him well it's also not the core of our faith right the core of our faith is god show mercy on me a sinner show mercy on me i i don't deserve anything from you and i um i know that i'm in danger of suffering in hell for all eternity because of my sin you're a holy god i'm a sinful man you're the creator of the universe and i know that christ died for me you know so i i now believe that i am justified by what christ has done not by anything i can do that's that's kind of at the core but he's and guys like him really tend to and i i did the same thing when i was a young christian i i really pointed constantly to well if you're a christian you're going to have god lead you and god be in charge of your life and you're going to do things the way god wants you to do them so it was all about changing your kind of your life patterns and behavior and your behavior and not just believing the gospel and if you if it's all about changing your behavior you're going to disappoint yourself you you probably will unless you're dishonest with yourself and you're self-righteous and delusional and really god only acquired all of these because you gave me the ability to in the first place amen everybody i mean we only have what we have because of a generous loving god and that we just turn right back around and say god use this you use my car use my ideas use use my house use my pool use whatever i have i want to leverage those for eternal purposes my three homes and my 1800 shoes i i just want to do something really funny with that use my pool everybody into the fuel hey get me out of here okay so so being born and raised in an evangelical free church like myself and some of the things my parents really i feel really got right i mean we dysfunction is sin right and we all were raised in dysfunctional homes i was but one thing my mom always said is like you know what we have this house we have this van it's god so yeah if you know the youth group leader wants to take just think if you had a pool you could have really done something great for the lord but i mean she constantly gave up stuff yeah because it's god's and so that's not wrong everything we do have is god's everything we own whatever we become is because god has blessed us and given it to us does it mean it's ours no because it's on loan and if god calls us to minister or give away we do that and if you've got 1800 shoes you can lead more people to the lord because they're going to say wow i want to be like that is how confusing that is yes it's very confusing right and just daily surrender to god and to his purposes is one of the healthiest ways to live i i really honestly i kind of grew up i never thought that much of myself in fact i still battle with feelings of inferiority that might surprise you but i actually failed my speech clash at lsu not at harvard lsu everybody okay okay they don't only speak english down there and i it's you know okay so um because i was so afraid to get in front of people and i was not living the best version of myself and it was after a service like this where someone was challenging me to live for god i thought well that's for everybody else that's not really for me he wasn't living the best version of himself the you version or yeah that's the new catchphrase way of saying i was a sinner okay i was i was i haven't been in the scene i was in rebellion to god they don't use any of that language it's it's this idea that you know you were just not the best version of who you could be because that's what really christianity has become for them christianity is you getting on track with god and just making all the pieces fit so that you can be successful and have a happy life full of purpose that was a good commercial i just did that's called improvisation he's a thespian yeah that i went after the service it was a sunday night service at my church and i'm going to tell you god was messing with me and i went behind the church in this vacant field it was there's a football field for this christian school of that church and i paced back and forth and i didn't do anything other than say god you can have it all you can have my life my dreams my my career my marriage i wouldn't be married yet you can have it all god i'll take everything that i have belongs to you and that's where i heard the call of god on a football field after a church service that i was called to the ministry i'm just telling you you you got to make sure that you're that the dream that you're living out is not just just something that's just for yourself and and if it is you probably have to sense that that emptiness even in your own pursuits here's the third type of person and as you so it's a dream for a better things in your life but then he's saying no it's really a dream for a spiritual thing where you serve god he's really good at separating the thing you know the logic and the emotion yeah and i'm more emotional and he's more logical so this is really helpful because i got sucked into these kind of people all the time yeah i can see why i mean he's really good he's really smooth he's really convincing he seems really sincere but what he's saying is ultimately confusing it's it's not only confusing if you take the words and you can actually get this online they actually type the whole thing out word for word and you read it you're like this is a mess it's not that it's all wrong it's just it's a mess it's not clear it's it's theologically empty it he's just kind of going all over the place making the points that he wants to make without any kind of theological grid and certainly with without any kind of biblical backing no scripture and that's the thing too it sounds good but it is so intertwined with um you've got some good and some bad and it's all intertwined to one and it's like it must all be true and it's not well in in the um the thing he's doing right here is he's telling a really convincing very oh yeah very personable very emotionally compelling story and that is what causes people to leave a sermon like this and say well i gotta get a dream absolutely i don't know a lot about what he said i don't remember all the specifics but i got to go home and start dreaming again and and that's where you might say you know i've always wanted to own a restaurant and you know five years later your bank bankrupt your your marriages has ended because you thought you should start a restaurant because somebody planted this idea that you got to have this crazy ridiculous dream in your head i'm just using that as an example and people do this these sorts of things going back to us we weren't when we got married before we got married there was no dream like um church service i mean there was the dream destiny thingy was not popular back in the early 80s it was an amway that we saw at first right in the late 90s backing up again you know i saw the talent you had and i knew what the art teacher said and all that stuff it's just i really felt like god gave you this talent for a reason so that you know fast forward to amway and stuff it's like well that makes sense because you know you have this amazing talent and you know and some people say about success well have you been made a living of it yeah i stayed home i mean i was able to stay home with the first 10 years of us being married and having kids so some people could say well you were successful because you took care of your wife and your children and all the bills that go along with it even though we were behind in like everything but i mean and we still are i'm just saying that you know when you look at when i look at us in the beginning we didn't hear this kind of us of a sermon you know it was so when we started hearing these types of things it made kind of compelled me to pull us in even more thank you that made sense yeah i see your point do you have a good dream but it's just going stale i call it a stale dream so it burned at one point you were fired up about it he's got to rekindle a dream and either probably through delay through some set of problems it's barely flickering it's kind of just barely hanging in there right now and it's dying out and that's perhaps why god had me come to to life.church to be at this service with you watching or you attending today just to have this crazy cajun from alabama to blow on your dream and say come on let's burn again let's get this thing come on y'all right everybody this is dream again and um and here's what i know just i've been a christian uh for for more than 40 years now and i've been in ministry for 36 years now and here's what i do know about a stale dream and that is you don't casual that doesn't mean anything if you're not preaching the gospel and adhering to god's word no matter how long you've been a christian or how long you've been in ministry who cares where is your fruit yeah and the fruit it would be the teaching that actually sounds like the teaching in the bible it's not the results of numbers right that's one of the biggest things that people say well he's got a big church god's using of course he's a christian of course he's a good minister according to he's just different according to what our own standards which is numbers right if you got a lot of numbers you must be having fruit jesus did not say that well he he said fruit which is the fruit looks like the the trees the same so if that's where you are in these different five types of people if that's where you are you don't casually go back into it just take my advice you'll probably have to do something radical to get it back and for me i'll just tell you what i do and i'm not saying you have to do this i'm just telling you for me prayer and fasting works i i i take time and try to separate as much of the world as i possibly can so if you're supposed to have what is it a bucket list is it a dream i'm so confused you're supposed to separate from the world so that you can work on your dream bucket list thingy i mean is this a god spiritual thing again it's all on me again if i haven't done the right thing yeah and if i haven't worked hard enough there's something wrong with me yep and you know what folks it's not you it's bad teaching if you've heard this sort of thing and you've been confused i just want to tell you be free this is not what jesus came to do is to place this burden on you of having this ridiculous dream that never seems to come true and now you're disappointed in god don't be disappointed in god be disappointed in false teachers like this guy and i try to connect as much as i can to my god because really some of our problems the reason why we go stale in our lives we have too much of the world and not enough god are you listening to me everybody says the guy who he and his pastor buddies go watch a movie with jack nicholson that the lord wouldn't be happy with as an example of how you get your dream and how you learn about a bucket list that's kind of worldly you know what i'm not saying you shouldn't watch movies every once guy just teaching it's so it's so supposed to be leading people i know and that's the problem it's this is bad it's it's it's it and and prayer and fasting they literally combat both of those fasting is not about just starving yourself from food it's about how much of the world can i disconnect myself from from media from from anything secular what can i do to just create even just for a few days some type of separation and can i add to the time i'm spending what's amazing is that he's in a church right now that doesn't do that the church service itself is worldly it has very little scripture it has a lot of pop references it's constantly showing video clips and talking about the latest sports event or the news event or it's using psychological sort of uh uh analysis and techniques he's in a church that's using worldly techniques on a regular basis and he's telling people they need to go home and they need to get closer to god by pulling away from the world well the first step number one is to stop going to a church like this in god's word in in in prayer and i promise you you'll see this fire start to burn again on the inside paul pray for even for people in ministry i remind you to fan into flame the gift of god that's on you i'm here no dot dot dot dot he just he did his little dictionary thing he found some verse about a flame and he said oh that i can use that one try to blow on somebody today and just say hey it's time it's time to get that dream back i know it's been a long time you've been dreaming at a long time maybe you've gone through a set of circumstances that it's that's even delayed it god still wants to do it in your life can i hear a good amen everybody say well all right so just do something radical the fourth type of person is what i call a vague dream not so you have a dream but you've not spent the time that's needed to really articulate and if everybody says exactly 20 she'll stop crying so that's that's not vague that's very specific 20 and 20 only you'll get your dreams to come true i'm sorry honey this has really hits home how hard it's been and i feel really bad um and i really hope that people understand why we're doing this it's not because we enjoy them you know these things and these ministers and all that awful teaching we're compelled to do it because it has almost ruined our life and uh to get back to actually what jesus offers and what god offers in scripture is so much more peaceful and it's understanding it's it's more simplistic it's not easy but it's easier than what these guys are doing do you need tissue anymore gosh i didn't expect i'd be crying so much i knew it'd be hard because this was like so uh close to home i hate crying i don't have tissue but i have napkins that would work sorry okay articulate it to dream it more thoroughly and better yet it's shocking to me how many don't do this to write it down here we go i'm shocked at the number of people who don't write their dreams down we've written it down we've fasted we've prayed we've given money but not enough and we've given her life we've given so much but it's not so much that we've given money it's that we've lost money that's how i would put it the lighter side of life thank you honey there are some ministers who have been very pleased with our gifts the six hundred dollar check okay when there's a verse that says here we go it's kind of hard to understand because it's in the he you know it it because it just it's really hard to understand it's really deep because it says write it down i know it's like what do you mean god yeah says write it down write down what i reveal to you what's really deep is god coming in flush and dying on the cross for our sins that's the deepest thing in the whole world but according to him that's not can i encourage you to get in the habit if you want a vibrant christian life and a person who's living a life of purpose and someone who's making a difference just to get in the habit of dreaming and then writing it down don't you just want to slug them i mean not that after i cry a lot i have things because i've disciplined myself to once a month to read my bucket list and every time i do it discipline to read your bucket list i need to see if i can i need to work a little more before that i need to commit this more to prayer write it down write it down write it down to write down what i revealed to you so that he may run who reads it i have the i don't know if i'll ever get to it at this point but i have a whole video i have a whole video of people misusing this verse i wanted to find out you have a lot of videos and you have a lot of articles not done yet lots of them and which is good because there's no shortage of material well that's not necessarily good what's good is that you've written it all down and you're starting to well it's just like you said write it all down [Laughter] no i don't think it's the same thing these pages are so thin have a cut two two okay um if you if you've never looked at this verse this is one that not only uh christians get wrong but uh non-christians use it all the time too it's for the idea of a vision board you write stuff down you put it in your refrigerator we learned this in amway put a picture of your your favorite car in a boat in a fancy house and put it on that's what you work for and it doesn't work for anything else except things and it has to happen right because it does happen because if you write the vision and make it plain on tablets that he may run who reads it is somehow supposed to mean you get whatever you write down i will um and the lord answered me answered who happened it wasn't written universally to every person who's ever lived it was written to have a cook write the vision make it plain on tablets so he may run who reads it for still the vision awaits its appointed time it hastens to the end it will not lie if it seems slow wait for it it will surely come it will not delay behold this soul is puffed up it is not upright within him but the righteous shall live by his faith moreover wine is a traitor an arrogant man who is never at rest his greed is as wide as she'll like death he has never he has never enough he gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples so what does that mean he kind of skipped the part behold his soul is puffed up i mean i i can't remember that term that chris uses uh you when you fly in you just grab a verse he calls it up like a prophetic grabber i don't know the word vision commonly refers to the prophetic message from god this message was to be a permanent witness since it would not be imminently fulfilled the content may be the entire book of habakkuk or some shorter portion so he may run who reads it this may refer to a herald spreading the message throughout the nation or more generally to anyone fleeing the coming judgment and this is not about writing down your dreams that you can have it i mean the fact that that this is still going on in the so-called bible believing church in america it's really amazing it's amazing and that's not a good amazing this is a sign of an apostate church that's really as simple as it can be said an apostate church takes a few verses out of context and makes it all about us getting what we want in life what do you think luce your tongue's hanging out in other words if you don't write it down you won't be able to read it and if you don't read it you're not going to be able to run the play write it down right there if you don't get anything else out of this message would you please get alone with god start writing your dreams down i'm just here my name is chris i'm your friend come on somebody right i'm just here to see a lot of things right take some next steps with god that's more for you perhaps than what you're currently experiencing and i'm just trying to get you moving again in that direction here's the last one and that is a god dream a god tree the dream that we want is a god dream so the first four were all you know off and in some way they weren't quite right or they were the first one was no dream at all now he's going to explain the god dream you know the thing that's not in the bible a dream that is several things first of all it's god honoring in other words that it's a dream that doesn't just puff you up or make you say i was in f-16 yeah that's fine and dandy and i still have those things on my dream list why but i have some things because there's going to be a day that i want you to prepare because he said so so i hope you know this that there are two judgments some christians don't know this now he's going to talk about how you're going to be judged when you go to heaven i i want to do a round kick to this chest right now just saying now i'm done being sad i'm angry like you welcome you don't just go to heaven and did you accept jesus or not okay come on it's no there is that judgment it's the everybody judgment it's the great white throne judgment it's the judgment where you're entered into heaven because jesus paid for your sins and you decided to accept what jesus did for you on the cross you do know that hell is not a place that god sends people that he's mad at hell is just a place that people pay for their own sins but they don't have to come on somebody right you understand that right can we just linger on that just for a moment go ahead god he's not mad at people and he doesn't send them to hell because he's mad at them they go there because they choose not to accept jesus in their hearts okay who died on the cross and not only died on the cross but suffered was tortured tormented humiliated and in hell for us it was god himself right and god's not mad because we didn't accept his gift his free gift of salvation it it it's bizarre how they don't want to portray god as having any anger anger or he's not even a holy god well don't even look at jesus turning over the tables which our pastor has been preaching about great sermons about jesus righteous anger because of what was happening in the church and the priest what would jesus do to this guy you know in in if you're a christian and you know an actual christian it's not that we want to be violent but you should be mad at this and you should be speaking out against it because it hurts people and that's why jesus was mad he was mad at the money changers in the temple and it was supposed to be a place of holiness and it wasn't they were haggling over prices and exchanging money and stuff so you know when you think about god creating us mankind and loving us so much and then the fall of man and then wanting to establish the right relationship with man again and knowing that we couldn't we could never be there we could never do all the things we couldn't we couldn't live according to the law we couldn't be holy we couldn't live sinless lives so god loved us so much that he said okay you can't do that i'll do it for you and so when people say to me you know well what about all these other ways to isn't it i'll get to heaven i'm like okay all the other religions go to heaven so why did jesus die on the cross yeah christianity is very exclusive it's very exclusive about why god would allow you into heaven and how god shows his love to us he doesn't show us love to us and giving us dreams he shows his love to us and that while we were yet sinners he died on our behalf and he's not explaining that well at all it's awful he uses a couple of biblical words there just for a second and now he's going to guilt people that's that judgment but i'm so many christians don't realize that there's also another judgment after that judgment it's a christian judgment it's a judgment that doesn't determine your eternal existence it determines though what your eternal existence is like because it's a reward judgment the judgment seat of christ where he says okay well welcome in oh i love you so much and then he says however i gave you this and i gave you this and i gave you the best church on the planet i gave you oklahoma or texas or wherever you are around the world i gave i gave you this generation i gave the technology with the generation with technology i gave in my case all that amazing good looks i gave you so many things y'all didn't have to laugh that hard all right but there is the expectation watch this that you were leveraging that which god gave you because we want a god we want a well done and good and faithful servant kind of a dream amen everybody i hate it also there's a dream that's common that has the courage to even stand against injustices on the earth and say not on our watch we're not going to allow that to happen a culture defined dream a heaven impacting dream that we're going to plunder hail and populate heaven that's what i love about this church that everything you do is focused on getting more people in heaven and out of hell can i get a better amen everybody just and lastly it'll always be a dream i'm just gonna warn you that is seemingly impossible here we go oh my god you will always recover just ruin your life a little more and so i i i am so in over my head i have been years ago to be honest with you the things that god has asked me to do that it keeps me on my knees knowing that it's going to take great faith and a great god in order to pull it off and i wanted to close today i want to invite the keys to come on and i just want to read a verse a story and i actually was going to do this at the beginning of the message and i felt like the spirit of god spoke to me to do this at the end of the message and i just want you to get like get out of your head i've taught you and you've had lists give me this for a couple minutes because there's a story in mark chapter 8 that i want to read to you just receive this with fresh eyes and ears it says they came to bethsaida and some people brought a blind man and begged jesus to touch him in an interesting that he brought his friend who was blind and then told jesus how to do it not a good idea so jesus didn't touch him he took the blind man by the hand and let him outside the village by the way sometimes in order for god to speak to you you got to change the environment that you're currently in and it says this is hilarious to me i see humor in scripture forgive me when he spit on the man's eyes he asked him to touch him not not gonna do it and so anyway i think he did it on purpose because the guy told him how to touch him do the hand thing no i'm gonna do the spit thing all right so anyway because we think jesus is in a system and a certain way of doing it and he's trying to get you to say don't don't create the rules for me to work in your life and then jesus asked after he laid his head after he spit on the guy's eyes he said do you see anything and the guy looked up and he says i see people and they look like trees and i got a question for you these can you even guess what he's going to do i'm really worn out from this man this is an example of a guy who must have had vision early in life and he lost it because if he was blind from birth he wouldn't know what trees look like therefore this is the story of jesus restoring not just somebody's sight but their vision read read the real what real bible that would be really nice and they came to bethsaida and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him and he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him he asked him do you see anything and he looked up and said i see men but they look like trees walking then jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he opened his eyes his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly and he went and he sent him to his home saying do not even enter the village um i'm going to read the the note here this is from the lutheran study bible like trees walking the man sees unclearly at first it may indicate that the man was not born blind but lost his sight he knows something is still wrong in the in what he now sees so that's a guess that some people have made and then then jesus laid his hands on his eyes again again only two this is the only two-step miracle recorded in the gospels the blind man receives his sight slowly in the same way the disciples do not understand what they are seeing jesus must teach them who he is again and again so the fact that it's the only two step miracle where he got his sight restored and he saw men walking around that looked like trees and then he's had you it again yeah you know what it's just a really a strange anomaly of all the stories of the miracles but he's going to turn it into a vision thing he's blind how does he know what trees look like there's only one answer that he once had sight and he lost it because he knew what trees looked like that's that's that's not the only answer that's it's like so what yeah and it's it's i mean really what does that mean who cares he's going to turn it into something that it's not there you know what yeah and it's also a blind person knows what a tree is in general it's a tall thing they can feel them they've been heard them describe their whole lives blind people aren't oblivious to the world around them as much as we think that's a very good point so he's making it sound like he had to have been born right with vision then he lost it they can even hear you know the wrestling of the leaves yeah they they know a lot about the the form that right that the earth is i see people they look like trees and then you get two of the words that i wanted you to hear today life church [Music] you ready for it next two words once more do you know that jesus jesus who had the ability to heal perfectly prayed for the god the second time i think those are some of the most consequential words in the story because god said i'm willing even though you had a vision and you lost a mission i'm ready to give you a once more kind of experience i would have bought into him especially for some of the guys that have been in church for a whole long time and even your church experience has grown still remember i'm here just to get you moving again once more what he's really there to do is to keep them on this perpetual hamster wheel that's what these churches are you're you're told this version of reality this version of christianity and all these things are going to happen and they don't so you gotta have new guest speakers you gotta have new sermons series that basically keep saying no no no it's gonna happen and uh you know you just need to have more faith you need to do whatever they always have a new answer but it basically does come down to you've got to do something more and it's your fault if it hasn't happened and you got to try harder and that's when you forget about jesus day on the cross we already talked about that yeah we did that that one time right once more he's a once more kind of a god this is just like what that other guy did with the uh the boat thing where what was it what was the one phrase uh put the boat out in the deep yeah it was just a phrase it was push off yeah that had no real consequence it wasn't important well a little puppy pop oh my gosh i'm sorry i just had to put her on my other knee so now he's going to say once again is the is the little phrase out of this verse that means that you're supposed to start dreaming once again and he's stirring it up and isn't it i think of a lot of other meanings that it could come you know that we could pull from it from our past experience in the heretical churches there's a lot of things you could pull from it if you just want to pull one thing like okay well you didn't get healed right away well it's gonna come because jesus even didn't do it the first time he had to do it second time so maybe you're the second time around person i just thought of that i mean it's true because once you get into that mode you can make the bible say anything you want yeah it's not hard no i'm telling you that's someone that's here right here in this room and at every one of our churches today just someone who's by themselves in front of their computer screen right now you need to know that god come on has a once more kind of a touch for your life right now no you don't like church in order for this church to be all that you've created this church to be every single one of us lord we need to see everything god help us to get beyond our own personal pursuits you see that's that music does affect people and dogs okay we're done thanks everybody i really appreciate you watching we hope this was helpful and well it was and we appreciate all your comments and we really do uh we we are continually doing more even though it's been really hard for all of us um we hope it's been it seems like it's been helpful oh yeah and we're very thankful for that yeah so talk to you soon bye i had a few hits a few years ago uh that's why i you know the poker [Music] no [Music] you feel that just lifting it's lifting you feel it don't you [Music] i bet all our pals out there believe in dreams don't you bastard

Channel: The Messed Up Church

Views: 11,701

Rating: 4.9236016 out of 5

Keywords: Craig Groeschel, Life.church, Church of the Highlands, ARC, Association of Related Churches

Id: _UK_L8FRdRQ

Length: 61min 34sec (3694 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 09 2021