| “And when I’m doing well help me to never seek a crown for my reward is giving glory to You.” Those words are from Keith Green’s song Oh Lord, You’re Beautiful. How many times do we do stuff to receive stuff? I’m not saying that we’re not going to get a reward in heaven, because we are, but our eyes can’t just be focused on the reward we’ll receive one day. Our eyes have to be focused on doing everything we can on this earth.
Scripture talks about us being unprofitable servants. It sounds crazy, and it doesn’t sound right. But it’s real. Sometimes we’re looking for some kind of reward—a pat on the back—and I’m not saying it’s wrong to encourage somebody, but it’s wrong to need it.
In America, we grow up in a culture of performance. As an athlete, it’s all about performance. You’re only as good as your last race, your last goal, your last touchdown. Unfortunately, we grow up with that mindset, and then we come into the gospel, and that mindset needs to be broken. Are you with me?
Here’s why: if I’m going to really live the gospel, I’m not going to get a pat on the back. I’m going to suffer. When I became a Christian, I came into a family that wasn’t Christian. My wife and I got married, and her family hated me. My uncles couldn’t stand me. But can you blame them? I hurt everyone my whole life. It was awful because I had dug that hole. When I got free, I got so free that I expected everyone else to see the freedom I experienced. And if I had been looking for them to praise me, I wasn’t looking for my real reward.
We can’t do ministry hoping to get a pat on the back, but rather to live as an example for people so they can see that the Christian lifestyle is real!
Do you know I’ve had pastors specifically come to Power and Love schools and ask to go on outreach with me with the intention of “exposing me as a fraud?” Can you imagine? If I were to allow that to interfere with my relationship with God, I would be going into performance mode so that I can “teach them a lesson.” That would be twisted, and it’s not okay.
You really have to protect your heart in this. Because we all want to go after Jesus with everything we are, but you can’t go after Jesus thinking you’re going to get people to agree with you. The only ones I want to agree with me are those who are getting born again. But I don’t want them to get born again into a culture that needs the praises of men to survive. No.
When you read the Gospels, and you see the truth of the Book of Acts and see the reality of what these guys carried, and when you see the reality of the power of God, it brings great persecution. The righteousness of God brings great persecution. Christian cruise control brings no persecution at all—it breeds comfortability, and it breeds passive Christianity, which is a damage to the world.
Passive Christianity never did anything for anybody. It enables people to get inside their Christian vehicle, put it in cruise control, take their foot off the pedal, and not even worry, just so long as they tap their foot on the brake every once in a while. Trust me, that’s not the gospel you signed up for.
You look at these disciples, and they’re getting persecuted—but they’re so excited. They actually counted beatings for the gospel as a privilege. I want you to think with me: they get jailed for doing good, but they can’t help being excited. They spent time with Jesus before and after His resurrection. They ate with Him. He talked with them about the things that pertained to the Kingdom of God.
Jesus never told us to go into all the world and preach the gospel of salvation. He said to preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Even though salvation is part of it, the Kingdom is the entirety of it. Jesus said then the gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached; then the end will come. The gospel of salvation is a part of the gospel of the Kingdom, but the gospel of the Kingdom is way bigger. The kingdom is the King’s dominion. The dominion of a King within you, upon you, to where God has complete dominion, and you’re dominated by love. You become so overwhelmed with His love that you can’t dare look away from Him.
It’s been granted to you and me the privilege of suffering, but we hate suffering. Everybody wants the power of His resurrection. The Bible says in Philippians 3:10 (NKJV), “…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,” but let’s not forget what follows: “and the fellowship of His sufferings.” Because sharing in Jesus’ sufferings is just as important as the power of His resurrection.
But we’re so used to getting praised by people and seeking to look good in front of people, and to fit in, that we can’t be peculiar and stand out like we’re supposed to. My Bible doesn’t say fit in and look like the world. It doesn’t say smell like the world, taste like it, talk like it, act like it, and function like it.
My Bible says I’m supposed to speak as if I’m speaking the oracles of God; I’m supposed to talk like Jesus would. My Bible says that I’m supposed to walk even as He walked. If anybody says they abide in Him, they ought to walk like Jesus walked.
The Bible is full of truth. If we keep feeding on darkness and taste-testing light, how can we expect to grow? You and I are called to shine, being lights in the midst of a perverse and corrupt generation. It says to come out and be separate. It means that we look at things we used to do and now say, this is not how I roll. I am in a place of love with Jesus—why would I have anything to do with darkness when I can have relationship with Jesus? We only consume darkness when we haven’t tasted and seen God’s goodness.
Jesus doesn’t want part of you. The fear of the Lord sweeps and takes over. THEN you have revival culture. No revival ever hit without the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord and the fear of man are completely different. You can’t fear people and fear God at the same time. Just like you can’t love God and love money at the same time.
Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So, if your treasure is in the praises of men, your heart is in a place of receiving from people instead of from God. The suffering piece is so hard for people because we’re in such a place of needing the appreciation of people.
Well, I’ve got news for you: the Bible says that there is a promise for all of those that desire to live godly. Remember all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus. Do you know that? How many love the promises of God? All of us. Well, wait a second until you hear this one. Philippians says that you and I have been granted the privilege of suffering for His name’s sake.
You’ve really got to die to be in this gospel. You’ve got to be finished with the praise of people and of trying to get liked. The Bible says that they hated Jesus, and they’re going to hate you, too. I’d be more concerned if everybody likes you. You can say, well, it’s in our nature—yeah, it’s in our sinful nature. It’s in our sinful nature to crave being liked by people. You weren’t given that by Jesus. It’s in the divine nature that God gives you to be loved by the Father and know what that looks like.
You’re going to be loved by God but hated by the world. Darkness hates light. Religion hates relationship. Religion has to get relationship out of the room in order for religion to feel secure about not knowing God. Religion is brilliance of brain and not fondness of heart. So religion has to do anything it can to get you away in order for it to feel comfortable about no relationship.
Guys, you can memorize the whole Bible and still not have relationship with Jesus—never have communion with the One Who wrote it. You can’t really understand the Bible unless you let the Bible read you. And you have to meet the Author.
 We need a Church that is spirit-filled, walking in power and walking in purity, fulling gorging herself on the gifts of the Spirit. You can’t walk in the gift without power, nor the power without the gift. We’ve seen ministries walk in power without character. They’ve fallen apart. I don’t care what you think you’re hiding; God sees all. It’s important that we establish intimacy and that we’re not afraid.
I don’t have any skeletons; I don’t have any closets. What a horrible way to live with skeletons in closets! Imagine all the attacks I experience consistently; imagine if I had secret sin that I’m holding onto? How would I be able to live? I would always be thinking, “Oh my gosh, I hope they don’t find out”—that would be a horrible way to live! I can’t live like that! That’s demonic!! Why would I let the enemy in when God kicked him out?
My main drive is to bring Christians to Christ—not that you don’t know Him, but I’m saying we can go deeper. You can walk deeper with Christ. I want to equip the saints for the works of ministry. You’re not reading this or coming to our services to be inspired, but rather the point is to get you here to empower you so that you can have testimonies all week long. It’s not okay to just have a testimony from 12 years ago. We need new testimonies every day! I want everybody to be confident enough to grab a mic and say, “This is what the Lord did today!”
Jesus deposited an inheritance in you, and the only way He gets that inheritance is when you step out and bring Him glory. When you step out and remind the devil that he really messed up. When you step out and say, When you crucified Jesus, when Jesus paid the price, raised from the dead, and took the keys to hell, death and the grave, you created a bunch of little Christ-like ones with the ability to anoint.
There’s a difference between getting to heaven and heaven getting into us. The gospel of salvation is getting to heaven; the gospel of the Kingdom is allowing heaven to get into us!
Jesus’ mission is our mission: “…The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:8, NASB). We destroy hell while we’re here! So when we bring Him in through agency of Holy Spirit—in power—our life is now a representation of Jesus. Christ in us is the hope of glory, but Christ out of us is that mystery, that hope made manifest.
So now we utilize Holy Spirit wherever we go, bringing transformation one restaurant at a time. When you say ‘yes’ to Jesus, it comes with the package! It is in our DNA as God’s kids to be able to step on hell every day! Let’s go! |
