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Sermon 145 – FRIENDS?

22 Feb

I was counselling a young man who was struggling with the unfair behaviour of his friend. I confirmed that he was right that his so-called friend was behaving badly, but I then suggested he was having a mood because his ‘friend’ box was humanly defined to suit his selfishness. Seeing he was able to hear the truth, I went on to say, that if you’re a friend of God, friends might hurt your feelings, but they won’t drive you into a mood. There’s something wrong with your friendship with God.

What’s a friend?

I’ve asked this question on many occasions, and the general response is … ‘someone who is kind to me’, ‘someone who listens to me’, and ‘someone who makes me feel good’.

All humans are designed to want and need friends. It’s normal and it’s natural. But, there’s a problem. Our definitions and expectations are all about what someone should do for ME.

Jesus said … you are my friends if you do what I command you, John 15:14. This is the opposite to the human definition above. God expects you to keep Him happy and do what He wants; not the other way around. It’s pretty clear that the other way around is just a Satanic plot to trap humans in the fairness argument and divert them from doing it the way God says.

Jesus didn’t accumulate friends. He didn’t do good deeds to give Himself self-value and followers. More often than not, He lost friends (John 6). That’s because He was only interested in doing the will of his Father. If God is your friend, you won’t need friends to prop up your self-value, so if a friend does wrong by you, it might hurt your feelings but it won’t hurt your spirit.

Why do we have to do it God’s way?

The issue is spirit. God’s way usually doesn’t make sense, but If you don’t do it the way God says, and you do it the way of fairness, Satan will take power over your thinking. Satan will control your will and manoeuvre you away from God. This is confirmed in 2 Timothy 2:24-26 KJV.

Friendly vs friend

There’s a vast difference between being friendly with God, and being a friend of God. Friendly infers an expectation that God will look after me and care for me. That’s the human expectation of friendship and it’s contaminated by selfishness. On the other hand, if you want to be a friend of God, you have to give up your human right of fairness and trust His judgment and do what He wants; that is, not expect Him to serve your needs and wants, or be obligated to keep you happy.

You can’t be friend of God and a friend of the world at the same time, James 4:4. They are opposites. And you can only be a friend of God if you aren’t a friend of the world. The world is friendly with God, and therefore, the world expects to go to heaven if they’ve been good. But, they are not friends of God, and they won’t go to heaven. It’s the direct opposite for a true Christian; if you’re a friend of God you can be friendly with the world, but you can’t befriend the world. As soon as you try to collect worldly friends you threaten your friendship with God.

Irony

Under human friendship rules, no one has real friends. The reality is, everyone is just using and collecting other people for their own self-value status. However, if you’re a friend of God, you can have friends, because it doesn’t matter if they’re using you. All that matters is what God wants. However, if that friend opposes or challenges your friendship with God, you are required to separate. They should no longer be counted as a friend.

Example

Because God is my friend, and because my wife supports that friendship, then my wife is my friend, too. In fact, she’s my best-friend. It’s my friendship with God that sustains and uniquely blesses my relationship with my wife. If she opposed my friendship with God, how could we be friends?

How do you keep the laws of God?

This question may not sound related to’ friends’, but it is. Most people, even non-Christians, recognise that it’s good to try and keep the Ten Commandments. Everyone tries to do what’s right by the commandments, but it’s humanly impossible. God, Himself, has given us a simple instruction that doesn’t require you to be ruled by rules.

It’s found in Matthew 7:12 and it’s simply … treat others as you would like to be treated, because this fulfils all the law and the prophets, and it’s re-confirmed in Matthew 22:37-40. This means you don’t keep the laws of God by trying to be good and obey the rules, but rather, you can only keep the laws of God by first, being a friend of God and, second, by obeying his two directions towards other people. Those two instructions are … treat others as you would yourself, and hold no grievance against your friend or enemy, but instead trust His plan and purpose. Impossible to do unless you’re a friend of God.

If you walk in His love, you automatically keep the rules. If it’s not His love, the rules will give you a boundary of safety from the suction of worldly evil, but they won’t save you.

From God’s perspective, everything is measured by your relationship with your fellowman. Love is measured by relationship, not by rules. If you practice love to your neighbour with the secret expectation that ‘you get back more than what you give up’, it’s breaking the commandments of God. Be as nice as you like to your fellowman and then have a mood and hold a grievance when he hurts your feelings or attacks you without justification, and it simply means you are running by the friend rule, not the God rule.

God doesn’t say … hold a grievance when your friend hurts your feelings and turns against you. On the contrary, He actually commands us to pray for our enemies, Matthew 5:44. That takes faith and trust.

You can’t practice this strategy unless you’re a friend of God. You can try but it won’t work.

What’s LOVE?

Love = giving up something for someone else. The opposite to love is pride. Therefore, PRIDE = expecting someone to give up something for ME. This definition is confirmed in Matthew 7:12, John 6:38 & 8:29. Good friendship may look like love, but If love is motivated by pride, then it’s not love, it’s pride, no matter how it looks.

Contamination

You wouldn’t serve an omelette with 5 good eggs and one rotten egg. The omelette would be rotten. When you do a good deed for someone, that’s love, but as soon as you expect a good deed back, that’s pride. Counting up your good deeds and ignoring your pride deeds and ignoring your secret selfish motivation, does not equal love, but selfish usury. You can argue with God about your good deeds, but He’s measuring your love by the contamination.

Example

Greater love has no man than he lay down his life for his friend (John 15:13). That’s love, but it’s not love if it’s contaminated by self-value. This is confirmed in 1 Corinthians 13, where the Word of God also states that you can give your body to be burned but it will profit you nothing if it isn’t love. These statements seem contradictory but they’re really saying the same thing. That is, nothing’s genuine uncontaminated love unless you’re a friend of God, because if you’re a friend of God, then it’s His love that flows, and His love is not contaminated by pride.

Gratitude or attitude

Jesus proved Himself as love by dying for the human race. He did lay down His life for His friends and it worked because He didn’t do it for Himself but for His Heavenly Father. He did it the Father’s way, and rejected the ‘self’ way. Have you responded with a gratitude of commitment of being His friend, or like the selfish majority, are you friendly with God so that He’ll be friendly with you? One is death to self, the other is get for self.

If you have a mood or hold a grievance because someone hasn’t done right by you, you’ve got a friendship with God issue.

There’s a price to pay to be a friend of God. A Christian cannot accumulate worldly friends for their own status and self-value. A genuine Christian is someone who is a friend of God and not a friend of the world, James 4:4.

 

May God open our eyes to our selfish fairness that believes we’re Godly when it’s really just living for our own image, instead of for God’s.

 

Pastor Samuel Abbel

 

 

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Posted by on February 22, 2020 in friends

 

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Sermon 138 – Don’t build a relationship on the hatred of someone who’s hurt you

14 Jul

Every human being is created with a body, soul and spirit. Our soul and spirit are the elements that allow us to commune with God. The soul consists of the MIND, WILL and EMOTIONS. The most important element of our soul is our ‘WILL’.

Why?

The answer is found in Jesus’ prayer to His Father on the Mount of Olives. What was His prayer? ‘Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless, not My will but Thine be done’ (Luke 22:42). Note, there are two parts to this prayer … the first part is a prayer to remove the trouble, the second part is a prayer of ‘will’ and surrender.

Salvation is a decision of our will in the face of distress; in the face of being aware that the decision will cost me distress.

Why does it have to be in the face of distress?

The Bible declares that if you are going to build a tower you should first count the cost (Luke 14:28). In other words, you can make a decision to follow Christ, but that decision isn’t verified unless, or until, circumstances dictate a cost. This is explained in the parable of the sower and the seed (Mark 4).

You see, the problem is, most so-called Christians don’t make a decision of ‘will’, they make a decision of ‘emotion’. That is, most people decide on the basis of their feelings, and usually those feelings are hurt ones. They decide to follow Christ in the hope He will remove the trouble.

You see, whenever you make judgments against someone for offending you or someone else, you effectively initiate retaliation against that person. Once you take the bait of hurt, and retaliate, you are no longer able to have control of your will. Once you lose control of your will you can’t surrender your will to the Father, and your will comes under the power of Satan. Your prayer will be … ‘remove this trouble from me’. If you hold this judgement for some time your heart will begin to harden and you’ll block your salvation. This is proven in 2 Timothy 2:24-26 (KJV).

Once you choose ‘offense’, you unwittingly choose ‘hate’ and automatically lose your ability to surrender your will to His. Your whole focus will be on removing the trouble by striving to win the competition of who is the best. You see, if you continuously allow your hurt emotions to control your judgement, the truth is, your spirit revolves around the lust for IMAGE, not Christ.

Practical observation

I was observing a group of girls in our fellowship. One of the girls decided she was more special and started recruiting a best-friend. The other girl could sense that she was being used and manipulated so she formed a best-friend relationship with someone else. This polite and silent retaliation stirred up more secret hatred in the heart of the first girl so she went about trying to steal the friend from the second girl.

Hypocrisy is judging someone for doing something wrong, then practicing it yourself

Both girls played their parts with seemingly pure goodness. They’d learnt the art of pretense, perfectly. The truth is, God’s not after ‘good’; He’s after ‘will’. If your will isn’t surrendered to Him, then your ‘good’ is not good.

Mood = reacting to wounded emotions

If you allow an offence to hurt your emotions you won’t have power over your will and, sooner or later, spite will flow out of you.

The truth is, if the first girl tries to build her relationships on the foundation of her hurts, it will fail, and If the second girl builds her relationships on the foundation of retaliation and hate, it will fail, too. No wonder most relationships fail; they’re invariably built on spit and spite.

Spitefulness = trying to injure someone

When I finally challenged the original girl about her spitefulness, she couldn’t see that she had done anything wrong. As far as she was concerned, all she was doing was trying to find a friend and the other girl had given her the cold shoulder.

Until you own your sin and repent of it, you can’t free your will. You can decide to not keep doing it, but it’s all a waste of time because your will can’t perform its will whilst your hurt emotions rule your soul. You have to repent to free your will before you can truly see you are wrong. Contrary to the popular belief that ‘I have to see it before I can own it’, the truth is, you won’t see it until you own it, first.

It’s not fair

If you don’t pray the second half of what Christ prayed, you’ll simply be plotting how to escape your hassles on the ground of justified fairness, or if you do decide to pray it, it will be ineffective whilst ever your hurt emotions rule your soul.

The truth is, if you seek fairness in this world without living for the next, then you are not saved. This world is not fair … Jesus was crucified for doing good, Christians are being persecuted for simply loving Christ, people are being unjustly treated and unjustly suffering all over this planet, plus homosexuals demand equal rights, women who hate male authority demand equal rights, aboriginals who worship the serpent god demand equal rights … they’re all into fairness; Jesus wasn’t. Striving for fairness is an argument from Satan to justify that the cup be removed from me. True fairness is only under the Lordship of the Creator judge, Jesus.

Christians are not called to receive fairness; we’re called to serve and suffer for the name of Christ. The reason so few pray the full prayer is simply because we want the cup removed; we want the right to defend injustices against us; we don’t want to suffer for His name.

The healing of the lame man at the gate ‘Beautiful’

In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested for performing this miracle. The religious tribunal demanded by what authority they had done this. They weren’t inspired by the miracle; they were offended with envy. Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit stood his ground and preached Christ crucified.

Why don’t we see miracles in the western world, today?

In the modern Christian church, everyone wants the power of miracles for their own positional image, but to my understanding, God gives the power of His Spirit when you’re facing ‘fire’. Moses didn’t get the power till he faced Pharaoh. Elijah had to face Jezebel. Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego had to face the fiery furnace, for the miracle to be done.

In the same way, Peter and John would have had to weigh up the consequences of healing the lame man. They would have known there would most likely be a reaction against them that would cost them. It’s the cost that confirms where one’s will is placed … under Christ’s, or set doing and seeking what’s best for one’s self.

If you’re here for Christ, people will hate you. If you’re complaining about the hate, then you’re here for image. One has surrendered their will to be hurt by offenses, the other hasn’t. One is saved, the other isn’t.

 

May God open the eyes of His remnant,

 

Pastor Clive Douglas

 
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Posted by on July 14, 2019 in WILL

 

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Sermon 134 – I’M HURTING

15 Jan

I spoke with a young Christian man who was hurting over his divorce. He blamed her for hurting him, and she blamed him for hurting her, and they listed their justifiable grievances as their excuses to hold onto the pain. In reality, their marriage was never going to work. They both entered the relationship with hatred and sooner or later this hatred would inevitably flare-up.

The young man had been hurt by his father’s cruel words, so he had decided as a child that he would never be like his father, but would always be kind to hurting children. Sounds right, but his kindness was built on a foundation of hatred towards his father, so, sub-consciously, it was always tempered for his own value and self-worth. In other words, his kindness was always contaminated with self-value, to compensate for his own hurt, so when he saw people hurting other people it gave him license to blame.

The wife had also entered the relationship looking for relief from her pain, but like the husband, her good deeds were a camouflage for her inner secret hurts. Sooner or later there would be a collision of hurts. We all marry for selfish reasons but very few learn to swallow our pride and allow God to use the marriage to break our selfishness.

It’s natural

All of us carry these hurts; it’s just part of humanity, infected by Satan’s lust for power and control.  Evil in people always uses hurts to put you below them. It’s a competition for position. ‘Hurt’ is just Satan’s way to blind you to the real issue of pride and self.

That’s why Jesus said … cast all your cares on Me because the Devil is your adversary (1 Peter 5:7), and that’s also why Jesus was wounded for our rejections (Isaiah 53). Only by faith in Him can you escape the Satanic cycle of self-destruction of put-ups and put-downs.

Most Christians think they’re free from Satan, but they lie to themselves. You can measure their lack of faith by their mood at the point of hurt.

The problem

The problem is, no one casts; they carry it. Why? Pride carries, faith casts. If you can’t cast it, it’s because of your pride. You can cover your pride with as much good deeds as you like to make yourself feel better about yourself, but it will never fix the underlying problem of your hurt pride.

Marriage and relationships is one of God’s pathways to expose this hurt pride in us. If you allow God to open your eyes to yourself (instead of feeding your pride by ‘blaming’), you will begin to see your hurt pride, and by faith in Christ, you’ll be able to cast it. That’s the only path to freedom. Forgiveness is casting, not carrying.

Blame

Blame is not a characteristic of The Holy Spirit. It’s a characteristic of Satan. As soon as you blame someone for hurting you or getting you into trouble, you’re simply affirming your blood connection to your first forefather, Adam. Adam was too proud to look bad, so he shifted responsibility for his own actions by blaming Eve. It simply locked him into Satanic manipulation; Satan was now pulling his chain through Eve.

That’s how it always works … if the man won’t stand for God’s laws and instructions, Satan will pull him down through the woman, and not only will he lose his own salvation, but his children will turn out to be murderers unless they themselves stand on God’s laws.  They may not physically murder like Cain, but God will overlook their good deeds and judge their hatred as murder against their fellow-man (1 John 3:15).

What’s your reaction when someone hurts you or hurts your feelings?

The normal inherent sinful reaction is …. have a mood, blame, it’s not fair, hurt them back, hate them and excuse it because they started it. The only reason we would react this way is because we love ourselves more than God.

God said … when you’re reviled, don’t revile back. When you’re mistreated, don’t mistreat them back (Matthew 5:39). Why did He advise this? Because the moment you retaliate based on the foundation of hatred for hurts against you, you put yourself under Satanic control. Satan uses hurt feelings to control you. God uses hurt feelings to free you.

This generation has been taught … don’t let anyone tell you what you can and can’t do, so how are they ever going to do what God tells them to do? Sadly, Satan is winning the war and most will never be able to do as they’re told.

How do we stop this hurt-reaction cycle?

We have to love God more than ourselves. How? Suffer enough hurts till we learn to cast instead of defend our pride.

The real issue

The issue is not ‘hurts’, it’s hate. And the reason we justify our unfair hurts is because we love our position. We hate being put-down. We’re born with the love of ourselves and we have to hate this love if we’re ever going to discover the love of God (Matthew 6:24).

There’s only 2 types of love … you either love God, or you love yourself. If you love yourself, you actually hate your fellow-man and God. That’s why Jesus said that if you want to be His disciple you have to hate yourself. This doesn’t mean despise yourself, it means … have zero to do with loving yourself. You can’t love yourself and love God at the same time. To love God, you have to hate your selfishness. If you routinely feed on your hurt selfishness, don’t say you love God. You can believe you love Him and you can think you love your fellowman, but it’s a lie.

The lie

The modern church teaches that you must love yourself first before you can love your fellow-man. The Word of God says the opposite … you must hate yourself first before you can love God and love your fellow-man (Luke 14:26).

What’s selfishness?

Selfishness is simply focussing on my hurt feelings, resulting in fake goodness and excuses to blame. The young man couldn’t see how he had hurt his wife’s feelings, he could only see how she had hurt his. Selfishness analyses and diagnoses from its hurt feelings. That’s why we have to hate it.

What’s love?

Focussing on serving God and faithfully trusting His higher plan by suffering my hurts for His glory.

The irony

If you love God and you’ve learnt to cast and you’re willing to suffer and lose for His sake, then there are times when you can retaliate like Elisha, you can withhold forgiveness like the Father (Matthew 6:15), you can call people names (Matthew 23:27), and you will hate evil and even curse (Psalm 109), but if you love yourself you can’t do any of these things without it being sin. Whatever is not of Faith and Love, is sin (Romans 14:23).

 

May God open the eyes of His remnant.

 

Pastor Frank Whistler

 
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Posted by on January 15, 2019 in hurt

 

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Sermon 107 – The Art of Christianity

12 Oct

Several years ago, a seemingly nice young man joined our fellowship. From all appearances he had everything … a well-paid job, a girlfriend, a nice car, plus our supportive fellowship. He attached himself to my family and we befriended him as a son. On the outside he appeared generous and helpful and appreciative, but there came a point where he didn’t like my judgment over a particular issue and a different spirit was revealed.

Over the years we had seen an old nature side to this young man that I often had to challenge. He often displayed envy towards my son. He regarded anyone who didn’t agree with his thinking as an idiot, and he was often casual and flippant with my instructions and ended up doing it his own way in his own time. On top of this, he had deduced that when I preached about bearing your cross, to him it meant having to tolerate the people God had put around him. These were the deductions of his youth and unfortunately, when they were exposed to him as sin, instead of repenting, he simply re-packaged them, and referred to them whenever he selected to. He had simply learnt the art of smoothness and coupled it together with the art of Christianity, and convinced himself that his generosity and helps proved he was a Christian.

In the course of time, his envy of my son, and his pompous intolerance of people, resulted in his heart lusting after the relationship I had with my son and family. From his position he didn’t think it was fair that I should love my son more than him. Eventually, he deduced that if he couldn’t have what my son had then he would copy my love and impose his control through his generosity onto another well-like family in our fellowship. Ultimately, God removed him and separated him from our fellowship.

As a pastor, I’ve seen this pattern of behaviour in so-called Christians far too often. I’m reminded of Ezekiel 33:31,32 … they come unto you as the people come and they sit before you as my people and they hear your words, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness. And lo, you are unto them a very lovely song of one that has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument, for they hear your words but they do them not.

Warning

As I often warn my fellowship, the envy that’s inherent in the heart of man must be killed by your unconditional surrender to the will of God. Otherwise, this envy in your heart will fester and then everything you build your thinking on, everything you think is good and right, will really be false and sinking sand. Envy turns your thinking against the righteous, and like Simon the sorcerer, it ends up trying to buy or copy what’s in the heart of a righteous man. On the foundation of envy, sorry is never repentance, but just a quick way to escape embarrassment.

Tolerate

Unrighteous tolerance towards people is bearing people’s nonsense with spite and belittlement in your heart. It’s evidence that your heart is evil. Unrighteous tolerance is really a pompous snub towards God’s human creation and the selfish opposite of willing to serve God wherever and with whoever. The Holy Spirit doesn’t tolerate people with spite in His heart; He serves the will of God. When you allow yourself the privilege of feeling untolerated by someone, you’re simply living in the lie of your own imagination built on the foundation of your spiteful intolerance towards everyone else, but cleverly camouflaged by your coolness or niceness which is really the symptom of your own intolerance.

The evil vineyard keeper

In Matthew 21:33, we read the story of the evil vineyard keeper. Instead of the vineyard keeper being ever grateful for the opportunity to serve the Lord of the vineyard, he resented the fact that the Lord owned the vineyard and he had to work it. It wasn’t fair. When the son came to oversee the operation of the vineyard, instead of showing respect, they killed him with the stupid expectation of taking possession of the vineyard. But God isn’t gentle, meek and mild when it comes to justice and righteous vengeance. He kills the evil.

Biblical warnings

Of course, this is a parable of Satan’s grievance with God for not recognising him equal to or above Jesus His son. But it’s more than that. Anyone who wants what the Son has, is born of Satan, not God. Anyone who wants what the Son can give him is of the spirit of anti-christ. Anyone who wants what anyone else has, is an anti-christ. John warns us about such spirits. Jude seriously warns us about such spirits. James warns us about such spirits. Peter warns us about such spirits, and Paul warns us about such spirits. In fact, most of the bible, both old and new testaments are actually warnings about falling into league with Satan’s spies in the church. The warnings are real and even more pertinent for the remnant today.

Too many so-called Christians are working the Lord’s vineyard with resentment in their spirits and for the purpose of being recognised and acknowledged and valued. They’re instruments of Satan, not Christ. Too many Christians are practicing the art of Christianity without the heart of Christ. They’re not converted and they’re not saved. They’re enemies of Christ and their purpose is to divide, conquer and ultimately destroy and take over what you have. It’s tricky because they’re in sheep’s clothing.

Do you honestly think that Satan wouldn’t strike the heart of God’s people just as effectively within the church as outside it? Guerrilla warfare is far more effective than a direct frontal assault.

The two characters of a demonic spirit

One side of a demonic spirit can be generous, helpful and cooperative. That’s just a smoke screen. The true side of a spirit is seen when it eventually gets puffed up, expects to be valued, then unexpectantly gets corrected or put in its place for its inappropriate attitude. Like Samuel vs King Saul, you’ll know when you’re up against a spirit when it resists your correction, starts telling you how you are supposed to behave towards it, and wants to retain its position in the eyes of the people. Eventually, if you hold a righteous position in Christ, the scam is exposed and the true spirit gets revealed.

The battleground

Ephesians 6 teaches us that we are not fighting flesh and blood but demonic principalities and evil powers. The church teaches that these forces are external, but that’s the secondary battleground. The primary battleground is within us. It’s the battle between the forces of righteousness and the forces of unrighteousness. Once we concede to the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, the lusts of the eyes, the lusts of the flesh or the pride of life, then the force of righteousness is choked (Mark 4:19) and is only restored through sincere repentance.

The fight has intensified. Not a day goes by without hearing of some disaster or an increase in moral decay, suggesting that the end is nearer than we imagine, Matthew 24:7.

Hold firm your position in Christ and don’t worry about the world, nor lean on the world.

 

May God strengthen His remnant for His plan and purposes.

 

Pastor Norm Wakefield

 

 

 
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Posted by on October 12, 2016 in Deception

 

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Sermon 10 – It’s a CONTRADICTION

11 Sep

If a child says to their father “I appreciate what you’ve done for me”, and then chooses to truant from school, speaks rudely to their mother, or practices sexual promiscuity behind the parent’s back, that’s a contradiction. How can you say you appreciate the parent and at the same time disrespect and defame the parent’s principles or your father’s wife?

If a friend says to you Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on September 11, 2011 in Grievance, Hypocrisy, Pride, Ten Commandments

 

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