Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey, guys. This is Naeeb and you've reached the Mosaic church podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community and I'd love for you to be even more connected. So check out our website. There's more content there, and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this is blessed to you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast if you will. Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward. Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:00:59] In today's world, states of worry and concern are considered all too normal. As christians, we should display a sense of hope. In North Carolina, the dedicated people who aim to spread this hope are part of an elite squad known as Mosaic. These are their stories. I mean, sermons.
[00:01:16] Here's a sermon.
[00:01:20] Hey, hey.
[00:01:24] Well, hello, hello, hello. Good morning.
[00:01:28] Tell you what, though, everybody in their life needs Q to be their hype person, right? I'm like, I love me more when she says all these things. I'm like, I'm actually nice. I'm a good guy. I'm a good guy. I should clap for myself. Yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, welcome. If you are a guest here, if you're watching online, glad you're here. This is week two of a series that we're calling the conspiracy of what? Hope. And here's why. Because we live in uncertain times, and everybody, everybody loves a conspiracy. Everybody's like, ho, what's going on? What's happening? I mean, Joe Rogan, if you ever heard of him, right? Right. He's got the large, I mean, largest audience in terms of podcasts, most popular. And he loves a good conspiracy. I mean, he said it himself. He just loves that we do. Like, have you ever wondered why? Why? Why did it take us 50 years to once landed the moon, then not go back to 50 years? Did we ever land on the moon? Did we? Did we. Does Bigfoot really exist?
[00:02:30] Right. But then there are other conspiracies. Even now, if you google conspiracies, some people believe that the earth is still flat.
[00:02:39] Wow. I mean, everybody loves a good conspiracy. What it is? You know why? I'll tell you why. The thing is, is that I think there's this need of, like, not need, this idea that there are people in my life that are hiding things from me. The government is obviously hiding things from us. So you see already, like, yeah, of course it is. People are hiding stuff from me. And, see, my thing is, I'm not really into conspiracies because I don't mind if people hide things from me. There are certain things I don't want to know. I really don't want to know. Like, have you ever met a doctor or, like, a physician or just a friend who over shares, who overshares? Right? Like, I had recently went to the doctor, and then she started talking about some things, and I'm like, stop. Just stop talking. Just stop. Just stop. I didn't tell that. I didn't say that to her. I was like, don't describe everything you're gonna do. You know what I'm saying? I don't need to knock me out. Have your way. You know what I'm saying? That's just what I'm saying. Like, I don't need to know what you're gonna do. Like, please stop. I'm getting nauseous. I don't. I don't. I'm okay with that. But I know that a lot of us are not right. We're not okay with it. Now. I'll tell you what. The reason why I want to talk about this idea of a conspiracy is that we are in, and we're living in a conspiracy. And it's true. It is. And it's God's subversive plan to be with us. Like, he has given us this opportunity that so many of us find ourselves not really tapping into. And so what I want to do is I want to continue the conversation that we started last week. Last week we talked about, like, there's a top secret, you know, conspiracy going on. And it's found in a letter that we found that Paul, one of the apostles, wrote to a certain church. And what we did was, it was a church in Colossi, and this letter was for them. But what we did as good christians, we took that letter. We stole it, we read it.
[00:04:39] We put other letters together, too.
[00:04:42] And we put it together. So we have. Now we have letters from Paul. We have the stories of Jesus, and we have Old Testament stories, history of jewish culture and tradition. We put it all together, and we call that book the Bible. Bible. So I just want you to know it's stolen material. Okay? So I want you to know.
[00:05:04] But the beautiful thing about having the scriptures just, they're a gift to us. They tell us the story of God and the story of God's people. They also tell us the story of the early church and what they wrestled with. And the early church wrestled with this idea of hope. See, so often we find ourselves just hopeless and we live in uncertain times and we love a conspiracy. The problem is with those things is this uncertainty. And not knowing leads us helpless sometimes and hopeless. And for some of us, we find ourselves in a place we entered into a new season and all of a sudden we are without hope. And so last week I went into the secret files and found the letter.
[00:05:44] And we found out that Paul starts the letter off and he's talking to a particular church about this, but he wants to make sure they know that he's so excited for them and so happy for them. And he talks about the prayer that he has for them, but then he tells them the secret in the first chapter. Right? Obviously letters are not written by chapters. And last week I mentioned to you that they actually moved in the 13th century from just letters to actually books and chapters because around that time it moved. The scriptures moved from just churches and temples to actually classrooms. And they needed, and if you're a teacher, you need everybody on the same page. And so they took the scriptures and they put chapters and books and verses on them. And so Colossians chapter one, verse 27, says this. And this is the secret. This is a secret. We learned this last week. This is a secret. What is it? Help me out. Christ. Christ, what lives in you. And so you are not hopeless because hope lives in you. Christ lives in you. And so this morning, what I wanna do is if we realize, okay, so we are not without hope. Okay, hope lives in us. And what, so what's the next thing? What does Paul start talk about in chapter two when he continues his letter? What did he talk about? He talks about this idea that I think all of us, especially, especially if you grew up in the church or if you grew up in a different faith. I grew up in a muslim faith, a very conservative, strict in a sense, muslim faith, devout muslim faith. We believe that our religion was our nationality, which some christians believe too. Anyways. Anyways, and that's not true.
[00:07:27] But it became this thing for us that we lived out. That we lived out and. But because of that, I grew up with religious ideas and traditions and maybe you didn't grow up muslim. I'm pretty sure you didn't. Okay, we have some, you know, we've got some diversity here, but I'm pretty sure Muslims. Nothing. No. No, you don't. But you grew up probably catholic, maybe hindu, maybe you grew up Presbyterian, Methodist. You grew up with some kind of tradition, maybe assemblings of God. You grew up with some kind of tradition. And what happens is that when you grow up in a tradition, your religion becomes your relationship with God. And that's a problem. That's a problem. And so when Paul starts talking in chapter two about hope, he's addressing a people group who have, number one, who lived in a jewish culture, but also were around pagan ideas, different cultures, because they lived there. And then they were also Jesus followers. So you had this mix of, okay, what's happening and what often religious people do, and there's a. I mean, I would do this as well, is that we take sometimes our traditions or our religion, and we add the teachings of Jesus and we add it together. And so that's why it gets a little muddy. That's why sometimes the Bible is amazing because it's put together in such a way for us. But it's confusing because it also has jewish history and tradition and then the words of Jesus. And then when you mix them all together, it's hard to, like, they go, it's hard to kind of live that out. You gotta weed out, like, okay, this was history, but this is what Jesus was saying, and this is how he lived. And so when Paul starts talking in the second chapter, he. He wants to address this big idea and this big idea that we all humans face, and especially religious people. Okay? Maybe even online, I'm sure online as well. If you're watching this idea of shame, living in shame.
[00:09:32] My mom, growing up, used to call me something. And it's an Urdu word. It's not a bad word. Well, it's not a bad word. No, it's not. It's not. But it's a word that, like, a mom would say. Okay, you want to learn some urdu? Yeah. Okay. Say be.
[00:09:48] Oh, yeah. You guys saying it right, man? Okay, one more time. Be.
[00:09:53] Turn to your neighbor and say, be like, I don't know what I said. Some of you guys are like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what I said. Besharam means without shame. So I would do certain things. My mom was like, you have no shame.
[00:10:09] You have no shame. And so my name. My nickname was Besharam growing up. He's like, you have no shame. You have no shame. Now, the problem with that is, in some realities, you're like, oh, that's actually a good way to live. But in our culture, we have a shame and honor culture. And I was not doing good. I was without shame, because the issue is the way they live their lives is that shame is the motivator for morality. And so you have to shame people to make them act right. And you're like, some of you are like, yeah, that's how I was raised. That's it. That's it. And so there's an honor situation as well. And so that culture was some. Was the same as the culture that Paul was talking to. This idea of living a life that you always know that there's something wrong with you. Like, you are not well, you're not good, and you need to feel guilty. Now, feeling guilty is very different. Feeling guilty is good because guilt is from the outside in. Guilt is when you do something you know you shouldn't have done, and then it goes inside of you. Think about it, and you go, that was wrong. Guilt, you can get over guilt. You can forgive and confess and restore. But shame is from the inside out. The shame goes from, like, there's something wrong with. There's something wrong with me. Something wrong with me. And that, my friends, is an issue. And so many of us, what's happened is that we've lived our lives in a way that tell us that we have to constantly live with shame, because we are shameful people. And spirituality and religion is about getting shame out of us.
[00:11:56] And last week, I told you, hey, hey. Hope lives in you. It's not sin. Hope lives in you. There's something else that lived in you when you were created. You were created with something else, and it was not shame. In fact, if you know your Bible, you guys know the Adam and Eve story. What book is it in? What book is it in? For extra credit? Genesis. Genesis. Okay. All right, nice. Okay. And the garden of Eden story, if you remember what happens, is that they ate the fruit and then they hidden. If you don't know the story, you should read up on it. You can google it. But the story is that they were supposed to not eat this fruit. They were actually physically naked, but they had no shame. And then they ate this fruit, and then they hid when they heard God. And when God showed up, they were hiding, and God was like, where are you?
[00:12:46] And then they were like, we found out that we were naked, and that's why we hidden. And God says this, who told you you were naked? Like, who put this inside of you? You were naked. And when I read that story, every time I do, I'm reminded that shame is put on us and it gets inside of us that someone somewhere in your life just told you who you were and that became your identity.
[00:13:14] The problem is, is that religion has an easy way to do that. Just says, hey, something's wrong with you. There's something wrong with you. And that's why Jesus died, because you're so horrible.
[00:13:27] You know what? Put him on the cross?
[00:13:30] You did.
[00:13:31] And so imagine hearing that as a child.
[00:13:35] Imagine hearing in a different religion where you're in a religion where you have to do so many different things, like in Islam, to get to a point where God is, is okay with you to be acceptable. And so you live with shame. And here's what shame does. Shame leaves no room for hope.
[00:13:59] So people who are spiritually hopeless, they live in shame.
[00:14:06] They live in shame. And I think we've been there. We've been there. So Paul addresses this, and he says, I want to talk about this. And so he jumps in. Let's go to verse eight here. Chapter two, verse eight. He says this, he says, see to it. He's like, look, listen, listen, listen to me. Listen to me. See to it, listen to me.
[00:14:25] That no one take you captive through what hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition. Depends on what? Human tradition, human tradition and what elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather, on Christ. He's talking to two groups of people. He talks about this idea of human tradition. He's talking to jewish people, people who are like.
[00:14:49] Their tendency is to go jewish all the time. And they're like. He's like, let me just tell you that. I know you're taking the Torah and adding it to the words of Jesus, but it's not good. I know you're taking your traditions and all that, and you're adding it to the words of Jesus. It's not good. And they're like, well, no, no, no, it's good because we're taking, it's a whole thing. This is what we're doing. We're taking who we are and Jesus and we're mixing it together. He's like, nah, no, no. I'm not saying you can't have a cultural expression of what it means to have a relationship with God and be a Christ follower. Very different than to now take all kinds of ceremonies and rituals and put them on the words of Jesus and start treating people like that. This is not good. And treating yourself like that. And then he talks about this, these elemental spiritual forces. What is he talking about. Well, he's actually talking about gnosticism. See, in that region, in that time, gnosticism was a big idea. And the idea was there was actually, some writers say there was a dual narcissism going on. Now, narcissism, basically, generally, and I'm like broad brushing, this thing says, like, you know, nothing can be really known and there's a God out there and all that. But dual narcissism that the ones that they were dealing with was this idea that number one, life here, life here is separate from the life there. Like the material world and the spiritual world do not connect, which is interesting because Islam believes that. That's why they never, they can't wrap their mind around Jesus being the son of God because they don't connect. Humanity and divinity does not connect. So this gnosticism was this idea that there is. Yeah, there's forces out there, but we kind of have to live our life here. And life here was, there were two categories. One life was you just party and party because there's no tomorrow. Okay, that's one idea of narcissism. They were like, okay, it was greek. This is what they believed. It was a roman thing as well. This is what they believed. And christians were starting to go, okay, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. So it's all about what I do over here. And because the afterlife does not exist. Well, when you take the whole idea of let's party, let's party.
[00:16:59] And that's the primary thing, when you become, like, spiritual, it moves from being, let's party, let's party to flip that, to let's be pure, pure, pure. So have you noticed that strict religions, their goal is to become what for? Make you what? Pure. That's good.
[00:17:16] Little lady is a little too short.
[00:17:19] Hey, what are we doing here? Hey, you're smoking. Oh, you're going to hell for that. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of push towards be pure, be pure? Be. Why? Because what you do here is the only thing that matters. And so Paul was like, hey, let me just tell you, this idea of, like, party, party leads to a lot of shame and guilt. And this idea of, like, being pure, pure, pure, does the same. And I just want you to know, see to it that you don't held, you're not held captive to this. If you begin living this way, it's gonna mess up what Jesus has really done and the activity in your life. So he goes on. He goes on. This is pretty interesting stuff, right? He goes in verse nine, he says, for in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. Now, this might be the least talked about verse and the most profound. Let's just stop here.
[00:18:20] Breathe here.
[00:18:23] What do you see? What is he saying? For in Christ lies all the fullness of God in a human body.
[00:18:35] And so what he's saying is that Jesus Christ had a human body, and in that human body, the fullness of God was in there. The fullness of God was in there. And so what happens is that the conspiracy is that God smuggled himself into humanity by using Jesus. Put him in.
[00:18:56] And then Jesus began to live a life, saying, if you've seen me, you've seen God. This is the words I'm saying. The life I'm living, what I am doing, and what I am not doing is a full reflection of who God is, who I forgive, and how I act. And what I'm saying is all God. Now, why is this mind blowing?
[00:19:17] I don't know if you.
[00:19:20] You see this? Because he goes on to try to explain it.
[00:19:25] He says, so you also are complete through the union with Christ, who is the head over all ruler and authority. Now, again, so he's saying, this is what God did, but now you are similar.
[00:19:47] You are now complete because of what God has done.
[00:19:54] You complete. Now, let me explain this. Okay, I got red solo cups here. Okay. Okay, you guys. Okay. Some of you guys are like, okay, I'm listening now. All right, let's see. Okay. All right. Okay, so this is water right here. Imagine if this is God, the expanse of God, the fullness of God. What the verse saying here is that if this is Jesus, Jesus comes in and he was made in such a way that he could contain the fullness of God.
[00:20:20] He was made in such a way. Who could contain the fullness of God?
[00:20:25] In what form was he made human?
[00:20:31] You and I were created to contain God.
[00:20:39] That's.
[00:20:41] That's what's beautiful about being human.
[00:20:45] You can contain your creator.
[00:20:49] What?
[00:20:51] You can contain God.
[00:20:57] I know it's a profound thought. You're like, ah, but I contain a lot of other things.
[00:21:02] And what's funny is you have a red solo cup.
[00:21:07] I get it.
[00:21:09] Here's the issue. See, the issue is that we find ourselves going, okay, well, I'm human too.
[00:21:17] I'm human too.
[00:21:19] And this is what's the reality. The reality is, is that, yeah, we're human, just like Jesus, but we've kind of been banged up a little bit.
[00:21:30] You know what I'm saying?
[00:21:32] Our emotions and our physical bodies, our mental capacities, they've just been.
[00:21:41] Things have happened in our lives.
[00:21:45] Hurt, betrayal, even traumatic experiences growing up, they've done some damage. And we all kind of look like, okay, okay, well, you look human. Human.
[00:21:57] You know, we should be able to do that. Problem is that life has done some things to us, and so we find ourselves going, okay, okay, I believe this, and I believe this, and I can contain God and God's spirit and you. Some of us have prayed this. And what happens. What happens is that we fill up, but it seems like we can't contain God's fullness because of what has happened in our lives.
[00:22:31] And here's the hopelessness.
[00:22:34] Hopelessness is because so many of us, and if you're here this morning and you're not somewhere else, and not choosing to be somewhere else, you're here pressing in, wanting to know you've done this a lot.
[00:22:50] And you're like, I'm empty again.
[00:22:54] I'm empty again.
[00:22:56] I'm empty again.
[00:22:59] And the hopelessness comes with going, what? What am I gonna do?
[00:23:05] Something's wrong with me.
[00:23:08] Something's wrong with me. And I want you to know that that is a real thing. That's a real thing.
[00:23:15] But if there's one thing I could really focus you onto, is that you were still created to contain God.
[00:23:27] Still created to contain God. And God's doing something that I don't really understand, because when Paul talks about it, I don't know.
[00:23:37] But he says that God has done something here and will do something here, and it doesn't matter if you leak, and if it doesn't matter if you can't keep on containing God, God still made you, in a way, to experience him and to have a relationship with him and to fill you with hope. So he goes on, he explains to them, he says, he says in verse eleven, he says, so let me tell you. He says, when you came to Christ, you were circumcised, not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision, the cutting away of your sinful nature.
[00:24:18] He says, I know you're jewish, and I understand this idea of circumcision. I understand this idea of ritual. And if you guys don't know what circumcision is, I'm not gonna explain it. You know what? I'm not an oversharer. And look it up. Look it up. Okay. All right. So he was like, hey, you know, there's some spiritual things, there's some religious activity. Jewish, very jewish things.
[00:24:45] But God has moved past that. And done something that's very spiritual, not just jewish. And he did this by cutting away a part of things, shame in your life, this removal of that you need to be punished away from you. And he did this supernatural. And then he goes on and jumps in and he explains this way. He says, he says, for you, now, this gets really confusing, because he says, for you were buried with Christ when you were baptized.
[00:25:17] And with him you were raised to a new life because you trusted the mighty power of God who raised Christ from the dead.
[00:25:26] Now, I want you to understand something.
[00:25:29] The writer here, he moves from this idea of circumcision, this ritual, this religious activity, and the idea of circumcision was to make you pure and make you without shame. But Paul is saying, hey, it doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that. Let me tell you why. Because, friends, circumcision was a couple of things.
[00:25:50] It was obviously very private.
[00:25:53] It was very personal, and it was exclusive.
[00:25:58] Circumcisions were only for males.
[00:26:01] This religious activity was basically a man made situation because it was only for men. What about the women? Well, the men will make the women pure.
[00:26:16] They will cover them.
[00:26:19] But religious activity, if you look at it, is always like that in all kinds of religions. It's always personal, it's always private, and it's always exclusive. And this idea of being pure, purified, this idea of baptism exists in different cultures. So Paul says, hey, circumcision is this. But let me tell you what baptism is. When Jesus baptized us, because baptism is the opposite of those things. It's public, it's communal. And what, it's inclusive.
[00:26:55] It's everybody.
[00:26:57] Everybody. And guess what? That's why we baptize people. And by the way, we're gonna be baptizing people pretty shortly. And if you wanna sign up for that, you can do that. We'd love to baptize you. I think it's coming up next week or so.
[00:27:10] But when we do that in public, why we do it in public? Because it's like, hey, for everyone to see, it's communal. We do it together in a community. Why? Because when you get baptized, you're not saying, I get baptized for myself. You see, it is a. It's a. It's more than like, hey, baptism is a public expression of my private love for God. No, it's. Baptism is when you enter into community with others.
[00:27:39] Baptism is a sign of you being a part of a community. That's why it's done with people. And then it's for everyone. You see, Islam has a thing called al Wadhu, which is, again, private, exclusive. This is how you do it. It's a cleansing ceremony. Most of the religions do it. Buddhists have this thing called Timazu. And Timazu is a cleansing ceremony that takes place. And again, it's for you to get into a space or a temple. They do this. I think Hindus have this meltok, which is a ceremony as well, which is, again, a very personal, private thing. And you get to enter into a ceremony, a ritual. And Paul talks about this and he says, hey, let me just tell you, this baptism that we're talking about, it involves this idea of you being created in such a way that God can not just. You don't.
[00:28:40] He wants to put you in there, he wants to baptize you in there. He's submerging you. And I don't know how God does it. I don't know if it's like you come out of that and then God does this. I'm not quite sure.
[00:28:53] I'm not quite sure how this works. But what I do know is that you and I are moving, have moved past this struggle to be good enough for God.
[00:29:07] We've moved past the shame in our lives that we've lived for so long in our lives. And then Paul just continues that thought. And he said, hey, let me just tell you, verse 13. He says, you were dead because of your sins and because of your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God. Can you say, then God. Then God made you what?
[00:29:32] Alive with Christ? He forgave all your sins.
[00:29:38] So then the question is, what is the issue here? Like, why are we living a life that we're still trying to make amends for all the things we are not?
[00:29:51] Why are we. Why are we asking our kids to do that? Why are we asking our friends to do that? Why we continue to live in a shame culture in Christianity? Why is it, what would it look like for you to go before God without the sense of shame?
[00:30:09] What would your prayer life look like? And what would a week look like? What would a day look like for some of you? You have no peace.
[00:30:16] You know why? Because every time you. And you don't want to pray, you don't want to pray. You know why? Because the first thing you want to say is, I'm sorry. That's the first thing you want to say, I'm sorry. It's been a mine. It's been a minute. I don't even know if you know my name anymore.
[00:30:35] That my friends, is not the life that God's called us to.
[00:30:39] And if that.
[00:30:41] If we don't get there, we're going to be hopeless. We're going to find ourselves with no hope and hear Paul saying, hey, hey, hope is shameless.
[00:30:54] It's besharamouse.
[00:30:58] It's shameless, not guilt. Don't confuse guilt with shame.
[00:31:02] It's different. It's different. And so when he starts talking, he continues to start writing. Paul moves from like, okay, this is how you do it.
[00:31:14] This is how you do it. He basically introduces this idea of retraining ourselves a certain way. So the question, the definition of the word rehab. Anybody know? Anybody know the definition of rehab? Okay, let's. We'll put that up. Tammy, put that up there for them. Okay. Rehab is what.
[00:31:34] Let's read out. What is it? It is a what course? Treatment.
[00:31:43] Okay, so have you guys ever done rehab? Anybody? Make some noise. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Is rehab painful? Yes, yes, yes. Is it necessary?
[00:31:52] Yes, yes, yes, yes. What is it? What is it? It is a course of treatment is designed to. What? Reverse. Designed to reverse the effects of an injury. Designed to do that.
[00:32:06] What Paul is saying here is that a life with Christ is pretty much a life of treatment designed to reverse the. What the.
[00:32:21] I can't even say that word. Debilitating effects of religion.
[00:32:28] A life with Christ is that it is designed to reverse it. And so when you and I begin to live out the teachings of Jesus, it reverses these effects of religion in our lives. And so here's what he starts off by saying, and I got some points. The first one he says is basically, start asking Jesus. Like, start asking Jesus. Start looking to Jesus. He says here in verse 16, he says, so. He says, so don't let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink or for not celebrating certain holidays or new moons ceremonies or sabbaths, for these rules are only a shadow of the reality yet to come. And. And Christ himself is what the reality. He's basically saying, hey, I need you. If you're going to live a life of without shame, if you're going to live a life out of religion, if you're going to rehab, you're going to have to start asking basically what the bracelet did. What would Jesus do? But what would Christ Jesus do? What would he say? How would he treat this person? You have to move away from this idea of, well, what does the Torah say? He's telling them. He says, stop looking at what Moses thinks about this issue. Stop asking the prophets, stop looking at the scripture. Stop looking at Isaiah for how to treat people. Stop looking at the history of Joshua, how he treated people to justify genocide.
[00:33:54] Stop doing all of this. He said, don't put these ceremonies, don't put this tradition. Don't put this tradition. I mean, this philosophy. Don't add to the Christ's word. These were just a shadow.
[00:34:09] What's the reality? He says, what? What's reality? Christ himself is that reality.
[00:34:18] And see the reason why so many of us find ourselves in a place in this world right now wondering, who?
[00:34:26] How can you be a Christian and do that?
[00:34:29] How can you be a Christian and say this? How can you be a Christian and treat someone like this? How can you do this? Have you had that thought? How can you post this? How can you do this? How can you do this? How can you do this? And the reason is, friends, the reason is, is because good christians with pure intentions have taken the entire Torah, ancient books, all that, put it together, Bible. And this is what they ask, what they're used to. What does the Bible say?
[00:34:58] And that's a great question, but a better one that Paul is saying is, what does Jesus say?
[00:35:06] What does Jesus say? Because the Bible says a lot of stuff. The Bible records all kinds of history. It records all kinds of ceremonies. You want to do all of the ceremonies?
[00:35:17] Do you really want to? There's 350 of those. And guess what? Everybody's getting circumcised.
[00:35:24] Like, do you want to do that? No. The better question is, hey, what does Jesus say?
[00:35:31] How do I treat my neighbor?
[00:35:33] What does Jesus say about unjust wars?
[00:35:38] What does Jesus say about sitting around and letting people just kill each other?
[00:35:44] What would Jesus say?
[00:35:47] I mean, yeah, Bible says a lot of stuff, but what does Jesus word say? What does his life show us?
[00:35:55] Come on, what does our life show us?
[00:35:58] See, if we're going to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus, then we've got to go back to Christ.
[00:36:11] Like, we got to bring Christ back into Christianity.
[00:36:17] Like, we got to do that or we're doomed. Or the world is doomed. And here's why. I'm not. I don't want to have a negative message. I'm just saying it's doomed because it'll be so confused.
[00:36:28] It'd be like, I don't know who's real because this politician says they're Christian, and this government official says they're Christian, and this person says they're Christian. And my boss says he's Christian, and he does stuff that no one should do, and they're all Christian because they slapped the verse somewhere.
[00:36:48] And here he's saying, that leads to hopelessness and helplessness.
[00:36:54] When we don't go back to it, we don't go back to it. So if that's the first thing, start with Jesus. Start asking Jesus. The second thing, really quickly is this. And this is a big one for some of you. Stop being spiritually bullied.
[00:37:09] Stop being spiritually bullied. There are people in your life, they mean well. They mean well. They've been raised in a religion and you grew out of that, and you now have a relationship with Jesus.
[00:37:28] But every time you go back, that uncle of yours starts talking or that person starts saying some things and you should do this. Why aren't you doing that? And why don't you do this? And why don't you do that? Now? I have a different context because I have a muslim moment.
[00:37:43] And she calls me Besharam. Even now. She's like, you might be the worst pastor in the world. I was like, you're awesome.
[00:37:50] She's joking, obviously, because she thinks that a religious person like me should do these things. And because I don't do these things, she's like, how can you be a pastor? You're the worst. I'm like, you know what? You're the worst. Anyways, okay? That's our relationship. That's our relationship.
[00:38:09] Because I've set boundaries.
[00:38:14] If you want to stop being bullied by a spiritual person in your life, you gotta set some boundaries.
[00:38:21] Hey, I love you, but I'm gonna live out my faith. I'm gonna be okay with that. I'm gonna be okay with that. I'm not gonna judge that. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna get bullied by it.
[00:38:32] Because if some of us allow ourselves to be bullied, it leads to being helpless.
[00:38:39] And then right after helplessness comes what?
[00:38:42] Hopelessness.
[00:38:45] And some of us are lost in it, swimming in it, because there are opinions of parents and uncles and family and your tradition, and you grew up a certain way, and you've been drilled inside like there is a. It's stuck inside of you. You need serious rehab to reverse, to reverse its effects. You need rehab. You need rehab. You need rehab to reverse this. And it's gonna get. It's gonna hurt to go back and change some things, but it's going to lead to health.
[00:39:20] Here's what Paul says, and I wanna read this in the paraphrased message translation for you because I think it really, really hits it. It says here. So then. So then if with Christ, you've put all the puffed up and childish religion behind you. Why do you let yourself be bullied by it?
[00:39:45] Don't touch this. Don't taste that. Don't go near that. Do you think that these things that are here today and gone tomorrow are worth that kind of attention?
[00:39:59] They're not.
[00:40:01] They are not, my friends. They're not. They're not at all.
[00:40:07] So I want to pray for us. I want to pray for us because some of us have been bullied to feel so shameful in our lives.
[00:40:17] So shameful. And there's a constant inner committee in you, inside of you that keeps on saying these things, that you're this, you're this, you're this. See, guilt, my friends, needs to be confessed and it can be forgiven.
[00:40:35] Shame needs to be.
[00:40:37] Needs to be addressed and discarded.
[00:40:41] It's a big difference. So what I want to do is I want to lead us through that. I want to lead us to a point where we will confess our guilt, but we'll discard our shame. Today.
[00:40:53] Let's stand. Let me pray for us.
[00:40:58] Lord God, I thank you.
[00:41:00] I thank you for your truth. I thank you for Paul's teachings, for his writings. I thank you, God. That he, even though he was in prison writing this, he felt compelled to make sure that people like us, God, churches like us, lived shameless lives because we know what shame does.
[00:41:27] And it's subversive. It comes in and it gnaws on our conscious and reminds us that we're not okay and we could be better. And then it moves on to like, well, we.
[00:41:39] You are. There's something wrong with you. And you're doing this because you're an evil person and because of so much awfulness, because of who you are. And it keeps on talking to us and tells us, you'll never change. You'll never be good enough. You'll always be stuck like this. You'll always be this person who has all these filthy thoughts.
[00:42:00] God, shame comes in, wants to take over. It wants to take over and he wants to give us identity. And we are now shameful people.
[00:42:11] But God, there was a moment.
[00:42:14] There was a moment where we were vulnerable and naked before you and there was no shame.
[00:42:22] And Jesus, you came to make us know that that is the moment that God wants to go back to.
[00:42:31] They were fully vulnerable and we feel no shame, that there's no more hiding our sin. So, God, today I just pray.
[00:42:41] I pray, God that whatever sin in our lives we need to confess, we just do. Right now we just take a minute and go. God, you know I shouldn't do this. I know I shouldn't do this.
[00:42:58] I confess.
[00:43:00] I confess.
[00:43:03] I confess, God, I confess. I've allowed this in my life. I've allowed these thoughts. I've allowed this behavior last couple of weeks, last couple of years. I've allowed this. So would you forgive me?
[00:43:21] Would you forgive me?
[00:43:25] God, I thank you that you forgive.
[00:43:30] You forgive.
[00:43:33] That's why, God, your sacrifice on the cross was so important, because it conveyed one thing, and that big one thing was we can be forgiven of anything.
[00:43:50] So, God, I thank you for forgiveness.
[00:43:53] But, God, I pray against shame that we address this. Shame that's been a part of our identity.
[00:44:03] Shame of not being good enough. Shame that if we were just better, people would love us and want us in our lives. Shame because of what has happened to us and what we allowed in our lives. Shame that we should just be better people. Shame that has caused us to withdraw from so many people and not look people in the eye anymore. Shame that causes us to just live in darkness. God, that we address today as well. And we discard it in your name, Jesus. We discard it. No longer are we living in darkness.
[00:44:46] No longer. We're living in your light.
[00:44:50] We're living in the freedom that you've created in us. For us.
[00:44:58] God, I pray that as we respond, as we go to the cross, as we light a candle, as we, as we take communion, that that would be an expression of what we're feeling in this moment. And, God, whatever we do, I pray for my friends that we would leave shame behind.
[00:45:17] I thank you for that, God.
[00:45:19] It's in Jesus name. Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaicchurch TV.
