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.
[00:00:58] 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.
[00:01:19] Wow.
[00:01:22] I know, right?
[00:01:25] I'll tell you what. We like to have fun here. We like to have fun here. Hey, it is good to be back. Back with you guys. For those of you who have not noticed that I've been gone, shame on you. But for those of you who've been here, man, the summer has been really great. But we're moving towards the end of summer. Isn't it sad? Slowly. It's slowly happening, but we're starting a brand new conversation, and it's top secret, friends. It's top secret, okay? We're talking about conspiracy theories. And who doesn't like a good conspiracy theory, right? I know. I do. I do. But then sometimes I'll get into a conversation with a person, and they like it a little too much. They like it a little too much. They actually believe that. And I'm like, wow. Wow. So recently, I went to. I was in Denver, and went to Denver, landed there, Denver airport. And this guy, this pastor says, hey, did you see Blucifer?
[00:02:20] And I'm like, I'm sorry, blucifer? What's Blucifer? He's like, you didn't see Blucifer in the airport? I'm like, you mean Lucifer?
[00:02:28] No, Blucifer. He was like, yeah, blucifer. So he was talking about this. Let me show you a picture. This guy right here. Have you ever been to the Denver airport.
[00:02:39] Okay. Okay. If you haven't been, okay, you'll see this beautiful horse up there. And they were like, this is Belusifer. Okay? And the conspiracy is that it is demonic. It's demonic. And the airport, Denver airport is the hub of the Illuminati, right? Yes, it is. And so there's another picture. Another picture right here. Let me show you. This could. This could be like, hey, let's put that picture up there. Okay? That. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. It could be. It could be Lucifer right there. Yeah. Could be. Could be. All right, we can take that picture down. I mean, some of you guys are gonna get nightmares, you know? That's okay. It's okay. What's funny about this, though, is that this conspiracy is something that you can read about. And it's the idea, it came out of the fact that Luis Alfonso Jimenez junior is the artist. And while he was making it, a part of the statue fell on him and killed him.
[00:03:37] Right, right. So then, obviously, that's spiritual. And so. And so it killed him. And now. Then the story kept on going with it, where this was cursed. And the eyes that you can tell, like, the red eyes, they were like, this is obviously demonic.
[00:03:54] But actually, the fact is that the artist put the red eyes onto the horse out of honor for his dad, because he loved neon. And so what's really fascinating about this is that if you look at this and you look at some pictures and you go, you want to believe this stuff. You know, what's interesting is that in the world that we live in, conspiracy theories are so attractive to us. And some of us, we buy into it. The problem with this is that we live in a culture of conspiracy because of the rise of social media. I mean, because of the fact that people can put whatever up there and claim it to be true. I mean, it's fascinating. I mean, we've got social media, celebrities. There's a social media, obviously, influencers out there. There are social media. There's a social media reality, a world that who you are on social platforms as well, and you can tell a story. What's interesting, though, is that these social media companies, when they started off, basically, they started with the idea to create environments and places like Instagram, for example, where you put your grams on there, where you put your experiences on there. You share your life with your friends. But no longer is that the case. Now, Facebook and Instagram is where you put information and sometimes misinformation and all kinds of conspiracies. And most of the really good conspiracies that we, like, have read or have been on what online we do. And so what's interesting about that is that though we engage in them, some of us find ourselves very disappointed in despair. Some of us find ourselves worried and anxious and confused. Some of us end up believing some things that are not necessarily true.
[00:05:55] And so, like anthropologists have said, the truth actually is going to be the rarest commodity as we move forward as a culture in the world. Because the future, because of the access of technology and AI, we're not going to know what is truth. We're not going to know if this is true or not. Was this a real person or not. We're not going to know who that person is. Who's typing back, who's responding back, who is on a voice call? Is it AI? Who is it? Truth is going to be something that's going to be extremely rare. And the problem with that is that if we don't realize that we are beings that thrive on truth, that there's a sense that truth makes us whole and we are designed to live whole. And if we don't understand that, the search for truth really demands for us to do now more work because of the culture we live in. If we don't do that, we're going to find ourselves not living lies, but living out lies, feeling things that we surely shouldn't feel, fearing things we really shouldn't fear.
[00:07:10] And we would think, though, that there are people who have the responsibility to tell us truth, but the reality is, that's not even real. I mean, the fact that we have a fact check, a fact check system in place for the highest level of office in our world, the politicians have got to go through a fact check, basically implying that they're going to lie to us. And the beautiful thing about our conspiracy is that it has so much truth in it, just a little bit, just enough to make us anxious and not believe. And so why are we talking about this? We're talking about it is because I want us, this elite squad of believers, right, called mosaic, to move towards not just understanding and seeking knowledge, but pursuing wisdom, to actually move towards this desire to really know the truth. And it starts with realizing who we are and where we are. Because it doesn't matter if that. If Lucifer is a real thing, doesn't matter.
[00:08:14] Bigfoot, God bless. I don't know. I don't know. I don't care. Okay, Loch Ness monster, right? Other theories out there? Isn't there an area in the us area? What is it? 51. I thought it was like 58, and I was like, whatever. That's a different. That's a different area. But, yeah, we've got all kinds, and then we've got political conspiracies as well. So how do we navigate this? We navigate this with a sober mind, knowing that as we move towards what is going to be just a very stressful time in our world with this upcoming election, that we have to be people armed with truth. Not truth about our candidate, not truth about our candidate, but truth about who we are and where God is in the middle of all of this. So let's jump in. Can we do that? All right, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna be. Go to.
[00:09:10] We're gonna go to a letter. Actually, we're gonna go to a letter. It's. It's. It's the book of Colossians. Okay. And so I'm gonna give you a couple of passages, and what we're gonna do in this series of talks, there are four weeks. We're gonna go chapter by chapter. Now, I say this is a letter, because if you know anything about the scriptures, it is actually a. It is a. It's a letter. It's. We call it a book, because in the scriptures, you find. You're like, okay, this is a book. And there's chapters and verses, but it's actually a letter. And the letter was actually not sent to us as a mosaic church, but it was sent to another church, and we just kind of happened to find it. Okay? And so we're taking other people's mail, and we're gonna read it. Okay? Now, if you don't know, that's what pretty much most of the new testament is all about. We're reading other churches mail. Okay, so this one, we're gonna read someone else's mail right here, by the way, on that note, is it okay to read to someone else's mail?
[00:10:06] The room is divided right here.
[00:10:09] How about someone else's email?
[00:10:12] Sure, sure.
[00:10:14] Someone else's text message.
[00:10:17] Oh, your kids text message. Wow. Hey.
[00:10:24] Okay, how old do they need to be when you stop reading their text messages?
[00:10:29] They're, like 42. All right, I'm gonna keep on. Keep on. All right, well, we're gonna read someone else's mail right here. Okay, we are gonna do it. We're gonna do it. We'll jump right in. Colossians, chapter one, I'm gonna read you.
[00:10:41] And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you a big idea in this talk. And I'm gonna give you a, I'm gonna give you a big secret as well, okay? Because this is top secret number one, the big idea. Let's go to Colossians verse one. Let me read this to you. And it says this. Christ is the. Help me out with that word. What is it? The visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything and was created and is supreme. What over? All creation. All creation. All creation. Now Paul is talking to a particular group of people, a church, a society that was agnostic. Now what I mean by that is, is that the word means that the culture was really very much a intellectual culture that really believed that you couldn't truly and fully know things. And so there was like, there was a lot of uncertainty. And now he's speaking into this. And that's why it's not. He's writing to us. He's not talking about your needs and my needs. He's talking about a culture. And the culture was like, it was a culture of uncertainty, spiritual uncertainty. Now, it could apply to us because for some of us, we live in that world. We look around and we wonder, does God exist? And if he does, then why doesn't he care enough to intervene? We do that in our lives, in the world, around the world, in wars, and there are genocides happening in so many parts of this world today. Why doesn't. And so Paul, he speaks right into it. And he talks about this idea of that there is a God. There's a God out there and his name was Christ.
[00:12:19] And he's explaining, because Jesus has already resurrected and left. So he's explaining to these people that in the midst of all of this, there is something more going on. It's kind of a conspiracy. But I want you to know that if you've seen Jesus, then you've seen God. Like, if you want to know how God acts and what he thinks about you, you need to look at Jesus. And for so many of us, what we want to do is we look at all the letters that other people, other church's letters, and we look at other historical books of the jewish people and we take all this Bible and we live out the Bible and we want to be biblical, which is a great idea. But there is a difference, friends, from being biblical and versus being Jesus. Like, because biblical means that you incorporate all the new, Old Testament too, because it's a Bible, it's a library. But being Jesus focused is a little bit complicated. It's a little bit more challenging. And he's saying, hey, I want you to understand that Christ is the middle of this and there's something going on here. He keeps on going. In Colossians 16, he says this. He says, for through him, him is who? Him is who anybody. Jesus.
[00:13:32] Through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things that we what?
[00:13:41] Can't see. He can't see all things, such as thrones and kingdoms and rulers and authorities in the what? Unseen world. So he starts talking conspiracy here. He's like, hey, there's an unseen world out there. You don't know it. You don't know it, but there's something going on. So there is something in not just that is a reality in this dimension, but there is a different kind of reality that's going on, that's happening, and you're not a part of that. But just because you're not part of it, not because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not happening. So for us, as we find ourselves in a place where, like, you know what? I'm just consumed with my work. I just gotta make this job happen. I gotta make this thing happened. This relationship has got to work. What about my life? What about all these things? What about all that? And what about the world and what about politics and what about the US and what's going to happen? All that, all those things are true. But there's another reality that's happening that you and I are going to enter into later on in life, that this is just temporary, and then we're going to move into the afterlife, and that afterlife will open up a reality to us that we have no idea. And here Paul is saying to a culture that's uncertain, he says, I want you to know, yes, there's uncertainty. But in the middle of that, there is something that's certain, and that certainty is Christ. There's a certainty.
[00:14:57] There is a conspiracy going on. There is a conspiracy. There is a thing that God is doing. It's a subversive plan. And God has a subversive plan. And he talks about that a little bit. He keeps on going in verse 17, here's what he says. He says he, this is Christ Jesus. He says he existed before anything. Anything. And he holds all creation together. He holds all creation together.
[00:15:27] And so what does that mean for us? You're like, okay, this is great name. And this is obviously you told me this was someone else's mail. So obviously does not kind of make, you know, sense to me or it's not relevant to me. I think what this tells us is that God is doing something that we don't truly understand, but he is committed to us.
[00:15:49] That means that he holds your world and your pain and your job and your relationships and your kids together.
[00:15:56] And verse 19, he alludes to it a little bit. He says, for God. For God, in all his fullness, was pleased to live in Christ. And through him, God. God reconciled everything. What?
[00:16:11] To himself. To himself. Now, why is this important?
[00:16:15] The reason why this is important is because we have to understand there's a. There's a big conspiracy. There's a big idea that God wants us to know, and that big idea is that we. We are not. What?
[00:16:33] Hopeless.
[00:16:35] We are nothing. Hopeless.
[00:16:39] Because I think for some of us, we find ourselves in situations, and we're like, you know what?
[00:16:45] I am hopeless.
[00:16:47] My situation is hopeless.
[00:16:54] My past.
[00:16:55] My past is so checkered. I've done so many things. Yes, I have apologized. Yes, I've tried to reconcile, but there's so many things that I think my future is hopeless. I don't think that I can move forward in life. You know, there was a time during the pandemic that the world seemed hopeless. Just hopeless. I remember, like, when Covid first hit and the world started shutting down weeks and months into it, you just see people's. You see their eyes, because a lot of people wear masks, and you just sense, this world just finds himself hopeless. I remember talking to friends internationally and what they were going through, and one guy called me up, and he was just going. He was going insane being just stuck. And he felt so alone. And he didn't know that this would ever change. And as a church, this is about four years ago or whatever, we made signs as a church, and the signs basically said, you are not alone. And we put them up all over the city. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. Okay? And some businesses just love the idea. You drive by, and they were like, I saw that sign. And we used to get text messages and said, hey, I saw this sign says, you were not alone. Now, some conspiracy theorists were like, yeah, correct. We are not alone.
[00:18:24] We got aliens. We got aliens living among us.
[00:18:30] But we wanted people to understand and believe they're not alone. They're not hopeless.
[00:18:37] I think God wants you to know that. And Paul wanted the church to know that in the middle of all the things that are going on in their life, there is a bigger plan, that God is holding things together, and that regardless of the trauma that some of us have gone through. You can come out of that, and you're not done. You're not done. So I've been working on a second book, and it is. Whew. It's a doozy. Okay? It's a doozy for me, because the first book, I had a collaborator, a writer, and so basically, she did all the writing. Okay, let me just say that she did all the writing. Her name is on the book. This time, I had to write 40,000 words in English, okay? In English. And this has been a doozy of a book. I mean, just mentally, spiritually, I'm like, whoa, what's happening? There are days I'm like, why am I writing this? I can't even read. I can't even write. Oh, I'm. You know, and I do have dyslexia and dysgraphia, you know, and that's why when I read and I'm changing words, okay, whatever, okay? That's what I do.
[00:19:46] But I know that that's a disability. It's an issue. It's an issue.
[00:19:51] But someone was asking me, so why are you doing this?
[00:19:55] The book is called tomorrow needs you.
[00:19:58] The book is called tomorrow needs you. I was talking to a friend, and she was like. She's like, you know what? When the book comes up, I'm going to tattoo that on my body. I was like, okay, all right. My first book is called ex Muslim. You want to tattoo that, too? You want to do that? No. Okay, maybe I should do that. I don't want to do that. No, no, no. Okay, we're done. Okay.
[00:20:22] But the book is really about post traumatic growth.
[00:20:27] Post traumatic growth. The book is about having the power to overcome trauma and pain and fear and failure in your life and actually grow from it. Now, we all know about Pst. Pst. Yeah. You know. You know what I'm talking about. Okay. I'm like, what? What are we talking about? But this post traumatic growth, not stress disorder, but growth is a concept that a lot of people don't talk about. But if you talk to people. I mean, I know a friend of mine is in the military and went through an explosion and broke his neck. And. And now he's my, like, my workout partner. And. And I've seen people come out of some really traumatic things. I've seen people lose relationships and kids and jobs and security and their position in life and move and actually come out of that. And there is a belief in the middle of all that. And that belief is that they're not hopeless, they're not hopeless. They're not hopeless.
[00:21:30] I think for some of us you need to believe that you are nothing. Hopeless.
[00:21:36] You're not. Let me give you a quote over here, and I want you to memorize this, okay? We'll put it on the screens for you, okay? This is it. Hopelessness is the lie. Of what?
[00:21:47] Of impossibility.
[00:21:49] Hopelessness is a lie of impossibility. It is impossible. I will never.
[00:21:54] This will never. It can't ever happen. It's overdeveloped. No longer.
[00:22:02] It's impossible. I can't see this. Turn around. There's no way. I'm never going to be. I'm not enough.
[00:22:10] It is the lie of impossibility.
[00:22:13] It's the lie. It just keeps on telling you, reminding you. You're never going to lose this weight. You're never going to get healthy, you're never going to get financially stable. You're never going to find love. You're never going to be in a good relationship. You're never going to stop needing anxiety medicine.
[00:22:28] You're never going to. You're never going to. You're never going to. And that is the lie of hopelessness.
[00:22:35] It's hopelessness. It's hopelessness.
[00:22:38] But hopefulness is what is a life of possibility that God is inviting us into. And God has made a way for us because he's reconciled some things together. He's reconciled some things. He's done that on purpose. See, friends, if you think you're like no name, you don't understand. You don't understand. You don't understand. I'm just. I'm a mess. I'm a mess. Have you ever walked into a house or do you know someone and you go and hang out with them and they're always working on a project, but it's never done. Like, it's never done. Okay, now, some of you guys are like, yeah, my husband. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or my wife. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they always say it's a work in. What? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I have someone in my family and they start new things. Like, you go into their house and they're all new. Like, we started this, but we stop. We started this and we stop. We started this and we stopped. Some people do it in their life, but they're okay with it. Why? Because it's a work in. What?
[00:23:38] Yeah. Do you know that you are a work in for goddess, for God? When he looks at you, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not done, but it's happen. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. So if God's talking, I'm just gonna say this. If God's talking, we're just, you know, making this stuff up. Okay? If God's talking to angels, I don't even know if he does anyways, but he's talking to angels. He's like, oh, have you seen him? What's happening there? Okay, it's been ten years. Same issue. Same issue. Goes back into it again and again. This person is never gonna get better. He's like, hey, hey, we're working on it, we're working on it, we're working on it. Could you imagine how your relationship with God would change if you believed that God views you like that, that you are a project in a sense, you are a person that he's like, I have hope for them. But it's been 40 years. I have hope for them. If you read the stories of the Old Testament, all these people, God would give them decades to change.
[00:24:38] Decades, not months, decades. But yet we find ourselves hopeless because we haven't changed quickly.
[00:24:48] And God's saying, hey, I've reconciled everything to myself, and I'm doing something. I'm doing something. You, you are not hopeless. That is the big, that's the big idea. It's a big idea. So let's keep on reading. If you keep on reading, we find what happens is that he says this.
[00:25:10] He says in Colossians 120, he says he made peace with everything in earth, in heaven, and on earth by means of Christ's blood on the cross. Now he starts to talk about things that are a little bit more, like, confusing. He's like, okay, God has done something now to that church. They understand that. But to us, and for those of you who are, like, trying to figure out your faith, there is something God did on the cross that's not just a ticket for you to go into heaven. It is not just that. It's more than that. That when God redeemed you, he redeemed all of creation. And I'm not quite sure if we even begin to understand what we.
[00:25:52] What he did on the cross. It was something that affected this reality, but also the other reality that we're going to. We're gonna be part of one day. It changed everything. He keeps on going and he says, and as a result, he brought you into his own present. You are holy and what? Holy and what? Blameless. Blameless as you stand before him without a single fault, right here. Now Paul goes even more, you know, I guess, like, strange because he's like, hey, there's a reality you're living in right now, but there is an. There's a future reality that right now, because in the other side of this reality, time doesn't really exist. But right now, as you're facing and you're in your.
[00:26:44] In your stuff, you're actually holy and blameless, standing before God with no fault.
[00:26:52] And so for them, they're like, I'm sorry, what. What's happening here? It's. It's. Again, it's. It's this. It's bigger. It's. It's, it's, it's. It's more, um.
[00:27:01] It's. It's confusing, obviously, but there's a sense of, like, there is a part of me right now in the future that has no fault. That is. That has. That's holy, that's in God's presence. And then he just keeps on talking. And he says this. He says, but. But, but you must continue to what? Continue to what?
[00:27:24] Continue to what? Believe. He said, you've got to continue to believe and stand firmly in it. Don't drift away from the assurance you receive when you heard the good news. He's like, listen, listen, listen. For those. I'm talking to the home crowd here, because, again, this letter was not written to us. It was written to them. So he's like, hey, you remember, I've talked to you about this. We've talked about this. People have talked to you about this. I want you to make sure you don't walk away from this. It's going to be so easy for you to believe. The lies of uncertainty, the lies of hopelessness. There's going to be so tempting. But I need you. I need you to stand firm in this truth. What is the truth? The truth of the good news. What's the good news? That God supernaturally entered into human history.
[00:28:12] God has a subversive plan, and that subversive plan is to be with us.
[00:28:20] And the way he did this causes us to live in this big, huge conspiracy. But it's the conspiracy of hope that he knows that there is a way that he can come in, be with us, so we don't have to keep on trying to get to him and that he comes to us. He says, I know it's far fetched, but I need you to believe this conspiracy, that there is hope for you and there's hope for me because of what God has done.
[00:28:50] He says, and you stand before him. This is the good news. And then he actually just brings it out. He says, let me just. Let me explain this way. Verse 26. He says, this message was kept. What was kept what? Top secret. It was kept top secret for what, centuries and generations past. But now it has been what revealed to God's people. He was like, this is the plan. Then he explains it a little bit more. He says, for God wanted them to know the riches and the glory of Christ are for you, what, gentiles, too? So because the culture he was talking to, they weren't necessarily jewish people. He was like, this is the secret, guys. It's a big thing. He wants you to know that all the benefits, all the hope that God has given, it's not just given to one group of people. It's given to all.
[00:29:53] And that's why we have t shirts here and swag here and things here that say, hope for all. That's why for years, we were like, we have to drill this message to people because there's another conspiracy, and that's the conspiracy of religion. The conspiracy of religion is, is that there's hope for some.
[00:30:15] It's hope for some. And you better get your act together. You gotta do this. You gotta pretend or be a certain way and live a certain way. And I'm not saying that, because when you and I totally have to transform the way we think and the way we say and do, and we have to align it with the teachings of Jesus for sure. So there is a transformation that needs to take place. But it's very different to conform now to a religious institution because you need access to hope.
[00:30:44] And there's a conspiracy of religion that says, hey, this is the conspiracy, and it's a conspiracy and it's not true. And it basically says.
[00:30:52] It says, you are not holy and blameless. You actually.
[00:30:57] There's shame.
[00:30:59] There's shame and it lives in you.
[00:31:04] There is guilt and it lives in you.
[00:31:07] In fact, sin lives in the. In you.
[00:31:11] And that is the conspiracy. That is the message. It lives in you.
[00:31:17] The other day, I was.
[00:31:20] I was on a call with Ashley, and have you ever talked to someone on the phone and then they start another conversation with someone else? Anybody else gets annoyed by that?
[00:31:33] I just do. I just do love Ashley. I just do. I just do. Okay, if anybody, like, if you answer the phone, talk to me, talk to me, ignore the world, okay? Unless it's. Unless it's something, you know, really, really important. But anyway, she's on the phone with me, and we're talking about some things, and she answers the door. She goes to the door, she's like, is someone the door? I'm like, ah, I don't care. Like, like, let's just. Let's just finish this conversation. Let's just finish the conversation. She's like, hey, there are two Mormons. There are two. There are two Mormons at the door. And I was like, okay, well, just pretend you're not home. It's all good. Right, right. Who doesn't do that? Okay, okay. And she was like, oh, no, no. And she opens the door. Now I'm listening to a conversation she's having with them. Okay. I'm like, hey, come on, now. I don't.
[00:32:18] Okay. So she's talking to them, and they were like, hey, are you, you know Ashley Fossil? And she. Because she was like, hey, I'm good, I'm good. And she goes, I'm a pastor. I'm good. I got you. I'm good. So she tries to back away, but then they were like, are you Noura's mom? Our daughter?
[00:32:33] And she's like, are you Noura Fazl's mom? And she was like, yeah. They're like, well, Noura Fazl requested for us to come.
[00:32:42] And I was like, what?
[00:32:45] That little.
[00:32:48] What?
[00:32:49] As a practical joke? What are you doing, Mira? She probably filled out a form, like, yeah, show up to my house. Yeah, because she wants to debate them. She's not even there. I was like, what are you doing? What are you doing?
[00:33:04] You know what's. I mean, I gotta bring. I gotta hand to Mormons, you know, I got a hand to them.
[00:33:11] Their commitment to do the work. I mean, even Joe's witnesses, I mean, you have looked at them and you've seen the people who are super religious, and they're standing there, right? And sometimes they're happy, and sometimes they're pitiful. Sometimes they're just doing the thing. They're standing the thing, they're doing the thing, and they're committed to do the thing, to do the thing. And for me, I'm like, I don't fault them. I say, hey, I envy your commitment, but what's the motivation?
[00:33:37] What's driving that commitment? Is it a sense of sin lives in me, and I got to do whatever it takes to get it out. I got to pay penance for all the stuff. I got to do the things to make up. I got to do it. I got to do it. I'm doing all this religious activity to help manage my sin portfolio.
[00:34:02] I gotta, I just gotta. I gotta do this.
[00:34:06] I can't. I gotta do more good religious things. Make sure my bad sins don't creep up. And so that's why so many religious institutions, you know, they harp on, they value, they press, doing religious activities, ceremonies, rituals, things you just have to do. You just got to keep on doing and doing and doing. And here Paul is saying, hey, if you and I don't.
[00:34:41] Don't pay attention, what's going to happen is because we live in a culture of conspiracy.
[00:34:46] The conspiracy of religion will infiltrate us and then we'll begin to believe that God loves us because of what we do.
[00:34:57] God loves us because of what we do. God loves us because of what we believe.
[00:35:02] And that, my friends, is not true.
[00:35:05] God loves you because of who you are.
[00:35:08] He made you.
[00:35:10] He made you.
[00:35:12] And so the last verse here I'm gonna read to you is the big secret. He says, for God wanted them to know the riches and the glories. Riches and glory of Christ who are for you gentiles to. And. And this is the secret.
[00:35:33] This is the secret.
[00:35:35] This is the secret.
[00:35:37] What's the secret?
[00:35:39] What's the secret?
[00:35:42] Christ lives in you.
[00:35:48] This gives you assurance of things, of sharing his glory.
[00:35:55] Sin doesn't live in you.
[00:35:57] And you're like, no, no, no name. Okay, it did.
[00:36:00] But remember he said, I'm looking at you now. And right now you are without fault. You're holy. You stand before God without a single fault.
[00:36:11] So what's the secret?
[00:36:14] Hopelessness does not live in you. You were made for hope.
[00:36:18] Shame doesn't live in you. You are not made by shame.
[00:36:24] You are not made by guilt or for guilt.
[00:36:27] You don't need to live with guilt and shame and failure and anxiety and worry. You and I were not made for that. Why do you think so many of us, so many of us find ourselves so desperate? And I obviously get it. And we're hooked on anti anxiety pills because of hopelessness, worry, fear, shame, guilt. And we have to have medicine to help our bodies function because we were not made to have sin. And shame and guilt live in us. It messes us up.
[00:37:13] And so the big secret, the conspiracy, is God says, I'm not just going to come and go, hey. And die on the cross. I'm going to now live. What, in you? I'm going to live in you. I'm going to live in you. So there's no point, no point ever that you are without hope.
[00:37:38] You're like, I'm hopeless.
[00:37:40] It can't happen because he lives inside of you.
[00:37:48] Now next week we'll talk about what does that mean? For what do we have to do for God to live inside of us. But for those of you who are like, I get it, I believe this. I just forgot this. I believe other conspiracies. I want to remind you, Jesus Christ, God's power lives inside of you.
[00:38:09] You are not done. You are not alone. You are, you are not hopeless.
[00:38:19] Ever.
[00:38:20] Ever.
[00:38:22] And so, as we end this morning, what I want to ask you is, where does that, like, how does this hit you? Like, for some of us, where does it hit? Like, it's like, oh, yeah, it's really God's saying something to me about this. Because for so many of us, we've allowed other things, hope, hopelessness in our lives, this lie of impossibility. And because of that, we've not lived a life of possibility. We've stopped dreaming and thinking and praying about things. We've just allowed despair and disappointment, disillusionment, to just come and wreck our worlds.
[00:38:59] And so where.
[00:39:01] How is God talking to you today about this online?
[00:39:07] Where are you? How does this hit you? How does it.
[00:39:12] I tell you what, though. We've got to do something different. Because if you and I allow this conspiracy of religion or conspiracy of shame and guilt to overtake us, we are not going to live full lives because we'll always be limited.
[00:39:28] Why? Because hopelessness is the lie. Of what?
[00:39:32] Impossibility. You'll never be who you were meant to be because you can't be.
[00:39:39] But you, my friends, were made with hope. And you have hope living in you.
[00:39:46] So can I pray for you? Can we do that? Let's stand together.
[00:39:53] Hmm?
[00:39:58] God, I thank you.
[00:40:04] I thank you for this conspiracy, this secret plan of yours, to redeem humanity. And not just redeem humanity, God, but to empower humanity to come alongside of us.
[00:40:25] But, God, I can't help it. But right now, think about all of us. God, I think of myself, God, at times where I'm so overwhelmed with anxiety, I'm so overwhelmed with just stress in my life that I just. I just want it. I want it to go away.
[00:40:41] And, God, so many of us, God, we all find ourselves just coping with so many different things, so many different ways. We do it with food. We do it with alcohol. We do it with drugs. We do it with relationships, people. We do it with entertainment, God, we just. We do it so many different things. And we find ourselves, like God, coping, but not really getting better.
[00:41:07] And yet, God, you've come and you've told us about this, the secret, the God that you live in, son, in us.
[00:41:16] So God would. I could I ask you, God, would you supernaturally empower us to believe that and feel that this morning, that as we go to our, to our interactions this today and this week, as we go to our client meetings, as we go to our students, as we go to our jobs, as we go to our relationships, our friendships, God, would we be reminded, God, that hope lives in us.
[00:41:55] And that's the secret that needs to spread.
[00:42:00] Because we know, God, we know that if we believe that just even for half a day, we would begin to live whole lives.
[00:42:13] Whole lives, God, that we would love.
[00:42:17] We'd live fully with our whole hearts, with our whole minds.
[00:42:27] God, I pray. I pray all these things in Jesus name.
[00:42:35] Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at Mosaicchurch TV.
