October 1, 2024 • 48 mins
What if much of what you’ve been taught about the gospel is based on misconceptions? In this episode of the reChurch Podcast Justin and Brooke peel back the layers of experience with the American church to explore this very question. From fear-based teachings at Church camp to the superficial gospel often presented on Sundays, we share how these approaches left us questioning the authenticity of our faith, but ultimately led us to discover what Jesus truly says in scripture and how genuine transformation is possible. You don't want to miss this conversation!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But you can't create the conviction in their heart.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
That's the Holy Spirit's job.
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
That's right, and so you get them to that point and
you allow the Holy Spirit towork, but you don't leave them
there.
That may be a point of likethey feel the weight of their
sin.
That's a good thing.
We don't got to do this fluffy,like Jesus loves you and don't
feel bad.
Don't feel bad.
It's like no before you canfeel good.
Yeah, I know, brooke, what isthe gospel?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I always like to take people to the true
response that you see in thebook of Acts, because it's the
best response possible.
The sinner's prayer right, no,no, no, no, it's not there.
And I remember like when theywould do the altar call, I would
just run to the front and likefall on my face and like pray,
and then at the end of the weekat camp we would do baptisms and
I would get baptized and likeit did not work, it didn't
(00:46):
transform me.
Why do we try to remove partsor say they're not necessary,
when that was just the responseLike, why are we adding to or
taking away?
That's what scares me.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Do you know why?
It's because, all right,welcome to the ReChurch podcast,
where we pause to rethink howmodern church has strayed from
God's original intention and wehave some awesome conversations
about living out our faith inreal time.
I'm your host, justin Newb.
This is episode one, and I'mhere with my lovely, lovely wife
(01:21):
, brooke.
Brooke, say hello to the people.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hello, you're going to make me blush there, lovely
wife Brooke.
Brooke, say hello to the people.
Hello, You're going to make meblush there, Mr Newt.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, I'm excited.
I'm excited to kick this off.
We've got just mounds andmounds of stuff to talk about.
I think it's going to be reallygood bring a lot of value to
people.
Today, specifically, we'regoing to be talking about,
honestly, the difference betweenthe true and the many false
gospels.
There's only one true one, butthere are many false out there
that are trying to kind of mimicthe true gospel, and I think
(01:51):
it's not only a dangerous thing,but it's something that I think
the church at large hasoverlooked for many, many years,
and I think you correct me ifI'm wrong, but maybe we both
experienced that we responded tosome of those gospels first.
For sure.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
We're dealing with the fruit of them, and until
somebody brought it to ourattention, we didn't even know
what we were lacking Right, andI think that's where most of the
church is at.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah.
So stick around, you're goingto find a lot of value in this
and we're going to talk aboutsome practical application of
this stuff.
In the end, how can we changeif we need to, and how can we
change if we need to and how canwe walk this stuff out.
So that's exciting.
But since we're just kickingthis thing off, like, tell me a
little bit about yourself,brooke, you recently had a
couple of big things happen, bigmove happen in your life.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, we sure have we .
Recently we just moved to theAustin Texas area.
That was a huge move.
We used to live overseas,actually with each other, like
with our kids, and I feel likemoving here was actually
practically more difficult thanmoving overseas for some reason.
I don't know why that was, butit's been really good.
(02:55):
I feel like.
I feel like it's starting tofeel like home and we're getting
settled, yeah, and I think ourkids are thriving.
So that's exciting.
When you, you obey the Lord, itlike it works out somehow, even
though it seems really off thewall and crazy sometimes.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah.
We've experienced a lot, a lotof big changes over the years,
big steps in obeying the Lord,but every time it seems
difficult, but on the other endof it we just see massive
amounts of fruit.
A lot of times.
A lot of times you think he's.
He's sending you to a certainplace to save that place, right,
that missionary mindset, Likewe're going and we're going to
preach the gospel and lots ofpeople are going to get saved,
(03:31):
and all this stuff.
And you realize that when youget to that place, most of what
he was doing was transformativein your character and your heart
, that's right.
And just the yes to obey,because, like we always say,
saying yes to one thing meanssaying no to something else.
So, that's awesome, but um,yeah, so tell me, tell me about
these false gospels.
(03:52):
Is there, is there somespecific ones you can think of?
And and what are?
What are?
Let's get into that.
What are the?
What are the dangers of thosethings?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, I think there's a few out there that can really
get us in trouble.
Unfortunately and I'mpassionate about this topic,
probably one of my mostpassionate topics, other than a
couple other things in my life Ienjoy to talk about but
exposing what's false in theAmerican church gospel Because,
unfortunately, as a little girllike I, was raised in those
(04:22):
churches where that gospel wasbeing presented and was being
spoken and I was desperate toexperience something real.
But the gospel I was givendidn't change anything in my
life, unfortunately, and thatmade me have to really like
question.
Well, it made me question ifGod's even real, or if Jesus is
(04:43):
even real, and it made me thinkthat every other Christian
around me was, um, veryhypocritical, um, and and just
not fully real, and who theysaid they were and this gospel
that they preached, you knowkind of like like there's an
expectation of like, almost likewe oversell the gospel and most
of the church hasn'texperienced it that way.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So we're like, hey, this is what you should do.
And then it's like, once yousay yes to whatever they're
presenting, you don't reallyexperience those results.
So it's almost like a letdown.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Exactly.
I'm like I remember when Justingave his life to the Lord and
he told me I was like good foryou, buddy, done that been there
a few times like didn't workfor me, hope it works for you.
And that's so sad that that wasmy response to you and you
really gave your life to Jesus.
I had to repent over that quitea few times when I actually met
(05:35):
the Lord, because I just shutyou down but I didn't know I
hadn't experienced the realgospel yet.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So you're expecting to see the same result in me
that you saw, which was veryminimal, mediocre at best, yeah.
Like I was thinking about thisearlier.
You know, um, it's like youstart to compare, and I think a
lot of nonbelievers could havethis argument against the church
or what they see, you know, inthe church, or what we're
displaying at that is, uh,what's so different about
(05:59):
responding to Jesus and what youknow, what you're saying, and
just behavioral modifications,like their argument could be.
Hey, you know, I've done thisin this 10 step program and I've
seen just as many results asyou have, right, um, but you and
I both know that there's somepower to this thing.
Like 100%, like God does morethan just make you a nice person
(06:23):
.
100%, right, what was the?
What would you say?
Is the gospel that youresponded to first as a little
girl?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I feel like it was a little bit of a blend of a
couple.
For sure.
The fear gospel that was likethe gospel I would hear at
church camp every summer.
Tell me about the fear gospelyeah, so I would go to church
camp every summer and there'd bethis Baptist pastor on the
stage and he'd have that voice.
You know, and I like, and I'mlike okay it's just really
intense and like kind of scaryfor a young kid, and they would
(06:51):
talk about you know, if youdidn't repent right this moment,
you were going to burn in hellforever.
And I remember like when theywould do the altar call, I would
just run to the front and likefollow my face and like pray,
and then at the end of the weekat camp we would do baptisms and
I would get baptized.
And like every summer I wentthrough the same thing, the same
cycle, the same repentance, thesame baptism, and then for two
(07:13):
weeks I would read my Bible andI'd be committed to it and I
definitely felt better for themoment in that.
But within the matter of two tothree weeks I was right back to
lying to my parents and lookingat things I wasn't supposed to
and all those kinds of things.
So for sure, the fear gospel,it did not work.
It didn't transform me.
It gave me enough fear tobehaviorally modify my life for
(07:35):
a couple of weeks and then youkind of forget about it.
That emotional high goes awayand then you just kind of go
back to what you always haveknown and nothing really changes
.
So I definitely think that isone of the gospels I've heard,
but then in my church churchthat I would go to every Sunday,
it was kind of more what Iremember it being like.
It's about what you look likeand what you wear and how you
(07:58):
present yourself, and nobodytalked about sin that's actually
going on in your heart or arelate.
I never remember hearinganything about having a true
relationship with God.
When I heard that for the firsttime, I'm like you're telling
me, like I can actually talk toGod and he can talk to me, and
like we can be in this intimaterelationship.
(08:18):
I'm like what?
That seems so weird to me.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, god seems so distant in that portrayal of him
, because and when I'm listeningto you I'm thinking you know
why is so important to presentan accurate biblical gospel is
because it gives you a pictureof God that's right and
depending on that picture of Godyou you get.
That's going to have a lot todo with how you relate to him.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, even too, I think, like I heard a lot of
times like the sinner's prayergospel.
Well, even too, I think, like Iheard a lot of times like the
sinner's prayer gospel like ifyou just pray this prayer, it'll
change your life you know.
And so I'm hearing thisfear-based thing.
But I'm also hearing this thingIf I just pray this prayer,
everything's going to change forme.
And it didn't.
But the sad thing is about thatgospel of just pray the
(09:01):
sinner's prayer and you're saved.
I thought because I prayed thatprayer I was actually saved.
But I was never told I had tochange.
So I just went right back tothe old life Now, instead of out
of fear, from when I was achild hearing that fear-based
gospel.
Now I'm like, oh well, I'msaved because they told me if I
prayed this prayer and Ibelieved in Jesus, I'm good and
I confess that he's Lord, jesusis Lord.
But I would be at the barconfessing Jesus is Lord to the
(09:25):
person you got to hold on asecond.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You're telling me that the sinner's prayer, that's
not in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
No, it's not in the Bible.
I didn't know that, though,until I actually met Jesus and
read my Bible for the first time, because, again, like I said
the sinner's prayer, gospel didnot drive me to the word of God.
It did not drive me to thesecret place.
Gospel did not like drive me tothe word of God.
It did not drive me to thesecret place.
It did not drive me to holiness.
It actually gave me a falseassurance that I was good.
So I still went to the bars onthe weekends.
(09:52):
I still was lusting after menthat weren't my husband.
I was doing very bad things inthe secret when nobody knew, and
the crazy part about that is isI was the girl at the bar.
Like if somebody said, gd, I'dbe like you're going to hell and
I would tell them about Jesus.
But I'm drunk and I'm about togo home with a guy who I don't
even know, and I've done thatmany times, and I'm just like I
(10:18):
was going to hell just as fastas they were.
But because I was told by a man, I'm saved, because I raised my
hand, I prayed this prayer, andin the moment I actually kind
of meant it because I wasemotionally stirred Um, but it
didn't change me Like the gospelhas to change you.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, absolutely, I think a lot of what I what I
noticed is a lot of those falsegospels intertwine with each
other Like you know I was seeing.
That's why it was so easy to goin and out of those things
because there's, you know, thefear-based gospel which ends up
putting you in yes, yourrelationship with God is based
off fear.
Like I made this decisionbecause I don't, I'm scared of
(10:55):
the opposite result.
Right, not because I want to bewith this person, not because I
want to have a relationshipwith them, but I don't want the
repercussions of what willhappen if I say no.
That's right and if you thinkabout it, it's like.
You know, there are a lot ofparent and child relationships
like that right For sure, andwhat happens with those children
when they get under thehousehold?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
They rebel.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
They rebel right.
So what do you think?
And what happened in your life?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
when you got out of the household.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I rebelled when you were outside of that setting,
where it was expected of you toact a certain way you rebel
Because there was norelationship right, there was no
authority there based on yourreal interaction with the right
portrayal of God.
And so it's like it's a verydangerous thing, because we've
got to take this seriously,because you've got to think like
(11:39):
, what does Jesus think when hehas fully described himself in
the Bible?
What does Jesus think when hehas fully described himself in
the Bible, when we can look atJesus and see who the Father is
and it's right before us?
We all have Bibles in our house.
You know what I'm saying, themajority of us and we can see
that but yet you're preachingthis other God.
Like what do you think Jesusthinks of that when a person
(12:02):
like you, when a young person,turns away because of this poor
image that we've represented?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
it's like it's a serious thing.
I think it's super seriousbecause there's multiple new
tests.
Well, two that come to mind newTestament books that discuss
like, if there's a false gospelbeing preached, no matter if
it's a person, an angel, whoeverlike, let them be accursed.
And I'm like, like, I don'tthink we actually take that
scripture very seriously, but Ithink it's something we should
(12:28):
very walk, in the fear of thelord, in and like make sure that
the gospel we're preaching isthe gospel that saves from sin,
transforms lives and andactually directs the person to
the, the the relationship ofchrist, you know, and letting
christ then transform you fromthe inside out.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So so, yeah, absolutely yeah.
So we talked about the feargospel.
We got into that.
That's pretty clear.
The I would call the sinner'sprayer gospel, kind of like the
just believe Jesus exists, youknow gospel.
I've seen somebody post thisrecently on Facebook.
They said so you believe inJesus, but you don't obey him.
(13:04):
Right, so does the devil Yikes.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Think on that for two seconds, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Got that demon faith?
James talks about that as well.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Right, even the demons believe.
Yet they tremble, but theydon't repent, they don't change.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You know, that's really sad.
So that's a wake up call torealize like there is a
difference between believing inthe existence of Jesus.
You know, we experience thisall the time when talking to
people.
They'll right in front of yourface, they'll be cussing someone
out, whatever.
Whatever it is, you know, justlike no fruit of salvation, and
then turn around and be like,well, I'm praying for him or I'm
praying for your brother or youknow, whatever you know, give
(13:45):
me the old Catholic thing andI'm like what are you talking
about?
That scares me more than theperson that just rejects.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Rejects 100%.
I think that was more you.
You were just.
You rejected God and I thinkthat's why God came in so much
power in your life, Because whenyou actually had a real
encounter with God, you humbledyourself and you received.
I think the sad thing with thechurch now is like everybody
thinks that they're good withoutreally truly self-evaluating
where they're at Is there fruitin their lives.
(14:16):
And most of the time, if you doevaluate, you'll see that your
life is kind of fruitless andthat's scary.
And fruit can represent beshown in many ways the way you
speak, the way you act, whathappens when you're around
people.
Do people's lives change afterthey encounter you?
You know things like thatbecause Christ is in you.
But one thing I think is reallyimportant to note is there's
(14:37):
also like this powerless gospelthat's preached.
We didn't even discuss thisearlier when we were talking
about just the different gospels, you know.
But this powerless gospel where,yeah, they might preach some
repentance, like, yeah, jesuscan change your life, but really
it's like, you know, you needto repent of your sins, but when
you do, you kind of just get alittle bit better.
(14:58):
And now you just come to churchand you serve on Sundays and
you open the door for peoplewhich there is nothing wrong
with those things, be kind, openthe door for people, which
there is nothing wrong withthose things, be kind, open the
door for people.
But there's more to the gospelthan just being saved from sin.
But once you're saved from sin,there's more to being a part of
the body of Christ, whichreally is.
When I experienced that, beingfilled with the Holy Spirit, my
(15:22):
whole life changed.
So there's this gospel outthere that's like, yeah, just
come, repent of your sins andlive a mediocre life, just tell
people you love them and thatJesus loves them and move on.
And that's really sad thatthey're missing out on the more.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, no, I agree, tell me about that, tell me
about your training, because Iknow I had my own personal
transition.
For example, with me I had nokind of, you know, religious
background and stuff like that.
So I would say entering intothat relationship with Christ,
uh, was a little bit easierbecause I didn't have all that
religious baggage, um, to worryabout.
But then quickly, uh, the deviltried to get me into religion.
(16:01):
That's right.
I think your prayers helped mecome out of that quickly.
So it's not like you're totallyimmune to falling into that
because you didn't grow up in achurch setting he still tried to
get me with religion, and thenI had to have a genuine
transformative encounter withhim, with his power.
Like you said, that changedeverything from me.
(16:23):
But with someone like you whogrew up in that setting so
you're just like covered inreligion you're kind of hurt you
know, by the church hurt byquote, unquote Christians, stuff
like that, and then you havethis transformative experience.
Share just briefly about thattransition.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah.
So I did not know that when youcame to be a follower of Christ
, that there were gifts involved.
I just literally thought it wasonly about sin alone, you know.
But I couldn't get out of it.
I didn't know why, I couldn'tchange my behaviors.
But once I truly met Jesus andrepented one night, it was well,
it was actually daytime, it wasa Thursday.
(17:04):
I'm sitting in my room like I'mso hungry for the Lord.
I'm actually watching a podcastfrom a spirit-filled believer
and they were talking about themore of God and I'm like reading
through my Bible and it says ifyou seek, ask and knock, you're
going to receive the more.
But I didn't understand, eventhough it said the spirit.
I'm like what does that evenmean?
It said the spirit.
(17:25):
I'm like what does that evenmean?
Because no one had ever told mewhat that meant.
You know, but God is sogracious y'all.
If you seek him with your wholeheart, you will find him with
no pride involved, like you haveto just come like a little baby
, you know, and I remembersitting on my floor that
Thursday afternoon my kids werein daycare, you were at work.
I'm like literally crying, likesnots running down my face and
I'm like God, I know there'smore Like what is it that I'm
(17:47):
missing?
I will do anything to get it.
And I'm crying out.
And all of a sudden, thepresence of God came into my
bedroom in a way that I hadnever experienced, and it felt
like this power filled my body,like this peaceful power of God
filled my body.
And all of a sudden I justopened my mouth because I felt
this urge to pray.
(18:07):
But when I opened my mouth topray, another language came out
of my mouth and I'm like I'mlike stop myself, because my
Baptist church growing up toldme tongues was from the devil.
So I'm like golly, I done got ademon, but I'm trying to talk
to God.
And so I reached out to a friendof mine who I knew would maybe
know something about this.
(18:28):
She lived in Africa and Imessaged her and I was like hey,
like this just encounterhappened.
What, what do I?
What is this Like?
Am I in trouble?
Did I do something wrong?
She's like no, you just gotfilled with the Holy Spirit.
Read the book of Acts.
And I started reading the bookof Acts and I'm like this is in
here.
Why did anybody not tell meabout this and I'm telling you,
(18:48):
I went from just an averageperson who had a hunger for God
to on fire, and even I remembermaking you uncomfortable.
You were like I need you toslow your roll.
I just wanted you to stoppartying and I just wanted you
to be a good mom and a good wifeand stop drinking.
But now you're praying for thesick and they're getting healed
(19:10):
and you're hearing things from.
God and it's happening like oh,so it was a pretty radical
encounter.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
It took a while for me to realize what was happening
and why I was feeling that way.
And later the Lord showed me.
Um, he said I remember a guy Iwas watching.
Uh, this guy preached beforeand he said when, when faith and
unbelief are in the same room,one of them's got to get out for
real.
And so what I was feeling wasthe discomfort of your faith
because it challenged myunbelief.
(19:35):
And I knew that I could eitherremain uncomfortable to the
point of where I have to leavethe room to risk to get my
comfort back, or I couldactually humble myself, receive
the challenge and I could enterinto a space where you are and I
think, that's the invitationthat Jesus has with most people.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
It's like think about when he walked around in the
Gospels, when he would approachpeople Number one he would talk
about the people that wouldactually humble themselves and
lose their care or their, their,their, their care or their
thought of what they look likein front of people and would
just reach out for him.
Those were the people that werethe most blessed, the people he
would turn to and say look attheir faith.
You've got all these likereligious quote unquote
(20:16):
religious professionals, thesePharisees and Sadducees and
religious leaders around and helooks at you know, the person
crawling in the street, thewoman crawling in the street and
is like, look at their face.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
That's right, or?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
or uh.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I was that woman yeah .
Speaker 1 (20:30):
And those are the people you know, or or blind
Bartimaeus, or these people thatget ridiculed for the uh, the
scene they're creating in frontof other people Like you're
embarrassing yourself right.
And he would turn to them.
And those were the people thathe not only gave them what they
asked for, but he commended themLike he used them as an example
(20:51):
Like think about.
Mary, you know, breaking theperfume and like all these
examples we see in the Bible,it's getting to that place, to
where you actually, when youhear us talking about, oh, I had
an encounter, I had a realencounter with God, I had a
transformative Some people maybe asking like, well, what does
that mean?
Look in the Bible, it's thoseencounters.
(21:11):
Does it have to be like crazymiracles and deliverance and all
that is happening and I fellout in the spirit and all of
that?
Not necessarily, but like it'sone of those things where the
situation happens and you turnaround, you get up, you walk out
, you start to speak and you'relike something is completely
different, not slightlydifferent.
(21:31):
Something is very different.
Something inside me changed andthat's the difference.
We'll get into this in a minute.
But that's the differencebetween a gospel that says
follow these rules and a gospelthat says come encounter me and
I'll walk with you.
That's right, I'll walk withyou.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's right, I'll be with you, right, that's right.
That's so good.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah.
So you know we've talked aboutfalse gospels, a lot We've
talked about, and some of someof the people may be saying like
oh man, that's the one Iresponded to the fear gospel,
the sinner's prayer gospel, onlybelieve.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Jesus exists, the powerless gospel, the powerless
gospel.
There's the prosperity gospel.
Or, like, jesus is going to dowhatever I want him to do for me
.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The create Jesus in your own image.
Gospel, that's right.
Tell me about that real quick.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, that one's a real one.
That one, I think, is thesneaky one, because those people
that have responded to thatgospel, like they look like
they're blessed by God becausethey're getting all these
financial blessings andpromotions and career blessings
and all these things.
And they're getting all thesefinancial blessings and
promotions and career blessingsand all these things and they're
serving people in some capacity.
They're giving out money, buttheir life is very selfish and
(22:33):
self-seeking.
It's self-centered, it's aself-centered gospel and so you
get all your wildest dreams, youmanifest them, whatever you
want to call it, but I canpromise you that it might not be
that that blessing is from theLord.
So you have to really learn howto discern whether a blessing
is from God, because you're anobedient child who's laid down
your life, been born again, diedto self, crucified the flesh,
(22:57):
and you're serving the AlmightyGod in His will and purpose and
becoming holy and righteous andhumble.
Or are you just like I'm goingto tag Jesus to my side,
manifest my realities, thinkpositive, be good to the
homeless person beside mebecause I might get something in
return.
Like it's very self-seeking andunfortunately you're going to
(23:19):
be the person that will get toheaven and he'll say hey, you
built your kingdom on earth.
You didn't build it in heaven.
Like stored up your riches inheaven, you stored them here on
earth and it doesn't pass thetest of the fire.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Gotcha.
So you're saying if you obeyJesus, you've got to be poor and
you've got to live in the dumps?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I don't believe that one at all, because we're not.
I mean, god's blessed ustremendously, but have we been
in very hard times because Jesussaid give up everything and
follow Him Right 100%.
We're in a season where we'reextremely blessed in a lot of
ways, but I've also been in aseason where following Jesus
didn't make me very blessed in alot of ways.
So, like Paul says, I'velearned to live with nothing and
(23:59):
I've learned to live with much.
And if he said, give it all upagain and drop it all and go
back to living, you know, forpennies and rice and beans, I'll
do it Like go back to Africaand live in the dirt.
Like.
Whatever he says, I'll do LikeI'm not afraid of that because
he's shown himself faithful,because I've encountered the
real Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, that can be that.
I think that's why it's sotricky and why I even mentioned
that to you was because you canlook at two situations and like
two people could be financiallyblessed.
Two people could be materialblessed.
You could look the exact samefrom the outside, but where that
blessing came from?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yes, that's where you have to.
The Bible says those who arewise and mature in the faith can
discern what's righteous andwhat's evil.
And you have those who areimmature in the faith.
They'll think that every littleblessing that comes their way
is from God.
Um, and those who are mature inthe faith, they'll think that
every little blessing that comestheir way is from God.
And those who are mature in thefaith they can discern like,
hey, you've just got a hugeblessing, but I don't know if
that was from the Lord or not.
You have to look at what thefruit produces and if it
(24:52):
produces more selfishness inyour life, more greediness, more
status, because it makes youfeel good, because you have this
empty insecurity in your lifebecause maybe you didn't get
loved by your mom or your dadand now you have to prove
yourself to people.
Let's check that.
Let's check that.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I agree, and I think that's
good to know too, because Ireally think that's another
thing that's kind of lacking inthe body of Christ, and we had
to learn it.
It takes time.
You can't just one day all of asudden, you just wake up with
(25:29):
discernment.
Right, there's a gift ofdiscernment.
It takes practicing Right right, and Hebrews chapter five says
that talks about practicingright, practicing righteousness,
learning to discern from you,know good from evil, and things
like that.
So that's where you can beginto look at somebody's life and
see whether or not they'reblessed of God or they're not
like you said because of selfishmotives or whatever.
What are they utilizing that?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
blessing for and stuff.
And you'll notice the peoplewho respond to that prosperity
gospel.
They still have a lot of hiddensin in their life or even out
in the open sin, but thenthey'll just tag Jesus to God
bless me.
And it's just not true.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, so God wants you to prosper in all things,
but the idea of that whole, youknow, just manifest your reality
into existence, and making thegospel all about you is, I think
, where it gets very dangerous.
Because, where selfish ambitionlies you know jealousy.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Every evil thing is there.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, it's ugly Every evil thing is drawn to that.
So I think we experience there.
Yeah, it's ugly.
Every evil thing is drawn tothat.
So I think we experience that.
Yeah, so we could probably justtalk for an hour straight about
the false gospels out therebecause the enemy is always kind
of reinventing and twistingthings into whatever version is
popular with our culture.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Well, now it's.
All roads lead to heaven rightnow.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
But we know that most of the time this is what I've
heard at least is when peopleare trying to find something
counterfeit.
They don't just spend all theirtime just studying the
different counterfeits.
Right, it's good to know aboutthem, to know that they're out
there, but they spend themajority of their time seeking
the one true thing.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
So tell me this what's important about
understanding the true gospel?
Why would that be?
Why would that be beneficialfor people?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
to understand it fully.
Well, because it will literallytransform your life.
It'll take you out of a placeof um of you know living in sin,
whether it's secret or out inthe open, and literally set you
free and put you intorelationship with God.
And all of a sudden, you havethis piece that surpasses
understanding.
You have joy that you don'tknow where it came from, uh, and
(27:27):
it just really changed.
It changes everything.
It changes your life, yourfamily, uh, your spouse, your
children, like it transformsyour life completely.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, one thing I've noticed too when we started to
sit down and we can share moreabout this later, about our
particular story specifically inhow we started sitting together
.
we started sitting together withother believers and meeting
together and talking about whatis the gospel, Because we found
that the majority of people wereeither they weren't sure or
they just weren't comfortablesharing it.
And maybe they've been in achurch setting for five, 10
(27:57):
years or been believers for along time, but they just didn't
know these basic things.
And that's not, there's nothing.
Not that there's nothing wrongwith it, but it's it's pretty
normative, it's pretty normal,unfortunately, and so one of our
, our goals and our things thatmake us excited is seeing
believers equipped and trainedat least to know the essentials,
the foundational principles oftheir faith, why they believe,
what it means, what is thegospel?
(28:18):
How do you, how does someonerespond correctly, biblically,
to the gospel?
You know, and not to put you onthe spot, but if you had to
share, if I was going to ask yousay, we just met at a coffee
shop or something like that, soyou don't have time for a long
explanation how would you sharethat with me, Brooke?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
What is the gospel?
Let me say one thing before wejump into there that I feel like
is so important and that everyperson listening on the other
side of here understands thereis no condemnation if you've
responded to the wrong gospel.
Yeah, that weight is not on youor on you, it's really on the
person sharing the false gospel.
(28:54):
But once you hear the realgospel, then it's on you to
respond properly.
So I want to say there's nocondemnation because both of us
have been there, you know.
So I want to say there's nocondemnation because both of us
have been there.
And I think as well the Biblesays like the gospel, when it's
preached, it doesn't come outvoid, it doesn't come back void,
to like the person who sent theseed out of the gospel.
But at the same time, you haveto be the one to respond to it
(29:17):
properly.
Like if you sit here and listento the full gospel right now
and you choose to harden yourheart, that's a response.
It didn't go void, youresponded, it's just hardening.
It is fruit, it's not returningvoid.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Most people think that that just means something
good always happens.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It's like no, it means you have to do something.
There's a response.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
You either get hardened, your heart gets
hardened, or you soften to it.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So I pray that right now, as we share this, that you
will soften your heart towardsGod, towards the gospel, towards
Jesus, Because I know he sayshe's drawing all men to Himself,
but not all men respond,unfortunately.
But like you said a minute ago,just if I was in the coffee
shop and somebody asked me howdo I get to know Jesus?
How do I get born again?
(30:00):
Whatever language they may use,I always first start with
salvation is not a destination,it's transformation in your life
, here and now.
It's not getting out of hell,it's not going to heaven.
So many people are fixed andfixated on that.
But it's actually more aboutyou being rescued from something
reconciled to something.
What you're being rescued fromthe true gospel is good news
(30:22):
y'all.
But you first have to have badnews before you can have good
news.
And the bad news is is you're asinner, You've sinned, You've
rebelled against God.
Unfortunately, no matter what itis, no matter how big it is or
small it is, you have sinned andyou're in rebellion towards God
.
But Jesus came to not only likeset you free from sin, but
destroy the works of the devilin your life so that you can
(30:44):
actually be righteous and holyand pure.
So when you hear the gospel,like, hey, I need to be set free
from sin.
Jesus is rescuing out of yourjail cell of sin and he's
reconciling you to God.
That's the gospel.
It's not getting out of helland going to heaven.
You're not in either one ofthose places yet.
The consequence to notresponding to the gospel is
(31:05):
going to hell.
The reward to responding to thegospel is going to be in heaven
.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
So some people will separate the place, the
environment, from God, meaninghell is what it is because it's
void of the presence of God, youknow and heaven is what it is,
because God is there and we wantto be with him.
So, people try to separatethose things, and that's what
you're saying is I want to, Iwant to, I want to get out of
hell and get to heaven.
Well, that doesn't work, becauseit's more about getting out of
(31:32):
my distance from God right andbeing with him, being connected
to him, because, ultimately,what heaven is is being in the
presence of God forever.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
So you have to be rescued from the thing that
would send you to hell theconsequence, which is your sin.
Sin is rebellion, sin is pride,sin is envy, jealousy, lust,
anger, frustration, hatred,unforgiveness, drunkenness,
sexual immorality you name it.
There's many of them out there.
If you've acted on any of them,you are a sinner.
If you say you're without sin,you're a liar.
(32:02):
But we're all short, fall, havefallen short and need to repent
.
So that's cool.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Where I was just going to say that's cool.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Where the law can come into place.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
People are like where does that come into play?
Well, some people don'trecognize their centers.
So if you get to that point andyou're like hey, you're a
sinner.
They're like okay, I've heardchurch people, I'm that bad,
right, you know.
And then you start you know, uh, uh, what's the guy's name that
uh?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
does the evangelism like that?
He's like oh yeah, ray comfort,ray comfort yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So that's what he's.
You know he's really good atand cool because he drops the
law, because he's like oh, haveyou ever lied?
Have you ever sinned?
Have you stand before God?
How are you going to do?
You're standing before God andnow you got to tell them this is
the way I've lived my life.
That's right.
And there's this moment in alot of people's eyes where they
(32:51):
go oh crap like.
I'm not as good as I thought.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I was Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You can present that to people, but you can't create
the conviction in their heart.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
That's the Holy Spirit's job.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
And so you get them to that point and you allow the
Holy Spirit to work, but youdon't leave them there.
That may be a point of likethey feel the weight of their
sin.
That's a good thing.
We don't got to do this fluffylike Jesus loves you and don't
feel bad.
Don't feel bad.
It's like no feel bad.
You have to feel bad before youcan feel good.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You know what I'm saying, like you gotta recognize
that.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So say you're talking to me and like you drop it on
me, like that, and I'm like crap, what do I do?
I am a sinner, yeah, or let'stalk about this like Jesus, like
Tell me what he did to fix this.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I don't know if I'm tracking.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Like Jesus.
What did he do?
He came, you know he died.
Oh yeah, yeah, talk to me aboutJesus.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Right.
So that's what we see in thelife of Jesus.
Like Jesus didn't come just togive you a better day, a better
life.
He came to literally set thecaptive free.
Like you have to see yourselfas in a prison cell of a better
life, he came to literally setthe captive free, you have to
see yourself as in a prison cellof sin and you have to get
uncomfortable in that cell.
If you love your sin, you'renot going to get out of it.
(34:06):
But Jesus came to show people.
He literally said if I nevercame, you would have never been
guilty.
So he came.
He demonstrated righteousness,he demonstrated obedience to the
Father, he demonstrated power.
He also said if I did not dothe miracles and signs and
wonders that I've done, theyalso would not be guilty.
Wow, so think about that.
He did all of those things toshow that how we're actually
(34:29):
fall very short to the standard.
But he says guess what?
If you'll repent, I'll put myspirit in you and my spirit will
transform you from the insideout.
So he didn't leave us with justa condemning message of oh,
you're a nasty sinner, kind oflike John the Baptist, you brood
of vipers.
He was actually like hey, youare a sinner.
But guess what?
If you'll turn from your sinand not go there anymore, I'll
(34:51):
actually put my spirit in you.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And so I think that's really powerful.
Yeah, so we don't have tobelieve in just this message
written on pages or ink it'sJesus came, and the life that he
lived and experienced is thereason that we can trust.
There's authenticity, there'spower.
Right, he came, he was led bythe spirit of God, god.
Right, he died and then he cameback to life god raised him from
the dead and then he gave us apath to follow.
(35:24):
So you know, we're at thispoint.
So I'm at this point now whereI'm like, oh snap, like I'm a
sinner and it's more, it's somuch more than like oh, jesus
died, you know something?
What's the gospel?
Jesus died, died and rose again.
Uh, for your sins, and if youtrust and believe in him and
confess him with your mouth, you, you know, that's the number
you get but to most people thatmeans nothing.
That's right.
You talk to them about whatJesus actually did, what he
(35:45):
accomplished, the life he livesin, the example he left for you.
So say I'm in this point, rightnow, we're in the coffee shop,
we're only like five, 10 minutesin and I'm realizing um crap,
like I'm a sinner and and I'mstill.
I believe Jesus exists.
I believe he existed, and nowyou're showing me, like you know
, what he did in his life, andhe died and he rose again.
He's alive right now.
(36:06):
Like what do I do?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Well, I always like like to take people to the true
response that you see in the, inthe book of, because it's the
best response possible.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
The sinner's prayer right.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
No, no, no, no, it's not there.
I love to take people to Acts 2, or just even share with them
the story of Acts 2.
You have Peter and the 12disciples.
A few other folks get radicallyfilled with the Holy Spirit.
They start speaking an actuallanguage that could be
understood by other Jews thatwere in the area.
They didn't speak the samelanguage.
They were all Jews by bloodline, but they were not
(36:46):
same-speaking language people.
They lived in different partsof the world.
And so, all of a sudden, you seethis supernatural thing take
place that was prophesied in thebook of Joel.
It says that this would happen.
So, when it happened, some wereperplexed, some made fun of
them, but it says that Peterlooks at them and says hey, I'm
not drunk right now.
Actually, this is what Joelprophesied, and I want you to
(37:09):
know that you brothers killed.
You brothers, he said, havekilled the Messiah, the Christ,
the one.
We saw it with our own eyes.
Not only did we see it with ourown eyes, like we saw him
resurrected with our own eyesand you killed him.
And it says they were struck tothe heart.
That only happens first by thepower of the Holy Spirit.
(37:29):
You know, we sit here and thinkwe're really cool when we have
hunger for God.
You only have hunger for Godbecause God is drawing you to
Him.
So they all of a sudden werestruck to the heart.
And it says someone cried outwhoever it was, cried out to
Peter and said what shall we doto fix this?
And Peter's response was notpray the sinner's prayer.
It wasn't raise your hand, itwasn't bow your head.
(37:52):
Or repeat after me Exactly itwas repent, be baptized, all of
you, for the forgiveness of yoursins.
So repentance and baptism dealwith sin, right, he said, so
that you might receive the giftof the Holy Spirit.
Well, why are we doing itdifferent?
Speaker 1 (38:13):
That's a good question.
Why?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
are we doing it different?
So you know, I'm telling youokay, the gospel is being
rescued from sin and reconciledto God.
That's a good question.
Why are we doing it different?
So you know, I'm telling you,okay, the gospel is being
rescued from sin and reconciledto God.
That's the gospel period.
But there's a response.
People stop at the response.
So people are like, oh, okay, Iwant to be saved from sin, I
want to be reconciled to God.
And then they just leave youlike that Raise your hand, pray
(38:41):
a prayer.
That's not in the Bible.
We have to do it the way thatJesus displayed it and the way
that the disciples preached it.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
You mean, I can't just make it more convenient and
do it the way that I want to doit, and then complain when I'm
not experiencing what the Biblesays I should be experiencing.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Why are we doing that ?
I don't understand it, justbaffles me.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
But what about if a pastor says we're a
Bible-believing church and thenhe does it?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Well, why aren't you doing it?
You know what I'm saying, but Igo to a Bible-believing church,
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
No, I get it.
I get it and I mean it's soclear, Like it's so clear in the
scriptures, and what we want todo is we People get afraid that
it's in works.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
When you say you must repent, you must be baptized
and receive the Holy Spirit,they are afraid that they're
having to do something to earnthis thing.
But the Bible is very clearFaith is an action.
It's not a noun, it's a verb.
Well, it's kind of both it's anoun and a verb Faith is a noun,
belief is a verb Is the actionof faith.
So you know, you can't just sayyou believe in God.
You have to do something toshow you have faith in God.
(39:44):
So what that is is repentance,baptism and asking for something
that you cannot see to receive.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, and people and I can break this down really
quick.
We could talk about it deeperin another time, another episode
.
But, um, people get so scaredthey do it's so funny in this
language they like it just soscared that they're going to
enter into works and they'regoing to earn their salvation
and stuff like that.
I'm like that's not what paulwas talking about.
Paul was not talking aboutobeying jesus and getting into
workspace salvation.
Paul was talking aboutbelieving that the law was going
(40:14):
to save you.
That's right, right, that'swhat he was talking to Jews.
He was saying, hey, listen.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
These laws and these sacrifices are not going to save
you.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Right, you must have faith in Christ.
But faith in Christ, it's likean umbrella that encompasses all
of these things.
Like James tells us that faithwithout works is dead.
Not that the works save you,but the works are confirmation
that your faith was genuine.
And so they didn't separatethese things, quite like we
separate them now.
You know, in the first centurythey weren't asking well, do I
(40:40):
have to do that?
Do I have to repent, or can Ijust say forgive me of all of my
sins?
Do I have to repent of myindividual sins?
Do I have to be baptized?
Do I have to do this?
Do I have to do that?
They were not saying that theyjust did that.
I love Francis Chan's take onthis he's like.
listen, if the Bible said, standon your head to be saved, I'd
flip and stand on my head.
(41:01):
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
It's just stuff that we and I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
It's cool, I understand it.
I understand wrestling withstuff.
We want to make sure that we'redoing the right thing, but I
think about this, though.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Think about this In the entire Bible, from Genesis
to Revelation, there's only onechapter that has the full gospel
being preached and the fullresponse to the gospel happen
all in one chapter in the Bible,right, the whole entire Bible.
That one chapter is Acts 2.
Peter preaches the gospel.
He says you have sinned, you'vekilled the Messiah.
(41:37):
He calls out their sin and thentheir response is what shall we
do?
And his response was repent, bebaptized, receive the Holy
Spirit.
Why do we try to remove partsor say they're not necessary,
when that was just the response?
Why are we adding to or takingaway?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's what scares me .
Do you know why?
It's because we start to thinkof our loved ones that didn't
respond in that way and it makesus look for loopholes.
That's right, that's why.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Or loopholes for ourselves, for ourselves or
whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
You know, aunt Sally accepted Jesus on her deathbed
and she couldn't talk and allshe did was believe.
She didn't have time to repentand she couldn't talk and all
she did was believe she didn'thave time to repent, and so we
take these extreme exceptionsand we try to make them general
rules.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
That's right, or we?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
try to find other places in the Bible.
Most people don't understand isthat when you're reading in
different portions of Scripture,you have to understand the
context of what covenant theywere in.
That's right.
You can't just pull somethingout of the Old Testament, old
Testament, and say this is, thisis how we respond to the gospel
.
You can't necessarily pulleverything out of the gospels,
(42:47):
whoa, and say this is how werespond, why Jesus hadn't died
yet.
So things shifted and changedafter he died and rose again and
gave his commands to thedisciples.
That's why all of a sudden uh,you know, you run into
scriptures like Acts 19, wheredisciples of John who had
already been baptized by Johnwere now being baptized in
Christ by Paul to Christ andreceiving the Holy Spirit
speaking in tongues andprophesying Like you have to
understand where you're at.
(43:07):
So the book of Acts is, in myopinion, is the greatest place
to look, where we see indifferent sections of it.
Conversions.
Right, because the letters arewritten to people who are
already born again.
Right, in the old covenant theywere under a different covenant
, different kind of style, ifyou will, relationship with God.
Jesus hadn't died.
There was nothing to really bebaptized into or they were being
(43:28):
baptized into repentance.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Their only prerequisites was to die in
faith, in faithfulness to God.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, so the thief on the cross was in the same
position as.
Abraham Isaac and Jacob.
That's right, right, okay, so,um, awesome, well, let's land
this plane.
Uh, so now I know that the truegospel, right, it's amazing.
What, what do I?
What do I do?
What do I do if I'm the personthat just realized I have?
(43:55):
I have responded to a um, let'ssay, I a sinner's prayer gospel
, and I haven't really seen thefruit of transformation in my
life.
What do I do?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, I think.
First humble yourself, repentfor responding to a false gospel
.
I think is the first start.
And then, I think, startreading through the book of Acts
.
Look at Acts 2 and see ifyou've truly repented.
Like Peter, called out theirspecific offense towards God and
I'm sure there was many othersin their heart, but the main one
(44:22):
that was keeping them inseparation was the death of the
Messiah.
So really get real before God.
Repentance is not like oh Father, just forgive me of my sins.
No, what do you need to besaved from?
What I need to be saved from isdifferent than what you need to
be saved from, vice versa.
And so you confess your sins toGod.
What is it that you need to besaved from?
(44:43):
I need to be saved fromprostitution, addiction, all
these things.
When I say prostitution, Iwasn't like a paid prostitute.
I was actually unpaid, whichwasn't very smart.
But now I look back, I'm likegosh.
I was not smart, but I neededto be rescued from certain
things that others don't need tobe.
But what do you need to besaved from?
And once you get that out,first of all you're going to
feel like the weight of theworld is off your shoulders.
(45:04):
I know, that's how I felt.
I was like I feel so light,what just happened to me, you
know.
And then says in Romans,chapter six and again, I'm not
saying that baptism alone saves,no, I believe being born again
saves Repent be baptized, Jesussaves right.
(45:24):
Well, yeah, jesus saves,obviously through the death on
the cross.
But he said, hey, to be borninto my kingdom.
This is what you have to do.
He told Nicodemus at the methim at Secret.
He said you must be born ofwater and spirit.
Water, baptism, holy Ghost.
I think about coming to Texas,moving here.
There was a whole lot ofprocesses to become a citizens
(45:45):
of Texas.
What if we would have skippedone of those processes?
I would have had a lot of finesto pay.
You know what I'm saying.
So it's the same concept.
Jesus's death is what bringssalvation, it's what brings
freedom.
But there's a response to thatdeath, there's a response to
that drawing, and it's repent,be baptized and receive.
So I think baptism is thatwashing away your sins, getting
(46:09):
yourself a clean consciencethrough baptism, burying the old
life.
It says Romans 6,.
Y'all read it if you have neverread it before.
It says baptism is three thingsa burial, a bath and a
resurrection.
You're burying the old Brooke,the old, justin, the old,
whoever.
It literally says resurrectedin the very nature and likeness
of Christ Jesus.
And then it says now you are anempty, clean vessel to be
(46:33):
filled with the presence of God.
So you've been buried, you'vebeen resurrected in the nature
of Christ and now you are cleanand now you receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit.
Now you can actually receivethe gift of the Holy Spirit
because you have done away withyour sin.
Repentance and baptism doesaway with your sin, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
No, that's great, I would say, to make it simple in
one step begin to seek.
God now, with this new lens andthis new framework, because the
the, the scripture promisesthat we seek him, we'll find him
.
That's the coolest thing.
It's like you're like what do Ido?
Or do I need to reach out toyou guys?
Or you know all this stuff?
It's like.
It's like begin to seek the.
Lord on these things, and hewill.
(47:10):
He will not only show you,he'll put the right people in
your life to lead you anddisciple you.
By us ending this episode andjust saying, okay, if you're
ready to make that decision,then repeat after me, doesn't
accomplish a lot.
You seek the Lord.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
He is radically born again in my bedroom, received
the Holy spirit in my bedroom.
It can happen in your bedroom.
You just have to humbleyourself.
And then God began to putpeople in my life to disciple me
.
But all that happened with mejust humbling myself and seeking
God with my whole heart.
That's where it starts.
People are like it doesn't work.
I'm like it works.
I promise we can't say God's aliar.
(47:45):
We have to humble ourselves.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
And we do.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
We believe that you should be connected to a body of
your life.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
That's right To lead you, awesome.
Well, thank you so much foryour insight.
I feel good and feel refreshed.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Born again All the things.
Hope you guys enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for being onour first episode of the.
Rechurch podcast.
Hope you guys were blessed bythis conversation.
We got plenty more down theline and plenty plenty to talk
about and I'm so excited aboutthat.
Appreciate you guys, love youguys and we'll see you in the
next episode.
But you can't create the conviction in their heart.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
That's the Holy Spirit's job.
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1 (00:04):
That's right, and so you get them to that point and
you allow the Holy Spirit towork, but you don't leave them
there.
That may be a point of likethey feel the weight of their
sin.
That's a good thing.
We don't got to do this fluffy,like Jesus loves you and don't
feel bad.
Don't feel bad.
It's like no before you canfeel good.
Yeah, I know, brooke, what isthe gospel?
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I always like to take people to the true
response that you see in thebook of Acts, because it's the
best response possible.
The sinner's prayer right, no,no, no, no, it's not there.
And I remember like when theywould do the altar call, I would
just run to the front and likefall on my face and like pray,
and then at the end of the weekat camp we would do baptisms and
I would get baptized and likeit did not work, it didn't
(00:46):
transform me.
Why do we try to remove partsor say they're not necessary,
when that was just the responseLike, why are we adding to or
taking away?
That's what scares me.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Do you know why?
It's because, all right,welcome to the ReChurch podcast,
where we pause to rethink howmodern church has strayed from
God's original intention and wehave some awesome conversations
about living out our faith inreal time.
I'm your host, justin Newb.
This is episode one, and I'mhere with my lovely, lovely wife
(01:21):
, brooke.
Brooke, say hello to the people.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Hello, you're going to make me blush there, lovely
wife Brooke.
Brooke, say hello to the people.
Hello, You're going to make meblush there, Mr Newt.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, I'm excited.
I'm excited to kick this off.
We've got just mounds andmounds of stuff to talk about.
I think it's going to be reallygood bring a lot of value to
people.
Today, specifically, we'regoing to be talking about,
honestly, the difference betweenthe true and the many false
gospels.
There's only one true one, butthere are many false out there
that are trying to kind of mimicthe true gospel, and I think
(01:51):
it's not only a dangerous thing,but it's something that I think
the church at large hasoverlooked for many, many years,
and I think you correct me ifI'm wrong, but maybe we both
experienced that we responded tosome of those gospels first.
For sure.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
We're dealing with the fruit of them, and until
somebody brought it to ourattention, we didn't even know
what we were lacking Right, andI think that's where most of the
church is at.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah.
So stick around, you're goingto find a lot of value in this
and we're going to talk aboutsome practical application of
this stuff.
In the end, how can we changeif we need to, and how can we
change if we need to and how canwe walk this stuff out.
So that's exciting.
But since we're just kickingthis thing off, like, tell me a
little bit about yourself,brooke, you recently had a
couple of big things happen, bigmove happen in your life.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, we sure have we .
Recently we just moved to theAustin Texas area.
That was a huge move.
We used to live overseas,actually with each other, like
with our kids, and I feel likemoving here was actually
practically more difficult thanmoving overseas for some reason.
I don't know why that was, butit's been really good.
(02:55):
I feel like.
I feel like it's starting tofeel like home and we're getting
settled, yeah, and I think ourkids are thriving.
So that's exciting.
When you, you obey the Lord, itlike it works out somehow, even
though it seems really off thewall and crazy sometimes.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, yeah.
We've experienced a lot, a lotof big changes over the years,
big steps in obeying the Lord,but every time it seems
difficult, but on the other endof it we just see massive
amounts of fruit.
A lot of times.
A lot of times you think he's.
He's sending you to a certainplace to save that place, right,
that missionary mindset, Likewe're going and we're going to
preach the gospel and lots ofpeople are going to get saved,
(03:31):
and all this stuff.
And you realize that when youget to that place, most of what
he was doing was transformativein your character and your heart
, that's right.
And just the yes to obey,because, like we always say,
saying yes to one thing meanssaying no to something else.
So, that's awesome, but um,yeah, so tell me, tell me about
these false gospels.
(03:52):
Is there, is there somespecific ones you can think of?
And and what are?
What are?
Let's get into that.
What are the?
What are the dangers of thosethings?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, I think there's a few out there that can really
get us in trouble.
Unfortunately and I'mpassionate about this topic,
probably one of my mostpassionate topics, other than a
couple other things in my life Ienjoy to talk about but
exposing what's false in theAmerican church gospel Because,
unfortunately, as a little girllike I, was raised in those
(04:22):
churches where that gospel wasbeing presented and was being
spoken and I was desperate toexperience something real.
But the gospel I was givendidn't change anything in my
life, unfortunately, and thatmade me have to really like
question.
Well, it made me question ifGod's even real, or if Jesus is
(04:43):
even real, and it made me thinkthat every other Christian
around me was, um, veryhypocritical, um, and and just
not fully real, and who theysaid they were and this gospel
that they preached, you knowkind of like like there's an
expectation of like, almost likewe oversell the gospel and most
of the church hasn'texperienced it that way.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
So we're like, hey, this is what you should do.
And then it's like, once yousay yes to whatever they're
presenting, you don't reallyexperience those results.
So it's almost like a letdown.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Exactly.
I'm like I remember when Justingave his life to the Lord and
he told me I was like good foryou, buddy, done that been there
a few times like didn't workfor me, hope it works for you.
And that's so sad that that wasmy response to you and you
really gave your life to Jesus.
I had to repent over that quitea few times when I actually met
(05:35):
the Lord, because I just shutyou down but I didn't know I
hadn't experienced the realgospel yet.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So you're expecting to see the same result in me
that you saw, which was veryminimal, mediocre at best, yeah.
Like I was thinking about thisearlier.
You know, um, it's like youstart to compare, and I think a
lot of nonbelievers could havethis argument against the church
or what they see, you know, inthe church, or what we're
displaying at that is, uh,what's so different about
(05:59):
responding to Jesus and what youknow, what you're saying, and
just behavioral modifications,like their argument could be.
Hey, you know, I've done thisin this 10 step program and I've
seen just as many results asyou have, right, um, but you and
I both know that there's somepower to this thing.
Like 100%, like God does morethan just make you a nice person
(06:23):
.
100%, right, what was the?
What would you say?
Is the gospel that youresponded to first as a little
girl?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
I feel like it was a little bit of a blend of a
couple.
For sure.
The fear gospel that was likethe gospel I would hear at
church camp every summer.
Tell me about the fear gospelyeah, so I would go to church
camp every summer and there'd bethis Baptist pastor on the
stage and he'd have that voice.
You know, and I like, and I'mlike okay it's just really
intense and like kind of scaryfor a young kid, and they would
(06:51):
talk about you know, if youdidn't repent right this moment,
you were going to burn in hellforever.
And I remember like when theywould do the altar call, I would
just run to the front and likefollow my face and like pray,
and then at the end of the weekat camp we would do baptisms and
I would get baptized.
And like every summer I wentthrough the same thing, the same
cycle, the same repentance, thesame baptism, and then for two
(07:13):
weeks I would read my Bible andI'd be committed to it and I
definitely felt better for themoment in that.
But within the matter of two tothree weeks I was right back to
lying to my parents and lookingat things I wasn't supposed to
and all those kinds of things.
So for sure, the fear gospel,it did not work.
It didn't transform me.
It gave me enough fear tobehaviorally modify my life for
(07:35):
a couple of weeks and then youkind of forget about it.
That emotional high goes awayand then you just kind of go
back to what you always haveknown and nothing really changes
.
So I definitely think that isone of the gospels I've heard,
but then in my church churchthat I would go to every Sunday,
it was kind of more what Iremember it being like.
It's about what you look likeand what you wear and how you
(07:58):
present yourself, and nobodytalked about sin that's actually
going on in your heart or arelate.
I never remember hearinganything about having a true
relationship with God.
When I heard that for the firsttime, I'm like you're telling
me, like I can actually talk toGod and he can talk to me, and
like we can be in this intimaterelationship.
(08:18):
I'm like what?
That seems so weird to me.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah, god seems so distant in that portrayal of him
, because and when I'm listeningto you I'm thinking you know
why is so important to presentan accurate biblical gospel is
because it gives you a pictureof God that's right and
depending on that picture of Godyou you get.
That's going to have a lot todo with how you relate to him.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well, even too, I think, like I heard a lot of
times like the sinner's prayergospel.
Well, even too, I think, like Iheard a lot of times like the
sinner's prayer gospel like ifyou just pray this prayer, it'll
change your life you know.
And so I'm hearing thisfear-based thing.
But I'm also hearing this thingIf I just pray this prayer,
everything's going to change forme.
And it didn't.
But the sad thing is about thatgospel of just pray the
(09:01):
sinner's prayer and you're saved.
I thought because I prayed thatprayer I was actually saved.
But I was never told I had tochange.
So I just went right back tothe old life Now, instead of out
of fear, from when I was achild hearing that fear-based
gospel.
Now I'm like, oh well, I'msaved because they told me if I
prayed this prayer and Ibelieved in Jesus, I'm good and
I confess that he's Lord, jesusis Lord.
But I would be at the barconfessing Jesus is Lord to the
(09:25):
person you got to hold on asecond.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You're telling me that the sinner's prayer, that's
not in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
No, it's not in the Bible.
I didn't know that, though,until I actually met Jesus and
read my Bible for the first time, because, again, like I said
the sinner's prayer, gospel didnot drive me to the word of God.
It did not drive me to thesecret place.
Gospel did not like drive me tothe word of God.
It did not drive me to thesecret place.
It did not drive me to holiness.
It actually gave me a falseassurance that I was good.
So I still went to the bars onthe weekends.
(09:52):
I still was lusting after menthat weren't my husband.
I was doing very bad things inthe secret when nobody knew, and
the crazy part about that is isI was the girl at the bar.
Like if somebody said, gd, I'dbe like you're going to hell and
I would tell them about Jesus.
But I'm drunk and I'm about togo home with a guy who I don't
even know, and I've done thatmany times, and I'm just like I
(10:18):
was going to hell just as fastas they were.
But because I was told by a man, I'm saved, because I raised my
hand, I prayed this prayer, andin the moment I actually kind
of meant it because I wasemotionally stirred Um, but it
didn't change me Like the gospelhas to change you.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, absolutely, I think a lot of what I what I
noticed is a lot of those falsegospels intertwine with each
other Like you know I was seeing.
That's why it was so easy to goin and out of those things
because there's, you know, thefear-based gospel which ends up
putting you in yes, yourrelationship with God is based
off fear.
Like I made this decisionbecause I don't, I'm scared of
(10:55):
the opposite result.
Right, not because I want to bewith this person, not because I
want to have a relationshipwith them, but I don't want the
repercussions of what willhappen if I say no.
That's right and if you thinkabout it, it's like.
You know, there are a lot ofparent and child relationships
like that right For sure, andwhat happens with those children
when they get under thehousehold?
Speaker 2 (11:13):
They rebel.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
They rebel right.
So what do you think?
And what happened in your life?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
when you got out of the household.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I rebelled when you were outside of that setting,
where it was expected of you toact a certain way you rebel
Because there was norelationship right, there was no
authority there based on yourreal interaction with the right
portrayal of God.
And so it's like it's a verydangerous thing, because we've
got to take this seriously,because you've got to think like
(11:39):
, what does Jesus think when hehas fully described himself in
the Bible?
What does Jesus think when hehas fully described himself in
the Bible, when we can look atJesus and see who the Father is
and it's right before us?
We all have Bibles in our house.
You know what I'm saying, themajority of us and we can see
that but yet you're preachingthis other God.
Like what do you think Jesusthinks of that when a person
(12:02):
like you, when a young person,turns away because of this poor
image that we've represented?
Speaker 2 (12:07):
it's like it's a serious thing.
I think it's super seriousbecause there's multiple new
tests.
Well, two that come to mind newTestament books that discuss
like, if there's a false gospelbeing preached, no matter if
it's a person, an angel, whoeverlike, let them be accursed.
And I'm like, like, I don'tthink we actually take that
scripture very seriously, but Ithink it's something we should
(12:28):
very walk, in the fear of thelord, in and like make sure that
the gospel we're preaching isthe gospel that saves from sin,
transforms lives and andactually directs the person to
the, the the relationship ofchrist, you know, and letting
christ then transform you fromthe inside out.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
So so, yeah, absolutely yeah.
So we talked about the feargospel.
We got into that.
That's pretty clear.
The I would call the sinner'sprayer gospel, kind of like the
just believe Jesus exists, youknow gospel.
I've seen somebody post thisrecently on Facebook.
They said so you believe inJesus, but you don't obey him.
(13:04):
Right, so does the devil Yikes.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Think on that for two seconds, yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Got that demon faith?
James talks about that as well.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Right, even the demons believe.
Yet they tremble, but theydon't repent, they don't change.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
You know, that's really sad.
So that's a wake up call torealize like there is a
difference between believing inthe existence of Jesus.
You know, we experience thisall the time when talking to
people.
They'll right in front of yourface, they'll be cussing someone
out, whatever.
Whatever it is, you know, justlike no fruit of salvation, and
then turn around and be like,well, I'm praying for him or I'm
praying for your brother or youknow, whatever you know, give
(13:45):
me the old Catholic thing andI'm like what are you talking
about?
That scares me more than theperson that just rejects.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Rejects 100%.
I think that was more you.
You were just.
You rejected God and I thinkthat's why God came in so much
power in your life, Because whenyou actually had a real
encounter with God, you humbledyourself and you received.
I think the sad thing with thechurch now is like everybody
thinks that they're good withoutreally truly self-evaluating
where they're at Is there fruitin their lives.
(14:16):
And most of the time, if you doevaluate, you'll see that your
life is kind of fruitless andthat's scary.
And fruit can represent beshown in many ways the way you
speak, the way you act, whathappens when you're around
people.
Do people's lives change afterthey encounter you?
You know things like thatbecause Christ is in you.
But one thing I think is reallyimportant to note is there's
(14:37):
also like this powerless gospelthat's preached.
We didn't even discuss thisearlier when we were talking
about just the different gospels, you know.
But this powerless gospel where,yeah, they might preach some
repentance, like, yeah, jesuscan change your life, but really
it's like, you know, you needto repent of your sins, but when
you do, you kind of just get alittle bit better.
(14:58):
And now you just come to churchand you serve on Sundays and
you open the door for peoplewhich there is nothing wrong
with those things, be kind, openthe door for people, which
there is nothing wrong withthose things, be kind, open the
door for people.
But there's more to the gospelthan just being saved from sin.
But once you're saved from sin,there's more to being a part of
the body of Christ, whichreally is.
When I experienced that, beingfilled with the Holy Spirit, my
(15:22):
whole life changed.
So there's this gospel outthere that's like, yeah, just
come, repent of your sins andlive a mediocre life, just tell
people you love them and thatJesus loves them and move on.
And that's really sad thatthey're missing out on the more.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, no, I agree, tell me about that, tell me
about your training, because Iknow I had my own personal
transition.
For example, with me I had nokind of, you know, religious
background and stuff like that.
So I would say entering intothat relationship with Christ,
uh, was a little bit easierbecause I didn't have all that
religious baggage, um, to worryabout.
But then quickly, uh, the deviltried to get me into religion.
(16:01):
That's right.
I think your prayers helped mecome out of that quickly.
So it's not like you're totallyimmune to falling into that
because you didn't grow up in achurch setting he still tried to
get me with religion, and thenI had to have a genuine
transformative encounter withhim, with his power.
Like you said, that changedeverything from me.
(16:23):
But with someone like you whogrew up in that setting so
you're just like covered inreligion you're kind of hurt you
know, by the church hurt byquote, unquote Christians, stuff
like that, and then you havethis transformative experience.
Share just briefly about thattransition.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah.
So I did not know that when youcame to be a follower of Christ
, that there were gifts involved.
I just literally thought it wasonly about sin alone, you know.
But I couldn't get out of it.
I didn't know why, I couldn'tchange my behaviors.
But once I truly met Jesus andrepented one night, it was well,
it was actually daytime, it wasa Thursday.
(17:04):
I'm sitting in my room like I'mso hungry for the Lord.
I'm actually watching a podcastfrom a spirit-filled believer
and they were talking about themore of God and I'm like reading
through my Bible and it says ifyou seek, ask and knock, you're
going to receive the more.
But I didn't understand, eventhough it said the spirit.
I'm like what does that evenmean?
It said the spirit.
(17:25):
I'm like what does that evenmean?
Because no one had ever told mewhat that meant.
You know, but God is sogracious y'all.
If you seek him with your wholeheart, you will find him with
no pride involved, like you haveto just come like a little baby
, you know, and I remembersitting on my floor that
Thursday afternoon my kids werein daycare, you were at work.
I'm like literally crying, likesnots running down my face and
I'm like God, I know there'smore Like what is it that I'm
(17:47):
missing?
I will do anything to get it.
And I'm crying out.
And all of a sudden, thepresence of God came into my
bedroom in a way that I hadnever experienced, and it felt
like this power filled my body,like this peaceful power of God
filled my body.
And all of a sudden I justopened my mouth because I felt
this urge to pray.
(18:07):
But when I opened my mouth topray, another language came out
of my mouth and I'm like I'mlike stop myself, because my
Baptist church growing up toldme tongues was from the devil.
So I'm like golly, I done got ademon, but I'm trying to talk
to God.
And so I reached out to a friendof mine who I knew would maybe
know something about this.
(18:28):
She lived in Africa and Imessaged her and I was like hey,
like this just encounterhappened.
What, what do I?
What is this Like?
Am I in trouble?
Did I do something wrong?
She's like no, you just gotfilled with the Holy Spirit.
Read the book of Acts.
And I started reading the bookof Acts and I'm like this is in
here.
Why did anybody not tell meabout this and I'm telling you,
(18:48):
I went from just an averageperson who had a hunger for God
to on fire, and even I remembermaking you uncomfortable.
You were like I need you toslow your roll.
I just wanted you to stoppartying and I just wanted you
to be a good mom and a good wifeand stop drinking.
But now you're praying for thesick and they're getting healed
(19:10):
and you're hearing things from.
God and it's happening like oh,so it was a pretty radical
encounter.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
It took a while for me to realize what was happening
and why I was feeling that way.
And later the Lord showed me.
Um, he said I remember a guy Iwas watching.
Uh, this guy preached beforeand he said when, when faith and
unbelief are in the same room,one of them's got to get out for
real.
And so what I was feeling wasthe discomfort of your faith
because it challenged myunbelief.
(19:35):
And I knew that I could eitherremain uncomfortable to the
point of where I have to leavethe room to risk to get my
comfort back, or I couldactually humble myself, receive
the challenge and I could enterinto a space where you are and I
think, that's the invitationthat Jesus has with most people.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
It's like think about when he walked around in the
Gospels, when he would approachpeople Number one he would talk
about the people that wouldactually humble themselves and
lose their care or their, their,their, their care or their
thought of what they look likein front of people and would
just reach out for him.
Those were the people that werethe most blessed, the people he
would turn to and say look attheir faith.
You've got all these likereligious quote unquote
(20:16):
religious professionals, thesePharisees and Sadducees and
religious leaders around and helooks at you know, the person
crawling in the street, thewoman crawling in the street and
is like, look at their face.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
That's right, or?
Speaker 1 (20:27):
or uh.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
I was that woman yeah .
Speaker 1 (20:30):
And those are the people you know, or or blind
Bartimaeus, or these people thatget ridiculed for the uh, the
scene they're creating in frontof other people Like you're
embarrassing yourself right.
And he would turn to them.
And those were the people thathe not only gave them what they
asked for, but he commended themLike he used them as an example
(20:51):
Like think about.
Mary, you know, breaking theperfume and like all these
examples we see in the Bible,it's getting to that place, to
where you actually, when youhear us talking about, oh, I had
an encounter, I had a realencounter with God, I had a
transformative Some people maybe asking like, well, what does
that mean?
Look in the Bible, it's thoseencounters.
(21:11):
Does it have to be like crazymiracles and deliverance and all
that is happening and I fellout in the spirit and all of
that?
Not necessarily, but like it'sone of those things where the
situation happens and you turnaround, you get up, you walk out
, you start to speak and you'relike something is completely
different, not slightlydifferent.
(21:31):
Something is very different.
Something inside me changed andthat's the difference.
We'll get into this in a minute.
But that's the differencebetween a gospel that says
follow these rules and a gospelthat says come encounter me and
I'll walk with you.
That's right, I'll walk withyou.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
That's right, I'll be with you, right, that's right.
That's so good.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah.
So you know we've talked aboutfalse gospels, a lot We've
talked about, and some of someof the people may be saying like
oh man, that's the one Iresponded to the fear gospel,
the sinner's prayer gospel, onlybelieve.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Jesus exists, the powerless gospel, the powerless
gospel.
There's the prosperity gospel.
Or, like, jesus is going to dowhatever I want him to do for me
.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The create Jesus in your own image.
Gospel, that's right.
Tell me about that real quick.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Yeah, that one's a real one.
That one, I think, is thesneaky one, because those people
that have responded to thatgospel, like they look like
they're blessed by God becausethey're getting all these
financial blessings andpromotions and career blessings
and all these things.
And they're getting all thesefinancial blessings and
promotions and career blessingsand all these things and they're
serving people in some capacity.
They're giving out money, buttheir life is very selfish and
(22:33):
self-seeking.
It's self-centered, it's aself-centered gospel and so you
get all your wildest dreams, youmanifest them, whatever you
want to call it, but I canpromise you that it might not be
that that blessing is from theLord.
So you have to really learn howto discern whether a blessing
is from God, because you're anobedient child who's laid down
your life, been born again, diedto self, crucified the flesh,
(22:57):
and you're serving the AlmightyGod in His will and purpose and
becoming holy and righteous andhumble.
Or are you just like I'm goingto tag Jesus to my side,
manifest my realities, thinkpositive, be good to the
homeless person beside mebecause I might get something in
return.
Like it's very self-seeking andunfortunately you're going to
(23:19):
be the person that will get toheaven and he'll say hey, you
built your kingdom on earth.
You didn't build it in heaven.
Like stored up your riches inheaven, you stored them here on
earth and it doesn't pass thetest of the fire.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Gotcha.
So you're saying if you obeyJesus, you've got to be poor and
you've got to live in the dumps?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
I don't believe that one at all, because we're not.
I mean, god's blessed ustremendously, but have we been
in very hard times because Jesussaid give up everything and
follow Him Right 100%.
We're in a season where we'reextremely blessed in a lot of
ways, but I've also been in aseason where following Jesus
didn't make me very blessed in alot of ways.
So, like Paul says, I'velearned to live with nothing and
(23:59):
I've learned to live with much.
And if he said, give it all upagain and drop it all and go
back to living, you know, forpennies and rice and beans, I'll
do it Like go back to Africaand live in the dirt.
Like.
Whatever he says, I'll do LikeI'm not afraid of that because
he's shown himself faithful,because I've encountered the
real Jesus.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, that can be that.
I think that's why it's sotricky and why I even mentioned
that to you was because you canlook at two situations and like
two people could be financiallyblessed.
Two people could be materialblessed.
You could look the exact samefrom the outside, but where that
blessing came from?
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yes, that's where you have to.
The Bible says those who arewise and mature in the faith can
discern what's righteous andwhat's evil.
And you have those who areimmature in the faith.
They'll think that every littleblessing that comes their way
is from God.
Um, and those who are mature inthe faith, they'll think that
every little blessing that comestheir way is from God.
And those who are mature in thefaith they can discern like,
hey, you've just got a hugeblessing, but I don't know if
that was from the Lord or not.
You have to look at what thefruit produces and if it
(24:52):
produces more selfishness inyour life, more greediness, more
status, because it makes youfeel good, because you have this
empty insecurity in your lifebecause maybe you didn't get
loved by your mom or your dadand now you have to prove
yourself to people.
Let's check that.
Let's check that.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I agree, and I think that's
good to know too, because Ireally think that's another
thing that's kind of lacking inthe body of Christ, and we had
to learn it.
It takes time.
You can't just one day all of asudden, you just wake up with
(25:29):
discernment.
Right, there's a gift ofdiscernment.
It takes practicing Right right, and Hebrews chapter five says
that talks about practicingright, practicing righteousness,
learning to discern from you,know good from evil, and things
like that.
So that's where you can beginto look at somebody's life and
see whether or not they'reblessed of God or they're not
like you said because of selfishmotives or whatever.
What are they utilizing that?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
blessing for and stuff.
And you'll notice the peoplewho respond to that prosperity
gospel.
They still have a lot of hiddensin in their life or even out
in the open sin, but thenthey'll just tag Jesus to God
bless me.
And it's just not true.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, so God wants you to prosper in all things,
but the idea of that whole, youknow, just manifest your reality
into existence, and making thegospel all about you is, I think
, where it gets very dangerous.
Because, where selfish ambitionlies you know jealousy.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
Every evil thing is there.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Yeah, it's ugly Every evil thing is drawn to that.
So I think we experience there.
Yeah, it's ugly.
Every evil thing is drawn tothat.
So I think we experience that.
Yeah, so we could probably justtalk for an hour straight about
the false gospels out therebecause the enemy is always kind
of reinventing and twistingthings into whatever version is
popular with our culture.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Well, now it's.
All roads lead to heaven rightnow.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
But we know that most of the time this is what I've
heard at least is when peopleare trying to find something
counterfeit.
They don't just spend all theirtime just studying the
different counterfeits.
Right, it's good to know aboutthem, to know that they're out
there, but they spend themajority of their time seeking
the one true thing.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
So tell me this what's important about
understanding the true gospel?
Why would that be?
Why would that be beneficialfor people?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
to understand it fully.
Well, because it will literallytransform your life.
It'll take you out of a placeof um of you know living in sin,
whether it's secret or out inthe open, and literally set you
free and put you intorelationship with God.
And all of a sudden, you havethis piece that surpasses
understanding.
You have joy that you don'tknow where it came from, uh, and
(27:27):
it just really changed.
It changes everything.
It changes your life, yourfamily, uh, your spouse, your
children, like it transformsyour life completely.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Yeah, one thing I've noticed too when we started to
sit down and we can share moreabout this later, about our
particular story specifically inhow we started sitting together
.
we started sitting together withother believers and meeting
together and talking about whatis the gospel, Because we found
that the majority of people wereeither they weren't sure or
they just weren't comfortablesharing it.
And maybe they've been in achurch setting for five, 10
(27:57):
years or been believers for along time, but they just didn't
know these basic things.
And that's not, there's nothing.
Not that there's nothing wrongwith it, but it's it's pretty
normative, it's pretty normal,unfortunately, and so one of our
, our goals and our things thatmake us excited is seeing
believers equipped and trainedat least to know the essentials,
the foundational principles oftheir faith, why they believe,
what it means, what is thegospel?
(28:18):
How do you, how does someonerespond correctly, biblically,
to the gospel?
You know, and not to put you onthe spot, but if you had to
share, if I was going to ask yousay, we just met at a coffee
shop or something like that, soyou don't have time for a long
explanation how would you sharethat with me, Brooke?
Speaker 2 (28:34):
What is the gospel?
Let me say one thing before wejump into there that I feel like
is so important and that everyperson listening on the other
side of here understands thereis no condemnation if you've
responded to the wrong gospel.
Yeah, that weight is not on youor on you, it's really on the
person sharing the false gospel.
(28:54):
But once you hear the realgospel, then it's on you to
respond properly.
So I want to say there's nocondemnation because both of us
have been there, you know.
So I want to say there's nocondemnation because both of us
have been there.
And I think as well the Biblesays like the gospel, when it's
preached, it doesn't come outvoid, it doesn't come back void,
to like the person who sent theseed out of the gospel.
But at the same time, you haveto be the one to respond to it
(29:17):
properly.
Like if you sit here and listento the full gospel right now
and you choose to harden yourheart, that's a response.
It didn't go void, youresponded, it's just hardening.
It is fruit, it's not returningvoid.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Most people think that that just means something
good always happens.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
It's like no, it means you have to do something.
There's a response.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
You either get hardened, your heart gets
hardened, or you soften to it.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
So I pray that right now, as we share this, that you
will soften your heart towardsGod, towards the gospel, towards
Jesus, Because I know he sayshe's drawing all men to Himself,
but not all men respond,unfortunately.
But like you said a minute ago,just if I was in the coffee
shop and somebody asked me howdo I get to know Jesus?
How do I get born again?
(30:00):
Whatever language they may use,I always first start with
salvation is not a destination,it's transformation in your life
, here and now.
It's not getting out of hell,it's not going to heaven.
So many people are fixed andfixated on that.
But it's actually more aboutyou being rescued from something
reconciled to something.
What you're being rescued fromthe true gospel is good news
(30:22):
y'all.
But you first have to have badnews before you can have good
news.
And the bad news is is you're asinner, You've sinned, You've
rebelled against God.
Unfortunately, no matter what itis, no matter how big it is or
small it is, you have sinned andyou're in rebellion towards God
.
But Jesus came to not only likeset you free from sin, but
destroy the works of the devilin your life so that you can
(30:44):
actually be righteous and holyand pure.
So when you hear the gospel,like, hey, I need to be set free
from sin.
Jesus is rescuing out of yourjail cell of sin and he's
reconciling you to God.
That's the gospel.
It's not getting out of helland going to heaven.
You're not in either one ofthose places yet.
The consequence to notresponding to the gospel is
(31:05):
going to hell.
The reward to responding to thegospel is going to be in heaven
.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
So some people will separate the place, the
environment, from God, meaninghell is what it is because it's
void of the presence of God, youknow and heaven is what it is,
because God is there and we wantto be with him.
So, people try to separatethose things, and that's what
you're saying is I want to, Iwant to, I want to get out of
hell and get to heaven.
Well, that doesn't work, becauseit's more about getting out of
(31:32):
my distance from God right andbeing with him, being connected
to him, because, ultimately,what heaven is is being in the
presence of God forever.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
So you have to be rescued from the thing that
would send you to hell theconsequence, which is your sin.
Sin is rebellion, sin is pride,sin is envy, jealousy, lust,
anger, frustration, hatred,unforgiveness, drunkenness,
sexual immorality you name it.
There's many of them out there.
If you've acted on any of them,you are a sinner.
If you say you're without sin,you're a liar.
(32:02):
But we're all short, fall, havefallen short and need to repent
.
So that's cool.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Where I was just going to say that's cool.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Where the law can come into place.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
People are like where does that come into play?
Well, some people don'trecognize their centers.
So if you get to that point andyou're like hey, you're a
sinner.
They're like okay, I've heardchurch people, I'm that bad,
right, you know.
And then you start you know, uh, uh, what's the guy's name that
uh?
Speaker 2 (32:26):
does the evangelism like that?
He's like oh yeah, ray comfort,ray comfort yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
So that's what he's.
You know he's really good atand cool because he drops the
law, because he's like oh, haveyou ever lied?
Have you ever sinned?
Have you stand before God?
How are you going to do?
You're standing before God andnow you got to tell them this is
the way I've lived my life.
That's right.
And there's this moment in alot of people's eyes where they
(32:51):
go oh crap like.
I'm not as good as I thought.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I was Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
You can present that to people, but you can't create
the conviction in their heart.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
That's the Holy Spirit's job.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
And so you get them to that point and you allow the
Holy Spirit to work, but youdon't leave them there.
That may be a point of likethey feel the weight of their
sin.
That's a good thing.
We don't got to do this fluffylike Jesus loves you and don't
feel bad.
Don't feel bad.
It's like no feel bad.
You have to feel bad before youcan feel good.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
You know what I'm saying, like you gotta recognize
that.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So say you're talking to me and like you drop it on
me, like that, and I'm like crap, what do I do?
I am a sinner, yeah, or let'stalk about this like Jesus, like
Tell me what he did to fix this.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
I don't know if I'm tracking.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Like Jesus.
What did he do?
He came, you know he died.
Oh yeah, yeah, talk to me aboutJesus.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Right.
So that's what we see in thelife of Jesus.
Like Jesus didn't come just togive you a better day, a better
life.
He came to literally set thecaptive free.
Like you have to see yourselfas in a prison cell of a better
life, he came to literally setthe captive free, you have to
see yourself as in a prison cellof sin and you have to get
uncomfortable in that cell.
If you love your sin, you'renot going to get out of it.
(34:06):
But Jesus came to show people.
He literally said if I nevercame, you would have never been
guilty.
So he came.
He demonstrated righteousness,he demonstrated obedience to the
Father, he demonstrated power.
He also said if I did not dothe miracles and signs and
wonders that I've done, theyalso would not be guilty.
Wow, so think about that.
He did all of those things toshow that how we're actually
(34:29):
fall very short to the standard.
But he says guess what?
If you'll repent, I'll put myspirit in you and my spirit will
transform you from the insideout.
So he didn't leave us with justa condemning message of oh,
you're a nasty sinner, kind oflike John the Baptist, you brood
of vipers.
He was actually like hey, youare a sinner.
But guess what?
If you'll turn from your sinand not go there anymore, I'll
(34:51):
actually put my spirit in you.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
And so I think that's really powerful.
Yeah, so we don't have tobelieve in just this message
written on pages or ink it'sJesus came, and the life that he
lived and experienced is thereason that we can trust.
There's authenticity, there'spower.
Right, he came, he was led bythe spirit of God, god.
Right, he died and then he cameback to life god raised him from
the dead and then he gave us apath to follow.
(35:24):
So you know, we're at thispoint.
So I'm at this point now whereI'm like, oh snap, like I'm a
sinner and it's more, it's somuch more than like oh, jesus
died, you know something?
What's the gospel?
Jesus died, died and rose again.
Uh, for your sins, and if youtrust and believe in him and
confess him with your mouth, you, you know, that's the number
you get but to most people thatmeans nothing.
That's right.
You talk to them about whatJesus actually did, what he
(35:45):
accomplished, the life he livesin, the example he left for you.
So say I'm in this point, rightnow, we're in the coffee shop,
we're only like five, 10 minutesin and I'm realizing um crap,
like I'm a sinner and and I'mstill.
I believe Jesus exists.
I believe he existed, and nowyou're showing me, like you know
, what he did in his life, andhe died and he rose again.
He's alive right now.
(36:06):
Like what do I do?
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Well, I always like like to take people to the true
response that you see in the, inthe book of, because it's the
best response possible.
Speaker 1 (36:16):
The sinner's prayer right.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
No, no, no, no, it's not there.
I love to take people to Acts 2, or just even share with them
the story of Acts 2.
You have Peter and the 12disciples.
A few other folks get radicallyfilled with the Holy Spirit.
They start speaking an actuallanguage that could be
understood by other Jews thatwere in the area.
They didn't speak the samelanguage.
They were all Jews by bloodline, but they were not
(36:46):
same-speaking language people.
They lived in different partsof the world.
And so, all of a sudden, you seethis supernatural thing take
place that was prophesied in thebook of Joel.
It says that this would happen.
So, when it happened, some wereperplexed, some made fun of
them, but it says that Peterlooks at them and says hey, I'm
not drunk right now.
Actually, this is what Joelprophesied, and I want you to
(37:09):
know that you brothers killed.
You brothers, he said, havekilled the Messiah, the Christ,
the one.
We saw it with our own eyes.
Not only did we see it with ourown eyes, like we saw him
resurrected with our own eyesand you killed him.
And it says they were struck tothe heart.
That only happens first by thepower of the Holy Spirit.
(37:29):
You know, we sit here and thinkwe're really cool when we have
hunger for God.
You only have hunger for Godbecause God is drawing you to
Him.
So they all of a sudden werestruck to the heart.
And it says someone cried outwhoever it was, cried out to
Peter and said what shall we doto fix this?
And Peter's response was notpray the sinner's prayer.
It wasn't raise your hand, itwasn't bow your head.
(37:52):
Or repeat after me Exactly itwas repent, be baptized, all of
you, for the forgiveness of yoursins.
So repentance and baptism dealwith sin, right, he said, so
that you might receive the giftof the Holy Spirit.
Well, why are we doing itdifferent?
Speaker 1 (38:13):
That's a good question.
Why?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
are we doing it different?
So you know, I'm telling youokay, the gospel is being
rescued from sin and reconciledto God.
That's a good question.
Why are we doing it different?
So you know, I'm telling you,okay, the gospel is being
rescued from sin and reconciledto God.
That's the gospel period.
But there's a response.
People stop at the response.
So people are like, oh, okay, Iwant to be saved from sin, I
want to be reconciled to God.
And then they just leave youlike that Raise your hand, pray
(38:41):
a prayer.
That's not in the Bible.
We have to do it the way thatJesus displayed it and the way
that the disciples preached it.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
You mean, I can't just make it more convenient and
do it the way that I want to doit, and then complain when I'm
not experiencing what the Biblesays I should be experiencing.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Why are we doing that ?
I don't understand it, justbaffles me.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
But what about if a pastor says we're a
Bible-believing church and thenhe does it?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Well, why aren't you doing it?
You know what I'm saying, but Igo to a Bible-believing church,
yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
No, I get it.
I get it and I mean it's soclear, Like it's so clear in the
scriptures, and what we want todo is we People get afraid that
it's in works.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
When you say you must repent, you must be baptized
and receive the Holy Spirit,they are afraid that they're
having to do something to earnthis thing.
But the Bible is very clearFaith is an action.
It's not a noun, it's a verb.
Well, it's kind of both it's anoun and a verb Faith is a noun,
belief is a verb Is the actionof faith.
So you know, you can't just sayyou believe in God.
You have to do something toshow you have faith in God.
(39:44):
So what that is is repentance,baptism and asking for something
that you cannot see to receive.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Yeah, and people and I can break this down really
quick.
We could talk about it deeperin another time, another episode
.
But, um, people get so scaredthey do it's so funny in this
language they like it just soscared that they're going to
enter into works and they'regoing to earn their salvation
and stuff like that.
I'm like that's not what paulwas talking about.
Paul was not talking aboutobeying jesus and getting into
workspace salvation.
Paul was talking aboutbelieving that the law was going
(40:14):
to save you.
That's right, right, that'swhat he was talking to Jews.
He was saying, hey, listen.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
These laws and these sacrifices are not going to save
you.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Right, you must have faith in Christ.
But faith in Christ, it's likean umbrella that encompasses all
of these things.
Like James tells us that faithwithout works is dead.
Not that the works save you,but the works are confirmation
that your faith was genuine.
And so they didn't separatethese things, quite like we
separate them now.
You know, in the first centurythey weren't asking well, do I
(40:40):
have to do that?
Do I have to repent, or can Ijust say forgive me of all of my
sins?
Do I have to repent of myindividual sins?
Do I have to be baptized?
Do I have to do this?
Do I have to do that?
They were not saying that theyjust did that.
I love Francis Chan's take onthis he's like.
listen, if the Bible said, standon your head to be saved, I'd
flip and stand on my head.
(41:01):
You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
It's just stuff that we and I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
It's cool, I understand it.
I understand wrestling withstuff.
We want to make sure that we'redoing the right thing, but I
think about this, though.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Think about this In the entire Bible, from Genesis
to Revelation, there's only onechapter that has the full gospel
being preached and the fullresponse to the gospel happen
all in one chapter in the Bible,right, the whole entire Bible.
That one chapter is Acts 2.
Peter preaches the gospel.
He says you have sinned, you'vekilled the Messiah.
(41:37):
He calls out their sin and thentheir response is what shall we
do?
And his response was repent, bebaptized, receive the Holy
Spirit.
Why do we try to remove partsor say they're not necessary,
when that was just the response?
Why are we adding to or takingaway?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
That's what scares me .
Do you know why?
It's because we start to thinkof our loved ones that didn't
respond in that way and it makesus look for loopholes.
That's right, that's why.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Or loopholes for ourselves, for ourselves or
whatever.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
You know, aunt Sally accepted Jesus on her deathbed
and she couldn't talk and allshe did was believe.
She didn't have time to repentand she couldn't talk and all
she did was believe she didn'thave time to repent, and so we
take these extreme exceptionsand we try to make them general
rules.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
That's right, or we?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
try to find other places in the Bible.
Most people don't understand isthat when you're reading in
different portions of Scripture,you have to understand the
context of what covenant theywere in.
That's right.
You can't just pull somethingout of the Old Testament, old
Testament, and say this is, thisis how we respond to the gospel
.
You can't necessarily pulleverything out of the gospels,
(42:47):
whoa, and say this is how werespond, why Jesus hadn't died
yet.
So things shifted and changedafter he died and rose again and
gave his commands to thedisciples.
That's why all of a sudden uh,you know, you run into
scriptures like Acts 19, wheredisciples of John who had
already been baptized by Johnwere now being baptized in
Christ by Paul to Christ andreceiving the Holy Spirit
speaking in tongues andprophesying Like you have to
understand where you're at.
(43:07):
So the book of Acts is, in myopinion, is the greatest place
to look, where we see indifferent sections of it.
Conversions.
Right, because the letters arewritten to people who are
already born again.
Right, in the old covenant theywere under a different covenant
, different kind of style, ifyou will, relationship with God.
Jesus hadn't died.
There was nothing to really bebaptized into or they were being
(43:28):
baptized into repentance.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Their only prerequisites was to die in
faith, in faithfulness to God.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah, so the thief on the cross was in the same
position as.
Abraham Isaac and Jacob.
That's right, right, okay, so,um, awesome, well, let's land
this plane.
Uh, so now I know that the truegospel, right, it's amazing.
What, what do I?
What do I do?
What do I do if I'm the personthat just realized I have?
(43:55):
I have responded to a um, let'ssay, I a sinner's prayer gospel
, and I haven't really seen thefruit of transformation in my
life.
What do I do?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
Yeah, I think.
First humble yourself, repentfor responding to a false gospel
.
I think is the first start.
And then, I think, startreading through the book of Acts
.
Look at Acts 2 and see ifyou've truly repented.
Like Peter, called out theirspecific offense towards God and
I'm sure there was many othersin their heart, but the main one
(44:22):
that was keeping them inseparation was the death of the
Messiah.
So really get real before God.
Repentance is not like oh Father, just forgive me of my sins.
No, what do you need to besaved from?
What I need to be saved from isdifferent than what you need to
be saved from, vice versa.
And so you confess your sins toGod.
What is it that you need to besaved from?
(44:43):
I need to be saved fromprostitution, addiction, all
these things.
When I say prostitution, Iwasn't like a paid prostitute.
I was actually unpaid, whichwasn't very smart.
But now I look back, I'm likegosh.
I was not smart, but I neededto be rescued from certain
things that others don't need tobe.
But what do you need to besaved from?
And once you get that out,first of all you're going to
feel like the weight of theworld is off your shoulders.
(45:04):
I know, that's how I felt.
I was like I feel so light,what just happened to me, you
know.
And then says in Romans,chapter six and again, I'm not
saying that baptism alone saves,no, I believe being born again
saves Repent be baptized, Jesussaves right.
(45:24):
Well, yeah, jesus saves,obviously through the death on
the cross.
But he said, hey, to be borninto my kingdom.
This is what you have to do.
He told Nicodemus at the methim at Secret.
He said you must be born ofwater and spirit.
Water, baptism, holy Ghost.
I think about coming to Texas,moving here.
There was a whole lot ofprocesses to become a citizens
(45:45):
of Texas.
What if we would have skippedone of those processes?
I would have had a lot of finesto pay.
You know what I'm saying.
So it's the same concept.
Jesus's death is what bringssalvation, it's what brings
freedom.
But there's a response to thatdeath, there's a response to
that drawing, and it's repent,be baptized and receive.
So I think baptism is thatwashing away your sins, getting
(46:09):
yourself a clean consciencethrough baptism, burying the old
life.
It says Romans 6,.
Y'all read it if you have neverread it before.
It says baptism is three thingsa burial, a bath and a
resurrection.
You're burying the old Brooke,the old, justin, the old,
whoever.
It literally says resurrectedin the very nature and likeness
of Christ Jesus.
And then it says now you are anempty, clean vessel to be
(46:33):
filled with the presence of God.
So you've been buried, you'vebeen resurrected in the nature
of Christ and now you are cleanand now you receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit.
Now you can actually receivethe gift of the Holy Spirit
because you have done away withyour sin.
Repentance and baptism doesaway with your sin, yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
No, that's great, I would say, to make it simple in
one step begin to seek.
God now, with this new lens andthis new framework, because the
the, the scripture promisesthat we seek him, we'll find him
.
That's the coolest thing.
It's like you're like what do Ido?
Or do I need to reach out toyou guys?
Or you know all this stuff?
It's like.
It's like begin to seek the.
Lord on these things, and hewill.
(47:10):
He will not only show you,he'll put the right people in
your life to lead you anddisciple you.
By us ending this episode andjust saying, okay, if you're
ready to make that decision,then repeat after me, doesn't
accomplish a lot.
You seek the Lord.
Speaker 2 (47:24):
He is radically born again in my bedroom, received
the Holy spirit in my bedroom.
It can happen in your bedroom.
You just have to humbleyourself.
And then God began to putpeople in my life to disciple me
.
But all that happened with mejust humbling myself and seeking
God with my whole heart.
That's where it starts.
People are like it doesn't work.
I'm like it works.
I promise we can't say God's aliar.
(47:45):
We have to humble ourselves.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
And we do.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
We believe that you should be connected to a body of
your life.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
That's right To lead you, awesome.
Well, thank you so much foryour insight.
I feel good and feel refreshed.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Born again All the things.
Hope you guys enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for being onour first episode of the.
Rechurch podcast.
Hope you guys were blessed bythis conversation.
We got plenty more down theline and plenty plenty to talk
about and I'm so excited aboutthat.
Appreciate you guys, love youguys and we'll see you in the
next episode.
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