#48 Challenging the Foundations: Jesus' Criticism of Today's Churches

But I'm disturbed about America and what is happening there concerning the body of Christ. They tell me that in America you have, within Protestantism, more than 256 denominations, and the tragedy America is not so much that you have more than 256 denominations, but the fact that all of these denominations are warring against each other, trying to make it appear that they have the only truth. No, this narrow sectarianism, this narrow denominationalism is destroying the unity of the church. America, you must come to see that God is not a Baptist, that God is not a Methodist, that God is not an Episcopalian. God is bigger than any of our denominations.

Well, man, is your man, Lionel. Good morning man. I've been thinking about something and I want to hear your thoughts. Your man, lionel, coming to you, live here on Saturday morning, not extremely Professional, but I just have a tricking question. I Wonder how would you, how would you, you know, picture yourself walking up to Jesus? How would you, you know, how would you think he would react to modern-day Services and Christianity? I've been man, I've been thinking about this, but I've been thinking about it from a perspective of like, was Jesus a Christian? Like, would Jesus really? I Mean, I would love to hear your thoughts, but would Jesus really, would he really get down with, like, christianity today? And you probably like. Well, why do I care to even engage that conversation, brother? Well, you all know that a lot of people are a Lot of people are this grown-up with religion. So A lot of people don't, you know, they don't know how to respond to religion, they don't know what to think about it. Well, you know, I Do, I've been wondering about this and I haven't been on an app much, so I apologize everyone, but man, I'm just, I've been thinking about this. I've been thinking about it because I, you know, it's not true at this point. It's not just about Going to church, it's really about what are when you, why are people attending churches? Why do people care to attend church? That's what. That's what the conversation is now and that's why I care to have that conversation, because I have a vested interest as a, as a minister, preacher, teacher and a religious sector. I Do. I have a vested interest and my vested interest is you know what's, what's the relevance, why should people care? And I think, if you know, being a hundred percent honest, we got to come back down, we got to bring the question even closer down to not just why people care, but like, what will people do? How will people define community? Now, right, how will people define community? Because you and I can't deny the fact that that a lot of people have have defined their religious faith and their community through their church. So what would people? I mean, how would people who would marry you now if it's not a pastor? Are you saying that you know it's the state's issue now, so the state can do it? Which would you do? I mean, I have, you know, people in the military, right, they'll come and say, hey, man, I'm getting married because I wanna get paid more money. But here's the question. The question is, if you walked, if picture Jesus, picture walking with Jesus, they, how would you think he would react to modern day church services? How would he react to modern day church services? That's what I'm trying to get down to. I wanna know, man, what do you guys think? How do you think Jesus would respond to modern day church services? What's the? What's the? What's the? What's up JP? Hey, penny, what's happening? Penny Frampton, there are so many forms of religious worship now that I think Jesus would be. That's funny. I don't think my sound pass out together, but I want to give you a big. Oh, let's see if I can do it on here. I want to give you a big horn, man. How about this one? Oh, wow, yeah, no, I you know, but how would you describe that relationship? How would you describe? Think about this show. How would you describe religion in Christian? How would you describe the church service? I know how I would. I would talk about man, I would talk about the lights, camera action, meaning, like a lot of churches now, that they focus on the presentation, and for, for, for good or for ill, for good or for ill. You know what I mean For good or for ill. No, that's a good, but please amp, put your comments questions. I would. I would talk to Jesus about the the all the lights camera action thing that could be, cause that's a problem for me. And it's a problem for me because you cannot separate Christianity from today in America from the performance end of of a church. In other words, if the churches are spending budgets on anything nowadays, they're spending budget on marketing. John, what's good? John, what's up? Homie, okay, john says. He says you already know Jesus wouldn't step foot. I got, I got to get my sound pads. Hold on a bit. Yeah, john says Jesus wouldn't dare step foot in these churches today. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, right, so he said so. John says Jesus wouldn't step foot in the church and he might hit some pastors home, asked them to open them up to the poor and they would hire security and PR. Ha, ha, ha, ha ha. So, yeah, man, I don't know. So, john, john, you always Ha, ha, ha, ha, yeah, man. So basically, john is saying like a you know, serving the poor. Now Jesus did say something that was powerful about that, john. He said that the poor you would have with you always. So when people were talking about following Jesus, there were people who were saying look, I'm going to go back home and I'm going to, before I follow you, I'm going to bury my, say, bottom of family. Jesus like let the dead bury the dead, you know, basically you need to come follow me. Which was a straight gangster, you know. Comment for Jesus to me like straight gangster comment for.

Jesus to make.

So, you know, I don't think it's a bad thing, but at the same time, it's just the I always tell people you can't separate the American church from capitalism. You can't separate American church from performance base. You can't separate the two or 20, the 201. And so, because the 201, that bag's another question, right? You know what the other question is Like what's more important? What's more important, right? Are we really doing Jesus' work or and I got, I'm gonna talk about this tomorrow. I'm gonna do a live stream tomorrow. Lord says the same and I would love for you guys to come through, but I'm gonna talk about this tomorrow. I'm gonna talk about is there a difference between Christianity and Jesus? And I was reading and praying this morning, man, and the Lord showed me some things. Not to meditate afterwards, man, cause it's deep, deep. Oh, penny, he said personally, penny says personally. I think Jesus spoke about how each individual can experience their own personal connection with Christ. The problem I have is that many religious worship have someone between you and Christ. You know there's a point to that. I don't 100% disagree with you, penny, and I would take a step further. I would say that, oh man. So, penny, how would you respond to when Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. How would you respond to that, jp? How would you respond to that man? We got like two different conversations. I wrote some down earlier. There are many scriptures that say God is spirit. What does that mean? When the scripture verse says God is spirit, okay. There's another scripture verse that says that those who worship me, what's worshiped me is spirit and in truth. So what is Jesus getting at? What is the scripture getting at? What is the New Testament getting at with that? What they're saying? Something where they suggesting that the New Revolution at Christ was influential in was a internal spiritual worship rather than an external worship. Man. This is what I wanna talk about tomorrow, because if that's the case, there's consequences to that. All right, what do you guys think? What do you guys think? What's the consequences of that?

I got some more music here, man I got tired of that music, all right.

What's the consequences of that? What's the consequences of Jesus saying let the worship now be internally right? Jesus often said to religious leaders you are full of dead man's bones. You show without appearance that you follow God, but inside you're full of dead man's bones. There's something to that, y'all, there's something to that and I'm not sure if we're getting, if we're understanding what Jesus is saying. Right, remember, because you remember the conversation it was. The conversation was about how the religious organizations of his day was getting between and the temple and the temple. In the services, the temple, how was keeping people from connecting with the divine? All right, think about that, okay. Jbusjp says here All right, large comment, let's see here if I can stress this out. But see, JP says greater is he that is in us than the one that is in the world. We are made in his image and likeness. We are his masterpiece. So in everything we do, we ought to acknowledge that we are the creatures, not the creator. Copy, absolutely copy. Hey, jp, I wanna stress your thought, though. All right, okay, so, and this is straight within my vein okay, I'm not a marketing guru, that's your job. I think you're a minister too. But how would you say the scripture in Colossians 127, that crisis within us, the hope of glory, in other words, and that's written from an epistle. So that's, remember the epistles, which is like, yeah, I hear me out real quick on the wisdom map. Thanks for holding on and please continue to put your questions, thoughts and comments. But in the epistles, epistles are described as the letters. So epistles are letters that were written to a group of people to address a particular issue. So in the epistles it was not so much about trying to make a doctrinal statement, but it was addressing issues and maybe things that came up for that church, and so the apostles or writers were writing back to those churches to deal with particular issues. So you have to understand the context. So Colossians was written to the church at Colossi in Asia Minor, and so Paul the apostle, was trying to help them work out this issue of salvation, this issue of how salvation functions in the new life. That's what Paul was addressing. So Paul didn't advocate, for I mean, he got the blessings of the church of Jerusalem before he started his mission. But Paul was like he was persecuted because he was telling people to do things that were not necessarily within the religious order of things according to the church at Jerusalem. And, matter of fact, paul's credentials were often questioned, right, because he was telling, you know, not because he was trying to lead people astray, but because he was saying things that just wasn't commonplace. So, yeah, that's something you got. So, when he says that crisis within you, the hope of glory, he wasn't saying that Christ was in the organizations, the religious organizations. That's something we got to keep in mind, y'all. That's the reason why Jesus was crucified and the religious leaders of his time were propunct, were actually rooting for his crucifixion. You feel me? Y'all understand what I'm saying. There's a reason for that and there's a reason why Paul the apostle was persecuted, right, there's a reason why, in the book of Acts he was, when he was called Saul, he was persecuting people, right, who called themselves Christians or were labeled as such. I think that's something powerful here, guys. So I'm going to have a live stream about this tomorrow and I'm going to do it at three o'clock. I would love for you guys to come through and I think I'm going to do it in conjunction with the wisdom app because engagement is better. But anyway, to everybody on Twitter I think I'm on Twitter right now. Is it on Twitter? Yeah, my private Facebook group Twitter. You guys on wisdom app, go to words for change, words for change on Facebook and join the group so you can actually watch it live. You can see it live. It's really, really cool. And, jp, maybe, man, I got an idea for you. We should do a talk together about that. Yeah, I think my background is clean enough for you, man, I know you're a professional, but, yeah, I mean. So if I'll say this before I end, how would I describe the modern church to Jesus today? Oh, man, goodness, I would say that there's a huge issue with nepotism. I would say that church is more concerned about surviving rather than, in passing, on it's way of doing things, more than they are about being a prophetic voice in the world. I think that's the difference. Right, I think you can. I think there's churches that do a lot of good. You all know that there are churches that have done a lot of bad, but you also know that there are churches that have done a lot of good. Right, I mean I can, I can label. Just as I can label the good, I can label the bad. I can say a lot of churches have have hurt people. Right, a lot of people have been hurt from churches for various reasons. Um, but there's a lot of churches that I know they're doing a lot of good work in communities. I mean a lot of good work. Yeah, a lot of families that are being sustained. There are a lot of people who are not taking their lives because the churches that are helping them out. There are a lot of people who are having financial difficulty in finding the church there when they have no community to help them. I mean one of the churches I served that we had a standing policy that if anybody walked up we had a certain amount of money. I mean no, they would no questions ask and we would give them a gift card or, you know, would go use it. Anybody wanted to use it and that was just one of the ways that we did that. But guess what? We really took care of the people who considered themselves members of that church. Like we took care of them. Like I'm talking about paying rent bills, helping the kids go to college. I mean so, guys, you can't listen. In every organization you have, the reality is you have good and bad, and this is why I tell people, if you are a believer, you should be going to church. You're not going to and I'm not advocating for that, right, but you need that community. When you get sick, you need somebody there with you. When you need, when you have a financial difficulty, you need somebody to help you. We need guidance, you need accountability, you need people to support you. You need to be a part of a community and for you maybe it's not a church, but I think those are the reasons why you need to be a part of a community that's going to help me in. Churches have been great at doing that. Now, that's not me saying I advocate that everybody needs to go to church. I'm just advocating for a community but at the same time, if you, there are things that churches have done that we need to get back on track, and one of the things that I don't like about modern day church in America is that the pastor, you do need leadership. Leaders lead, but sometimes leaders are not seeing clearly, okay, and they don't have a person that will, or persons that will speak to them and tell them where they are missing a book, and I think that's what the gift of the prophet comes in. So the prophet says the prophet looks at the situation and and and speaks into it. And speaks into it from, from a more spiritual and not from a financial, not from a business perspective, all these things that are necessary for churches to actually survive and thrive. But a prophet says this is what, this is a spirit. The spirit by which we're doing these things are incorrect. All right, I'm going to go back to JP. Jp says I think you already said okay, is this the same one or something different? Okay, wow, this is a long comment. Jp says yes. However, we can ignore the divine order of things regardless of our human decisions. That is where, I believe, confusion creeps in. So, in other words, what lens are we using to analyze a specific situation and how much room are we leaving for the supernatural? Boom, I like that. We worship a God that is not of this earthly world. Higher are his ways than ours. Oh, did I like just go out? I sure did, it's okay, I don't care, I got to get on the chart. Yeah, no, I agree, we do worship God that is not of this world. And JP, some people will argue yeah, I agree with you, man. And some people will argue that the religious systems that we see today are of this world. And that's the other argument that people have that religious systems today are of this world and they are in direct contradiction to the spirit of what Christ was saying. Penny says as a yogi, I believe in experience spirit as creator. Unlike Christianity, who sees God outside of his creation, I understand God to be creation. Therefore I am a tiny part of God. Okay, you and Christ are one. You and God are one. I agree with that. Christ consciousness is part of creation and therefore I can, with spiritual practices, experience Christ consciousness within. We love to chat with you about this concept. Yeah, absolutely, penny. Maybe you can join me for those live stream tomorrow so that we can throw those comments back and forth. Go on to the. I would go on to the Facebook and join the and join the group so you can see the live stream, or you can just do it through the wisdom app. I don't care whatever, but it is there for you if you want to engage that way, because I want people to see your comments. I want people who are on the YouTube or whatever to see what you're saying, not just hear it, but in whatever works for you. Okay, yeah, I would love to have the conversation with you as well. So, hey, guys, listen. Um, yeah, so tomorrow I'm doing a live stream at three o'clock. I would love to have you guys come through. I think it'd be cool. Yeah, I think it'll be cool, man, yeah. So, yeah, I think it'll be cool, because my goal so people ask me what's my goal? Here's my goal. My goal with the podcast and everything I do my goal is to help people who are stuck to get from where they are to where they want to be in their spiritual lives. And we do that through personal growth, because I think that's important. It's a multi-prong process Personal growth and spiritual growth. If you focus solely on personal growth, which is good, so let me say it this way Personal growth focuses on time management, being a better person, being a better partner, being a better worker, working with passion, walking with purpose right, but that's not all of who we are. We are not just one-dimensional people. But then I focus on spiritual growth. So now the focus is what is your soul saying? How are you living from the internal reservoir of who you are as a person. That's important. What is your belief system? What are your values? What is your spirituality? Do you believe that you are more than your life experiences? Do you believe that you are more than that, that there's something greater to who you are? That's why I do this right? So we need to do personal growth, but we need spiritual growth. And spiritual growth doesn't necessarily for me, doesn't necessarily mean church. I'm not interested in just that, because there are a lot of people going to church that are not spiritual. They're religious. They follow, they do go to church, but that's it. They don't engage in spirituality and no other way, shape or form. That's not healthy. That's not healthy Because there's more to you than that, there's more to me than that. Right, I might get passionate, but if we can get people to see this and to accept this, to walk into this man, I'm telling you it can be life transforming. So I'm grabbing people who are walking because they've been hurt by church and I'm saying, look, let me grab you by your coat. And I said, wait, wait, don't totally leave, let's help walk through this together. But yeah, so that's what it's about. It's about catching people who've been hurt by the church, bringing them back and saying just because you and church are not getting along or you've had some horrible experiences, what does it mean that you're leaving God?

Not to be happy. The end is not to a God suffering, but the end of life is to do the will of God, come what may.

Because I'll tell you the truth, a lot of people may leave the church but they don't leave Christ. A lot of people leave church but they're not leaving Christ, and that has to say something. So when you think about young people today, guess what they're saying. Even my kids, they're like you know some churches. They get Like we pray, we talk about scripture, we do all of that, but they get some kind of way about church. Now again, I'm not saying you need to walk away from church. Y'all know I'm not. I'm a church man. I'm not a like religious. I'm not. I'm religious to a degree. I believe in religious spirituality. A religious organization is pretty conservative and I don't, you know, I don't agree with everything. But yeah, take the good with the bad. I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna say this before I go I don't care who you are, man, I am convinced of this. I don't care if people just excommunicate me or what, but Jesus came to help people. And if we, when we get away from that, we miss a lot of things. Jesus didn't come for organization. Jesus didn't come for a doctrine, jesus didn't come for any of it. Jesus came to help people who needed it. And the moment we get away from that, the moment we lose our passion, our purpose and we lose the reason why we do what we do. All right, god be good.