Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Jesus said if they hated me, they will hate you. But we find the church continuing to move in this direction of trying to fit in, trying to relate, and trying to be relevant at the cost of spiritual compromise. Now, I'm not talking about lights, colored lights, or music style. I'm not talking about the types of things that get mixed up in this. Obviously, the methodologies of getting the gospel out are going to change with culture. That's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about is watering down the Word of God in such a way where you feel like you're culturally acceptable. The Church of Jesus Christ—I mean, if you're following Jesus, you will follow His footsteps to the cross.

Guest (Male): Hey, you've picked a great day to join us as we embark on a brand new study of Acts here on Abounding Grace. We plan on going through each chapter and verse with you in the coming months. Pastor Ed Taylor is with me now in studio and Ed, as we get ready to kick off this series, I know you really believe this is to be a timely study for us. So, why Acts and why now?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Well, for you guys listening on Abounding Grace Radio, we want to thank you for your faithfulness and your prayers for us, and especially your financial support. Thank you guys very much. Continue to support us as we're jumping into the book of Acts.

It was at the end of the pandemic a couple of years ago that in the life of our church, I felt like God was bringing us back to the beginnings. On our midweek Bible study, we began with the book of Genesis right from the beginning. Let's just start right at the beginning of everything from God's perspective. And then in our weekend studies—I have a Saturday night and two Sunday morning services—we started in the book of Acts.

It's amazing, life-changing, and transforming. I love the book of Acts. It's the history of our church; it's the history of every true church. So get ready, be ready, stay ready, and respond to the work of the Holy Spirit through these studies. You're going to be blessed.

Guest (Male): And with that said, let's dive right into Acts with Pastor Ed Taylor here in part one of Authentic Jesus Loving Life.

Pastor Ed Taylor: I've titled our Bible study today, Authentic Jesus Loving Life. I think that's our desire, to live an authentic Jesus loving life because we live in a world filled with fakes and phonies. There is so much hypocrisy and people putting on faces, wanting us to think one way about them. I mean, you think about just what social media has done.

If all you did was get your information from social media, you would think that everybody has their life together because it's just their highlight reel. I mean, there's a couple of things you probably see. Number one, there's a lot of angry people that like to complain about a lot of things. That's social media. But on the other hand, it's like the highlight reel of people where it's their best meal, their best day, and their best moment of the day. If you were looking, you'd think, "Man, I wish I had a life like that."

But when you peel back the layers, you find out everyone is hurting. Everyone is struggling and everyone is going through something, especially those that are separate from God. That's why they're pushing so much for you to think they've got it made. They're pushing so much for you to think everything's in order when we know full well everything is not in order.

I know as an unbeliever myself, just thirty years ago, I was looking for something real and authentic even though I wouldn't have been able to describe this to you. But I look back now and see I was really looking for something real because I was such a fake. I was living such a hypocritical life, bringing pain and sorrow to people that loved me.

It was so much of a wandering journey that I finally just settled to live hopelessly under the influence of some substance, going from party to party waiting for it all to end. I really had this philosophy: "Let's eat, drink, and party because tomorrow we die." Let's just live it up now. That was such a dangerous, destructive way of living. Now looking back, I can see there was a lack of authenticity, a lack of power, and a lack of substance in my life. I was empty, sad, and alone.

And yet the Lord intervened in my life through a friend inviting me to church and hearing the good news that my sins could be forgiven, that God loves me, and that He actually has a plan for my life. It changed my life. I entered into a true relationship with a real, authentic, powerful God who wants to connect with you as much as He connected with me.

The world in which we live doesn't need and doesn't want some fake, syrupy imitation or some contrived substitute for the real message of forgiveness in their lives. People young and old are looking today for something worth living for. I would even say something worth dying for.

I want you to consider the current environment in our culture right now and just step one big step backwards. Lay aside all your preconceived ideas and opinions. I want you to take a sliver of what you see in the world today and consider that people really want to live for something. They really have passion; they're willing to lay it all on the line.

Why else would they riot? Why else would they picket? Why else would they yell and scream for their cause if they weren't passionate about what they believe in? Now, you've got to set aside for a second the fact that you don't agree with them. Set all that aside for a second and just consider: the world is looking for something to live for and to die for.

It's in them. The Bible says that God has placed eternity in all of our hearts. I believe as the church we have the message. We have the Man. It's the same kind of world that Jesus entered into—a world that was in chaos, filled with hopelessness, false religions, sin, destruction, and confusion. Jesus entered in authentically. He was real.

I know it's an understatement whenever we describe Jesus, but He was real. He lived a real, authentic life. He was able to live apart from the fear of man. The fear of man is a big problem for us. That is the biblical phrase. Let me give you a phrase that's used in our culture and our world to help you understand that.

You may not consider yourself to have a fear of man. But this is what the Bible is talking about. If you are a people pleaser—anybody with me, people pleaser? Okay, not one in the house. That's fine. For you guys on the radio right now, all you people pleasers: fear of man is just like people pleasing.

You're always worried about what people say about you, what they think about you, and what they're saying behind your back. You're always calculating, "If I do this, but if I say that." Most of the time you just feel like, "I don't want to do anything. I just don't want to disrupt anybody, and I don't want anybody mad at me." That is the fear of man.

Jesus wasn't corrupted by that. It's not like He didn't care. He didn't live not caring. Of course He cared. But He wasn't influenced by the opinions of man. He didn't change the course of His life because somebody didn't like Him, what He said, or His message. He was the real deal. You knew where you stood when you were in the presence of Jesus.

You knew exactly what He felt about anything that you talked about. You knew He was going to tell you the truth. That's what the world is looking for. Now, you may be rewarded with crucifixion for that, but you'll be following in the footsteps of Jesus.

He was able to be authentic in love. People knew that He cared. They may not have liked Him, and they may not have liked the message, but they couldn't deny it. If they tried to deny it along the way, they couldn't deny after His willing, willful surrender to and submission to crucifixion that He loved.

He spoke the truth in love. This world is looking for authenticity. It's a troubling thing for me as a pastor, and also just as a fellow believer, to see what's happening in the church today. It's one of the reasons I believe it's great and timely for us to be in the book of Acts.

It's troubling to watch how the gospel—the good news—is being blurred and confused like never before. Not just outside of the church but from the inside. What's happening inside churches? Even though the church as a whole has always had these in-house debates, discussions, and arguments about things that really don't have any eternal value, today we're seeing popular Christian leaders, seminaries, and even those that call themselves pastors choosing to attack and undermine and try to redefine essential Christian doctrine and living.

Things like Jesus being the only way to salvation are discarded. Things like the Bible being trustworthy and inspired of God are discarded. We have a whole new wave of apostate men who once followed Jesus now rejecting Him and actually teaching other people how to deconstruct their faith so others can reject Jesus too. It's amazingly sad to watch and read about it as it unfolds.

Add to that the day in which we live. We're living in a time of global prophetic and biblical importance. Year after year for twenty years I've taught this church and I've had the privilege of saying, "Look, we're in the end times. It's going to get harder. It's going to get darker. The pressure's going to increase." For twenty years I've been doing that. And now that it's arrived, people are freaking out.

Why are you freaking out? This is exactly what the Bible said would happen. I'll tell you why you're freaking out: you thought it wasn't going to happen until later. But it's now you. It's your generation. You are born for this. You are alive on the planet for this time period.

A lot of what we've been teaching is no longer future; you're in it. You're the generation that gets to participate in the will of God in some of the darkest days of human history. Not just our generation though. Things are so bad today they're kind of like the days of Noah where people are inventing new ways to sin, sexual depravity, and on and on the list goes. But that too shouldn't surprise us. Jesus was super clear that as in the days of Noah, so will the days of the coming of the Son of Man be.

And here we are. I know it's surprising, scary, and even a little shocking. But God is our strength and He has left the church while we're on the earth. We have the privilege of being that preserving element in a decaying world—you and me. But in love. We can't abandon love.

Church, don't freak out about it. Don't try to take things into your own hands. Don't become like the world in order to change the world. It won't work. That's one of the other things that I see in the church today. There are two different extremes.

I think before we get to the extremes, it's good to just remind you what's happening in the church world today. You'll recall back in the beginning of this particular trial—mandates, pandemic, and such—a lot of churches closed. We did as well, temporarily. We didn't know what we were dealing with. We didn't know what was up ahead and then we quickly reopened.

But did you know that there are still churches today that have not reopened their doors for public worship? Still to this day. Not only that, and again, some of the things I'm going to be sharing with you through this study in the book of Acts, I'm going to bring you a little bit into my world as a pastor—the things I read and the things that get sent to me as I try to minister to this level of leadership in the church of Jesus as well.

In the world that I'm in, I've even got firsthand knowledge of guys that, in the beginning when they closed their churches, they saw it as an opportunity to take an extended vacation, from which some of them haven't even come back yet. That's the church today: abandoning the flock, turning their back on the people that needed them the most in the time that they're needed the most. That's the church today at large.

Other churches chose to pivot to another gospel, blurring the gospel with other messages that really are not conducive to what the Word of God says. Listen, you know you have the true gospel when you can take it to any country, any tribe, any tongue, and any nation and it preaches the same. You know it's true when it applies to every human being because the Bible says that God so loved the world.

So the gospel is relevant across the world. Churches have abandoned truth, love, mercy, and grace and, to some degree, they've abandoned empathy. Pastors have become less empathetic and more angry and more frustrated. It's damaging the church.

There are two extremes I think are important to consider in these trying times. As we get to the book of Acts and study through it, you'll see that God will help us stay away from them. But there are two extremes I see today in the church. Number one is the extreme of trying to fit in to a world that doesn't like us. You have to understand the church will never be accepted by the world. And if the church ever is accepted by the world, the church has become like the world.

There is no way the world will accept the church. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not an acceptable message to people. They don't like it. I didn't like it. Even though he was my buddy coming and telling me what a sinner I was, I was immediately defensive. "You don't know me!" Of course he knew me; all we did was party together year after year. Of course he knew who I was. My wife knew who I was. It was an offensive message.

We will not be able to fit in to a world that hates Jesus. Jesus said, "If they hated me, they will hate you." But we find the church continuing to move in this direction of trying to fit in, trying to relate, and trying to be relevant at the cost of spiritual compromise.

Now, I'm not talking about colored lights or music style. Obviously, the methodologies of getting the gospel out are going to change with culture. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is watering down the Word of God in such a way where you feel like you're culturally acceptable. The Church of Jesus Christ—I mean, if you're following Jesus, you will follow His footsteps to the cross.

That is the price to pay for being a Christian. Now, you may not ever be personally crucified, but believers around the world are crucified. They lose their life every day. In many parts of the world, the church has gone underground to propagate the gospel.

They've made adjustments so they can continue to worship God, but also continue to have their physical life to continue to spread the gospel. You're not going to be able to fit in to this world. It's just not going to happen.

We can be applicable to this world. When I think of relevance, obviously I need to understand our culture so I can make the Bible relevant to our current culture. But fit in? We won't fit in. We won't be accepted. It's not going to happen. If you don't believe me on this, tomorrow morning when you go into the office, go right past your desk, go right past the break room, right into the CEO's office of your company and tell them, "God has sent me here to preach the gospel to you. He loves you, you rotten sinner, and I know that you can be saved if you'll repent of your sins. You will be a different man, God will save your soul, and you'll spend eternity with Him in heaven." Tell me how it goes.

Now, of course, that's a dramatic, exaggerated way of doing it. But put a Bible on your desk. Put a scripture in your email signature. Talk to somebody about the love of God. Give them a gift. When they're talking about their partying in the break room, and they ask what you did this weekend, tell them, "I went to church." Tell me how it goes.

That's why relationships and love are the key bridge for the gospel. Very rarely will you stand up on a soapbox and scream at people and they'll receive you. But when you do life with people day in and day out, when you make room for them as who they are and their upbringing and you begin to show them how much you love them, they begin to care why you love them.

So doesn't it make sense that the current environment in our world today is designed to take away love from Christians and make so many Christians today angry and frustrated? It is an ugly scene. And we must be careful.

The early church was alive, empowered, and led by the Holy Spirit. Many years ago, A.W. Tozer—he's a great author by the way, read anything by him—commented as he was describing the early church in the book of Acts. He said this and I quote, "If the Holy Spirit were taken away from the early church, ninety percent of what they did would come to a halt." That's how close they were with the Spirit. If the Spirit left the church, they would stop; they wouldn't know what to do. They were led and empowered by the Spirit.

Today, if the Holy Spirit left the church, ninety percent of what churches are doing would keep on going because they wouldn't even notice that the Spirit of God has exited the building, because they're caught up in things that are not from the Lord. It's a powerful statement.

There's another extreme in our modern day that's very important that we consider: cursing the darkness. The church today seems to think its role is to identify every sin and sinful person and vilify them, call them names, or murmur and complain about them and the dark world in which we live.

It seems like that's what the church has become experts in. No wonder the antagonism of the world has notched up toward the church. Not only are we now identifying every sin and vocally vilifying and name-calling and just getting caught up in it all because we disagree. It's not the disagreement that's wrong; it's how we handle the disagreement.

I think in our culture at large, we've just lost the ability to disagree agreeably. We've lost the ability to disagree with love and mercy and just accept that other people see the world differently than we do. We need to ask for the Lord to show us how we might reach them, how we might help them, and how we might serve them. Today, no longer is the church known for its love, but for its ability to condemn everything they disagree with.

I know it was Pastor Miles McPherson in his book *The Third Option*—another great resource—where he was sharing with us that there is this trend to call people names or to label people. When we call someone a name and we label them, we dehumanize them. We forget they're created in the image of God. And when you forget someone is created in the image of God, you don't treat them like that anymore.

It's easy to label them, and that way you don't have to call them your neighbor. When they're your neighbor, that triggers a teaching that Jesus gave us: to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves.

The church just seems to be going on their business, making sure that everybody knows how bad the world is and how bad people are. Personal opinions and personal convictions have replaced the loving Word of God administered to hurting and lost people.

There's this quote that was floating around my mind. I looked up the original and the original is much better than anything I've ever quoted before. In 1907, a pastor by the name of William Watkinson said this in one of his messages and I quote: "Denunciatory rhetoric is so much easier and cheaper than good works and proves a popular temptation. Yet, it is a far better thing to light the candle than to curse the darkness."

Denunciatory rhetoric. Wow. In 1907, he prophesied about social media right there. It's so much easier and cheaper than good works. You go, "But Ed, what happens if I don't share my opinion?" This is what happens: you pray. You ask God for wisdom on how to navigate in your world.

"Yeah, but Ed, what about tomorrow? What about next year? What about the future?" Here's what you do: you trust an unknown future to a well-known God. You trust Him with your life. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I'll tell you what—today I've got enough concerns to keep me busy seeking the Lord for my life. And when tomorrow comes, if I've created a habit of seeking Him today, tomorrow becomes "today." And now you have another day to trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

Guest (Male): Well, we're just getting our feet wet here in Acts; much more to come in the weeks ahead. So plan to join us each day for Abounding Grace. Pastor Ed Taylor's first message in the series, Authentic Jesus Loving Life, can be heard again at aboundinggraceradio.com or through the Calvary Church app.

At Abounding Grace, we're committed to bringing the truths of God's Word to the radio and internet every day, but we can't do it alone. We look to the Lord and our listeners to help us provide these daily studies. And today, when you give a donation of $25 or more, we'll send you *Just Do Something* by Kevin DeYoung.

Has this thought ever crossed your mind? "Why won't God reveal His special will for my life already?" Kevin DeYoung would answer, "Because He doesn't intend to." With pastoral wisdom, he debunks unbiblical ways of understanding God's will and points to a wonderful and biblical alternative: live like Christ. He also exposes the frustrations of our waiting games and underscores the freedom of finding God's will in scripture and then simply doing it.

Request a copy right now by calling us at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also order it online at calvaryco.store. Then join us next time when we'll have another great study in the Word from Pastor Ed Taylor here on Abounding Grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.