Dwelling Place

Al Pittman: It’s like the Lord saying to me that when you start using your tool on my church to perfect it in your flesh, Al, you have profaned it. That tool could be to set aside prayer. We're not going to do prayer; we're just going to do a new thing over here. Or we're not going to be in the Word; we're going to take the main issues of our society and talk about them. Don’t set aside His Word. Don’t set aside the brazen altar that God accepts the sacrifice on for something new. Keep the same altar. Keep His Word. Keep His truth.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to the Dwelling Place, a radio ministry from Pastor Al Pittman of Al Pittman Ministries. The purpose of this radio program is to encourage you, strengthen your walk with the Lord, and grow. To support this ministry financially or learn more about the ministry, visit us online at alpittmanministries.com. That’s alpittmanministries.com. Your donations keep this radio ministry going. Thank you for partnering with us. Now, here is Pastor Al.

Al Pittman: This is how the enemy can get in and get you to stop following the Spirit, being guided by the Spirit, because now we’re not looking at the Spirit. We’re looking at someone else’s ministry, and we’re trying to mimic what we see on the outside, or someone else’s ministry or work that God is doing in someone else’s church. You can’t do that. What does the Lord want to do in your life? What does the Lord want to do in your church? That’s what we need to be focused on.

God showed me this early on when I first came to Colorado Springs and was starting to pastor the church. God took me here. I think it was before I even came to town. He just warned me. He said, “Don’t you get up there and start comparing yourself. You focus on what it is that I’ve called you to do.”

That’s for every believer that is here. What is God calling you to do? We had a call on the radio the other day. A guy was talking about how more pastors need to speak more about the end times and what’s happening in Israel. One part of the exhortation that we gave him was, “Are you doing everything God called you to do?”

It’s the old thing of Jesus speaking to Peter, and Peter seeing John following him and saying, “Well, what about that disciple?” Jesus said to Peter, “Don’t you worry about him. If I want him to live forever, that’s up to me. You follow me.” The question is, am I continually following the Lord? Am I following His guidance? Is Pastor Ed following His guidance? That’s none of your business. Is Pastor Al following? Are you following the Lord?

If more of us would do that and stop comparing ourselves to other people, I think we’d get a lot more done for God. God always starts at your house. Even when there are times I’ve got on my knees and prayed and was complaining to the Lord, maybe about my wife or something. That’s what prayer is a lot of the time; we’re just complaining. God looks at you and goes, “Are you finished?”

I’m complaining, but God never says, “Al, you’re right. Let’s do something about Norma. I’ve been waiting for you to see this, Al. We really need to straighten her out. Come on, let’s go get her.” He never does that. God says, “Are you finished? Well, yeah, Lord, but what about you?” God always starts with you.

Judgment begins in the house of God. I know we like to say judgment begins in the church, but guess who else is the house of God? You are. You’re the temple of God, and He starts with you. We’re waiting for Him to clean everyone else up, but God says, “What about you?”

Comparing ourselves to one another is not wise. Second Corinthians chapter 10, verse 12 says, “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.” Do you get that? Don’t we do that sometimes where we’re comparing ourselves among ourselves and we’re the standard? No. Jesus Christ is always the standard. He alone.

Paul says, “We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us, a sphere which especially includes you. For we are not overextending ourselves as though our authority did not extend to you, for it was to you that we came with the gospel of Christ, not boasting of things beyond measure, that is, in other men’s labors, but having hope that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in our sphere.”

What is he saying there? He’s saying, “Listen, I’m not boasting beyond what God is doing in my life. If I got 20 people coming, I got 20 people coming. Praise the Lord.” If we got 2,000, it doesn’t matter. What has God done? We love to boast beyond. We like to inflate numbers, especially pastors. “How many you got coming?” “Well, I got about 500.” He’s counting people twice on Wednesday, and so forth.

Don’t boast beyond measure. One of the liberating things in your life as a believer is knowing what you can’t do. You can’t do what everybody else does. This is what God’s doing in me. I’m not that person across town. I’m not as elegant as somebody else or articulate as someone else. I’m just who I am, and you can only be the best you that you can be in Christ.

I'm telling these guys here, don’t boast beyond measure. God spoke to my heart when I came to pastor the church up there. He said, “I gave you these people. I gave you this area, this field to labor in. This is where you are to labor. Don’t be running around trying to boast in somebody else’s work and all of that, or trying to be like somebody else. You be what I’ve called you to be, everything I’ve called you to be, and do not boast beyond measure.”

That was liberating for me. I didn’t have to go out trying to be a pastor celebrity or anything else, or act like I’m the Bible answer man. No. Just simply be who you are. It’s liberating. So, this is the way the enemy can get in and cause you to stop following the Lord, by comparing yourself to one another.

The second way that he can get in and keep you from following the Lord is through compromise. Compromise, because we want the thing to grow, and we want the ministry to grow, and we want this and we want that. We went to that church, and they had this and they had that. We’ve got to get that too if we really want to be spiritual. So we start compromising and cutting corners, not inquiring of the Lord. We need to be careful.

An example of that compromise is found in Second Kings chapter 16. There we have the story of wicked King Ahaz. This dude was off the chain wicked. He goes up to Damascus in verse 10. He meets with Tiglath-Pileser, the king of Assyria, and he sees an altar up there. He loves that altar. “I want an altar just like that.” He sends back to Urijah the priest the dimensions for the altar, and Urijah the priest builds this altar for him, the same kind of altar that he saw up in Damascus.

When the king came back from Damascus, the king saw the altar and the king approached the altar and made offerings on it. He burned his burnt offering and his grain offering, and he poured his drink offering and sprinkled the blood of his peace offering on the altar. He also brought the bronze altar which was before the Lord from the front of the temple. He moved it for the new altar.

It says here that he brought the bronze altar, which was before the Lord from the front of the temple, from between the new altar and the house of the Lord, and put it to the north side of the new altar. It’s like, “I got the new altar, but I got the old altar too.” But you can’t mix light and darkness, and you can’t mix the wisdom of man with the wisdom of God. He’s trying to do both.

King Ahaz commanded Urijah the priest, saying, “On the great new altar, burn the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt sacrifice and his grain offering, with the burnt offering of all the people of the land, their grain offering, and their drink offerings, and sprinkle on it all the blood of the burnt offering and all the blood of the sacrifice. And the bronze altar shall be for me to inquire by.” This guy, it didn’t end well with Ahaz. But the point is that he brought a new altar in.

He said we need to set aside the altar of God, or we'll have them both in tandem. “I'll inquire of God on the brazen altar, but we want all the offerings to be offered by the people on the new altar.” Basically, they were doing everything right, but they were giving their offerings to the Lord on the wrong altar. It’s the same thing in Christ, that God is not going to accept any offering unless it is in Christ for His glory. No matter how nice the new altar looks or how appealing it is to the flesh, God will not accept it.

We must be careful that we are not compromising, that we’re not setting Jesus aside, and we're not setting aside the Word of God for the new thing. I love what the Lord said in Exodus chapter 20, verse 25 to Moses. He ordered Moses to build an altar, and He said, “And if you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.”

Wow. It’s like the Lord saying to me that when you start using your tool on my church to perfect it in your flesh, Al, you have profaned it. That tool could be to set aside prayer. We're not going to do prayer; we're just going to do a new thing over here. Or we're not going to be in the Word; we're going to take the main issues of our society and talk about them. Don’t set aside His Word. Don’t set aside the brazen altar that God accepts the sacrifice on for something new. Keep the same altar. Keep His Word. Keep His truth. Stand by it.

Don't set it apart. I know I’m talking to a lot of you here that you get this, but there’s a lot of people in the church today who do not. They have erected new altars and they’re saying, “Here, O people of God, is where you ought to offer your sacrifices.” That is compromise and should be avoided. Sometimes as I think about God’s word to Moses, He said, “If you build me an altar, don’t use any hewn stone, don’t put your tool to it, don’t try to make it really pretty. Use the natural stones that come out of the ground that God had made and erect those stones.” It kind of reminds me of the church, that a lot of times there are people around; we are living stones, right?

The Bible says we are living stones, and sometimes pastors and senior pastors are guilty of this more than anybody else. We like to get our tools out and hew those stones into our likeness rather than God’s likeness. God sometimes just wants the people in your church to remain in their rough, crude condition, and He will use them in their rough, crude condition to build His house. I don’t know how He does it, but the reason He does it and leaves them in their rough, crude condition is we want to hew them because if we can hew them and fashion them in the way I want them to be, then things would go the way I want them to go, and I would have more peace.

But God says, “No, I don’t want you banging on those stones or putting a chisel to that brother or that sister, trying to hew them in the way what you want them to be because I’m using them to make you what you ought to be.” So you’re complaining about that rough stone in your church, and God brought you that rough stone. How come they don’t go to somebody else’s church? But God brought them to your church so that He might make you what you ought to be and build a house that brings Him glory, not you glory. So put your tools back in the box and let God build the church His way, not your way, lest we compromise and we profane the work of God.

Now, here are two ways in which I believe we can finish in the Spirit. One is to habitually make the best choice. Choosing in your life to take time, to make time to be in the Lord’s presence will enable you to begin and to end in the Spirit. I’m talking about prayer, time to spend in God’s presence. I know we’re all busy, but we must make time. I cannot afford to not pray. I must seek the face of the Lord. I must spend time in His presence, lest we begin to rely upon our talent, our charisma, our methodology, or even our education rather than the revelation and the illumination of the Holy Spirit in regards to Christ.

If I want the revelation and illumination, the power of God manifested through my ministry, I’ve got to spend time with God. There is no other way around this. As a disciple, it’s not just for leaders in the church; it’s for every believer to spend time with the Lord. You know the story of Martha and Mary, where Martha was upset with Mary because Mary was not helping her serve. Luke chapter 10, verses 41 to 42 says, “And Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.’”

If you don’t know the good part, if Jesus Christ is not the desire of your heart, if being in His presence is not what really gets your motor going, floats your boat, or turns you on, you’re going to get in trouble. He is the good part. You know why? Because people in your churches will come and go, and too many times we as Christians allow people to leave with our joy, to leave with the good part. But I’ve learned over the years that God has called us as leaders in the church to be holy mailmen or mailwomen, just delivering the mail. “Thus saith the Lord.” That’s what I do in my church; I just deliver the mail.

He’s also called us to be holy bus drivers. I had a pastor tell me this one time. He said, “You know what? I’m just the bus driver. Some people get on the bus; some people get off. But I keep driving the bus.” I love that. Because when you put your good part in the attendance, your good part in that brother or that sister, your good part in people’s accolades—be careful of that because people come up one Sunday and say, “Great message, Pastor Al!” Then you start thinking, “I’m kind of hot stuff.” Then the next Sunday, they just walk by and go, “See you later.” No accolades. Now you’re all bummed out because your good part was in the appeasement or the praise of men, not in the Lord.

That part cannot be taken away from you. Whoever comes, whoever goes, whoever rejects you, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to obey God because that good part that He’s given to me, that power that I need to live for Him, the joy of the Holy Spirit, that good part you can’t touch because I take time to be in His presence. Get in His presence. Get the good part, or you’ll be looking in other places for the good part and you’ll never find it. It’ll always be temporary, and people will always let you down. Remember that scripture tells us in Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.” Where is your trust? It’s in the Lord. He will never let you down.

Here is the second way in which I believe we can finish in the Spirit, and that is to remember you don’t have to fix it. I love that. You don’t have to fix it. That is liberating for me. I’ve learned that every problem in the church and problem people in the church, I don’t have to fix anybody. I just pray with them, I minister to them, but I don’t have to fix you. You ever been in a counseling session where people have been living that way for 30 years and now they want you in a half an hour to fix their life? You’re spitting out all the scriptures you can. I learned a long time ago I don’t have to fix you. I’m just going to send you to Jesus.

You don’t have to fix the church. Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against my church. He builds the church. Abraham and Sarah tried to fix it; they got Ishmael. David tried to fix the situation with Bathsheba; he was exposed and his child died. Joab tried to fix David’s situation with Absalom, bringing him back to his father way too soon. Absalom still had a rebellious spirit and rebelled against his dad and tried to take over the kingdom. David, and this is where many of us go sometimes, tried to fix the Lord. He rebuked Him. He said, “Get behind me, Satan! You’re an offense to me.”

Guest (Male): Learn more about Pastor Al and his ministry by visiting alpittmanministries.com. Also, consider supporting us financially. You can send a tax-deductible gift to Al Pittman Ministries at PO Box 50584, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80949, or visit us online. Thank you for your prayers and your support. Your generosity keeps this radio ministry going. Lastly, we would love to hear from you. You can contact us by email at info@alpittmanministries.com. That’s info@alpittmanministries.com. We look forward to hearing from you. Again, thank you for joining us, and we’ll see you next time on the Dwelling Place. God bless.

Have you been wanting to hear Pastor Al teach live? Well, now is your chance. Join Pastor Al at Legacy of Faith Church in Denver, Colorado on Palm Sunday, March 29th. There, Pastor Al will be teaching a dynamic Palm Sunday message that you don’t want to miss. Doors open at 9:15 AM. Service begins at 10:30 AM. Head to legacyoffaithchurch.com to get directions or get more information. That’s legacyoffaithchurch.com. We’ll see you there.