Eagle Heights Cathedral

Bishop James E. Collins: I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 7. We're going to start at verse 13. Matthew 7:13. I am loving this. I'm seeing real Bibles. I like that. Nothing against you going on your telephone. If you want to go on your telephone, go ahead. But I like to hear that paper rattle.

There is the story that is told of a gymnast who was out of work. He was reading the newspaper and he read that the gorilla in a local zoo had died. He went to the zoo and he said, "I hear your gorilla has died." He said, "I know you probably are planning to get another one, but I have an idea. Give me a gorilla suit. I am a gymnast so I can do all kinds of moves. I'll make the people think that I'm the gorilla. I'll have a job and you'll have a gorilla. If this arrangement works out, then you can keep me on."

Well, they didn't have anything else to lose, so they gave him an authentic gorilla outfit. He practiced a bit, making some gorilla sounds, and then he got in the cage. Everyone thought he was real. People kept showing up until the crowd had grown very large. Next to his cage was a lion's cage. There was a rope hanging down in the gorilla's cage and so he said to himself, "I'll start swinging on the rope and dazzle the crowd with my moves. They'll really get riled up when they see me swinging over the lion's cage."

He started swinging. The people did get excited as they watched him swing over the lion's cage and back. The zoo loved him and kept him on as the fake gorilla. One day he swung over the lion's cage and the rope broke. He fell down and he found himself looking straight into the mouth of the lion. Out of fear, he forgot his role as the gorilla and he yelled out, "Help!" Immediately after his scream for help, he heard a female voice say, "Shut up, or you're going to get us both fired."

I tell you that story to tell you that both of them were playing roles that were not authentic. They had the people fooled until something revealed their inauthenticity. There's something going on in the body of Christ that is of like proportion today, church. It has come to the body of Christ. It has been accepted in the body of Christ, though it is not authentic. It carries the terminology "Cultural Christianity." As we proceed in this thing about learning that it must be kingdom over culture, that's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about Cultural Christianity.

Let's read the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:13-23. I'm going to read it from what is known as the Easy Read version, but you'll be able to stay with me. "Go in through the narrow gate to get true life with God. There is a wide gate that is easy to go through. The wide path is easy to travel on. Many people find that wide gate, but it is the way that goes to God's final judgment. It is difficult to go through the small gate and it is difficult to walk on the narrow road, but when you do go that way, you will get true life. Not many people find the narrow gate."

"Some people say that they are prophets from God, but their words are false. They seem to be like sheep that are not dangerous, but they are really like hungry wild dogs. What they teach will hurt you. You will know these people by the way they live. The things that they do are like their fruit. Grapes do not grow on thorn bushes. Figs do not grow on weeds. Good fruit grows on a tree that is good. Bad fruit grows on a tree that is not good. A good tree cannot make bad fruit. A bad tree cannot make good fruit."

"A farmer will cut down any tree that does not make good fruit. He will burn it on a fire. In the same way, look at the way people live, then you will know what they are really like. Some people say to me, 'Master, Master, Lord, Lord,' but not all of them will come into the kingdom of heaven. Only the people who obey God my Father in heaven will come in. They do what He wants them to do."

"On the day when God judges people, many of them will say, 'Master, Master, we used your authority and we spoke a message from you. We used your authority and we sent bad spirits out of people. We used your authority to do many powerful things.' But I will say to these people, 'I never knew you. You are wicked people who do not obey God. So go away from me, you that work iniquity.'"

Father, I thank you for the powerful, powerful word of God. I thank you that in your word is the comprehensive life of God. And so Lord, today I ask that you would help all of us, even me as I deliver the word, that we might embrace your word, Lord, with full, full God comprehension. We might embrace it, Lord, as the living word of God and it will change our lives. I thank you in advance for ears that hear, eyes that see, hearts and a desire to draw near my God to thee, for this I pray in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. You may be seated in the presence of the Lord.

There is a famous scientist and atheist by the name of Richard Dawkins. He refers to himself as a Cultural Christian because he admires some of the ceremonial and philanthropic aspects of Christianity. Here is why this little bit of information is of great importance to you. To claim to be a Christian is no longer something that sets the church apart. Depending on which poll you look at, 69 to 75% of Americans identify as Christians. And it is becoming very popular to call oneself a true Christian while attaching to it literally Christians calling themselves Cultural Christians.

Which is why even an atheist can stake his small territorial claim to Christianity. Because Cultural Christianity has become so popular, and listen closely, it is not mainly through intent, but rather because the understanding of what it truly means to be a Christian has been so watered down that there are those who truly believe that you can be a Cultural Christian and live in that mindset and be pleasing and acceptable to God as a Christian.

But what they don't understand is that their kind of Christianity goes against the word of God. These are the people who look at true Christians and they say the problem with them is that they go way too far in this God thing. And they really believe that one day they will hear Jesus say, "Well done, thy good and faithful servant." But we read where Jesus tells us something totally different.

That on the day when God judges many people, He will say to many people, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and in your name cast out devils?" And He will say, "I never knew you. Go away from me, you workers of iniquity." What Jesus is telling us today, church, is that there will come a day when it will be shown that those who lived their lives as those who were of the kingdom of God versus those who never even were in the kingdom of God.

Now I want you to listen to me, church. There was a day when being a Christian was a title of consequence. Being called a Christian carried weight, respect, and accountability. Jesus did not even give people the title of Christian. The word Christian, church, is only mentioned in the Bible three times. It was not coined by the followers of Jesus Christ, but rather by those who sought to mock those who truly followed Christ wholeheartedly.

In fact, they referred to them as little Christs. And when you were given that label, it meant something of great import. It meant that when people saw those people with Christ, they did not call them Christians because they were walking beside Christ. They called them Christians because they walked like Him, they talked like Him, they emulated Him in word and in deed. And back in those days, Christians had great influence on the culture.

So much so that Christianity was made legal in Rome by Emperor Constantine the Great in the Edict of Milan, 313 AD, which granted religious toleration to Christians and allowed them to worship freely. But I want to express to you today, church, that something has happened down through the generations of church history. Instead of the church influencing culture, the culture of the world, watch what has happened, worldly culture begins to influence the culture of the church more and more.

This is not happening as simple as I make it sound, but here is the point. It happens so subtly that we find ourselves at the place where it is of little significance to call yourself a Christian today because in the day and age in which we live, the line between compromise and holiness in the body of Christ is so nonexistent that anybody can claim to be a Christian.

The distinguishing factors between the church and the world, many of them have disappeared. And I will submit to you this morning without equivocation nor apology that there is a generation of people in the body of Christ that are not truly Christians, but merely dangerously living as Cultural Christians. I also submit that there are also generations of church people who love Jesus and yet their lives reflect Cultural Christianity. And they would go to the wall and war against you if you told them they were not Christians.

So let's look at some of the facts concerning Cultural Christianity. Number one, Cultural Christianity is based on superficiality rather than spirituality. It is based on superficiality rather than spirituality. The Cultural Christian likes to link himself to Christianity without truly living out the things that prove their faith in God. They are driven by a greater desire for the things that fulfill the flesh over the things of the spirit.

They are the Christians that have one foot lightly planted in the church and a heavy foot planted in the world. Romans 8:5 says this of them: "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit." Secondly, Cultural Christianity is defined by label rather than lifestyle. By label rather than lifestyle. The Cultural Christian is a minimal believer who wears the label of Christianity, but as Jesus said in Matthew, all you have to do is really be honest and examine the fruit of the tree and it will tell you the story.

In Titus 1:15, in fact, let me just start at 1:15, our key verse is 16, but let me start at 15. "If someone is clean and good inside, everything is clean and good for them to enjoy. But if someone is not a believer and has an unclean mind, nothing is clean or good to that person. Their minds no longer think properly. They no longer feel guilty when they do something wrong. People like that say that they know God, but they do disgusting things. This shows that they do not know Him. They are completely bad, they refuse to obey God, they are not able to do anything good."

Now when I read that scripture, it reminds me of a day when I was growing up as a young man. Back in the day, it was a big deal to have what was known as a jacket that was a Members Only jacket. Now they have come back. It's a beautiful jacket. My oldest daughter, I think, was the one who bought me one for Christmas and I can't wait to wear it. But let me tell you about back in the day when there was the Members Only jacket.

When the Members Only jacket came out, only people who had money could really afford them. And then they had a leather version of that jacket. So K-Mart got smart. K-Mart decided, we're going to have our version of the Members Only jacket. Even when they made their version, I still could not afford one. But if you know anything about K-Mart, I don't know if they still do this today, but they would run what they called a Blue Light Special.

And so I would always go into K-Mart hoping that one day they would run a Blue Light Special and I'd be able to get my Members Only jacket. Well, praise the Lord, that day came. I got my Members Only jacket and I walked around thinking I was bad stuff. And this thing, it looked like leather. The problem was, it was actually pleather. It was not really leather. That is what Cultural Christians are like. They look like leather, but they're really pleather. They are more plastic than genuine.

Number three, Cultural Christianity is more prevalent than peculiar. It is more prevalent than peculiar. Matthew 7:13-14, listen to the words of Jesus again. "Go through the narrow gate to get true life with God. There is a wide gate that is easy to go through." Let me talk to you for a minute. It is easy to be a Cultural Christian. Why is it? Because there's a whole bunch of space because there's a whole bunch of people living on that plane.

"Many people find that wide gate, but it is the way that goes to God's final punishment. It is difficult to go through the small gate and it is difficult to walk on the narrow road. But when you go that way, you will get true life. Not many people find the narrow gate." Cultural Christians, church, listen to me, are more numerous in the body of Christ than I think we really understand.

And the fourth reason is one of the reasons why. Cultural Christianity is many times insidiously subtle. Insidiously subtle. Now pay attention to this one. There are many people who believe that they are Christians simply by association with an organization or birthright. John 3:3, Jesus answered and said unto him, "Truly, truly, I tell you this, unless a person is born from above, born again, they cannot see the kingdom of God."

Nicodemus comes to Jesus. He says, "Lord, now I heard about this thing called eternal life. I want you to tell me how I can achieve that." Jesus says, "You must be born again." Now notice, put the emphasis on the word "you." Stay with me now. You ask people today if they are Christians, if they are born again, if they have repented of their sins and asked Jesus in their heart and life. And many of them, the first thing out of their mouth is, "I'm Catholic. I'm Protestant. I was born in a Christian home. Oh, my daddy is a preacher." Stay with me.

When we moved into our home several years ago, we were the first people who actually moved into a house that was purchased up there. When one of our new neighbors moved in, I went across the street to introduce myself to him. He began to tell me what he did for a living and I proceeded to tell him what I did. And he said, "Well, we need more people like you because the world needs more love."

I said, "Oh, yes, we do." And I said, "Oh, by the way, why don't you come and check out our church?" Before I got the words "come," he said to me, "I'm Catholic." Now we're friendly. We still talk from time to time, but that subject is off-limits. Because when he said, "I'm Catholic," I wanted him to know so badly, but that's not the question. My question is, are you born again? Are you a Christian?

I wanted so desperately to tell him, your church is not your savior. Your statues, your rosary beads, your organization will not save you. Now listen to me lest some of you get offended and think I'm picking on a religion. I grew up in a church in a time when many believed that if you one day walked up to the altar, got hands laid on you, you started dancing and shouting, the Holy Ghost would hit you, you were saved.

Then if you fell on the floor, got up and cried briny tears like a baby, you definitely got saved. Then when you got really saved, you started wearing a gold-plated necklace cross around your neck. You got a three-piece suit and pointed-toed shoes. And if you came back the next Sunday and you shouted the next week, but this time you broke into a Holy Ghost dance. You danced yourself into a lather that was so heavy that your gold-plated cross hit you in the head and almost knocked you out. Now you're saved.

There was a man in my father's church who wanted to marry a certain woman. It was back in the days when there was a hollow thing between the floor and the ground. And he said, "I want to marry this woman," and he started dancing and shouting and praising the Lord and everybody said, "He's got it!" He danced so hard, he put a hole and fell through the floor. They said, "He's got it!" He married that woman and he spent the few years before she divorced him beating the daylights out of her.

Listen to me, church. It was in that day, every time you came to the altar, it was assumed you were saved. We have many in the church, not only from my day and my generation, but also from this generation and the generations in between, who are nothing more than Cultural Christians because they were led to believe or chose to believe that salvation can be received by a connection to an organization or a birthright.

I am convinced that this is one of the major reasons why we have so much difficulty discipling many people, because they first need to be evangelized. They need to be saved out of the belief that they are right with God because of affiliation or because of birthright or because they came out of their mother's womb while they were sitting in the third row of the cathedral.

These are Cultural Christians who have no idea that they too are lost. And if they die, they will die without Christ in their life. Let me tell you what I've seen. The most difficult people to point to Jesus are the ones who grew up in church being taught that religion rather than Jesus and repenting of your sins is the way to be born again.

Now here's the biblical truth. You may be sitting here today listening to me and have been in church all the days of your life, be in church from the womb to the tomb, spend all your life on earth living as a Cultural Christian, and you will die and go to an eternity called hell. Because salvation is based upon one thing and only one thing. Listen carefully.

Lady Brenda and I had a group that I had started in Bible college. We traveled all over singing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We were in some of the biggest convention halls during youth conventions. And one of the guys that played bass for me, his wife was born into a Christian pastor's home. And one night we were talking about what it takes to become a Christian. And she looked me in the eyes, she did not break her gaze, and she looked me straight in the eyes and she didn't lose focus.

And she said, "I want you to understand something. I don't need to be born again. I was saved when I came into my mother's womb. I have always been a Christian." Watch now. Jesus said, "Unless you are born again, you can't even see the kingdom of God." So many need to hear this. Salvation has nothing to do with your church affiliation. Salvation has nothing to do with your parents' relationship with Jesus.

I'm so thankful that old Father Willie Collins, who will be 94, Lord willing, on March 20, had the nerve to tell his six kids, "If you want to see Jesus, our salvation has nothing to do with you. You've got to get to know Jesus for yourself. You've got to turn your heart and your life over to Jesus." And he would say, "I love you children, but you'll burn in hell if you don't give your life to Jesus." Now hold on, because I want you to be happy. I'm going to talk about hell before this is over.

Too many people do not realize their parents' connection, their religious connection, the church affiliation will not save their souls, but this next thing will. Number five, Cultural Christianity is not true Christianity. Romans 10:9-10, "That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

That is what salvation is based upon. When you stand before the Lord, let me tell you, some people are going to be totally shocked because they're going to stand before God and they're going to be waiting for the question and it's not going to come. He is not going to ask them, "Did you attend Eagle Heights Cathedral? Did you, were you a member of a Catholic church? Did you have your rosary beads? Did you go to a Pentecostal church where they believe in speaking in tongues?"

Listen to me. We take this too lightly in the church today. There will come a day when the only thing that will matter is did you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and did you live in such a way to bring glory and honor and praise to His name, or did you buy the lie of Cultural Christianity? Now let me touch just where the church doesn't get touched much anymore.

What happens to people when they die without Christ? They go to hell. There is no respectable way to say it. They go to H-E-double-hockey-sticks. How long? Forever. And there is always somebody who will pop up and say, "Well, hold on a minute, Bishop. I'm not sure I believe in this hell thing." Listen carefully. This is one chance that may not be worth taking.

While there are certainly things you can afford to make a mistake on in this life, this is not one of them. If a man doesn't have food, it's a bad thing, but he can recover from that. If a man doesn't live in a good house, that's a bad thing, but he can recover from that. If a man can't afford the best clothing, it's bad, but that he can recover from. If he doesn't have the job he prefers, it may be bad, but he can recover from that.

If a man has to walk because he can't afford a car, it's a bad thing, but he can recover from that. No matter how bad your finances are, you can recover from that. But if a man dies without a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and wakes up in hell, that's a blow he can never recover from. So I want you to take your Bibles, turn to Luke 16. Luke 16.

We're going to walk today. I want to talk about a subject that we don't hear many sermons on. This is not me preaching, this is Jesus. And we don't like to hear it because it strikes a spiritual nerve. It's the story about the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man had everything he needed as pertains to life. Luke 16:19-20, "There was a certain man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus full of sores, who was laid at his gate desiring to to be fed from the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores."

Now watch what happens. The day comes when the beggar dies and verse 22 says he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. Abraham's bosom in the Greek is the word "Kolpos." It conveys that sense that Lazarus, who could have no peace and no comfort on this earth, went to a place of rest, contentment, and peace and consolation. Verse 22 says the rich man also died and was buried. Don't miss verse 23. "And being in torments in Hades," that is the word hell, "he lifted up his eyes and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom."

Now church, I want you to follow what's going on here. Now everybody say, "This ain't Bishop talking. This is Jesus." All right, now that's good. Watch now. Lazarus goes to the place where he is consoled. The rich man finds himself in torment with no one to help, assist, or console him. Now don't turn off the Holy Spirit. When the rich man sees Lazarus, watch now, the man who he wouldn't even give the crumbs off of his table, when he sees Lazarus and he's over there in Abraham's bosom, verse 24 through 28.

"Then he cried and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in the flame.'" Everybody look at me. What good is water from the tip of a finger? Do you real, really, really realize how devastatingly hot for eternity hell is? If I've just got done running seven miles, I don't want you to dip your finger in water. I want you to get me two bottles of water so I can guzzle.

Watch now. Contrary to many in this contemporary church age we live in, listen to me. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And He taught in this book, the one He said the words will not pass away, they will last forever. We call it the Bible. That there is a real heaven and a real hell. Stay with me because this is not bad news to everybody, unless you are Cultural Christian.

Verse 25. "But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and likewise Lazarus evil things, but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this,'" watch this, watch this church, "'between all this between us and and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.'"

Now I want you to stop there just for a moment. Watch this now. From this passage, Jesus is teaching. The people in Abraham's bosom, they are looking over there and they're seeing people that are tormented in hell, some of them their loved ones who refused God. And so what they want to do, they want to rescue them from their torment. But the Bible says even though they rejected Christ, even if you wanted to go there, if they wanted to get to you, they cannot.

There is what we see, church, the reality that the right and only time to get right with God is while a person has breath and blood flowing through their living body. Verse 27, then he said, "Okay, I beg you therefore, Father, that you would send him to my father's house for I have five brothers that he may testify to them lest they also come to this place of torment." Please don't miss the rest of Jesus' teaching, verse 29. "Abraham say, said to him, 'They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.'"

He said, "No, Father Abraham, but if he goes to them from the dead, they will repent." Listen now, but he said to him, "If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead that they know." Luke 12:4-5, Jesus said these words: "And I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him whom after He has killed, He has the power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him."

Who is Jesus talking about? He is talking about the Great Creator. Now let me say two things. Number one, physical death is the separation of our body from our soul, that spirit, soul part of us. While spiritual death is the separation of our soul from God. And before Jesus comes to live in your heart and in your life, don't miss this. You and I were born once to die twice. You are born to die a physical death as well as a spiritual death, which is separation from God.

And the one who dies the second death will lift up his or her eyes in hell. But you, child of God, have nothing to fear. When you die the first death, the second death cannot touch you. For I remind you again today, Colossians 3:3 says, "Your life is hidden in Christ." Now stay with me. So if you are not a Cultural Christian, you shouldn't be mad at me to this point.

Watch now. But what it should do is the fact that hell is real should shake you. Here's why. Number two, the reality of heaven and hell should cause a desire in us to reach our family, our friends, and everyone possible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Because as dull as it may be to some, John 3:16 is still true: "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

Listen to me, church. You read on, that Bible says that God did not come to condemn the world. He did not come to destroy the world. He so loved the world that He gives us a choice. When my brother came here and I prayed so hard that he would come here and he got saved, it wasn't so I could have another notch on my lapel when I stand before God. It's because I believe the word of God, every word of it.

And I knew that without God and without Jesus in his heart, I would be that one one day standing on the other side looking over the abyss. And Jesus would have to wipe the tears from my eyes because my brother would not be with me in eternity. See, we don't have an urgency about that anymore because the church does not believe that heaven and hell are real. But I'm telling you they are. And we need to reach and save as many as we can.

God give us a heart for lost people. We're so busy being taught how to get blessed and I want us to be blessed. But we don't understand, those blessings will fade away one day. But there's a time in eternity who will be saved because we had a heart of the kingdom. Amen!

So let me very quickly only give you today two characteristics of Cultural Christianity. In your outline, I put this quote. I was sitting and praying one day and thinking about this message and God said, here's the revelation I give you: Cultural Christians have no desire nor intention of living under Christ's kingdom rule and authority. That's why they love the things I'm going to tell you.

Let me also add this. It is possible to live like a Cultural Christian while claiming not to be one. Because I would venture to say there's a lot of us in this room who would look at me and say, "Well, you know, this is not going to touch me because I'm not a Cultural Christian." Let me say this. While this is the obvious pointing out of the obvious realities and dangers of the lie of Cultural Christianity, the Holy Spirit spoke something else to me.

He said, "Son, you need to remember that all of us are so amazingly imperfectly flawed that we must seek to live and be led by the Spirit lest we fall." 1 Corinthians 10:12: "So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall." So church, I want to encourage you that as I speak of Cultural Christianity, even when we desire to submit to the kingdom authority of Jesus Christ, we still need to examine our hearts and lives and we need to ask God, "God, is there some place, is there one, some place where I myself am living as a Cultural Christian? Show it to me."

Here's the first characteristic of Cultural Christianity. Number one, confusion concerning what it truly means to be spiritual. There is a tendency in those who claim Cultural Christianity to believe that religious rhetoric and spirituality are the one and the same. They do not grasp, and I need you to grasp this, church, that to be truly spiritual means to have as a goal to be like Jesus.

That the driving force in the heart and the life of those who are of the kingdom is to mature in Christ, where every day we are allowing His holy precious Spirit to continually mold us and shape us so we continually begin to look like our Father. And church, listen to me and I'll come back to it. We need to understand that to look like Jesus is not something that is one and done.

As Tyrone McCreary states in "Not of this World," we need to mature to the place that where we allow Him to realign our thoughts, values, and lives with the reality of God's kingdom. What we're talking about today is full submission, a submission to His authority that is not just in allegiance in theory, but is about ownership in reality. And let me say it again, it does not happen with a one-shot deal. It is an ongoing, continuous submission.

That is why Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed." Pastor Lopez was praying and he used the word transform. The Bible says to be transformed, in other words, be changed from what you are to what you should be. "But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve God's will. His good pleasure, pleasing and perfect will."

Now watch what I'm about to say. So many people say, "Well, how can I know the will of God?" Get your mind transformed. Then you'll be able to test what is God's will and what's not. See, what Cultural Christian does not comprehend is that what should drive us is to live a life that produces consistently, that demonstrates consistently, the Father's good, pleasing, and perfect will. And it can be done. How can it be done? By the renewing of your mind.

What does it mean to renew? Re- means it was done, so go do it again. So it means to be made new over and over and over and over and over. Turn to somebody and say, "Continually." Now watch this. A butterfly prances from flower to flower, pausing and moving like believers who go from service to service. They don't really do anything, they just flutter. They're really good at looking pretty, dressed and colorful on any given Sunday. These people go to church to church and conference to conference, just fluttering.

Some Christians are like botanists who intently studies the flower, taking copious notes, writing down everything and observing all the idiosyncratic details of every kind of flower there is. Although this botanist may be an academic genius, he is totally unaffected by his notes. This person is like the Bible college student or the seminarian who can quote the Greek, the Hebrew, and the Edgar. He can break down the syntax of a sentence and go into grammatical construct of a verse, diagramming all the elements of the passage, but he walks away untransformed with all of his knowledge.

But then there's the bee. The bee is a little different. It goes into the flower and it takes out the nectar. The bee does more than the butterfly which just wants to flutter from place to place. Listen now. It does more than the botanist who just wants to get a good grade. The bee wants to partake in the nectar of the flower. It comes in empty, but it leaves full. And on its way out, it deposits something somewhere so that the pollination occurs and keeps life going.

You see, church, listen to the Holy Spirit. The Cultural Christian is either a butterfly Christian or a botanist Christian. Either fluttering from service to service not with the intention of maturing, but for the express intent of going to a service in order to feel good about having gone to church, or he or she is a botanist. They write down everything, fill in their head with religious rhetoric so by their overwhelming knowledge and speech and vocabulary, they sound spiritual.

But they are never transformed by that word, which is the true sign of spirituality. I want you to hear this. The true sign of spirituality is maturity. Here is the tragedy of the butterfly and botanist Cultural Christian. Now most of us in this room probably have ventured onto a treadmill. A treadmill is the equipment that serves to help a person walk at faster and faster paces, creating sweat as they attempt to burn more calories.

But one thing is for certain though: a treadmill has the ability to get a person moving fast without taking them anywhere. Now watch this. Cultural Christians do not understand that they are on a treadmill. Men and women run to and from church, to and from worship, to and from seminars, to and from classes, and to and from activities, only to discover that when it's all said and done, they are still stuck in the same place where they started.

Church, look at me. If you are not farther ahead this year already than you were in 2025, you're running on a treadmill. Watch now. Turn to your neighbor and say, "I'm not a butterfly, I'm not a botanist, but be a bee Christian." Watch this now. The bee Christian, the true disciples of Jesus Christ, receives the full truth of the word of God, even the truths that challenge them where they are missing the mark.

Because they know that Romans 12:2 is the only thing that really matters. Do not conform to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good and perfect will. Now I want to say something. When I get to number two, you're going to find out that because people don't operate in Romans 12:2, this is why some of them get trapped in this next one.

Characteristic number two: tolerating or even celebrating personal ongoing sin in self or others. Now Romans 1:28-32 and then Romans 2:3, I'm going to put them together. "Those people decided that they did not need to know anything about God, so God let their minds become spoiled. As a result, they do bad things that people ought not to do. They only think about wrong and bad things that they want to do. They want many things for themselves. They want to hurt people. They quarrel and fight with people. They are not honest or kind. They say silly things about other people."

"They tell lies about people. They hate God, they insult other people, they are proud and they say how important they are. They think of many ways to do bad things. They do not obey their parents. They do not understand what is right. They do not do what they promised to do. They do not love anyone and they are not kind to anyone. Now watch this. It goes on to say, these people understand God's message about what is right. They know people who do bad things like this deserve to die, but they still continue to do bad things."

Listen carefully. "They are happy when other people do bad things." In other words, though they know that God is a holy God and that the people that do these things, they are worthy of death, He goes on to say, "You not only do the same things, but it brings you pleasure when others do the same." Now, what he is saying is you encourage them in their sinful behavior because it brings you a sense of joy and release to continue performing your sinful acts.

I want to stop there for a moment. Cultural Christians have no problem encouraging others to sin because it gives them a sense of oneness and a freedom to live out their sinful ways. Now let me help us because we like going online listening to podcasts. We like listening to every voice that comes flying down the line. We don't discern. We don't check out their background. We don't find out what kind of life they live. We just hear something that sounds good and we go "Good."

I'm going to say something. Cultural Christians are created by cultural preachers. Cultural Christianity thrives off of worldly cultural teaching and preaching. It is fed, watch now, to the people from the sacred desk from which the gospel is preached. I want everybody to look at me for a moment. This right here is not just something that a man put together.

This is a sacred desk. Some of them are made of wood. I couldn't pick them up. But I'm picking this one up because I want you to look at it and I want you to see today, church, that this is not just a piece of fiberglass connected to some metal. It is a sacred desk. It holds more than our notes. And Romans 2:3 is what they miss, what we preachers miss when we don't preach this gospel. Romans 2:3: "And do you think, O man, that judges those who do such things and you do the same things, that you shall escape the judgment of God?"

Now there is a young man that I do like who has a podcast. His name is Ruslan. And he showed something on his podcast about a preacher who did Romans 2 and 3. And I want you to hear what I'm about to say because I want you to understand something. It is said that this pastor, I don't know this for a fact, but he pastors a church of about 9,000 somewhere either in DC or in the Midwest. And he is teaching this sermon on a Sunday morning and I went on and I listened to it because I didn't want anybody telling me something I didn't hear with my own ears.

And he's in the middle of this message and he prefaces what he's about to say next, which is totally antichrist, totally unbiblical, and heretical, with this. Listen to how it starts. "This is a bombshell. Tell your neighbor wake up, this is a bombshell. Okay, now, now, now, tell the person next to you pay attention. All right, I really want you to pay attention to this because I took time and sat there and typed what I heard with my own ears."

He says the Greek word for "fornication" in the Bible doesn't refer to premarital sex. When the Apostle Paul says "flee fornication" in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, he is not saying flee sex outside of marriage. The word translated "fornication" in the Bible is the Greek word "porneia," and that is true. Now stay with me. It appears about 24 times in the New Testament. The root word for the word porneia is the Greek word "pornos," true. Which means a harlot or a prostitute. Y'all following me?

The context of verse 18 begins in verse 13 in 1 Corinthians 6. Paul says the body is not meant for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Do you know that your bodies are a member of Christ? Therefore, should I take members of Christ and make them members of a whore? Then he says, "So what you should be asking me right now," listen now, "Why did the church change the meaning of fornication so that it became a system of exploitation in policing people's consensual sex choices?"

"That's what you ought to be asking. How in the world did Christianity go from critiquing sex trafficking and sexual exploitation to prohibiting premarital sex as a sign of your holiness?" Now stop right there. You ought to be concerned that he has taken this scripture and lumped it with sex trafficking and sexual exploitation. Now I want you to listen very closely, church, because you're going to see how demonically driven things can become when the one delivering the sermon is himself a Cultural Christian delivering a worldly cultural message.

This is why I say sin is insanity. He says even when Aquinas talked about reserving sex for marriage, you have got to understand that he was talking about teenagers. Because young girls then generally got married at the age of 13 and young men got married between the ages of 19 and 21. And they were married until death us do part until the age of 35 because life expectancy in the ancient world was 35.

There was no celebration of octogenarians in the Christian church 2,000 years ago. Are y'all following me? So the idea that the Bible is teaching people in their 30s and 40s and 50s and beyond that if you have sex, you are living in sin and going to hell when it was not even an ethical issue in the ancient world. I love what Ruslan said. "I don't think this dude understands a very practical side of this. You've just given 30s and 40s and 50-year-old singles the right to wild the hell out." Do you know what wild is?

Watch this now, because this is how cultural preachers seek to legitimize their own sin. Watch what I'm about to say. Many times they legitimize their own sin by being real nuanced with what they say. You know, it's okay for you to have sex outside of marriage because after all, you're probably going to get married. And I want you to pay attention to what I'm about to say. Ruslan makes this very vital statement. The issue with this is that now your 30s and 40s and 50s have permission to have unmarried sex, and what you preach in moderation, they are going to do in excess.

Church, look at me. How can we tell you 30s and 40s and 50s that it's okay to do what you do, but in the same breath, we condemn a Diddy? Are we hearing the Holy Spirit? This is why we need to know the word of God. The word porneia means that it covers any kind of sin and sex outside of marriage. Because God laid out that sex was to be within the framework of one man and one woman for one lifetime. Which is why Jesus said in Mark 10:9, "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder."

And then the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge." Let me talk to you. I am not anti-sex. I've got two daughters to prove it. The thing that set early Christians apart, watch now, was because they became monogamous. Because if you don't know church history and study your Bible, you don't know that before Christianity took over, you could do anything and everything you wanted sexually.

But it also gave women the protection not to simply be an object of men's sexual pleasure. Okay. So see a true man of God will tell his young men, your job is to cover a woman. Now I'm not hammering anybody who has had that sin in your life and you've repented and you're ahead of that. But I'm telling the upcoming, listen to me. As a true man of God that I desire to be, I'm telling you men, listen to me. Your job is to protect a woman even from herself if necessary.

Cultural pastors will feed into the fleshly desires of Cultural Christians. And they will cheer them on in their sin because it makes them feel good, free to continue in their sin. For if indeed I deliver the gospel the way God delivered it by the Holy Spirit, then I understand that there is a standard that I have to live up to. Let me say and I'm just about done now. I'm going to have to be, because I don't know if y'all can take any more.

You know what gut me as a pastor more than what he was saying? Was those thousands of people sitting there going amen. And the tragedy is that what they don't understand, they were amening something that was being said because there just seems to be no fear of God neither from the preachers anymore, many, nor the people who sit in the seats. Please hear my heart. I am not down on the church, I am for the church and I'm concerned about the church of Jesus Christ.

Listen to what is vital to our understanding this hour in the kingdom of God. James 3:1, now I'm going to say something real quick before I read this to you. I always write my sermons and type them in black and white. I don't know how this happened, but this scripture I'm about to read turned up in red. An old preacher told me one day, he says, "When you read the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, read the red. That's where the life is." Talking about the words of Jesus, and this turns up in red. Listen to what it says.

"Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." What will we be judged by? The very word that we are responsible to preach. God's going to ask me and preachers two questions for sure. Did you seek to rightly divide the word of truth according to 2 Timothy 2:15? "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved." Listen to what it said. To God, not men. To God as one approved.

"A worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." Notice what he says. There's going to come a day when I don't handle the word of truth the way God says, I'm going to be ashamed when I stand before Him. It doesn't matter how good I look to people. Did you preach to be popular with the man or whether with God? Equally if not worse, did you preach compromising messages in order to cover your own sin? And so the second question God's going to ask is this: "Did you seek to live the word you preached according to 1 Timothy 3:2-3?"

"Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money." Again, the podium is more than the thing that holds the preacher's notes. It is sacred. Let me tell you growing up in the Church of God in Christ, it was very legalistic when I was growing up.

But I want to tell you about this thing called a podium. When I was growing up in the Church of God in Christ, the podium sat up on a platform like this. But the only person that actually stood behind it was the one who would preach the word. Listen to me very closely. We didn't let our kids run up on the platform, play hide and go seek behind the podium. They didn't run all over the church chewing gum, sticking them under the pews. There was a respect for this podium and men of God would stand there and they would be in fear and trembling.

Now everybody listen to me. We have this watered-down thing in our Cultural Christianity that we have decided that this is just a building. It is not the place where the Spirit of the Lord abides. We have this watered-down thing in the body of Christ and don't get me wrong, I think they went too far when they wouldn't let people stand behind this podium and when they wouldn't let women come on the platform. But I'm going to tell you what I know: there was a reverence, there was a holiness, there was a mindset that God is holy and He is not somebody to be played with.

And so I can't play because one day I don't want to stand before God and say, "Lord, I did this in your name, that in your name, I cast out devils in your name." And notice what Jesus didn't say. He didn't say you didn't do those things. Let me paraphrase. He said, "Yep, you did them, but depart from my presence as I never knew you." Why did He never know them? Because they never knew Him.

Let me close. A college with an established football team wanted a mascot so they decided to get a goat. The question was asked where to keep the goat. Two of the students offered to keep the goat in their room. The head of the sports department got wind and approached the two students. "Well, I hear you're going to keep the goat in your room. What about the smell?" The one student replied, "The goat will get used to it."

Listen to me. Everybody else might get used to the smell of sin, but God doesn't. Let me close by saying this. Valentine's weekend, I took Lady Brenda to a restaurant, one of our favorite restaurants and we did it on Friday so we wouldn't have all the noise and the crowd from the Saturday. And as we were sitting there, the lady that waited on us said, "Did he give you any roses?" And Lady Brenda said, "No, no, no, I don't want him wasting money on roses." And I looked at her and I said, "You know why Lady Brenda doesn't want me wasting money on roses? Because they die."

Let me talk to you. The moment you give someone a flower, you have handed them death. It may be red death, pink death, yellow death, blue death, but it's death. Why is it death? Because the moment that that flower disconnects from the vine, it may not be immediate, but death has set in immediately. We're sitting at that table and the lady had brought over one rose and gave it to Lady Brenda. We're eating dinner and about halfway through dinner, I said, "Babe, look. That thing is dying. It's shriveling up. Leaves are about to fall off of it."

Let me tell you something, church. This is why and when we get in trouble because we don't understand. It is easy to be a Cultural Christian when you forget that you are the branch, He is the vine, and if you stay connected to Him, that is where the life is.

I want to thank you for joining us today and for watching this message on our stream. We are flowing now from the worship of hearing and receiving God's word into the worship aspect of giving into the kingdom of God. And as God has spoken to your heart, I pray that you're able to join us in giving and bringing Him His tithe and our offering. I want to share a little piece that's very interesting that you might even find interesting.

People were asked how much money would it take for us to have enough money. Remarkably, every person said, "If I could have a 10% increase, it would be enough for me to live and have a comfortable lifestyle." I share that with you because it's interesting that God says, "But if you will give me 10% in Malachi 3:8 and in verses all the way to verse 11, He talks about if you give me that 10%, He says you will have more than enough, there will be an overflow."

So why is that number significant in your giving today? The number is significant in that in your desire to live and have a healthy life, you want 10%. God says, "If you give me 10%, I'll make your 10% multiply in your life." And so as God leads your heart today, I ask you to first be obedient to the Lord and bring that 10%, that tithe, and then let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart as you give an offering above that.

That will open the windows of heaven. I thank you in advance for your faithfulness in giving to the work of the kingdom so that we might expand God's kingdom. Let me pray for you now. Father, I thank you for these that have committed this day to be obedient to your word because Lord, they understand that sometimes thanksgiving is merely an act of obedience.

And since we are thankful people, we obey you this day to bring you your tithe and to give our offering. We thank you in advance that you will open the windows of heaven, pour out blessing we will not have room to receive. We will be blessed spirit, soul, and body, and this we pray and believe for in Jesus' name. Amen.

Just lift your hands where you are. Though you may not be in this sanctuary, you become aware that we have words on this wall that are not just words, they are the biblical words from the very throne room of heaven. Let me speak them over your life. May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you His favor and give you His peace. God bless you as you receive it.