Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: The only way you can live the Christian life is to have Christ in your life. You can't have Jesus with you, near you, around you; you have to have Him in you. The only way to become a Christian is to receive Him, allow Him to come take permanent residence in your physical body.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Richard's style is unlike anyone else's, where he shares the life-changing message of the gospel in a way that's real, refreshing, focused, and fun. We know that life is pretty challenging these days, but these talks will help you meet those challenges head-on with biblical truth, encouragement, and direction.

Now, if you're not able to stick around with us for all of today's talk, you can always listen to, download, and even share this entire message with a friend right from our website, richardellistalks.com. So, let's jump right in with today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "Seamless." If you look up the word "seamless," and having a dress designer wife and having made women's apparel for many years, seamless simply means not having or joined by a seam or seams. A secondary definition is perfectly consistent and coherent.

If you look up synonyms for seamless, one of them is transparent. Listen to the definition for transparent: easily understood or seen through, free of deceit, transmitting light, able to see through with clarity. I have yet to see an aquarium with tinted glass. Nobody buys aquariums and tints it where you can't see the fish because the whole point is to see the fish, to see the fish through the aquarium from any side you get on. Too many of us are living with tinted lives.

You can kind of see Jesus in there, but we've tinted it just enough where they can see a little bit of Him, but not all of us, because all of us is not all of Him. So, I'll tell you going in, this one's probably for me today, and you're just going to have to listen. Because the longer you walk with Him, the more you will tire of not being seamless in your relationship with Him. You just see, Lord, why am I getting all upset about stupid things?

Why can't I just walk with You? Why can't I just respond instead of react? Why do I have to win? Why do I have to race? Why do I have to compete? Why do I have to be someone I'm not, when all I've got to be is myself, and the only way I can be myself is if I let You be You in me? So you just take a deep breath and go, wow, this is going to be okay.

Let's start in Isaiah 29. Isaiah 29:13, so this has been going on since the very beginning. Therefore the Lord said, "Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me." So what we say sounds like Jesus. Father, it all sounds tremendous. I think, as I've shared many times, I was highly trained in this. You just go in, I mean, there's all levels of hands going up.

There are people that stand during worship; they just stand there, hands in their pockets, behind their back. Then you've got the one-hand people. They're worshipping; they've got a hand. It's usually waist-high. You've got the two-hand waist-high people. Then you've got the one-hand, they're swearing to tell the truth. Then you've got the two-hand people. Then you've got the flyers and then the stretchers. You can do all that and your heart be completely far from God.

Now, you say, well, is that what's going on with people? No. You can do all that and it be coming from your heart, but it is possible to say all the right things, and literally, you may not even know you're fooling yourself. But who matters? Who cares? He cares, because it's not about anybody else but Him. So whatever you're doing, don't let it just be with your lips. Don't let it be just lips, Lord, let it be life. Let it be from my heart, what's inside of me.

You say, well, so-and-so's worshipping like this, so-and-so maybe worshipping like this, and they're just as sincere. "Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their heart far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men." So now they don't really fear Me; they fear Me because someone says, because if you break this or do that. How much stuff do I spend time unraveling?

I had this conversation just a few days ago. A lady, she's a pool shark. Well, I don't know if she's a shark; she's maybe more of a trout, but she's good. She plays pool, and a friend told her, "Oh, if you become a Christian, you can't shoot pool anymore." Where are you getting this stuff? You can't shoot pool anymore?

I told her let's have a pool outreach. I grew up with a pool table. Let's all go to a pool hall and share the gospel. Don't make up stuff. There's already enough in here to do without us making up stuff. So, "Their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men. Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden."

Matthew 15. In the Bible, a hypocrite, it's so interesting. The word hypocrite comes from this thing in Greek in theater, where in a Greek theater they had multiple masks. So if you were going to play a part, you would grab a mask, hold that mask up, and speak from behind that mask, play that part, put that mask down, pick another mask up, so you could play multiple parts by putting the character of that mask over your face. That's where hypocrite comes from: behind the mask.

How many masks have you got? I've got a church mask, I've got a watching-the-game-with-the-boys mask, I've got a husband mask. How many masks? How do you keep up with all that? And so the Pharisees, almost synonymous now at least in Christian circles, hypocrite and Pharisee are almost the same thing because that's what they were. Verse one, Matthew 15, "Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 'Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they don't wash their hands when they eat bread.'"

He answered and said to them, "Why do you transgress the commandments of God because of your tradition? You've made up all this stuff that has nothing to do with anything. You're transgressing. For God commanded, saying, 'Honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.' But you say, whoever says to his father or mother, 'Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God,' then he need not honor his father or mother."

So technicalities. "Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.'" So Jesus quotes Isaiah and says, that's it, it's still going on; it's you.

I probably shouldn't share this one, but I'm going to say it and then if it has an impact, so be it. Let's say you give financially in support of a church or a ministry. You give, which we appreciate that, but if we really said to the Lord, did I give this out of obligation or because I think if I give X percent You're going to bless me all that? Or is this really a gift to You? Like I showed up and said, "Lord, I brought You something." Is it from the heart or is it just because it's the thing to do?

If I walked in on my anniversary and stopped somewhere like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to get roses again. I hate this. She loves roses; I hate buying roses for her." That's not going to go well. But if I show up and go, "Here are your roses. Hope you like them. Happy Anniversary." Is that the relationship? No. I put them in the car, I lay them back on the tissue paper, and sneak them in the house, because that's how I do things, try to sneak them in the house like they just appeared magically.

Maybe put them in a vase and I want her to see them, and I brought her a gift. All I'm saying is don't stop giving, because that clearly is not God's will. But just kind of approach Him a little differently, like, okay, you know what, let's think about this. I worked all month, I worked all week, or I got a bonus or whatever it is, and you say, "You know what, I don't have any of this without You. I woke up. I wake up every day, I breathe, I can go to work. And so this isn't everything I made, but this is a piece of me. It's a piece of me."

This money came in generated by the strength that You gave me, and so thank You, and here's a gift for You. That's worship. That's a giving; that's from the heart. That's something totally different. And by the way, it's way more fun. But these Pharisees were all caught up in technicalities and "I did the right thing," but where did it come from?

Go to Matthew 23. He blasts them again. 23:27, "Woe to you." You don't want God saying woe to you. It doesn't mean stop; it means like you are in so much trouble you have no idea. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness."

If you could really see my heart and my mind and who I really am, would I want to tint up some more or would I say, okay, yeah, this is what I got. This is who I was, this is who I am, this is where I'm headed. The picture of a whitewashed tombstone and then below it is just dead men's bones. Who wants to be that person?

John 19. So this is one of these things that God kind of has to show you, and this is one of the coolest things. If you just keep reading your Bible long enough and praying and asking Him, He'll talk to you. John 19:16, "Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified. Then they took Jesus and led Him away. And He, bearing His cross, went out to a place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, where they crucified Him, and two others with Him, one on either side, and Jesus in the center."

"Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, 'Do not write, "The King of the Jews," but, "He said, 'I am the King of the Jews.'"' Pilate answered, 'What I have written, I have written. I ain't changing it.'"

Look at verse 23. "Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts." So how many soldiers are there? Quick math, I know, but here we go. Four soldiers. They made four piles of His clothes. "To each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was" what? Seamless. Woven from the top in one piece. "They said therefore among themselves, 'Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,' that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: 'They divided My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.' Therefore the soldiers did these things."

And if you want to go read about that, that's in Psalm 22. It literally said this is exactly what would happen. I find it very fascinating that a seamless Christ would die with a seamless garment representative of who He was. He is the same guy throughout. What you saw was what you got. You say, well, that's just Jesus. Here's your dilemma; here's my dilemma. You can't say that's just Him, but you can't be a Christian without having Him inside of you.

So if I have a seamless Christ who lives in me, and I get out of the way and let Christ live in me and through me, there is no reason why I cannot live a seamless life if He's running my life. Now, you might say, well, He's not running my life. And why is that? Because I've gone back to my old life.

Galatians 5:16. Now, this is going to sound oversimplified, but this is the stuff. This is the simplicity of it. If you are not a Christian, what I'm about to read you will never work. Do not try this at home; it won't work anywhere. You can't read these verses and say, "I'm going to make that work for me." The only way you can live the Christian life is to have Christ in your life. You can't have Jesus with you, near you, around you; you have to have Him in you.

The only way to become a Christian is to receive Him, allow Him to come take permanent residence in your physical body. And that's a simple prayer. I know I'm a sinner; I need Your forgiveness. I believe Jesus died on the cross, was buried, raised from the dead to save me. Come live in me. I accept eternal life, forgiveness of my sins. Come in. And then He moves in.

Okay, so now you have the Holy Spirit of God living in your physical body. And then this: Galatians 5:16, "I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." If you want to live a seamless life, live a spirit-walk life. Now, you say, well, what is that? I still live in this body, and the Holy Spirit lives in this body. It's a question of, am I riding or am I driving? So we've got songs like "Jesus, Take the Wheel." That's probably not what she meant, but kind of take the wheel. Because if I take the wheel, we are going nowhere fast. It's not going to work out.

So I tell You what: You are the boss. You are the Lord. You take control. I will do whatever You want me to do, I'll go wherever You want me to go, I'll say whatever You want me to say. I yield myself completely to You. Let's go. I used to buy golf gloves; I now buy work gloves because I've been demoing a house. I can tell you where my current work gloves are. They're not going to make it much longer, but they're laying in a spot so when I go back, they're there.

Those gloves are doing absolutely nothing right now. Worthless, laying there doing nothing. When I get those gloves and I put those gloves on, all of a sudden they're doing what they were made to do, and they go to work. You say, well, dude, that's not right. Your gloves aren't doing anything. You're doing it, and they're just along for the ride. Exactly that. So I say, Lord, put me on. Okay, what are we doing? Don't leave me laying here, whatever You do; don't leave me laying here by myself. Use me.

Now, you say, well, God can get it done without me. That's not how He set it up. That wasn't His plan. He said, "I'm going to use you. I'm going to use the body. I'm going to use individual believers, the collective body." When I bought these gloves, I did some research and I found out these were the good gloves because on the tips of the fingers, you can answer your iPhone without taking them off, which is very important in my line of work.

So I bought three of them because they were cheaper. I've got two sets of gloves with the wrapper, everything still on them. And you know what they're doing? Nothing. All clean and pretty, not torn up, not dirty, just not doing what they were made to do because I don't put them on. Are you putting yourself in a position so that when Jesus says, "I've got work to do," you're screaming, "Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! I'm not the shiny pair. I'm not the new pair, but I am prepared for You to pick me."

And He goes, "I can use you." And you get home at night and you go to bed and you go, what in the world was that? And you go back through your day, and we all go somewhere different, right? And we all have reputations, and those can change. But God takes you somewhere and you go in and you think you're there for one reason. I needed a refrigerator, and I bought a refrigerator on Craigslist.

And I said, Lord, okay, this can't just be about the refrigerator. So I get to the guy's house, takes about four of us to load it, and I look at the guy and he had music playing, and so I said something to him about, start talking about Jesus. Turns out he's a Christian, but he was in a tough spot. So before I left, what did I do? I just put my hand on his shoulder. I bought a refrigerator from him. I put my hand on his shoulder and I prayed for him.

You say, but you're the preacher. You're going to have to get over this. It's not about being the preacher. I don't tell everybody I'm a preacher. So you say, well, what would I say? It's not your problem. You're the glove. If I go back out to the house and go look at my gloves and go, "Okay, we're going to pick up some dirt today," like, "Oh, I didn't sign up for no dirt." Like, what? Excuse me? You're going to do whatever we go do. I'm out.

Don't complicate it. Show up. Use pick me. Walk in the Spirit, you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. In other words, what you want to do. And these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. Ever have that happen? Because there's a fight.

But if you are led by the Spirit, and go look up this word "led," it's literally somebody saying we're going this way. You may not like where He's going. I met a couple today, I think they were missionaries to Slovenia for a while and some other places. Okay, what kind of fool people would move to Slovenia? You don't even know where that is, maybe. Have you lost your mind?

Why did they go to Slovenia as missionaries? Because they were led, hopefully, there. Wow, but that probably wasn't easy. Let me tell you what's not easy. What's not easy is being comfortable somewhere God does not want you to be. Yeah, but this is easier. No, it's not. Because you're going to wake up one day and go, I just blew through my whole life and I got nothing else.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And then he goes into the list of the flesh, and it's similar words to what I read before in that other one. But look down in verse 22. "But the fruit of the Spirit," so this is the good news. If you say, "Okay, I'm in. I want to live a seamless life. I want God to put me on. I've got Him on, He's got me on. It's game on. Here we go. We're going to do it His way." Then you just live. You let Him live through you, use you, and this is the fruit that starts popping up on your tree.

Look at this: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." All of a sudden, that's who you are. Who's not going to be attracted to that? Because most people don't have any of that. They've got no love, they've got no peace, they've got no joy. They're just trying to manufacture something to keep going.

Here's what I already know about the rest of my day and this week and the rest of my life. It's going to be nothing but people in trouble. Some need to be encouraged, some need to be loved on, some need to be challenged. It's just what it is. And you're either in or you're out. You're either going to sit on it the rest of your life and say, "Nope, I'm out," and you're going to miss the life that He intended, or you're going to say, "Okay, let's go."

And if you yield to Him so that you can live this life, this is how it all kind of rolls together. If you yield and say, "Okay, Lord, I will live this seamless life," then all of a sudden He's in control. He cannot be in control and you not generate this fruit. It's not possible, because it's not hypocritical. You're not trying to be happy because you're supposed to be happy. You have joy because it's Him. You have love because it's Him. You have peace because He is your peace.

And then people see that. So you say, well, I plant seeds and nothing happens. It is impossible to plant seeds and nothing happen. Quit worried about did something happen. You can't make seeds germinate; you can plant seeds. You should have so many stories by the end of the week, you can't even remember what happened. And it's so simple.

You can be pumping gas and the Holy Spirit says, "Speak to the guy on the other side pumping gas." "I'm not talking to him," and it's over. Or you go, "Yes, sir. Thank You, sir. Hey, how are you doing over there?" "Well, that's not my personality." I don't care what your personality is. Obey. And that guy may look at you like you lost your mind, and say, "Really can't explain this, but just had a prompting to say hello to you. How's your day going?"

But when the Holy Spirit prompts you to do something like that, what you don't know is that guy might have been thinking about killing himself the night before. He might be in a closet somewhere begging God to help him, and then some guy at a gas pump says, "Hey, how are you doing?" And all of a sudden there's a conversation. Next thing you know, you're leaning up against a gas pump and he's getting saved. You say, "Well, that ain't going to happen." It ain't going to happen saying no.

Guest (Male): Before Richard comes back to wrap things up for us today, I'd like to share a couple important things with you. Let me encourage you to take a minute and check out our website, richardellistalks.com. You'll find today's talk right there in the Talks page, along with all of Richard's audio and video messages. You can even forward them to a friend so they can hear them too.

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Richard Ellis: Okay, one more. Hebrews 13. One of the reasons I am so grateful that I am a Christian and didn't bite on some other bait, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, I guess this is where people are and I know everybody comes from different places. If somebody told me I had to get up every day and burn incense and candles to some little rock statue, I'd jump off a bridge. Even if it was a cute little statue of somebody that looked nice. Rocks and wood don't have ears that can hear, and don't have eyes that can see, and don't have mouths that can speak. They're going to do nothing for you.

You get you some Jesus, and this is what Hebrews 13:8 says: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Seamless. You get you some Jesus and you get in on that life. And part of what makes the whole thing work when it works is people without love see love, feel love, people without joy see joy, people without peace see peace, people with no longsuffering see all this stuff they don't have, and they go, "This is what I'm trying to find." Unless they're just evil and don't want any of it. They're like, "Dude, it's like I want to be you." And you can say, "No, no, I'm not the answer." Because the devil's trying to make people seem less than they really are according to God, and He's trying to make us seamless.

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