Our Reality

I'll just go ahead and share the word with y'all tonight.

Brother Rob, would you mind grabbing me a water?

I think there's probably a water bottle in that.

There we go.

Thank you, sir, Hallelujah.

Well, it's always an honor to get to be with y'all, to share the word of God with y'all.

But let's, I know we just sat down, but if we'll stand up we'll make our confession together, because it's a tradition around here and I like to you know, it's not a tradition of man, it's a tradition of God.

Right, God showed us our pastor, you know, Pastor John Osteen started that years, many decades ago, and here we are following it.

But we kind of make one up as we go along, out of our heart.

So let's say this together say heavenly father, I'm so happy for sunday night church, I'm so happy for the move of the holy spirit and I'm hungry for revelation, knowledge.

I'm hungry for greater, for greater, for greater manifestation, for greater glory.

So I walk in greater love, because I walk in your love, and my expectation is in you and only in you, and you are my reality.

Jesus name, Amen.

I forgot one more thing.

It's a miracle I can see.

Anyways, if you'll turn with me to Hebrews, chapter 10, that's what I'll be preaching on tonight is our reality.

Hebrews 10 · chapter mention

And I know Selena hit this not that long ago.

I was using some different verses and she just talked about being real with God and I don't know I think my dad covered that a few times here before I don't know about a month and a half, two months ago, but I was reading we're going to read it later but I was reading in Pastor Mark Hankins' Righteousness.

I'll tell the story later.

But I was studying this one morning and this stood out to me as strong as I know my name and I thought I was going to preach on something else tonight.

But it was about a week or two ago and the Holy Spirit just changed this whole message and just dropped it all in my heart pretty much all at once and I just had to be obedient to get it out tonight.

So I know it's hot off the presses.

So, preaching on our reality.

If you turn in Hebrews 10, I'm going to be reading with my old NLT.

I don't know if it's going to match what's on the screen or not, but we'll find out and it says the old system, verse one the old system in the law of Moses was only a shadow of the things to come, and we know that the old Testament is a type and shadow, right, Of the things to come, and it says not the reality of the good things Christ has done for us.

How many of you realize that there's a reality, a realness of everything things Christ has done for us?

How many of you realize that there's a reality, a realness of everything that Christ has done in us and through us and for us?

Good things, right.

And so, before we read any further, I just want to break that out, that in the 1828 dictionary, Webster's dictionary, the word reality means the actual being or existence of anything, truth, fact.

But I like this indistinction from mere appearance.

You know, I happen to have two fake front teeth.

Since I was in the fourth grade They've been fake, and then in my twenties I don't know, 20, something, 25 years ago, I got porcelain veneers.

They look pretty good, right.

So I just talked to my dentist about this.

You know, week or two ago I had an appointment because she's given me a uh, um a price to to repair them, and so my gums are receding just a little bit on top, and it's a little bit.

If I smile really big, you'll notice.

Hey, Jay's got fake teeth.

But really you don't really notice, do you?

And so she encouraged me hey, just keep going.

They're healthy, strong and just.

You know, but it may look, it looks like they're real, but they're not real, right?

So everybody, you know when you, anytime that you try to put on a facade and you try to make something fake, that's not real, People see through that, especially young people.

We have our young people in the room tonight and our youth, and so they really are allergic to the fake.

They can tell when their parents are being fake.

They can tell when teachers are being fake.

They can tell when teachers are being fake.

They can tell when coaches are being fake.

You know so much.

So in our society right now, something happens in your marriage and people make a decision to stay married for the kids.

They can tell.

They can tell that's fake.

And so God wants us to have reality.

He wants us to have a really good marriage.

He wants us to have a really strong home and not have to fake it until we make it.

You know, I remember way back in like 2007 or eight somewhere in there, when Facebook came out.

You know I didn't the MySpace thing.

I didn't jump on that.

But, man, when Facebook came out, I remember hearing about people going like they literally were changing their lives, going to different places just so they could post about it.

And I know, you know, it's normal in our society now.

People have a whole life revolved around fakeness.

But God has a reality for us and it's in Christ.

Our reality is in Christ, and so you know, maybe, if you don't like what you're looking at in the mirror, who you see looking back at you in the mirror, you just hadn't met who you are in Christ yet.

And I just encourage you, the more you get in the reality of God's word and what God says about us individually, he's speaking right to you and you can pull out of this word exactly who you are and become in love with yourself because you're in love with him.

That then you can become in love with yourself.

And it's hard to love others until you love yourself, and so it's hard to love your spouse until you love yourself.

There's lots of marriage scriptures, especially Ephesians 5, tying in the loving of your spouse as loving yourself.

You would, you know, you don't hate yourself, and so it's out of God's love that we operate, but it's God's love for yourself.

And so we find we tend to see, time and time again, people this is the Holy Spirit, because it's not in my notes having a hard time forgiving yourself.

You know, maybe you've made a mistake in your past and you just have a hard time getting over an event and you keep reliving it over and over and over again.

I should have said this, I should have done this, I should have never gone here, I should have never gone there, and I should have you know.

You need to forgive yourself first.

Amen, and just put that.

Know that the blood of Jesus washes you from your past.

And let's just keep reading Hallelujah.

The sacrifices under the old system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide a perfect cleansing for those who came to worship.

That's us, we're coming to worship, right, we're worshipers.

If they could have ever provided cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

But just the opposite happened.

Those yearly sacrifices reminded them over and over again of their sin, for it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

That is why Christ, when he came into the world, said let's see if I'm going to skip down or not.

Where's the first time I said skip here?

I'm trying to find it in my notes.

But you did not want animal sacrifices or grain offerings.

No, you were not pleased with animals burned on the altar.

Look, I have come to do.

Jesus is saying I came to do your will, O God, just as it is written in Scripture about me.

And Christ said you did not want animal sacrifices on the altar or other offerings for sin, nor were you pleased with them.

Then he added look, I have come to do your will.

He cancels the first covenant in order to establish the second.

First covenant in order to establish the second.

And what God wants is for us to be made whole, be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

Time You've been made, you've been justified, just as if you've never sinned.

Once and for all.

Amen, Because you've been made holy, you've been made righteous, right here by the blood of Jesus.

And if we'll skip down through, well, let's just keep reading Verse 11, under the old covenant, the priest stands before the altar, day after day, offering sacrifices, but can never take away sins.

But our high priest offered himself to God as one sacrifice for sins, good for all time, and then he sat down at the place of highest honor at God's right hand, and there he waits until his enemies are humbled as a footstool under his feet.

For by that one offering he perfected forever all those whom he's making holy.

And the Holy Spirit also testifies that this is so, because he says this is the new covenant I will make with my people.

On that day, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts and they will understand them and I will write them on their minds so that they can obey them.

And then he adds that I will never again.

I will never again remember their sins and their lawless deeds.

So we've been forgiven.

Amen.

That's the reality of who we are in Christ.

That's the reality that we live in.

And so if you're living in a different reality, if you're living under, I just encourage you to get a hold of the Word of God and change your thinking.

And I'm telling you, the moment that you were saved, you had become righteous and justified, just as if you've never sinned.

And so that that happened, that this reality came upon you, and you put that on, like putting on the robe of righteousness, just like changing clothes.

And so when you wake up in the morning, that's something that you can't, that's a garment you can't take off is your righteousness.

Amen.

You've already been made righteous, and so skip down to verse.

Let's see 18.

Now, when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.

Praise God, Jesus did it right no more one-eyed lambs, no more burning animals on the altar right.

And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can come boldly entering heaven's most holy place because of the blood of Jesus.

That's verse 19.

Verse 20, this is the new life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain by means of his death.

For us, and since we have a great high priest who rules over God's people, let us go right into the presence of God with true hearts, fully trusting him, for our evil conscience have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

So let's just stop here.

We'll back up just a little bit and I want to just talk about God's reality is your reality, it's our reality.

God's reality is our reality and it's our faith.

By faith we grab a hold of this reality.

Amen.

And it's that reality that's really the substance of our faith.

Right, For faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, but it's that reality that we're living in.

And so there's so many different examples I kind of threw in my notes.

You know, like one definition, you know, in the new dictionary you think of reality TV, right, that's all the rage, and I didn't really get much into that, except that I watch a lot of YouTube, which is reality.

I like to watch real things on YouTube, and so I'll tell that story here in a second.

But I'll tell the Jeff Bagwell thing first.

Story here in a second.

But I'll tell the Jeff Bagwell thing first.

I was working really late the last two or three weeks and I would get in the truck and the Astros would be on and all of a sudden Jeff Bagwell was on the radio and I just kind of laughed to myself.

I was like I guess they'll let anybody who used to play baseball be an announcer.

You know, like no training, no, like here's how you do.

You know, he just randomly has thoughts and interrupts the game and interrupts like you know what actually happened on the play.

Come on, you talked right over the real announcer.

What are you doing?

And so so I get home and I thank you.

So I get home and I'm talking to Ethan about it and he's kind of laughing back and forth.

But the next night the same thing happens.

I get in the truck and the Astros game is almost over and there's Jeff Bagwell but he's telling a story about the killer bees, right, and I remember obviously he used to be one of my favorite players and his perspective just opens up to me and I'm hanging on his every word.

And by the time I made it home I opened up iHeartRadio and I was playing the radio part while Ethan was trying to watch it on TV.

It was just like two pitches ahead.

So you really can't do that.

And it kind of reminded me my dad way back in the day growing up.

He liked the Aggie radio announcers better than the TV.

So he would put the realistic you know Radio, Shack radio, on top of the big brown TV every Saturday and we would listen to the game, you know, and and even back then it was like ahead of the TV, right.

So you kind of knew the play before you saw the play.

So he's already yelling at the TV before you know.

But, uh, the reality.

So.

So then I'm hanging on Jeff Bagwell's every word.

Why?

Because he has decades of experience, decades, and so his perspective of the game was way different.

And now I crave it.

I don't even like the regular announcers anymore.

I want to hear the old stories.

I want to hear like he started predicting things that were going to happen.

Oh, I saw the catcher signal, we got a fastball coming.

Let's see what he can do with this one, you know, and he starts predicting the game and then it happens, and then it's like wow, and so your whole perspective of the game changes.

And that's what happens when we listen to the Holy Spirit.

You know, the Holy Spirit has all the experience that we don't have, and he can make us look like a genius when we hang on his every word.

He's willing, right there, to share with us what's upcoming, and then we get more out of life, and so I just think that that influence is there and that reality is there, and you know, and it matters, and so, like, sometimes we don't know what things are missing.

You know I was going to tell that story of watching YouTube.

I watched a show called Pilot Debrief on YouTube.

It's an old it's kind of a younger pilot actually, but he's ex-military and he goes through plane crashes and tells you what happened, like what, every mistake that the pilot made.

And so sometimes Selena is like why are you so attracted to all the doom and gloom and you know death and anyways, just can we get a little bit of a break?

But I'm in there watching.

And so he did one on the Dallas air show.

And so you know, several months ago, maybe a year ago, the I don't know if you all remember that in the news, but they were having an air show, were and one of the fighters clipped the B-17.

And so there was about seven people killed, Two planes went down right and missed the crowd, thank God.

And so he was going through, step by step, all the things the FAA didn't release and what his opinion was of why these men died.

And it came back to the air boss, the guy who's in charge of the show.

His dad had done it for years and years and he had grown up with his dad going to all these air shows and so they had done hundreds of air shows all around the United States, but nobody has to give you a license for that, and so it was called normalization of deviance.

In other words, you start with the truth and then you get a little bit slack.

And you get a little bit slack, and that's exactly what happened.

They said that at the debrief.

He didn't write anything on the whiteboard, he did not lay out a plan, he did not give the pilots a diagram, he didn't tell them anything.

He said well, I'll just tell you in the air.

And sure enough, so he's.

And the pilot didn't understand what he said.

I didn't understand that transmission.

Can you repeat?

By then it's too late, they're in the wrong location.

You know, the fighter clipped the B-17 and seven people lost their lives, two planes for no reason, and so, like I just started thinking about that.

And so that's the same way we think.

We know what we're doing and we just skip steps, and the Holy Spirit is right, on time every time.

The reality when you stay within this reality, you're never tempted to be fake, You're never tempted to put on a facade.

When you're real with God, when you come to Him with every problem that you have with every thought that's off when you Lord, I know that thought's not from you I'm going to renew my mind right now with the word of God.

I know that was doubt, or that was fear.

I know that was based in fear and I refuse to walk in fear.

And so, or that was based in lust and I refuse to walk in lust, and I'm going to you know, blah, blah, blah.

Whatever, whatever subject, whatever things you're fighting, I'm telling you, just be real with the Holy Spirit and then you don't just keep making up things and making up things to cover and then keep having.

You know, you know this gentleman, this air boss.

He was quoted over and over talking to the FAA and he was just completely arrogant.

And that's what happens when your whole show is fake, when you really don't know what you're doing.

It shows right, and so, because it comes out as arrogance and you know that God, he knows all of our thoughts, he sees all of that and there's no way to hide that arrogance from him you might be able to hide one or two mistakes, or one or two.

You know, compartmentalize things.

Maybe you have the office, you and the home, you and the church, you, and you've got kind of you know, but Jesus needs to be Lord of all, right, and so that's why I'm, you know, we can just stand before you and say that we're the same people, right, we're the same people behind the scenes and the same people up here in front in the pulpit Amen.

And so I just kind of wanted to start.

We made it to all the way, all the way to verse 22.

And this is Mark Hankins's gift of righteousness in Christ and this is one of his private meetings.

He handed these out to everybody and this book is from when he was like 18, 19 years old.

Him and his buddy, Leon Stump, got together and they studied all the righteousness scriptures, and so this is like before Pastor Mark ever wrote a book, he wrote this, him and Leon, and so a really cool story about Leon.

Leon and Pastor Mark had a fallen out about 20 years ago and Leon kind of pulled back from the word of faith and everything that he believed in certain things healing and other other areas.

He stopped preaching that and and he made a turn.

So then in 2020, uh, he got COVID and he was in the hospital and he was on his deathbed and he called his son Andy in and he said I can't make it right with pastor Mark, but you can.

I want you to go to Pastor Mark, I want you to apologize for me, I want you to tell him that everything that we ever studied is the truth and I want you to start preaching it and I want you to make amends with Pastor Mark.

And so that's Pastor Andy Stump.

He pastors in wait, sorry starts with a J in Missouri.

And wait, sorry starts with a J in Missouri.

Joplin, Joplin, Missouri.

And it's a good friend of ours and I, you know, I even took him to lunch one day and we kind of unpacked that whole story and because, just because I felt for him, because here he's taken over his dad's church and having to change all the doctrine, Can you imagine, you know, going back and walking away from assemblies of God things and walking back into the word of faith and just turning things around it.

You know it's been easy because it's the plan of God, but you know, certain dealing with certain people and attitudes and certain things have been a little bit challenging.

But anyways, Hebrews 10, 22, it says to let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance, so that that true heart.

That's what stuck out to me.

You know you can't be fake when you come before the Lord.

He can see it all, he knows your every thought, he knows everything that you're trying to hide from him, and you can just come instead with a true heart and full assurance of faith.

Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and that it's sprinkled with the blood of Jesus, that's what gives rid of our evil conscience and it gets rid of an evil way of thinking, an evil way of doing, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.

Let's read it out of.

I won't go through all these translations, but the dotridge says let us not stand at a distance as if God were inaccessible, but, on the contrary, let us draw near with a sincere and affectionate heart.

You know, when you love the Lord, you're affectionate towards him and you've turned your heart to him, it's impossible to be fake, it's impossible to hold back when you have that attitude of affection towards the Lord.

It's impossible to not allow him to just indwell in you and fill you up and allow him to be Lord of all.

Amen.

And let us draw near with a sincere and affectionate heart, in the full assurance of faith, supported by such considerations as these, which may well embolden us to make our approach unto him, and the most cheerful expectation of his blessing.

I'm telling you we are excited we can go to the throne of God in full expectation that we'll receive everything that he has for us.

Amen.

And they're good things, they're blessing, they're things that bless us, Amen.

I'm going to read one more translation the love it translation says let us, as members of his family, exercise our right of access and press closer to the Father, but we must come with childlike faith and the unshakable assurance that he is eager to receive us.

I'm telling you, God is eager to receive us, no matter what we've done.

And I'm telling you, the blood of Jesus is what's washed us away from an evil way of thinking.

And I'm telling you, we stand pure and clean before the Lord and when we approach the throne of God in worship, that's what he sees.

He sees us clean, he sees us pure.

And I'm telling you, the more you look into the law of the Lord, pure.

And I'm telling you, the more you look into the law of the Lord, the more of you look into his grace and his mercy that he has for us in the word of God.

You begin to see yourself as pure, you see yourself as holy.

And then you begin to see other people.

You see your spouse the way God sees them, pure and holy, and you stop counting up all the ways that your spouse has wronged you.

I would have a really long list.

No, I'm just kidding.

And you know you stop all that you really do and you live in unity, and it's just so easy.

But you got to find it in the word.

First, Amen, and so having a true heart and being real with God.

And so let's just keep reading, let's see, Without wavering, Verse 23.

Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, For God can be trusted to keep his promise.

Amen, he's never going to go back on his word.

Praise the Lord, he's faithful to us, Amen.

In verse 24, it says think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds.

I love the way the NLT words, that the NLT words that, In other words, be creative, be a creative encourager.

Amen to one another without bursts of love and good deeds.

That's my number two of accessing the reality of God.

Number one is to have a true heart and number two is to be a creative encourager amen.

And then number three comes all the way down.

Let's get to, you know, let's go to 26.

Let's not skip too much.

I love this whole chapter.

I was planning on preaching the whole thing, but I kind of looking at the clock here.

Dear friends, we have deliberately no, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received a full knowledge of the truth, there is no other sacrifice that will cover these sins.

There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible expectation of God's judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.

So I didn't say that the Word of God said, said it.

And so if we continue to sin on purpose after receiving, if we continue to sin on purpose and continue to live a life however, we want to continue in this fakeness and and uh and a facade, then I'm telling you, God's judgment kicks in and a raging fire that will consume his enemies.

That's what we, that would be what was waiting for us.

But instead, if we're quick to ask for forgiveness and keep short accounts with God, I'm telling you we have this relationship that's pure and holy, Amen.

And so, um, let me pick, pick it up in verse.

Let's go down to verse 35.

Do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord, no matter what happens.

Remember the great reward it brings you.

Patient endurance is what you need now, so you will continue to do God's will.

Then you will receive all that he has promised.

Amen, For in just a little while the coming one will come and not delay, and a righteous person will live by faith.

In other words, the just shall live by faith.

But I will not have, but I will have no pleasure in anyone who turns away.

So amen, we refuse to turn away, we refuse to be fake, we refuse to just put up a facade, but instead we're going to be real with God, and that reality comes through our faith.

The just shall live by faith, Amen.

And so that's my number three point of being real is that the reality comes by that the just shall live by faith, Amen.

And so my fourth point I have a guest speaker tonight via video from the mid-80s.

So on Thursday morning, I think I told, was everybody here this morning when I told what happened to me on Wednesday, how I was reflecting back on my dad's messages.

And then on Thursday morning, Pastor John Robertson, a friend of mine from Okmulgee, Oklahoma, he sent me.

He's like I was just thinking about you, I was watching an old John Osteen video and I miss you, da-da-da-da-da.

So I went back and forth with him but I stopped everything I was doing and I immediately watched this entire video, from start to finish, the whole message.

And so I was blessed because it had a picture of my mom, a close-up of my mom.

Ledia, can you put that up please?

That's my mama when she was in her 30s.

I had to do the math there, learning the word of God under Pastor John Osteen.

But this is my point number four, and our reality is doing what we are called to do.

If you'll roll the video please.

Don't do it, don't do it, everything else that it's all right.

Always know that it's right to follow the inward witness that you have.

I don't care what the outward circumstances may be.

If God is telling you inside don't do it, don't you do it, don't you do it, just follow God.

As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons and daughters of God Say I'm a son of God, I'm a child of God, hallelujah.

Always follow you know.

You know when I get in trouble.

I get in trouble whenever I do not obey what I feel down on the inside of me.

How many of you know God can talk.

God talks to us on the inside.

Well, paul perceived that there was danger.

He tried to get them not to go.

Now, the second lesson here is this God was interested in Caesar, the great ruler of the Roman Empire.

You see, he said to Paul don't fear Paul, you must stand before Caesar Now, one day I was reading that and God said do you see how much I love the leaders of the world?

Caesar was the mightiest dictator in the world.

He ruled the whole known world at that time.

And yet God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was interested in Caesar.

So much so that he said to Paul I don't care how many storms come, I don't care how many things come against you, you're not going to go down, you're not going to be defeated, because I've ordained that you will stand before that ruler and tell about the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall not be defeated.

You must stand before Caesar, amen.

I'll tell you, god's interested in our president.

God is interested in the rulers of the world, god is interested in those in high places.

Now I'm telling you, god wants us to stand there and give a witness to them.

And God said no matter what man does, no matter what the natural forces, like the storms, do, I want you to know that nothing will stop my divine purpose.

I am God, and when I say stand before Caesar, you shall stand Amen.

I want you to know the same God's interested in me and the same God is interested in you.

He has a plan for your life.

And let the storms come and let them go.

God will see you through.

Give the Lord a hand clap, amen.

Our reality is doing what God has called us to do, and Pastor Osteen didn't talk about politics very much, but he sure did right there, didn't he?

And we're called to stand before some really influential people, aren't we?

And we've watched that happen over and over again, and my dad gave a great report on all the latest things happening with my God Votes.

But that's this church, is the will of God for this church, and that includes you.

That doesn't just include the leadership, doesn't just include James and Claire and pastor and so forth, it includes all of us.

The influence right here that God's having and moving us into is phenomenal.

And our reality is that calling to stand before men and women of great influence and speak the truth boldly and unashamedly.

And I'm telling you, that's what God's called us to do, that's what he's called us to do, that's what he's called this church to do.

And so you know people might think where is Glorious Way Church going to be in five years?

Where is Glorious Way Church going to be in 10 years?

We're going to be right here doing the will of God, pouring into people and changing people's lives.

But we're also going out and holding church all over the nation and getting to be in front of and having influence over influential people, amen, and making a difference for the body of Christ.

Amen, hallelujah.

Well, I hope this message blessed you tonight.