Religion-Its Not What It Looks Like- Pastor Kipp Penrod

Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.

Good morning, good morning.

Listen, turn to somebody, give them a high five, tell them, what's up?

Say what's up?

What's up?

Come on.

It's after, it's a week after Easter.

Something's got to be, listen, Jesus is still on the throne, isn't he?

He's still alive and well.

He's still out of the grave.

He's going to continue to be out of the grave.

It's good to have you this morning.

If you're joining us online, it's wonderful to have you as well.

And East Shore, we give you a high five from here.

They're up there telling what's up to each other up at East Shore.

And I'm always remembering that we've got another campus up there and I can't see them,

but I just kind of pretend in my mind that I'm preaching right up there with them.

So it's good to have each one of you here this morning.

I want to open up with prayer this morning just ahead of time as we get ready to pray

over God's word, share a few stats with you, and then we're going to get into what God

has to say about some things.

So Lord, we thank you for this day, for God, your blessing, your mercy.

I thank you, Lord, that God, you bring us together and Lord, that we come together to

worship you.

God, I thank you, Lord, that you are the soon coming King, Lord, that you will establish

your kingdom on this earth.

And Lord, we just look for you, God, we, Lord, delight in the idea, God, that one day we

will be with you face to face.

So Lord, as we're here today, as we're occupying, as we're getting ready, Lord, for that time,

Lord, I pray that you would just touch hearts, minds, and lives in Jesus' name.

And everybody say it together.

Amen.

Amen.

All right.

Well, I want to give you a statistic, which is always dangerous at the beginning of a

message because some of you are like, I'm peace out, right?

He's going to give me numbers, but it's important.

According to a recent Gallup poll, 82% of Americans say that they are religious or have

spiritual beliefs.

Now, as a pastor, as a follower of Jesus Christ, right, as somebody who is walking along in

the way with Jesus, part of me gets really excited about that.

Part of me wants to say, man, that is amazing.

People at least have a spiritual curiosity, right?

There's this idea of something spiritual in their heads and in their hearts, and they're

looking to something.

Some of them say they're religious, right?

There's some kind of search going on.

And if I had to hang my hat on that one stat, I'd believe that there would be this deep

curiosity that's taking place in the world around us and particularly in our country

because 82% say they're religious or at least have some kind of spiritual belief, right?

Some kind of curiosity.

And if I read into that one stat, I'd probably get really pumped and really excited about

that very thing.

But the problem is that's not the only stat.

Unfortunately, it's really not what it looks like at all.

With this, 82% say this.

Yes, 82% of Americans, right, say they're religious or they've got some kind of spiritual

belief.

But 47% of that 82%, right, you still with me in the numbers?

Come on.

Nobody said yes.

All right.

So, 47% of that 82% describe themselves as religious, Christian or otherwise, but they

don't necessarily say that they have a deep spiritual walk.

Another 33% say they believe in the spiritual, but it really doesn't affect their practice

in life whatsoever, right?

So when you add all these up, only 2% of the 82% of Americans that describe themselves

as religious or spiritual say that their spiritual belief actually connects with their daily

practice and what they live.

2%, 2%.

That includes Christians, which make up 67% of the 82%.

Are you stunned as I am?

Or did I lose you with the numbers?

Come on.

A little less than 2% of Christians say that their spiritual belief, their spiritual theology,

their idea of who God is in the spirit really connects with how they live out their daily

life.

And our church, right, should be full of people that practice what they believe, right?

It should be our religion.

Say religion.

I know that's a weird word these days.

People cringe at that kind of word, right?

It should be our religion.

Our spiritual belief should somehow be connected to what we practice and what we do in Jesus.

If not, there's a problem because all our religion should affect what we believe and

what we do.

It really should.

The definition of religion is this.

Religion is the belief in and the worship of a supernatural power or powers, especially

a God or gods.

It is a particular system of faith and worship.

It is the pursuit of interest to which someone ascribes supreme, say supreme, supreme importance.

We cannot be religious.

We cannot pursue God, chase after Jesus and separate our belief in God from how we practice

daily life.

We can't.

We can't be religious and call Jesus Lord and savior of our life, sing songs about it,

right?

And claim that he is supreme in my walk and in who I am and that not change how I live

and how I function.

We can't.

Because what is supreme in my life is my religion.

It's true.

What is supreme in my life really is my religion.

What is supreme in my life, I worship.

What is supreme in my life, I chase after.

What is supreme in my life, I practice.

What is supreme in my life, I'll dedicate and will control my actions, my attitudes.

Anybody got any attitude this week?

Raise your hand.

Come on.

Confessions are good for the soul.

What is supreme in my life, right?

Is God in my life.

And what is supreme in my life is my religion.

It is what I practice.

Regardless of what church you belong to, what denomination you ascribe to, what label you

place on yourself, right?

Pentecostal, Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Independent, whatever.

We all got labels, right?

There's all kinds of labels.

Regardless of what even is stamped on your water baptism certificate, right?

If you want to know what your religion is, you need to ask yourself some questions.

Ask yourself some questions.

What holds supreme position in my life?

I want you to ask in your mind.

Don't answer out loud because we'll just make a bunch of noise.

But what holds supreme position in my life?

What would I say has superhuman power in my life, or at least my concept of it is that

has superhuman power?

What do I systematically put my faith in?

What do I religiously put my faith in?

What do I systematically put faith in?

What do I pursue in life?

What do I pursue?

Be honest, right?

Answer the questions.

Is it Jesus?

Is it money?

Is it position or status?

Is it pleasure, right?

Is this some kind of relationship, human relationship in our life?

Jesus said this in Matthew 6 24.

He said, no one can serve two masters for either you will hate the one and love the

other or else will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon, mammon's money.

You can't serve God and mammon.

It can't hold first place.

It can't be supreme in your life, right?

Because there's something that's supreme in your life.

There's something that you're pursuing in your life.

There's something that you're regardless of whatever label you take on in your own life

that will be the supreme thing that is your religion.

Right?

Why is this important?

Because the religion I practice reflects the God that I serve and the God that I serve

reflects the religion that I practice.

It really is.

It should be what it looks like.

They should coincide, right?

What I say I'm who I believe in should coincide with what I'm doing.

And God, God really speaks to this really way before even Jesus comes into play way

back with Moses and the people and the children of Israel.

God sends Moses to Mount Sinai, Mount Sinai, right?

And there he gives him the law of God.

He begins to instruct me.

He says, I'm going to give you the commands.

I'm going to give you a practice for life for the people that you're now leading.

And he says, I want you to write these down.

Actually, he scribed them on his own.

He said, I want you to have these commandments and these are going to be guidelines for the

people.

This is going to be a system.

We call it the Ten Commandments, right?

It's the first Ten Commandments that God begins to lay down in Exodus chapter 20 verse 3.

Exodus 20:3

And he says this.

He says, you shall have in Exodus 20 and 3, you shall have no other gods before me.

In other words, I must be supreme in your life.

You shall not make for yourselves a carved image, any likeness of anything that is in

heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them nor serve them.

For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous guy, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon

the children to the third and fourth generations, to those who hate me, but showing mercy to

those, to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.

God instructs Moses to tell the people to have no other gods before them, not to serve

anything else, not to look to anything else.

The only thing that should be supreme in their life at top position, right?

Top post in their life is God himself.

They should love him with all their hearts and their minds and their souls, right?

Let them know that I, God, the I am, should be their religion, should be their practice

in life.

And God says it to Moses and he says something to Moses that should really grab our attention.

He tells Moses this, he says, I am a jealous God, not jealousy in a wrong way.

He says, I'm a jealous God.

We need to tell the people that I'm so jealous that I require supreme position in their life.

I'm not okay with sharing that position with anybody else or anything else for that matter,

right?

To be Christian is to hold Jesus in supreme position in my life.

He's my God.

He is my religion.

He is my practice.

He is what I do.

He's what I believe in, right?

It is a spiritual part of my life, right?

In fact, he's not all right with any other position other than supreme in my life.

Top dog, right?

Say top dog.

All right?

God won't tolerate us compartmentalizing him.

That's what we do, right?

He interprets compartmentalizing God like, okay, God's cool over here and God's all right

over here and I got these four or five areas of my life that God's really awesome in and

he's supreme over here, but when he gets over here, he's kind of in second, third place,

right?

That's compartmentalizing God.

It's putting God in a box and I pull him out when I want to, right?

He's not okay with that.

He interprets that actually as hating him.

I know that's strong, right?

Come on, say it's strong.

It's strong this morning.

For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon

the children to the third and fourth generations to those who hate me.

He interprets compartmentalizing as hating him.

Did you catch that?

I know that's stiff, right?

That's tough, right?

So I got to preach hard sometimes because it's just the Bible.

That's what it says, right?

Right?

It's true.

100% of Christians should say that he is my all in all, that my practice ties with what

I believe and what I believe is my practice, not 2%.

It should be 100%.

100% of Christians should say that my spirit, what's happening spiritually with God is what

affects how I walk out my daily life, right?

It's the priorities in my life.

This is how I do.

And you might be thinking, well, how can this be so among Christians, right?

How can only 2% of Christians say that their faith in Jesus is supreme only in some areas

of their life?

And here's how it happens.

And it's clearing God's word because one of Satan's tactics is to shift Jesus from supreme

position to some other position in your life.

It's one of his supreme tactics.

It's one of the things, it's one of his go-tos.

If you want to give Satan a go-to, this is a go-to that Satan goes to.

All right?

I didn't mean to say that doubly, but it did.

All right?

He's constantly trying to shift us.

He's constantly trying to get Jesus from first position in our life to some other position,

slide it in there some way.

And believe it or not, the devil works at this so hard that he literally tries to do

this to Jesus when Jesus was walking the earth.

He is so audacious.

He has so much pride and arrogance that he tries to get Jesus to dethrone the father

position in his own life.

Jesus has been baptized by John the Baptist and the heavens opened up and said, this is

my son in whom I am well pleased.

And right following Jesus' water baptism, Jesus withdraws into the desert and he goes

out there to pray and fast for 40 days.

And this is right before his public ministry is going to start.

And at the end of this 40 day fast, Satan comes to him in his physical weakness, because

how many of you don't eat for 40 days, you're going to get physically weak.

And he says, and Satan comes to Jesus and I don't know Satan's thoughts, but I think

he's thinking, well, let's just see what's supreme in your life, Jesus.

Because listen to what he says to him in Matthew 4.1, he says, then Jesus was led up by the

Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

And when he had fasted for 40 days and 40 nights afterward, he was hungry.

Amen.

I'd be hungry.

All right.

Now, when the tempter came to him, he said, if you're the son of God, command that these

stones become bread.

But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every

word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Satan comes to Jesus in a moment of extreme hunger.

He's been fasting for 40 days and for 40 nights without food.

How many know some of your children can't go 40 minutes without food and they think

they're starving to death?

Can I get an amen?

Can I get a witness?

Some of the big children in your house can't go 40 minutes without food.

You got snacks in the dress drawer.

You got snacks under the bed.

You got snacks in your purse.

You got them in your backpack.

We probably got enough diaper bags in here with food.

We can lock the doors and live in here for a year.

Okay, come on.

You know it's true, right?

There's food everywhere.

Jesus fasted for 40 days and for 40 nights.

He's physically at a point of starvation.

He is weak physically.

He's craving food.

How many know Satan always comes to us in the weak moment?

He's always looking for the weak moment in our life.

The time we're tired, the time we're stressed, the time we're physically down or mentally

down or emotionally down and we're speaking it out.

That's when he comes and he slides in and he does the same thing with Jesus, right?

When you're on day five of skipping your devotions, right?

Because you've been too busy.

That's when the enemy comes in.

He starts to come in like a flood and he's no different with Jesus.

He comes in.

Jesus is physically weak and Satan comes along and says, let's just see what's first in your

life, Jesus, right?

Because he knows and he starts to play to his extreme natural desire for food.

Let's see what religion you really have.

What are you standing on?

Do you got pride and ego as the son of God?

Because he says to him, if you're the son of God, command these stones become bread.

He knew Jesus power.

He knew this was the son of God.

He knew this was the man who would turn water into wine, right?

He knew that if Jesus wanted to, he could command that stone.

We couldn't do it, but he could command the stones and they'd turn bread and he could

eat them.

He knew that.

He played on that physical weakness, right?

In that moment, he played on his ego.

If you're the son of God, come on, Jesus, if you're the son of God, go ahead and do

it.

He was trying to dethrone the father being first place in Jesus' life.

He was trying to make his son.

He said, Jesus answers, he says, it is written, man shall not.

Jesus doesn't defend anything.

He doesn't come back and argue a saint.

He comes back with his father's word.

He said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the

mouth of God.

He's quoting scripture, right?

He's quoting his father's word.

Devil, let me tell you what is supreme in my life.

Let me tell you what is first place in my life.

This is the enemy's tactic.

We will all have devils that will come into our life and they'll be constantly barraging

us to get move Jesus from supreme position down to something else.

Make something else your religion.

Make something else your practice.

Make something else that you rely on spiritually.

He'll substitute.

He'll find cheap substitutions because they're always cheap substitutions.

Everything looks cheap compared to Jesus.

And it'll satisfy for the moment, but it will only be a moment.

People try to get Jesus to slide down and it's cheap substitution to slide in where

Jesus is supposed to be.

Don't do it.

It's not what it looks like.

Amen.

It is not what it looks like.

Don't do it.

Don't let it happen.

Don't fall for it.

Satan comes to Jesus second time, right?

Actually comes three times.

Matthew in four or five says, then the devil took him up to a holy city into the holy city,

set him up on a pinnacle of the temple where he could see down.

And he said to him, if you're the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, he

shall give his angels charge over you and in their hands, they shall bear you up.

Lest you dash your foot against the stone.

Jesus said to him again, it is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.

First time it's lust of the flesh and the pride of life.

And Satan comes one more time to hit him in the pride.

He's like, I don't know, Satan thought, well, maybe there's something under the surface.

Maybe this first time around was false pride in Jesus.

I'm going to see if it's there because he says it again.

If you're the son of God, right?

If you're the son of God, just go ahead and throw yourself down.

They'll catch you.

They're not going to let you fall.

Right?

And Jesus never blanks.

He said to him, it is written again.

He's quoting the father.

You shall not tempt the Lord your God.

He kept his father at supreme position in his life.

The devil will mess with you.

He will try to get you to change your religion.

He will try to get you to change your practice.

He will try to get you to change what you're spiritually leaning on, what you're depending

on and he'll try to move Jesus from first position in your life and slide it down to

the second.

And if you don't know Jesus at all, his goal is to never let Jesus come into first position

in your life to keep you from knowing what it is.

Right?

It's true.

You want a simple rule of thumb I can give you for keeping your religion?

Come on, tell somebody, keep the religion, keep your religion.

Come on, if it's in Jesus.

All right.

All right.

1 Corinthians 10 31 says this, therefore, whatever you eat or drink or whatever you

do, do it all to the glory of God.

Every time you do some, just waded through this filter.

Everything I'm going to do is this to the glory of God.

Is this going to be, is this going to give honor and glory and worship to the one who's

supreme in my life?

Because compartmentalizing Jesus doesn't do it, right?

Actually, compartmentalizing Jesus is what gives Christians a bad rap.

That because it looks like hypocrisy, right?

We're talking Jesus and then we live something else.

How many know that looks like hypocrisy to the world?

Because it is.

Right?

Right.

It looks like hypocrisy.

It's compartmentalized.

Don't do it.

If Jesus is supreme in us, our practice will always reflect it.

I didn't say perfection.

I said if Jesus is supreme in our life, our practice.

How many know you don't always get it perfect in practice, right?

But you practice it.

You do it over and over.

Jesus calls this out in James chapter 126.

He says, if anyone among you thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue,

but he deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this to visit the orphans and

the widows in their trouble and to keep one's self unspotted from the world.

We can't separate what we say is supreme in our life and the practice that we do.

I mean, visiting the widow and the orphan is the right thing, right?

In the time of trouble.

If we say we love God and we love people, thank you, three of you got it.

If we say we love God and we love people, right, we got to practice it.

It's going to show up in who we are.

It's going to show up in what we do.

Our religion should be what it looks like 100% of the time.

It's not just a mission statement here at LifeHouse, right?

Loving God, loving people every day.

It is something that we believe.

It is something we practice.

It is something that goes together.

It is who we are.

It is our religion.

You know what is supreme in your life.

I don't know if you've ever done this or not, but if you've ever watched a Super Bowl,

the football, maybe you don't like football, but if you've ever watched a Super Bowl game,

which takes place every year, at the end of the game, they always have these post game

interviews, right?

The winning team gets to come up and of course, everybody's cheering and carrying on and throw

stuff around.

I always interview a couple of the key players and it's interesting.

I can always tell the key players who Jesus is their king, right?

You can always tell the one who Jesus is supreme in their life because the commentators are

all talking about the game like, what happened in this play?

How did you feel during that play?

And they'll shove the mic at the player and the player goes, first of all, I want to thank

the Lord Jesus Christ who got over here.

I'm like, yes, right?

You know who's supreme in their life.

And then almost with humbleness, right, they're like, man, I just appreciate my teammates

so much.

The people that I love and work with, you know, and they're not talking about themselves.

They're not talking about the great play they made, right?

Then you'll get the next one who you know football is supreme in their life.

It's not Jesus.

And I'm not even going to quote some of them this year.

It was so ridiculous.

Go back and watch the reels, right?

They're just bragging on whatever took place in their play or whatever happened and they'll

throw in.

They're like, yeah, my teammates are good too.

You can tell what's supreme.

It shows up in your practice.

It shows up in what you do.

I'm going to close with the last thing that James says here about our religion.

He said, pure and defiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit the orphans

and the widows in a time of their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

He says if Jesus is your religion, you're going to stay away from sin.

You'll strive to eradicate sin from your life.

You'll follow the commands and God's desires are not your own.

Right?

That's what you'll strive to not rebel against God because that's what sin is.

It's rebelling against God's word and His plan and His commands, right?

You'll strive, will confess and will repent when we do get involved in sin and will keep

oneself unspotted from the world.

I don't know if you notice it in that scripture, but whose job is it to keep oneself unspotted?

Myself, right?

All the time, like God, keep me out of sin.

Jesus saying, no, you keep yourself out of sin.

Right?

Where God, please don't let me, please don't let me.

You're walking towards the temptation.

Please don't let me be tempted.

Please don't let me be tempted.

And Jesus saying, please walk away.

Turn around, go the other direction.

What are you doing?

Right?

Because God provides the power for us to overcome sin.

That's why the Holy Spirit came, comes in your life when you come to Jesus.

He empowers you.

He gives you the power over sin.

But then it's your job.

Then it's your job to say, no, I'm not doing that because that doesn't fit with who's supreme

in my life.

Right?

It's against God.

Don't cheapen God's grace, His forgiveness with minimizing sin or intentionally practicing

it.

Do it.

Well, one of my favorite scriptures and it's a scary scripture.

How many other scary scriptures?

Read the scary ones along with the other ones.

Right?

We love all the ones that are loved.

Read the scary ones too.

Because Hebrews 10 26 says this, for if we willfully sin after we've received the knowledge

of truth, there's no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment

and fiery indignation which devours the adversaries.

One who has rejected the Moses law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses

in the law before Jesus came before the time of grace and God's loving care in the law.

The law was tough, man.

If you had two or three witnesses that came on two or three witnesses, you could be sentenced

to death.

Right?

On two or three.

Right?

If you broke God's law.

How?

Now, listen, we're in New Testament.

Remember with Jesus and Jesus provides forgiveness of sins through what he did on the cross.

We talked about that all last week.

Right?

But look what it says, of how much worse punishment do you suppose will be thought worthy of who

trampled the son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was

sanctified as common thing and insulted the spirit of grace?

For we know him who said, vengeance is mine.

I will repay says the Lord.

And again, the Lord will judge his people.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.

Listen, I'm not to judge, God is.

I'm just telling you what scripture says.

Don't compartmentalize Jesus.

Don't compartmentalize who you believe in spiritually with what you practice.

They go together.

Amen?

Amen.

I'm going to ask if you'd stand.

And I know at the East Shore campus right now, Pastor Eric, he's making his way to the

front and the worship teams coming up.

And if you're on the online community, please stay with us.

We want you to hear the end of this message and really the response.

And I'm going to ask if everybody in the house, if you just take a moment to start to reflect

in your life, I want you to think about what you say is the spiritual belief in your life

and what you're practicing and do they line up right?

And I'm going to ask it if everyone now, if you would just close your eyes and focus for

a few minutes, right?

Close your eyes.