WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 All I wanted was for one of the many guest speakers to point their finger at me and say, 2 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:09.200 I see that you're called to the pastor. I never got it. The investments into Bitcoin never 3 00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:16.480 got a prophetic word about it. Change my life. Looking for supernatural direction from outside of 4 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:23.120 the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you tends to lead to error and tends to lead to flakiness 5 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:27.440 and tends to lead to people making shipwreck of their faith. Welcome to the City Light 6 00:00:27.440 --> 00:00:33.120 Church podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope 7 00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:38.960 and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us 8 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:48.000 at citylightnyc.com that's citylightnyc.com. Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power 9 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:54.400 of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, 10 00:00:54.400 --> 00:01:00.560 remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that He has 11 00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:09.920 a real hope and a future for you. It is wonderful to be here with you. It's wonderful to be here with 12 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:16.960 you in strength because last Sunday I made it through the first service. My back had whatever you 13 00:01:16.960 --> 00:01:25.200 want to call it. Gone out. Yeah, I blew my back out. That's not a real technical term. 14 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:31.920 I've known my chiropractor for a long time. He said, of all terms, he hates that. One the most. 15 00:01:32.720 --> 00:01:37.040 It doesn't exist. Anyway, pickle balls of Satan. 16 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:51.840 So a lot of senior citizens right now on the pickle ball courts that need intercessory prayer. 17 00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:58.160 They don't know yet. They will tonight. But I'm doing great now. 18 00:01:58.240 --> 00:02:14.240 Today is August 10th. I got saved on August 14th in 1992. So I'm coming up on 33 years of 19 00:02:14.240 --> 00:02:24.000 walking with the Lord and knowing. Amen. Best years of my life don't regret any decision I've made 20 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:31.600 for the Lord. And I'm particularly glad that He led me as I was getting saved to a spirit filled 21 00:02:31.600 --> 00:02:41.360 church. Call it spirit filled. Pentecostal. Charismatic. The point is I was able to encounter the 22 00:02:41.360 --> 00:02:48.800 Holy Spirit and be filled with the Holy Spirit. It wasn't only a frontal lobe in church appealing 23 00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:54.160 to my intellect, but the power of God was there and I encountered the power of God. And frankly, 24 00:02:54.160 --> 00:03:02.080 I needed to encounter the power of God. And I'm not sure I would have gotten saved if it was 25 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:07.440 through another means. Just the way I'm designed. Some people can find the Holy Spirit later, 26 00:03:07.440 --> 00:03:14.080 but they enter in through the intellectual door. I needed to experience him. And I did because 27 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:18.320 at the church where I got saved, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues 28 00:03:18.320 --> 00:03:25.920 that same night. And then I got water baptized that same night. And because of coming into Christianity 29 00:03:26.560 --> 00:03:32.400 in a spirit filled, Pentecostal. Charismatic way. I was able to encounter the Lord and He did a 30 00:03:32.400 --> 00:03:37.760 deep life work in me. I was able to attune my spirit to hear His voice and it's just so awesome. 31 00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:44.880 Which is why I was especially bothered when around 2010 and I've seen the same graph. I was 32 00:03:44.880 --> 00:03:52.240 going to have the graph for you. You can look it up. The statistics haven't changed. It shows 33 00:03:52.960 --> 00:04:01.840 different Christian denominations by household income. So it shows like 30 Christian denominations 34 00:04:02.800 --> 00:04:08.480 all organized by total household income. At the very top, you got the Presbyterians. 35 00:04:10.160 --> 00:04:15.680 Smart bunch of folk. And then I'm looking down the list and there's Lutheran, there's Methodist, 36 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.360 there's going down the... And guess who's at the very bottom of the list? 37 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.200 That's right. Pentecostals. 38 00:04:27.920 --> 00:04:36.240 Not at the very bottom, we were only beat out by two cults. The Jehovah's Witnesses were third 39 00:04:36.240 --> 00:04:42.080 from the bottom. So the JWs are broker than Pentecostals on the seven-day Adventists. 40 00:04:44.560 --> 00:04:50.080 And I would be an irresponsible pastor if that didn't bother me and do some soul searching. 41 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:55.360 And I was already bothered to begin with because when you're in a spirit filled church, 42 00:04:58.080 --> 00:05:05.280 you're given the keys to life. You're baptized in the Holy Spirit and in Jesus' words in 43 00:05:05.280 --> 00:05:11.280 dude with power from on high. You're taught that the cross of Jesus Christ and His victory are made 44 00:05:11.280 --> 00:05:17.440 your victory. And you're taught victorious living and you're taught the miracle working power of God 45 00:05:17.440 --> 00:05:22.240 and then how in the world do you end up at least in the financial realm at the very bottom? 46 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:26.240 And someone who's skeptical probably broke will say, well, why about the finances? Maybe we're 47 00:05:26.320 --> 00:05:30.960 higher and others because finances are important. Some broke person will always say that. 48 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:36.320 Well, what does it matter? Well, you can't make next month's rent, so it matters, doesn't it? 49 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:48.720 I'm glad I tickled one person. It matters. We should get to the bottom of that, right? 50 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:56.080 We shouldn't be afraid to not poke and pry and ask ourselves why in the world are Pentecostals 51 00:05:56.080 --> 00:06:02.560 at the bottom of that list? And so I really kind of obsessed over that. And with my staff, too. 52 00:06:03.520 --> 00:06:09.680 And I remember Pastor Mike and I obsessing over that and I shared with him my findings and my 53 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:14.800 wrestlings with the Lord. And out of that came his book, the intelligent charismatic, 54 00:06:16.080 --> 00:06:21.200 because the conclusion I had come to of why Pentecostals end up at the bottom, 55 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:28.560 this is going to blow your minds. It's because there are a bunch of weird o-flakes. 56 00:06:32.240 --> 00:06:39.360 Really, really just two heavenly minded that they're no earthly good, but they're not 57 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:46.000 even heavenly minded. They're just oftentimes weird and bizarre and belong on the Jerry Springer 58 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:53.120 show. So we're going to put an end to flakiness this morning, hallelujah. 59 00:06:56.080 --> 00:07:00.080 I feel like I'm going to write a book towards the end of my ministry, maybe where I'm like pastor, 60 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:04.560 Meredith, and someone else is the senior pastor of City Light. The title of the book will be, 61 00:07:04.560 --> 00:07:11.120 that'll be the cover. But instead of rooted and grounded, it'll say, the flakes have known. 62 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:18.800 Not even though make a cleaner, know the, just flakes have known. Let me define to you what a 63 00:07:18.800 --> 00:07:24.640 flake is. Now you should find yourself somewhere here if you don't, I failed, because we all, 64 00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:29.440 we all, we got to be honest, we all have a little bit of flakiness, right? And it's the Holy 65 00:07:29.440 --> 00:07:35.360 Spirit's job to get rid of the flakiness and make us rooted and grounded in the word and the 66 00:07:36.320 --> 00:07:42.960 spirit. So nobody here is flake-free. Just some people are so flaky, they're constantly self-sabotaging 67 00:07:42.960 --> 00:07:54.640 their own lives. See, God, He's an overflowing waterfall of blessings, of goodness, of abundance and 68 00:07:54.640 --> 00:07:59.920 prosperity, but we have to stop self-sabotaging and get out of our own way. There's a bunch of 69 00:07:59.920 --> 00:08:04.640 Christians tab dancing around the waterfall, around the spout from where the glory comes out, 70 00:08:04.640 --> 00:08:09.120 and He's like, won't you please just get under the waterfall so I can bless you. But the flakiness 71 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:17.600 in them won't let them. So here's what flakiness says, a flake is an ungrounded and substantial piece of 72 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:26.480 cornmeal, you remember? Serial. They can get blown, a flake can get just blown away in the wind. 73 00:08:27.440 --> 00:08:34.240 A flaky Christian is a Christian who claims spiritual death, depth, but operates outside the 74 00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:41.920 clear balanced teaching of scripture, building their faith life on personal feelings, superstitions. 75 00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:48.000 Some Christians are just weird like pagan mystics, full of superstitions in the way they try to 76 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.960 decipher the will of God. They might as well be throwing chicken bones and splattering blood, 77 00:08:52.960 --> 00:08:57.440 trying to figure out what is it that God wants them to do. There's so much weirdness out there. 78 00:08:58.320 --> 00:09:09.360 Like when Archando flooded, Archando flooded, did over six figures of damage and a pastor, 79 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:17.680 friend of mine, who's normally not flaky. He said, probably thought it's on the deep too, 80 00:09:17.680 --> 00:09:22.080 God is going to flood your life. God is going to flood your life with blessings. 81 00:09:22.800 --> 00:09:29.280 And I thought, can you do that without destroying six figures of property that he blessed me with? 82 00:09:30.800 --> 00:09:37.440 How do you get that? He destroyed my condo. God had already whispered to me, he was going to 83 00:09:37.440 --> 00:09:42.400 bless my life. Like I really believe God wants to talk to you. Jesus said, my sheep here, 84 00:09:43.040 --> 00:09:50.960 hear my voice. And flakes are always obsessed with the external. What's happening on the outside 85 00:09:50.960 --> 00:10:00.400 and is God showing me a sign? If my hamster doesn't tread the wheel this week, I'll know God, 86 00:10:00.400 --> 00:10:04.480 what your will is. It's not going to be from the outside. It's not going to be him flooding your 87 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:10.320 apartment. Some people use Satan to gauge how active God is in their life. They'll say, you know, 88 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:13.920 I almost got killed on the way to church this morning and it's going to be a great service. 89 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:22.240 I don't want to use the devil as a barometer to how great the service is. 90 00:10:32.560 --> 00:10:38.160 A flake is ungrounded in the word, comes across a spiritual, they usually full of pride, 91 00:10:38.960 --> 00:10:44.000 and they're very, very self-important. And the reason why there's so many flakes in 92 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:50.080 Pentecostal Charismatic Spurred Fieldland is because in that land you'll hear this more often 93 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:55.440 than in any other place. And that's that you are special, which is true. And you are unique, 94 00:10:55.440 --> 00:11:02.240 which is true. And you are empowered by God and you can hear his voice and you can go forth and 95 00:11:02.240 --> 00:11:08.720 have victory all true. But they lose sight of that you need to have great humility and submit 96 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:14.400 yourself also. So their heads get really big. Next thing, you know, they think they're Moses 97 00:11:14.400 --> 00:11:18.320 on the mountaintop. They don't need a pastor. They don't need a church. They're just off on their 98 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:23.920 own and they make shipwreck of their faith. And I don't say this like with delight. I'm actually 99 00:11:23.920 --> 00:11:30.480 preaching this because of 23 years of pain, of weeping, of going Lord, how can I help them? 100 00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:32.880 Because I see which way they're going. It's going to end in pain. 101 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:36.320 Jesus. 102 00:11:41.920 --> 00:11:47.360 Frequent thing that a flake will say is the Lord said, 103 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:54.720 do we believe the Lord says? Absolutely. If you're beginning every other sentence with the Lord said, 104 00:11:55.680 --> 00:11:57.920 I want to caution you maybe on flake territory. 105 00:12:00.800 --> 00:12:05.840 I don't have to tell my wife the Lord said. I don't have to tell the staff the Lord said. 106 00:12:06.960 --> 00:12:10.240 Flakes come up all the time and they'll say something like this to me. I'll just make it up 107 00:12:10.240 --> 00:12:15.360 off the top of my head. I'm starting a new business. They'll say the Lord told me to start 108 00:12:15.360 --> 00:12:22.720 a new business. I'm moving to Florida. What do you think? What? I mean, I think that I should 109 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:29.440 argue with the Lord. If you're saying the Lord said, you've now locked me out of my opinion, 110 00:12:29.440 --> 00:12:34.480 because I don't like to fight with the Lord. I lose every time. So you're already coming 111 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:39.520 completely unteachable. The Lord told you, can I get your advice? Well, my advice is to follow 112 00:12:39.520 --> 00:12:44.080 the Lord. But I wish you would have come wondering if you actually heard from the Lord. 113 00:12:45.040 --> 00:12:51.280 Like before I make any major decision, I go to people that I trust, that have the wisdom of God, 114 00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:56.320 that are people of prayer. And I don't say the Lord told me, what do you think? I say, I believe 115 00:12:56.960 --> 00:13:01.920 that this is what the Lord is telling me. But because I also recognize that I'm a man, 116 00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:07.520 also prone to emotions and other desires that may not be of God, maybe it's not of God. I've got 117 00:13:07.520 --> 00:13:14.560 to come in low. I've got to be open to correction and instruction. But when you begin with the Lord 118 00:13:14.560 --> 00:13:20.880 said, there's nothing more to say, because you went to the mountaintop apparently and got the word 119 00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:29.040 of the Lord. There was a fellow in here a while ago, he got radically saved. I was rooting for him 120 00:13:29.040 --> 00:13:35.200 big time. And very quickly he swerved off. And he said, the Lord showed him that Pastor Moe was a 121 00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:40.800 wish pastor. I'm like, there he is in the back. He said, I wish he said, he said, the Lord showed 122 00:13:40.800 --> 00:13:49.360 him that Pastor Moe was a witch. I thought, what in the world is happening here? I know Pastor Moe 123 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:57.920 so well. He doesn't have a cauldron. Not a tarot card in sight. Man of God loves Jesus, loves his 124 00:13:57.920 --> 00:14:04.960 family, loves people. And then in the life groups, when he would, when he would, I guess not jive 125 00:14:04.960 --> 00:14:09.040 with someone, that person was a witch. But you couldn't convince him that the Lord didn't tell him. 126 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:17.120 And eventually he left. You know, it's not a demon always. Sometimes it's just a personality conflict. 127 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:21.680 Amen. Can I just relieve you? Did you know that you're not supposed to like really, really like 128 00:14:21.680 --> 00:14:27.760 every Christian? Isn't that a relief? You're supposed to love him, but you don't really have to like 129 00:14:27.760 --> 00:14:36.880 him. In other words, not every Christian is going to be your bestie. Sometimes there will be 130 00:14:36.880 --> 00:14:43.680 personality clashes. There will be these differences. But it's not a demon. And what does that say about 131 00:14:44.400 --> 00:14:49.680 my ability as a pastor to detect and discern what's happening in a church? Pastor Moe has been flying 132 00:14:49.680 --> 00:14:58.720 under the radar as a witch for years. I couldn't tell. The other elders couldn't tell. My wife couldn't 133 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:10.640 tell. But this guy saved all of five minutes. He could tell. Whoa, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. 134 00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:20.000 Just lift your hands and say, Lord Jesus, align me and stabilize me. 135 00:15:23.680 --> 00:15:29.040 I've had some major, major wins in my life. And when I look back on major wins that are connected 136 00:15:29.040 --> 00:15:35.760 to big major decisions, you know, not every decision is important. What business you start is 137 00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:40.720 important, but you put your entire net worth into is important. What you're going to have for lunch 138 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:46.080 that day, not that important. All of the really important decisions that led to big success, 139 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:51.040 I'll tell you something. I never ever received a prophetic word about any single one of them. 140 00:15:52.880 --> 00:16:01.280 Yeah, and I love the prophetic. I believe in the prophetic. In fact, when I was called to ministry 141 00:16:01.280 --> 00:16:07.440 at the age of 16, 17, 18, all I wanted was for one of the many guest speakers to point their 142 00:16:07.440 --> 00:16:13.120 finger at me and say, I see that you're called to the pastorate. I never got it. That's all I wanted 143 00:16:13.120 --> 00:16:18.320 because it was burning inside of me. And I didn't want to be the loon flake who was just maybe getting 144 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:24.880 information from the wrong source. I never got it. The investments into Bitcoin never 145 00:16:24.880 --> 00:16:31.200 got a prophetic word about them. Change my life. What am I telling you here? I'm telling you that 146 00:16:31.520 --> 00:16:43.280 looking for supernatural direction from outside of the Holy Spirit who lives inside of you tends to lead to 147 00:16:43.280 --> 00:16:49.280 error and tends to lead to flakiness and tends to lead to people making shipperic of their faith. 148 00:16:50.560 --> 00:16:55.680 And again, if you were to survey people, which they have surveyed, the Barna group is surveyed, 149 00:16:55.760 --> 00:17:00.560 with the number one question people have about their lives. The number one question is, how can I 150 00:17:00.560 --> 00:17:08.560 know the will of God for my life? So that's why prophetic conferences are so popular because a 151 00:17:08.560 --> 00:17:13.600 prophet will come in and hopefully maybe he got to hold the dice. Maybe they'll pick you and they're 152 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:18.560 going to tell you what you need to do tomorrow next week, next month, next year. It's not going to 153 00:17:18.560 --> 00:17:24.960 happen. Why is it not going to happen? Because we don't live in the old covenant anymore. In the old 154 00:17:24.960 --> 00:17:30.080 covenant, people didn't actually have the Holy Spirit inside of them. Just the prophet, King, 155 00:17:30.080 --> 00:17:36.080 and high priest had the Holy Spirit upon them and they had to get directional words, a directional 156 00:17:36.080 --> 00:17:41.040 word having to do with where you're going to go, what you're going to do, your destiny, what makes 157 00:17:41.040 --> 00:17:46.640 you you. They had to get that from the outside in. Under the new covenant, the precious Holy Spirit is 158 00:17:46.640 --> 00:17:52.320 inside of you and he will illuminate you through your human spirit. He will guide you through your 159 00:17:52.320 --> 00:17:57.440 human spirit. If I wanted to pack out every single Sunday, I would flow in the prophetic, I would 160 00:17:57.440 --> 00:18:04.320 get prophetic ministers in and I would, it's evil actually. I would tap into people's insecurities 161 00:18:04.320 --> 00:18:10.720 and in their desires and their fears about the future. Yeah. And I would offer that to them as a 162 00:18:10.720 --> 00:18:14.880 product. And there was a time when I flowed a lot more in the prophetic. I've actually backed down 163 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:18.560 a little bit. We don't have Friday nights anymore. Every Friday night I'd flow in the prophetic 164 00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:22.000 and people would show phones in my face to record. You know, as soon as the iPhones came out, 165 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.640 they would record prophetic words. And I'm like, you've recorded me already five times. This is your 166 00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:32.560 sixth word you're recording. Are you like an archivist? Do you collect prophetic words about yourself? 167 00:18:34.560 --> 00:18:39.600 Not a lot of amen. Some laughter, some uncomfortable laughter. 168 00:18:40.640 --> 00:18:46.000 Collecting prophetic words stack. You don't have to be that insecure is what I'm trying to get 169 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:53.760 you to understand. He won't leave you out in the cold. He has promised to lead you, to guide you, 170 00:18:53.760 --> 00:19:00.480 to hold your hand, to take you in a land flowing in milk and honey. So what is the prophetic for? 171 00:19:00.480 --> 00:19:07.440 It's for confirmation, not information. Prophetic words are wonderful when they confirm what God 172 00:19:07.440 --> 00:19:15.680 himself has already spoken to you. Hallelujah. You don't have to be a flake, amen. You don't have 173 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:20.560 to be wondering what is God having stored for you. You know, what is the will of God? It's actually, 174 00:19:20.560 --> 00:19:26.240 if you just look at the scriptures, which is his word to you, it's very, very simple. Love him with 175 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:31.040 all your heart. Love others so that you witness and minister to them. Work with your hands. That 176 00:19:31.040 --> 00:19:40.160 which is good. Don't be idle. And go have fun. Enjoy your salvation, amen. Hallelujah. That's flakes 177 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:50.240 always overcomplicate stuff. Spiritual warfare. Very, very complicated for flakes. They're binding. 178 00:19:50.240 --> 00:19:57.200 They're loosening. They're rebuking. Then they're fasting. I shared with you a few months ago 179 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:01.040 about that woman who took communion. This is the stuff I'm talking about. She took communion 180 00:20:01.040 --> 00:20:06.880 grape juice, probably welches. And she poured it all along the edge of her property, you know, 181 00:20:06.880 --> 00:20:11.360 toward off evil spirits. This is something you'll get at some like pagan tribes somewhere in 182 00:20:11.360 --> 00:20:18.480 another continent. Yeah, Christians are doing it. Typically, Pentecostal, charismatic, 183 00:20:21.200 --> 00:20:33.760 cornflakes. Spiritual warfare. I mean, how complex does it have to be? Jesus defeated Satan. 184 00:20:33.760 --> 00:20:42.880 Now stand in your victory. If spiritual warfare, doing battle with the kingdom of darkness 185 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:47.840 is more complicated than what you see the apostles doing, then you're not doing it right. 186 00:20:50.160 --> 00:20:54.480 How come all that stuff? You can go to a Christian bookstore, go online and typing spiritual 187 00:20:54.480 --> 00:21:01.360 warfare. You won't believe the titles you'll see. And then if you read it, you will come under so 188 00:21:01.360 --> 00:21:07.760 much bondage, all the stuff you have to do. And then reality is you don't have to do any of that 189 00:21:07.760 --> 00:21:15.040 stuff. Look at what the apostles did. They abided in him. He abided in them. They didn't go in 190 00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:20.400 binding and loosening. They didn't go and prepare the terrain for two weeks by shouting at the devil 191 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:26.720 in tongues and warring tongues and waving banners and blowing rams horns. And they came and they 192 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:32.480 preached the word. And the word was enough. And then as a result of the word, signs and wonders 193 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:37.840 and miracles and salvation took place. And that spiritual warfare, hallelujah. If you're doing 194 00:21:37.840 --> 00:21:43.120 something the apostles never did, what are you doing? You got some new revelation? There's people 195 00:21:43.120 --> 00:21:46.640 I know that wake up in three in the morning and they go and talk to the devil for three hours. 196 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:52.560 They don't really talk to him. They're yelling at him. Devil, you can't have New York City. Devil, 197 00:21:52.560 --> 00:21:58.240 we're going to win. Devil, I hate you. Devil souls are coming in. Devil, devil. Who are you talking 198 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:05.680 to even? Did he? Is he your best friend? You have a nice new personal relationship with Satan? 199 00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:08.800 Spend your time talking to Jesus. 200 00:22:14.880 --> 00:22:19.280 People see numbers in weird places. There was a person once here. They said, you know, 201 00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:24.160 three is a holy number. You know what people try to set me up. I know three is a holy number, 202 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:33.680 isn't it? I guess. I don't know if it's better than one or seven or forty, but if you like it, 203 00:22:33.680 --> 00:22:39.440 I like it too. Why? What's up? Well, I just see threes everywhere. And sometimes I see three, 204 00:22:39.440 --> 00:22:45.040 I see three threes like I'll wake up and it's three thirty three. And then that day I look at a 205 00:22:45.040 --> 00:22:50.720 license plate and I'll see three threes. And so I look at, you know, Timothy 3, verse 33. 206 00:22:51.760 --> 00:22:57.040 There was this ministry. I gave them $333. And I said, what are you doing? 207 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:06.640 Unbiblical, weird, strange. And then people scratch their heads. Why are we at the bottom of the list 208 00:23:06.640 --> 00:23:10.960 when it comes to household financial income? Because we have a bunch of flakes and nuts running 209 00:23:11.520 --> 00:23:24.480 around making major life decisions on fruitiness. Also, by the way, 99.99% of all your dreams are, 210 00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:33.520 guess what? Dreams. So like Aris makes said, just dream on. Dream on, dream on, dream on. 211 00:23:35.360 --> 00:23:39.920 If you have to wake up with a secret magic decoder ring to figure out what God is trying to 212 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:43.040 communicate with you because you had a wild dream. You're doing it wrong. 213 00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:51.920 Kenneth Hagan, he said, if I look in the Bible, whoever had a dream, they immediately knew 214 00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:55.840 what was being communicated in the dream. People will come to me. This is what I dream. 215 00:23:55.840 --> 00:24:02.480 Then I got a year, the whole 10 minute long dream. And I'm, my dreams are exhausting. Now, 216 00:24:02.480 --> 00:24:06.800 I got to hear your 10 minute dream and go, do you know what it means? How am I going? It sounds 217 00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:11.520 like you had a lot of pizza and Dr. Pepper, right before you went to bed. That's what it sounds like. 218 00:24:12.560 --> 00:24:18.640 I can decode your dream. If you think the dream is from God, within that dream is the revelation. 219 00:24:19.280 --> 00:24:25.440 Joseph got a dream, both Joseph's, original Joseph, and then Mary's husband Joseph, 220 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:28.240 they got you, but they knew immediately what the Lord was talking to them about. 221 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:38.480 People will do things like, Lord, if I encounter five people on the way to work and they have 222 00:24:38.480 --> 00:24:43.120 airpods, air buds in their ears, I'll know. I'll know that you want me to go on that mission's 223 00:24:43.120 --> 00:24:47.840 trip with City Light to Guatemala next February. And then it's not going to be on the outside. 224 00:24:49.840 --> 00:24:58.000 And then in no other area, will you see weirdo, pentecostal flakiness more than in the area 225 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:05.520 of, you're ready for it, romance and marriage. Flakiness doth abound. 226 00:25:11.520 --> 00:25:18.880 It was a pastor I knew. He had a deeply spirit-filled church where the anointing was strong. 227 00:25:19.920 --> 00:25:25.040 People had God encounters all the time. And when they would come into his office in that first 228 00:25:25.040 --> 00:25:28.320 initial, you know, they just met and they're kind of falling in love and they're going to the pastor 229 00:25:28.320 --> 00:25:34.000 for premarital counseling, the first thing he would say to them is, I don't want to hear anything 230 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:39.440 that God told you. I don't want to hear about one dream, one vision, or one prophetic word, 231 00:25:39.440 --> 00:25:48.640 not a one. Why? Because marriage is a very, very natural thing. And God has given you intelligence, 232 00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:55.280 and God has given you wisdom. And so partnering with him, you can make the best decision. 233 00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:01.760 But the moment people start getting into words and revelations and it always ends up weird. 234 00:26:02.480 --> 00:26:06.880 And a big culprit is preachers because they like to super spiritualize how they met their wife. 235 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:14.080 So, you know, they tell stories in hindsight. And hindsight is weird. Either you're 236 00:26:14.160 --> 00:26:18.640 outright lying or you don't remember how it really was. I know when talking to older preachers, 237 00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:22.720 one of the jokes is the older they are, the greater they were. They'll tell you. He's like, 238 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:28.160 that was this crusade back in Liberia 20 years ago. The field had 100,000, oh, that was there. 239 00:26:28.160 --> 00:26:33.280 There was like 600 people in the field. How did grow to 100,000? You had a 10,000 every year. 240 00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:38.000 Up in there, that was a million people in that open air crusade. 241 00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:43.520 So they recount how they met their wife and they super spiritualize. They say things like the 242 00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:50.480 moment I looked at her, I heard God's voice. And I knew she was the one. Maybe for a few. 243 00:26:50.480 --> 00:26:55.200 Maybe that happened for the vast majority of people. That was not going to happen. I met Emily. 244 00:26:56.640 --> 00:27:01.040 I saw her. I did not hear God's voice. I heard my own voice going, wow. 245 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:08.000 And so I shot my shot and made my move. 246 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:14.640 I went, that was back when we actually had CDs in the back of my sermons, now everything's out 247 00:27:14.640 --> 00:27:20.000 in the cloud, which you know the cloud isn't the cloud. It's a bunch of servers somewhere in 248 00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:25.840 Oklahoma and Texas, but that's another story underground. I came up and gave her a bunch of CDs 249 00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:33.520 for free. As a guest, I just want you to have these. She said, right then she knew. I had my eye on 250 00:27:33.520 --> 00:27:38.880 her. But I never, I actually never, ever heard the Lord tell me anything. 251 00:27:41.600 --> 00:27:46.480 I just had a great peace. I asked close friends, I asked close pastor friends, what do you think? 252 00:27:46.480 --> 00:27:52.240 You know us, you know how do you think this will go down? Because believe it or not, 253 00:27:52.240 --> 00:27:57.760 marriages and you holding hands and having visions of Jesus and angels. Marriage is a lot of love, 254 00:27:58.480 --> 00:28:05.040 a lot of forgiveness, piles of dirty laundry and heaps of dirty dishes. And you need to be naturally 255 00:28:05.040 --> 00:28:11.600 able to get along and make that work. Amen. I think there'd be a lot more healthy marriages and 256 00:28:11.600 --> 00:28:17.760 more marriages in general happening if young men and young women just got to it. But you know what 257 00:28:17.760 --> 00:28:21.840 happens? I understand this. They got to it in the world and it caused nothing but pain and they 258 00:28:21.840 --> 00:28:27.440 made a mess. So they think it's like super, super different and in Christianity. And it is very 259 00:28:27.440 --> 00:28:32.720 different. But it's not that different. Like some people act like you're attracted to them. That's 260 00:28:32.720 --> 00:28:36.960 good. That's important. You shouldn't be unattracted to the person you're going to spend the rest of your 261 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:45.440 days with. Attraction is important. Now go ahead and get to know them. Check them out. Let them check 262 00:28:45.840 --> 00:28:51.520 you out. Do you have a list? Everybody has a list. Maybe not on paper. But you have a list. 263 00:28:52.240 --> 00:28:57.520 See how they measure up? And make sure you're using your head before you get drunk on the 264 00:28:57.520 --> 00:29:04.400 silly juice of love. Because nothing is more intoxicating than nothing will make you more stupid 265 00:29:04.400 --> 00:29:11.840 than falling in love. Before she let herself fall in love with me, she was checking me out. She was 266 00:29:12.800 --> 00:29:19.200 like, what's this guy really about? I asked her questions. One of the first questions I asked 267 00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:27.040 her was, are you a tyther? Because every pastor wants to know. No. Because she said, yes. And I 268 00:29:27.040 --> 00:29:31.360 go, that's important because where Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart is also. 269 00:29:31.360 --> 00:29:35.040 It's a sign of submission to the Lord and maturity in the Lord. 270 00:29:35.120 --> 00:29:45.360 What's on your list? You know, men, women, women, top of your list should be not a joker. 271 00:29:47.120 --> 00:29:54.000 Not a clown. Somebody who has vision. Somebody who's gainfully employed. That's a good start. 272 00:29:57.280 --> 00:30:01.520 If they're not gainfully employed, do they have ambition in their eyes? Maybe they're 273 00:30:01.520 --> 00:30:08.800 mopping floors next week. It's the fries. Do they at least know where they want to go? 274 00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:16.720 Gentlemen, top of your list should be not a feminazi. If I ask for breakfast, 275 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:23.600 is she going to hurl a frying pan at my head? I'm preaching to six people today, but that's okay. 276 00:30:24.560 --> 00:30:32.160 Hallelujah. Another thing, pastor, most share this one with me. I texted him last night. 277 00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:35.440 He shared this one with something he encounters a lot. 278 00:30:36.560 --> 00:30:43.120 His people come up to him and say, I want to grow in the Lord. And so I'm going to leave church 279 00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:45.920 to grow in the Lord and I'll be back. 280 00:30:53.600 --> 00:30:59.280 I'm going to work. See, God designed this thing called church where you're supposed to be matured 281 00:30:59.280 --> 00:31:04.080 and where you grow and where your gifts are utilized. It's designed to grow me, 282 00:31:04.800 --> 00:31:08.640 but not me. I'm going to go outside of the church and grow and I'll be back. 283 00:31:10.800 --> 00:31:16.160 And I've never seen a one of them come back. Have you ever seen a one of them come back, 284 00:31:16.640 --> 00:31:24.480 not a one. But see, if they weren't flaky, they would know the word and they would prize the word. 285 00:31:25.360 --> 00:31:32.400 Flakyness leads to misalignment. God actually is a God of order. He's a God of structure. 286 00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:38.480 See, we're a very free church. I'm a very free person, but at the same time, I fear the Lord, 287 00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:42.960 I reverence him. And I understand that he is a hierarchical God. People don't like that term 288 00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:47.760 hierarchy these days, but you look at even how he organizes the very angels he organizes 289 00:31:47.760 --> 00:31:53.520 him hierarchically. From archangels at the top to seraphim to cherubim to then just angels, 290 00:31:54.560 --> 00:31:58.720 you look at how he laid out the leadership structure from Moses at the tent of meeting and 291 00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:03.760 God is a God of order. And if I start doing things that are out of order, for example, 292 00:32:03.760 --> 00:32:08.400 what if I just get in my head, this is a little boring just preaching to city light. 293 00:32:09.280 --> 00:32:15.760 I need more stimulation. And they've had me for 23 years. I'm going to travel. And God doesn't want 294 00:32:15.760 --> 00:32:20.320 me to travel. He ordained me a pastor, not an evangelist or not a hybrid of both. 295 00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:25.840 So now I go out and it seems right, right? What could be wrong with him preaching the word more? 296 00:32:25.840 --> 00:32:29.920 I start traveling now. In fact, the ministry starts growing. I'm in other churches on Sundays. 297 00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:31.520 You're seeing me on their YouTube channels. 298 00:32:31.520 --> 00:32:38.560 And then all of a sudden, my marriage falls apart, my life falls apart, city light suffers, 299 00:32:38.560 --> 00:32:42.560 city light falls apart, but yet I seem to be doing something good. What happened? I got out of 300 00:32:42.560 --> 00:32:47.680 alignment. I got out of God's order. Being in his order brings a blessing and peace. 301 00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:50.000 Bring outside of his order. It brings a curse. 302 00:32:50.480 --> 00:33:00.800 Oh, hallelujah. Flakes I've known. We'll have a book signing and everything. Do you know 303 00:33:00.800 --> 00:33:06.000 there are Christians who play Bible roulette? You know, like in Vegas, there's a roulette wheel. 304 00:33:08.240 --> 00:33:11.840 Pronto Chanson, like I was taught, in fact, that first year I became a Christian. 305 00:33:11.840 --> 00:33:16.320 If you want to know, God's will close your eyes, open the Bible and let it just open and put 306 00:33:16.320 --> 00:33:21.040 your finger on a verse. Don't look. And the first verse that your finger touches, that's God's 307 00:33:21.040 --> 00:33:27.040 word to you. I just don't see anybody in the scriptures doing it that way. 308 00:33:29.280 --> 00:33:31.920 And I tried it and my finger went to Judas hung himself. 309 00:33:37.280 --> 00:33:39.520 Then I thought, this can't be it. I'll try something else. 310 00:33:40.480 --> 00:33:44.880 And one had something else and it said, that would you do, do quickly. 311 00:33:50.240 --> 00:33:56.400 Just before you go on any weird spiritual side quest, ask yourself, 312 00:33:58.480 --> 00:34:02.960 am I being more mystical than Jesus himself because you can't be more mystical than Jesus 313 00:34:02.960 --> 00:34:09.200 himself. Hallelujah. I mean, Jesus, he lived in such close proximity to the spirit realm. 314 00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:14.640 When Nathaniel was coming to him, this is so awesome. Jesus said, you know, while you were 315 00:34:14.640 --> 00:34:20.480 under the fig tree, I saw you. Jesus was just in constant communion with the spirit realm. 316 00:34:20.480 --> 00:34:24.960 And then he opened Nathaniel's eyes. He said, from this day forward, you're going to see angels 317 00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:29.920 of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. So there was a huge amount of angelic 318 00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:33.280 activity. What were they doing? I don't know. They were bringing in something and bringing 319 00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:36.560 going back home and coming back in. They were ministering to him to Jesus himself. 320 00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:40.000 But we can't be more mystical than Jesus. Hallelujah. 321 00:34:44.160 --> 00:34:49.040 I want to present to you three scriptures that make flakes squeal. 322 00:34:51.760 --> 00:34:56.320 Shriek, like in the olden movies, when you shove garlic in a vampire's face, 323 00:34:56.320 --> 00:35:04.480 say, spray them with holy water. In this great deflaking, these scriptures will help. 324 00:35:08.560 --> 00:35:14.000 We'll begin with the shriekiest one. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 17. 325 00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:25.680 Oh, not obey. And that's really with a flake what you're up against. 326 00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:31.040 Because when you're a full blown flake, look again, we need to be humble. Do I have some flake 327 00:35:31.040 --> 00:35:36.000 in us on me? Probably, yeah. I'm constantly going to the Lord. Oh, that was flaky, right, Lord? 328 00:35:36.000 --> 00:35:44.640 That was, that wasn't really grounded in the word. Like, I'll tell you, you know what I did 329 00:35:44.640 --> 00:35:49.200 back in college? I was so hungry for the Lord. I read in the book of Acts that Paul made an oath 330 00:35:49.200 --> 00:35:52.800 and shaved his head. I didn't know anything about that. I didn't know the history of the tradition. 331 00:35:54.000 --> 00:35:58.560 So you know what I did? I got a buzzer and I shaved my head bald. I was so hungry for God. 332 00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:03.840 You know, I do not have a pretty head. Like you, you have a, I admire your head. 333 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:09.040 Mine looked like the lunar landing. Like it was crater. I can don't know what happened. I don't 334 00:36:09.040 --> 00:36:13.360 know what the doctor did when he pulled me out. You do not want to see me bald. I think the Lord will 335 00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:19.760 always have me nice hairy mane to protect the eyes of the congregants. But I shaved myself completely 336 00:36:19.760 --> 00:36:28.880 bald. What was that? Very flaky. The Lord and His mercy still met me, blessed me, touched me 337 00:36:28.880 --> 00:36:32.880 because I was showing radical hunger, even though it was a complete flake going about how I 338 00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:41.360 showed that hunger. So when you're just a little flake, you don't mind, but people who are in full 339 00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:50.080 blown flakehood, the very word obey makes them shriek because really they don't want to submit 340 00:36:50.080 --> 00:36:57.280 to anyone including God. They do not like to submit. Oftentimes that comes from a wound. They've 341 00:36:57.280 --> 00:37:02.720 been hurt. They've been, this is very important. They've been hurt by an authority figure. It could 342 00:37:02.720 --> 00:37:11.440 be early on as a father, a teacher, a coach, or later by a pastor, another elder, or they feel 343 00:37:11.440 --> 00:37:17.040 betrayed by God himself. And so any kind of obedience, any kind of submission, they immediately recoil. 344 00:37:19.120 --> 00:37:23.600 But you can't take away what's in the scripture. Obey those who rule over you. 345 00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:33.600 Now, Pastor Moe and myself and the other elders, do we act like we rule over you? Do I come in here? 346 00:37:36.400 --> 00:37:44.400 Kiss the ring. No, we love you. We serve you. We pledge our lives to the Lord. And we realize the 347 00:37:44.400 --> 00:37:52.000 very word, minister means servant. And I get this, a verse like this has been abused by preachers, 348 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:59.920 cult leaders. If you're in a cult, get out. If you're under an abuse of pastor, why are you still 349 00:37:59.920 --> 00:38:05.680 there? Get out. But find yourself a church with godly leadership. And there's a lot out there. 350 00:38:05.680 --> 00:38:12.560 There actually is. Most pastors are not crooks. There's a few of them out there. But most pastors 351 00:38:12.560 --> 00:38:17.200 that I know, even here in New York, see they're actually wonderful, darling men who love God, 352 00:38:17.200 --> 00:38:20.240 love their wives, love their families and love the people God has put in their care. 353 00:38:21.200 --> 00:38:26.160 Simple men who love Jesus. Since I said simple, I forgot to say, did I talk about it? 354 00:38:26.160 --> 00:38:31.200 I'm sorry, sometimes the first service. And I talk about my pastor in simplicity. No, 355 00:38:32.480 --> 00:38:37.280 my pastor. Mr. Holy ghost himself, Rodney Howard Brown. 356 00:38:39.360 --> 00:38:42.880 Powerful anoint. Here's from heaven. Wonderful. 357 00:38:43.680 --> 00:38:51.280 Charisma magazine, estimate. What is the secret to your prayer life? What is the secret to your 358 00:38:51.280 --> 00:38:56.560 relationship? Because he was having back in the 90s, meetings like nobody has ever seen before. 359 00:38:56.560 --> 00:39:00.160 If I told you what the meetings were like, you wouldn't, you wouldn't believe me. The people 360 00:39:00.160 --> 00:39:04.960 had to be six hour meetings and people had to be dragged out as their experience, the presence of 361 00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:13.440 God would come in and just overwhelm the whole place. And I was 18, 19 at the time. I wanted to 362 00:39:13.440 --> 00:39:18.160 know too. I was ready. I had my pen and paper out. What is going to be his answer? I'm sure it's 363 00:39:18.160 --> 00:39:23.760 going to be very, very deep and profound. Lots and lots of notes I can take. And he shrugged his 364 00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:31.120 shoulders and he said, I can answer that question with one word, simple. My relationship with the 365 00:39:31.120 --> 00:39:39.680 Lord is very, very simple. And I felt like change. Come explode, break off of me because my 366 00:39:39.680 --> 00:39:44.160 relationship with the Lord at the time was very, very complicated. There was a constant ledger in 367 00:39:44.160 --> 00:39:49.760 my head of what did I do? What did I do to mess God's plan from me up? Did I sabotage myself? 368 00:39:49.760 --> 00:39:54.240 It was really religious bondage. I didn't understand grace and I didn't understand that 369 00:39:54.240 --> 00:39:59.520 God has called us to simplicity. In fact, the Apostle Paul said, he said, I'm concerned for you, 370 00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:05.280 he wrote the Corinthians, let's true be moved from the simplicity that is in Christ. There's a 371 00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:14.960 simplicity. Hallelujah. The last two years of our lives, God has just overblessed us, overblessed 372 00:40:14.960 --> 00:40:22.080 us. First the house, then the paying off of the house, then the Bitcoin went through the roof, 373 00:40:22.080 --> 00:40:26.480 then you know, I shared in the first service and in sharing the second service. 374 00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:33.200 Last week, it was now two weeks ago, my wife and I, I don't do this to be tacky again, 375 00:40:33.200 --> 00:40:41.360 but to inspire you and to know that we practice what we preach. My wife and I gave 2.131 376 00:40:41.360 --> 00:40:46.640 mama million with an M dollars as our tie then offering to city light church. Yeah. 377 00:40:47.520 --> 00:40:48.320 Hallelujah. 378 00:40:48.400 --> 00:40:57.600 You know how we got to that place? Simplicity. If you looked at our schedule and looked at how we 379 00:40:57.600 --> 00:41:04.400 live our lives, you'd actually, you might yon. Simple. Holding his hand. And by the way, let me just 380 00:41:04.400 --> 00:41:09.440 be clear, I didn't make over 20 million dollars. I know that'd be exciting. That was like a tie, 381 00:41:09.440 --> 00:41:14.320 multiple tides and offerings because we just, we felt overwhelmed to and also that number that 382 00:41:14.320 --> 00:41:21.840 we gave more than makes up for my salary for 23 years at city light church, which essentially has 383 00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:27.760 made me now a volunteer pastor at city light for the last 23 plus years. So if anybody comes to 384 00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:31.840 you and says, Hey, you know, church is all about money and I bet your pastor is all about money. 385 00:41:31.840 --> 00:41:40.240 Yeah. Now, what is he drive? You can say, I may back. His wife's got a Porsche and also they gave 386 00:41:40.320 --> 00:41:45.840 over two million dollars to the church. So put that in your religious pipe and smoke it. Amen. 387 00:41:49.120 --> 00:41:50.000 Hallelujah. 388 00:41:55.280 --> 00:42:00.880 Obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must 389 00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:07.280 give account. Let them do so with joy and not with grief for that would be unprofitable for you. 390 00:42:07.280 --> 00:42:15.120 Proverbs 11 14, be submissive. Obey those who rule over you. 391 00:42:20.720 --> 00:42:27.520 Be teachable, be correctable. Proverbs 11 14, where there is counsel, the people fall, 392 00:42:28.240 --> 00:42:32.880 excuse me, where there is no counsel, the people fall. But in the multitude of counselors, 393 00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:40.640 there is safety. So before you do that big thing with your life, find two or three people. The 394 00:42:40.640 --> 00:42:45.280 Bible says out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, let it be established. We have an elder 395 00:42:45.280 --> 00:42:52.640 ship here at city light. There's a godly man who've given their lives to Jesus. They have a 396 00:42:52.640 --> 00:42:58.720 surrendered heart. They're engaging the word of God every day. They're good counselors. I'm happy 397 00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:03.280 for any idea for you to bounce off of me. I'm happy and guess what, I'm also available and reachable. 398 00:43:05.040 --> 00:43:09.520 And in addition to the ministry here, you should have people in your life who walk in wisdom, 399 00:43:09.520 --> 00:43:14.240 who walk close to the Lord that you can, if you don't want to submit or discuss your big plan 400 00:43:14.240 --> 00:43:19.120 with somebody, there's a reason for that. And it's usually not good. You've got something to hide. 401 00:43:19.120 --> 00:43:24.240 Anything holy can be shattered from the rooftops. There's a deep down inside you know you're 402 00:43:24.240 --> 00:43:32.480 flaking out. You're flaking out. You're wild. I'm got some random thoughts here. They're in my 403 00:43:32.480 --> 00:43:38.240 notes, but a lot of stuff came. It was a big download when I was writing this message. But I had 404 00:43:38.240 --> 00:43:45.600 this talk with a fellow friend from Bible school. And there were over 300 graduates from my Bible 405 00:43:45.600 --> 00:43:51.120 school. And it's less than five of us that are actually doing something in ministry today. 406 00:43:51.120 --> 00:43:58.880 And my friend now divorced. Bless his heart, his wife went off the deep reels and she really 407 00:43:58.880 --> 00:44:03.120 wanted to be like some figure. Some, I'm not going to say her name. Okay, she wanted to be like 408 00:44:03.120 --> 00:44:12.400 Paula White. That was just the hero she picked. She never ended up being Paula White and horrendously 409 00:44:12.400 --> 00:44:20.160 backslid. But listen to this, every story of somebody in ministry at least. But I see it in the 410 00:44:20.160 --> 00:44:28.480 congregation also of majorly derailing. They all have one common theme. They wanted to be somebody. 411 00:44:30.160 --> 00:44:37.520 They really wanted to be somebody. They wanted to be important. They wanted to have fame. 412 00:44:37.520 --> 00:44:41.680 They make it out like no, I really wanted to win souls and I love the Lord. But right underneath 413 00:44:41.680 --> 00:44:47.760 there was I really wanted to be somebody. You know, somebody people respect. Somebody people talk 414 00:44:47.760 --> 00:44:53.840 about. And I wanted my name to live on even after I go and be with the Lord. It always ends in 415 00:44:53.840 --> 00:45:02.560 disaster. What's what's what path to take them? Don't want to be somebody. I want to be close to 416 00:45:02.560 --> 00:45:08.160 Jesus. There's also a lot of people who are somebody, the vast majority of people who are somebody 417 00:45:08.160 --> 00:45:12.160 when I get to know them, when I hear their story, I realize all they ever wanted to do was just 418 00:45:12.160 --> 00:45:19.600 love the Lord and help people. And then God made them somebody. Hallelujah. 419 00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:24.640 I'm watching somebody right now make shipwreck of their life because they really, really want 420 00:45:24.640 --> 00:45:37.680 to be somebody. And the reason you got me going, the reason why 421 00:45:37.680 --> 00:45:44.560 Pentecostal charismatic spiritful people are prone to losing their minds is because there's a lot 422 00:45:44.560 --> 00:45:50.960 of people in that world. Whenever they prophesy, it's always some ridiculous word. There was a period 423 00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:57.040 there in the 90s, 2000s where if you were ever ministering to youth, you prophesy to every single one 424 00:45:57.040 --> 00:46:01.280 of them. You never prophesy. You're going to live a good life. You're going to love the Lord and 425 00:46:01.280 --> 00:46:07.360 serve Him with God's gladness. No, that's not sexy. The prophecies are always, I see you standing 426 00:46:07.360 --> 00:46:16.480 on a mountain. You're overlooking the nations. You're preaching to the masses. God is going to raise 427 00:46:16.480 --> 00:46:22.560 you up. I see private jets in your future, everybody. And now they're working at King Coast. 428 00:46:23.280 --> 00:46:30.800 Oh, you don't have to, you don't have to be somebody. You're already somebody in Jesus. Amen. 429 00:46:31.840 --> 00:46:36.960 Now, was that an, for example, that statement in my early 20s and your early 20s? It's a little weird 430 00:46:36.960 --> 00:46:44.240 if you're not very, very ambitious. And ambition is good, but vision is better. Vision is about 431 00:46:44.240 --> 00:46:49.440 He. Ambition is about Me. Now, that was always the case with man. You can go back for all of human 432 00:46:49.440 --> 00:46:54.240 history. That was the case in man. But how much more now in the current culture that we live in 433 00:46:55.120 --> 00:47:00.240 with the constant scrolling and the social media? You're always wanting to be something else, 434 00:47:00.240 --> 00:47:05.680 somebody else. It's a death trap. And when you finally settle and find your peace in Jesus 435 00:47:06.560 --> 00:47:12.560 and declare that, Oh, you are enough. What we've experienced is he will overwhelm you. He will 436 00:47:12.640 --> 00:47:18.800 cause your cup to overflow and overflow and overflow. When Jesus is enough, he gives you all that other 437 00:47:18.800 --> 00:47:25.920 stuff. And can I just tell you, I will never get a luxury car again. I bought that May back. That 438 00:47:25.920 --> 00:47:32.080 was wonderful. It's a beautiful car. It's a delight. It's a delight. But after about six weeks, 439 00:47:32.080 --> 00:47:38.320 it was just like my Toyota. And that's the truth. Yeah, I get a massage and it keeps, keeps my 440 00:47:38.320 --> 00:47:44.480 lemonade cold. And there's a, but it really is just like there's some men that's like their cover 441 00:47:44.480 --> 00:47:50.400 photo. That's like their main goal in life. I wanted to celebrate a financial victory. And I go, you 442 00:47:50.400 --> 00:47:58.400 know, it was not, it was like that about everything actually. There's watches I've been given, 443 00:47:58.400 --> 00:48:02.160 Rolexes and brightlings. They're in a safe in darkness. They haven't seen the sunlight in five 444 00:48:02.160 --> 00:48:10.960 years. At the end of the day, all you have is Jesus. He's the joy of your heart. 445 00:48:12.720 --> 00:48:17.200 And then he'll just get you the stuff. He'll just get it to you so we can get it through you. 446 00:48:20.800 --> 00:48:25.440 So one of those brightlings when John Arnott was over for breakfast, I'm sitting having breakfast 447 00:48:25.520 --> 00:48:31.840 with him. And I think, oh, you were there. That's right. Yeah. I was like, I can give one of those. 448 00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:37.520 Let it see the light of day finally. And he didn't even want it. He's like, I go to Mexico on 449 00:48:37.520 --> 00:48:41.760 missions. I can't wear this. What am I going to do? I was like, just wear it. Just be blessed. 450 00:48:42.480 --> 00:48:47.440 I bet it went in his sock drawer and he'll give it to someone else. And you know, those scriptures 451 00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:51.360 that Jesus talks about riches and how they're rusty. And then it all starts to make sense when 452 00:48:51.360 --> 00:48:55.760 you actually get some. When you're broke like I was. And Jesus talked about riches getting more 453 00:48:55.760 --> 00:49:01.200 beaten and filled the road. You're like, I'd like to find out for myself here. Let me find out. 454 00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:07.040 I'll pray back to you. Let you know how I feel about it. Turns out Lord, you were right all along. 455 00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:17.680 Hebrews 10.25. We're talking about the trifecta of verses that make flakes shriek. 456 00:49:22.160 --> 00:49:28.880 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. See flakes, they don't like church. 457 00:49:30.160 --> 00:49:34.400 And I realize I'm kind of preaching to the choir here because you're in church. So there shouldn't 458 00:49:34.400 --> 00:49:39.200 be any full blown flakes here unless you're passing through unless we're one of the 10 churches on 459 00:49:39.200 --> 00:49:45.520 your list. But flakes, they either don't go to church or they hopper from church to church. 460 00:49:46.160 --> 00:49:50.960 The church hoppers see when your church hopper you never have to obey those who rule over you. 461 00:49:50.960 --> 00:49:55.280 You never have to submit. The moment somebody comes and just pushes up against you, you're like, 462 00:49:55.280 --> 00:50:00.080 hmm, all of a sudden I don't feel led to go to this church. I feel led to go to that other church 463 00:50:00.080 --> 00:50:04.320 where they don't know me yet. They don't know how toxic I am. They'll figure it out in six months 464 00:50:04.320 --> 00:50:09.200 and call me out on it. And then I'll feel led to go to another church. And I'll just ping pong 465 00:50:09.200 --> 00:50:13.680 and bounce around all the spirit-filled churches of New York City. And then 20 years later, 466 00:50:13.680 --> 00:50:17.360 I'll be scratching my head wondering why I'm at the bottom of household income here on this list. 467 00:50:18.080 --> 00:50:22.160 Because I'm unstable. Jesus. 468 00:50:25.280 --> 00:50:29.520 And they always spiritualize it. They see things like, I go to where the fire is hot and where the 469 00:50:29.520 --> 00:50:34.480 fire burns. I go to where the wind is blowing. I go to, you go to wherever you want. 470 00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:44.560 You flip a coin every Sunday. Don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. 471 00:50:44.640 --> 00:50:48.880 As is the manner that word for manner in the Hebrew in the Greek is habit. 472 00:50:48.880 --> 00:50:54.880 Said, not go in a church, not coming together. That's a bad habit. It's the habit of granola bars. 473 00:50:56.480 --> 00:51:04.320 Flaky people. But exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching. 474 00:51:06.720 --> 00:51:10.080 Can we get communion ready? Let me just read Mark 515 to you. 475 00:51:14.960 --> 00:51:23.120 Thank you, Jesus. David Wagner stayed with me. We had some good talks about just this kind of 476 00:51:23.120 --> 00:51:28.000 stuff. He would agree with everything. And he has a prophetic ministry. And he stayed with me. 477 00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:32.480 And so we spent 18 hours a day together and woke up early and went to bed late and talking 478 00:51:32.480 --> 00:51:36.960 about the things of God non-stop. Do you know how many prophetic words I got? 479 00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:47.680 One thirty second one. Thank you, Lord. And I'm grateful for that. And it was wonderful. 480 00:51:48.400 --> 00:51:53.200 And I didn't ask him for it. I remember when I was in my 20s and you really saved, 481 00:51:53.200 --> 00:51:57.680 oh, I would come and I would sit somewhere where the preacher could see me just hoping they 482 00:51:57.680 --> 00:52:02.960 would call me out. Because I was lonely and lost and insecure in the Lord's love for me. 483 00:52:03.520 --> 00:52:09.040 But I don't want it to be that way with you. He loves you. He cares about you. 484 00:52:09.040 --> 00:52:13.280 He sees the end from the beginning. He sees your 40s, your 50s, your 60s, your 70s, your 80s, 485 00:52:13.280 --> 00:52:19.120 God willing, your 90s. He will lead you and guide you, but not from the outside from the 486 00:52:19.120 --> 00:52:25.200 Holy Spirit within. Now we're going to all receive communion together. So just hang on to the 487 00:52:25.200 --> 00:52:36.640 communion elements as we take them together. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. And just so you know, 488 00:52:36.640 --> 00:52:42.000 when I shared that amount, what we gave, we didn't just kind of peel that from the top and go, 489 00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:47.600 well, this is nice. That was an amount. That wasn't a normal tie. That was a tie then an offering 490 00:52:47.600 --> 00:52:51.840 and the offering was frankly bigger than the tie, the 10% amount. Am I making sense here for 491 00:52:51.840 --> 00:52:56.880 people who are curious? I'm not sharing this to get applause. I'm sharing this because somebody here, 492 00:52:56.880 --> 00:53:02.480 you know, is going to say, oh, I want to do that. And they're going to, they're going to connect 493 00:53:02.480 --> 00:53:08.240 with that. You know who I heard you did this 20 years ago? Rick Warren, that book he wrote, 494 00:53:08.240 --> 00:53:14.480 Purpose Driven Life. And he did that. And I watched the video where he said, I gave all the money back 495 00:53:14.480 --> 00:53:19.280 that the church ever paid me. And I out loud, I said, Lord, please let me do that. I like the city 496 00:53:19.280 --> 00:53:23.440 light was one years old. And I said, let me do that one day. That's still like the greatest 497 00:53:23.440 --> 00:53:30.320 testimony a pastor can have. So I'm just sharing this so you get more insight. We didn't just peel it 498 00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:36.000 off the top and go, well, that was fun. We were terrified. For 48 hours, we went back and forth. 499 00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:40.640 We went and then we thought, how about this amount and no amount less than that did we feel peace 500 00:53:40.720 --> 00:53:47.680 from? When we landed on that amount, it was like, the Lord likes that. Hallelujah. 501 00:53:50.240 --> 00:53:56.720 So the madman of Gadara, full of demons running around the cemetery, cutting himself. 502 00:53:57.680 --> 00:54:02.160 Jesus said, what's your name? He said, we are Legion. You know what a Legion is? A Roman 503 00:54:02.160 --> 00:54:07.760 garrison of three to five thousand troops. That means that this guy had quite a few passengers 504 00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:16.400 aboard his train. Full of demons. And Jesus commands him to come out. And what is the first fruit 505 00:54:16.400 --> 00:54:22.480 of him being set free of the demonic? What is the, what language does the Bible use to describe 506 00:54:22.480 --> 00:54:31.760 how we should know that he was fully delivered? They saw him sitting. What is sitting? Sitting is 507 00:54:31.760 --> 00:54:37.920 the posture of a student. The rebony or the rabbi would be standing. The student is now teachable. 508 00:54:38.480 --> 00:54:45.120 He's submitted and he's listening to the word of God. This message basically is a message that 509 00:54:45.120 --> 00:54:48.960 encourage you to submit to the word of God, but you can't submit to the word of God if you don't know 510 00:54:48.960 --> 00:54:54.240 the word of God. So stay in the word and don't do extra biblical things. And a lot of penicostles 511 00:54:54.240 --> 00:54:59.200 are Biblically illiterate. And that's why they end up doing flaky things and hopping from job 512 00:54:59.600 --> 00:55:05.120 to job. But do you know there was a great revival that moved in the 70s? Called the Jesus movement. 513 00:55:05.120 --> 00:55:10.960 It happened on college campuses. And a lot of those people, because it was a great move of God, 514 00:55:10.960 --> 00:55:16.000 they got a sense of eternity, they all believed Jesus was coming back within two years. So do you 515 00:55:16.000 --> 00:55:20.080 know what they did? They'll draw a bunch and not all, but a disproportionate amount of them dropped 516 00:55:20.080 --> 00:55:32.240 out of college. Yeah. You don't exactly come and fill up the greatest places in society when an 517 00:55:32.240 --> 00:55:37.680 entire generation has dropped out of college. You got now Presbyterians at the top there, 518 00:55:38.640 --> 00:55:41.920 they're owning the franchise and the penicostles going, would you like fries with that? 519 00:55:42.320 --> 00:55:52.160 Hallelujah. And by the way, speaking of college, hang on to your community elements. 520 00:55:54.480 --> 00:55:59.840 There's this movement now about how like you don't have to go to college, don't go to college. 521 00:56:01.200 --> 00:56:05.600 Especially in conservative circles, because college is a grand completely mad. They're full of 522 00:56:05.600 --> 00:56:11.120 wokeism, woke stuff, and you know, they're churning out. I mean, you see some of the results. 523 00:56:11.120 --> 00:56:15.600 They're churning out men who don't want women and women who don't want men. And then people are 524 00:56:15.600 --> 00:56:19.360 scratching their head wondering, why is no one getting married? Why can't I even find a normal 525 00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:24.240 person to date when both men and women have been radicalized and made just impossible to get 526 00:56:24.240 --> 00:56:29.280 along with each other? So there's this movement of, oh, you know, get into the trades and you don't 527 00:56:29.440 --> 00:56:35.040 need college. No, you still need college. We don't need a million penicostle plumbers. 528 00:56:35.920 --> 00:56:41.440 We need other, other strata of society to be filled up by thinking intellectuals who also hear 529 00:56:41.440 --> 00:56:48.880 from heaven, amen? You know what I, what I notice living out in Long Island? Who, who doesn't get 530 00:56:48.880 --> 00:56:54.560 brainwashed and who doesn't get wokified in college? You know, I know, I pay attention, I notice, 531 00:56:54.560 --> 00:57:05.840 oh, look, Asians. Yeah, are you laughing, Asian? One who finds the funniest is like, 532 00:57:05.840 --> 00:57:10.720 he's had laughing because he knows it's true. Chinese, Korean, Indian, oh, it's South Asia, 533 00:57:10.720 --> 00:57:18.320 you say, I wonder why that is. They just must be stronger than no. Family, family, strong fathers, 534 00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:23.680 family, they have the meeting, have many meetings, go to college, take the good stuff, spit out the 535 00:57:23.680 --> 00:57:29.280 bad stuff. Here's a list of the bad stuff. You are a girl. You will not be a boy. You are a boy. 536 00:57:29.280 --> 00:57:36.160 You will not be a girl. Hey, feminism equal pay for equal work. Good. All that other stuff they 537 00:57:36.160 --> 00:57:43.280 put on top of it later. Not good. Amen. You're a man. You will take the hits. You will provide. 538 00:57:43.280 --> 00:57:48.800 You will have vision. It's your job to protect and provide for your family. And then they can 539 00:57:48.800 --> 00:57:56.880 come with the woke stuff later and they don't budge. Amen. Hallelujah. Lord, make us more Asian. 540 00:57:57.760 --> 00:58:06.720 Jesus. I think it's time for communion. What do you think? 541 00:58:06.800 --> 00:58:20.560 Thank you, Lord. Jesus. He gave his life and his body. His body was broken for you. His blood 542 00:58:20.560 --> 00:58:27.440 was shed for you. This is not just an empty religious ritual. As you literally ingest communion, 543 00:58:27.440 --> 00:58:32.960 as it's going materially into you, believe that Jesus meets all of your needs. Whatever you're 544 00:58:32.960 --> 00:58:37.760 missing, think of one thing. Come to God with one need right now. What do you want him to do for 545 00:58:37.760 --> 00:58:44.400 you? What are you missing? What do you lack? Because Jesus is the great need meter. 546 00:58:46.720 --> 00:58:54.880 And as you partake of him, by faith, receive the infilling that will meet that lack. Go ahead, 547 00:58:54.880 --> 00:58:57.920 partake of the body and blood of Jesus. And worship team, you can come on up. 548 00:59:03.680 --> 00:59:04.560 Hallelujah. 549 00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:12.160 Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. 550 00:59:17.760 --> 00:59:18.560 Thank you, Lord. 551 00:59:24.880 --> 00:59:30.400 Thank you, Jesus. Father, thank you that you show your love to your people. This week, 552 00:59:31.120 --> 00:59:36.960 you draw them to prayer. You reveal your face to them. You open up the mysteries of the word to them. 553 00:59:38.720 --> 00:59:44.160 May all shame, guilt, condemnation go off. You know, there is no place for shame and guilt and condemnation 554 00:59:44.160 --> 00:59:50.000 here. There's no place for it. Your sin is not bigger and batter and bolder than the blood of Jesus. 555 00:59:50.560 --> 00:59:55.520 You have been washed. You have been cleansed. You are accepted in the beloved. The blood of Jesus 556 00:59:55.520 --> 00:59:59.760 has made you to be approved. You are justified and pronounced not guilty. Because of that, 557 00:59:59.760 --> 01:00:06.880 you can have boldness. Hallelujah. No matter what it feels like, some weeks feel ugly. 558 01:00:09.200 --> 01:00:12.720 I'm it's nice now standing here and saying what I gave and what the Lord has done. There were weeks 559 01:00:12.720 --> 01:00:17.600 when I was rolling around on my carpet, like literally physically rolling or trying to pray. Just 560 01:00:17.600 --> 01:00:24.960 it'll look nice. But it doesn't matter what you're feeling like. Hallelujah, anyhow. 561 01:00:26.000 --> 01:00:31.280 Hallelujah, anyhow. We put one foot in the front of the other and we trust the Lord is leading us 562 01:00:31.280 --> 01:00:37.440 to a good place. The Psalms call it your wealthy place. It uses that with your wealthy place in God. 563 01:00:38.320 --> 01:00:44.400 Amen. Well, let's honor the Lord with their tides and offerings, shall we? Give them a big hallelujah. 564 01:00:44.480 --> 01:00:54.000 The giving information is on the screens to either side of me, give with joy, give with a 565 01:00:54.000 --> 01:01:01.280 glad heart and give in faith. And if you want prayer, please move on over to my left, 566 01:01:01.280 --> 01:01:06.960 your right, right into that blue lit area. The ministry team will be there and they will love to 567 01:01:06.960 --> 01:01:15.760 lay hands on you and pray with you and for you. Flakiness is an enemy. It's an enemy to the good 568 01:01:15.760 --> 01:01:25.200 things of God. My prayers this week that we would all be deflaked some. We more stable, more 569 01:01:25.200 --> 01:01:35.760 consistent, more aligned with God's ways in his word. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. 570 01:01:37.760 --> 01:01:46.160 You know, flakiness, you never taught it. It starts early. Even my son, who's awesome, but in the 571 01:01:46.160 --> 01:01:50.720 early days, when he just was learning prayer and learning the things of God a few times, he slipped 572 01:01:50.720 --> 01:01:57.360 in. God told me, remember we had that talk. God told me. I was like, don't you start that business 573 01:01:58.320 --> 01:02:08.480 with me. This is not my first rodeo. If you're going to say God told me, train up a child in the 574 01:02:08.480 --> 01:02:15.040 way he should go. And when he's old, he won't be a flak. The Bible says. All right, stand to your 575 01:02:15.040 --> 01:02:21.840 feet. Go with blessing. Go with his love and go rejoicing. Let's sing one more song to him. 576 01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:28.480 Be blessed, CityLight. This is the CityLight Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's 577 01:02:28.480 --> 01:02:33.520 message, or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jansik in CityLight Church, 578 01:02:33.520 --> 01:02:42.160 visit us at citylightnyc.com. That's citylightnyc.com. Feel free to visit us online or in person 579 01:02:42.160 --> 01:02:48.000 anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today. 580 01:02:48.080 --> 01:02:53.200 That you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. 581 01:02:53.920 --> 01:02:58.720 Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to CityLight Church podcast wherever you 582 01:02:58.720 --> 01:03:04.400 find your favorite podcasts worldwide.