WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:26.000 What if God worships us? Maybe all of this is a search to find the God who worships us. God looked and said, wow. Oh, how I worship him. Um, what if you not worshipping didn't stop God from worshipping you? 2 00:00:26.000 --> 00:01:22.000 Oh, my gosh. This is real Satanism, guys. This is it right here. Satanism in its final form, right? It's super saiyan Satanism. This is Pastor Jermell Witherspoon of common good church in Bellevue, Washington, with a message titled, what if God worships me? This title is not an exaggeration. This is the heart of the message. This is the point of the message. And today's video is a review of that message, in particular, the problematic teachings that are involved. Now, if you are inclined to appreciate and love and feel that you're nourished by the kinds of teachings that Jermell gives, I'm going to be talking about them in ways that you'll find possibly negative. But I think that you'll find this helpful for you because you'll be able to hear a perspective that I think is biblical on the claims that are being made about God in the name of Christ, in the name of the Bible. But compared to what the Bible actually says. I'm, uh, Mike winger, and my goal is to help you learn how to think biblically about everything. 3 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:57.000 Friends. Hey, y'all. Uh, and the one thing that you should know about me is that worship has really changed my life. It has caused me to question worship, has caused me to sit in some very hard things, and worship has been such a safe haven for me. So today we happen to be talking about this beautiful, this beautiful relationship that is worship between us and the divine, than being with the divine essence as she changes us. 4 00:01:57.000 --> 00:04:43.000 Let's pause right there and think for a second about this language of the divine, the divine essence, and then to refer to God with a female gender pronoun, she, uh, all of these things are very much new, uh, in church history. This is not typically how Christians would talk about God. It's done deliberately as well. It's done because there is a theology behind it. So, uh, God is seen as different than the father character that we see. The characterization of fatherhood that we see in scripture, they wouldn't probably deny that, but they find it very important to not emphasize it, not focus on it, but talk about divine essence. A lot of times, churches like this will blur the lines between human and God such that it's like a deification of mankind that we'll get to later in this video. This sense of saying that man is basically we're God or something like that, something equivalent to that. So referring to God as divine essence, it's almost like something that you could also have, and therefore you could kind of be that same thing. But the pronoun thing is really interesting because, uh, in a church like this, or church is a loose term for a group like this, because I don't know if they actually, they don't probably fit the biblical definition of a church. But this gendered female gender for God is used deliberately in a group that cares very much about people's preferred gender pronouns. And yet the pronouns in scripture we have for God are masculine, and so they're going to use the feminine ones because there's a conflict here. I care about preferred pronouns when I'm giving the option for someone else, but when I talk about God, I'm going to deliberately change those pronouns because I'm opposed to male headship. I'm, uh, specifically opposed to the idea of like a man being the head of his household or of the church leadership being men, in particular the elders. And that's something I'm opposed to. So I'm going to call God female. This is, um, making God in our image effectively. I'm taking my ideas, my agendas, my purposes, and I'm projecting them onto God. Now, the same church would probably say, yeah, but men did this to the Bible before we got around. We're just fixing it. This, of course, then sets them up. And this is what I would want you to consider. If you're part of Jermell's church, you're setting yourself up as the new creators of a new bible, where you create new pronouns and new ideas about God, and you're going to use those. So you're sort of writing a bible. You're just not putting it down in text, but you're making yourselves the new authority. Whereas if you look at the history of Jesus, for instance, he lifts up scripture, says, the scripture cannot be broken. The word of God is this amazing and powerful and authoritative thing. He says that David wasn't just a patriarchal man writing patriarchal things. He says David wrote by the power of the spirit. That's what scripture says. Jesus himself saying it. So let's listen to some more. 5 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:55.000 If we could breathe in the change of, uh, God, the beauty of God, the worship of a creator who sees us. 6 00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:29.000 Here. We've got a lot of music and, um. I love music. I'm changed, sorry. Singing. I do play music and sing music and enjoy music but, uh, I also recognize that music is a two edged sword. It can be used to communicate truth. It can also be in. Used to communicate or reinforce error. And in this case, it's very strong, very emotional stuff. Modern, uh, churches that do tend to get weird do emphasize a lot of music. Generally speaking, it's very powerful stuff. 7 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:35.000 I've been free, sort of a Disney movie deliver thing. 8 00:05:35.000 --> 00:05:37.000 I mean, Jermell's got a beautiful voice. 9 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:41.000 I found hope. 10 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:50.000 And these statements, there's nothing wrong with them. Those are christian statements. At least they would fit. I found love within a christian view. 11 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:55.000 I feel favor. Uh. 12 00:05:55.000 --> 00:06:25.000 But if the theology is not christian, then the generic statements this are almost. Almost. They could be even cliches to some people. I found love. I found favor. I feel healed. I am free. If those statements are describing embracing sin, rejecting the statements that God has given us, if it's freedom from things that the Bible actually says, then they're actually really bad. And even though the music is beautiful, the message itself has a problem. So we need to get into the actual message as we go. 13 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:40.000 Can't go back to the way it used to be before God's presence came and changed me. Here's what I'm saying. 14 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:48.000 You want to know what those words meant. Freedom, not going back, all that stuff. This is what he really meant. This is his theology that's behind those words. Now you can see if it's really christian. 15 00:06:48.000 --> 00:07:08.000 Saying that in worship, I've been changed, and we all are walking this christian path. And sometimes it's not been as open and affirming and loving and gracious and kind as we would like it to be. 16 00:07:08.000 --> 00:08:39.000 Open and affirming. The idea here is that it's pro lgbtq ideology. And, of course, within that ideology, they think the only way you are kind and generous and welcoming to people is if you do affirm this ideology, which is an unbiblical ideology, which we can talk more about later. But this is to say open and free and forgiven and changed is about LGBTQ ideology. It's not about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not about your sins being washed away. It's about you being affirmed in the things you're already doing, even if there's things the Bible says not to do, just calling all of know oppression or saying the Bible's been interpreted wrong or whatever, that means that those statements, those beautiful, lovey, I'm free, I'm forgiven. That stuff was actually the sheep's clothing over something that was not christian at all and not actual freedom. Jesus says, if you commit sin, you're a slave of sin. That's not freedom. That is not freedom. Affirming people in the things that they're doing that God does not approve of, that is not freedom. This is affirming them in self destructive, harmful, uh, rebellious behaviors. The best life for somebody who's tempted with same sex desires, for instance, is not to yield to those things, but to resist them and to seek to honor God in their lives in spite of those feelings. Just like the best life for someone who's tempted with any other desire, that's. That's not inappropriate, pointed in the wrong direction. That is, uh, going to be expressed in a sinful way. The best thing is for them to say no to that. That's where freedom is. Freedom is from saying no to sin, not from embracing it. 17 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:58.000 But we've got to make a decision that, as worship changes us and makes us our best selves, that we won't fall into old habits that have not been most fulfilling and gratifying and uplifting for us or our neighbor. 18 00:08:58.000 --> 00:09:50.000 Just, um, notice the self focused center. This is what I learned when I studied progressive theology, which. This is progressive theology. It's part of it. Um, not all progressives would. Would use the same terminology, but this is a progressive christian quote, unquote, view. And it is this very self affirming thing. Uh, I am the center of my religious experience. Instead of God being the center, God is sort of used to affirm me, and I view God, his existence and his purpose through the lens of self affirmations. And so that's why he focuses, I think, has to focus on, don't do the things that aren't really self gratifying. Aren't really going to gratify you. There's an element of truth that's here, right? You will be most satisfied when you're most satisfied in God. But that's not the same as just general, like, vague gratification, because sin can definitely gratify you. Okay. The flesh enjoys lots of things. 19 00:09:50.000 --> 00:10:03.000 So we declare as a body that we will seek after our best selves in worship. 20 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:35.000 This, uh, is my first time watching through this. I only saw clips of it earlier. So what I'll say is, I'm surprised how quickly he affirms the thing. I was just saying. We're in worship. We're going to what? Seek ourselves our best selves. Right. This is about pleasing me. I'm delighting not in the Lord and in his law. I'm delighting in me and God. He is simply a means by which I delight in myself. That is the nature of ultimately a narcissistic theology, and that we won't go. 21 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:46.000 Back to the way it used to be when we were closed minded and we didn't understand. But we will press towards another way of thinking in a higher way of consciousness. 22 00:10:46.000 --> 00:12:09.000 It's the gospel of LGBTQ instead of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's not M mml, M and J. It's LGBTQ. The thing that you can't go back to, the thing that's darkness, is scripture's clear and repeated teachings on the sacredness of what it means to be male and female and how God has designed beauty and goodness there. And to distort that is to harm something that God has gifted us with and has called us to. To represent Jesus and his church in beautiful ways. The Bible says it over and over and over again. It's not in a sense of, if you're born feeling this way, you're now condemned forever and you can never be. No. It's rather saying, all of us are born sinful with sinful tendencies and desires, and all of us need to turn to Jesus Christ, and there's stuff we have to say no to. There's stuff we have to deny. Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me. You're supposed to take up your cross and follow him. That's the stuff in your past. That's the stuff you don't go back to. But to Jermell, this stuff that the Bible says don't go back to. This is the stuff that you're supposed to embrace. And don't you dare go back to that religion stuff that actually is the gospel itself. This is a reversed gospel. It's like those images where they reverse the colors. You invert the colors. This is an inverted color scheme of the gospel that he's preaching to worship you. 23 00:12:09.000 --> 00:12:50.000 I live. I live. I live to worship you. Yeah. Say that with your mouth. That sounds so good. To worship you. This next is good because you don't have to have words for it. It simply says, o. We will simply be talking from our what ifs again because we are still in our what ifs space. 24 00:12:50.000 --> 00:13:04.000 I'm going to read this in a what if space, and they're what ifing. And the question is, what if God worships me? This is a blasphemous idea. 100% blasphemous. I'll share scripture with you in a moment, uh, of talking about that, but let's let him talk about it. 25 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:12.000 First, because it is necessary that we understand the value that we hold as people made in God's image. 26 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:36.000 So this is the power we hold as those made in God's image. This is his understanding of what it means to be in the image of God. I mentioned earlier that, uh, progressive Christians often, but not always often, do blur the lines of the difference between humans and God. That's kind of a big line to blur. You don't blur that in scripture. You don't claim that you're God. There's only one God. You're not him. This is pretty basic theology stuff. Let's listen in 16. 27 00:13:36.000 --> 00:14:10.000 It says, she gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her. You are the God who sees me, for she said, I have now been seen the one who sees me. Help me ask this question simply, what if? What if? Can you say what if with me? What if, what if God worships me? 28 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:12.000 I'm not saying that part. 29 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:19.000 Can you say that with me? What if God, uh, worships me? 30 00:14:19.000 --> 00:15:44.000 I've seen this a lot. For some reason, when people are teaching bold faced heretical stuff, they will ask the audience to repeat it back to them. I've seen this before a few times, and it's weird where it's the worst thing you could possibly make them say. I'm going to have everybody say it out loud. Um, this is not a bug. This is a feature. When it comes to false teaching, false teachers won't, uh. Sometimes they'll slip a false teaching in, sort of like you're going, wait, was that false teaching? I'm not sure, but when it comes out bold, it usually comes out. There's 50 50. Sometimes it's slipped in. When it comes out bold, though, it comes out like, real bold. Like, this isn't just something I'm going to try to trick you with. This is something. It's so great. It's amazing. This is a beautiful. It's the best thing ever, and I'm going to get you to repeat it and say it back to me because you got to have this so it's presented with boldness. False, uh, money grubbing preachers do this when they have these million dollar cars or whatever, and they've got these super expensive lifestyle, and you call them out for it. A lot of times their response is to say, of course I do. Of course, God, we're kings. We're kings and queens. God wants all of us to be rich, so they always flaunt the biggest errors that they've got. It's a way of dealing with your error is to just brag about it. And so here it comes. Actually getting the congregation of this church gathering of people. It's not really a christian church to say, what if God worships me? Where will he go with it next? 31 00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:55.000 Now, you don't have to say it if you feel uncomfortable, because it can feel a little uncomfortable. Right? Especially when we don't really understand and live into who God has called us to be and what. 32 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:05.000 Yeah, blasphemy feels uncomfortable to a real Christian. They should be on their way out after this meeting going, okay, I need to find a good church. I need to find a real congregation. This thing's not going to work for me. 33 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:20.000 But today, if you will humor me, I would like to speak with you not about universal truth, but about a truth that has helped me center myself in the divine love of God. 34 00:16:20.000 --> 00:17:45.000 Ask yourself why he said that. It's not a universal truth. It's a truth that has helped me. If it's true, it's true. If it's not true, it's not true. There's no, like, here's what's true for me, but not for you. That's not certainly how scripture deals with truth. There aren't things that are just true for you. Uh, there's no example of that in scripture. Even things like convictions, where people have different convictions. It's not just true for you that you shouldn't do this thing you have a conviction about. It's just true that you shouldn't do that thing. It's true that you shouldn't do it. It's true that you shouldn't put that on other people. But there's no true for you versus true for me thing. Truth, uh, is handled in scripture as a thing. That is the way things are, whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not. That's just how things are. But to present things like this in a way where, um, it goes out, like, fishy, it's difficult to then pin down Jermell on the claims that he makes. I didn't say it was a universal truth. Okay, but what you said was blasphemy. And so, uh, let me put it this way. Even if Jermell was like, it's only really for me that, like, you know, sort of deified. Now God's worshiping me. That's how I'm going to talk about it. That is real, uh, serious, blasphemous, ungodly, unchristian content that should be called out. Um, you should be walking out. You should be bringing other people with you as quick as you can. This is not a real church of Christ anymore. 35 00:17:45.000 --> 00:18:32.000 But we have this woman sitting in her context first off, again, as a woman who is fully convinced that she has been seen by God and that God sees her. This woman, who is deeply engulfed in a culture that would rather keep her far from the fire, is first, maybe excited, because maybe for the first time in her existence, she is defying the limits that have been placed on her between her and her deity. She is seeing this deity, this presence, this intimate connection. 36 00:18:32.000 --> 00:19:50.000 Uh, just hold up for a second there, Jermell. I think he's turning this into an allegory for a woman breaking the glass ceiling, religiously speaking. Whereas Hagar has, uh, been kicked out by Sarah. She's been kicked out. She's kind of, like, worried they're going to starve, they're going to die. She sends the lad, like, go over here and she's going to die. And then God helps her. God blesses her. And then she's like, look, I've seen him who sees me. Um, this had nothing to do with female roles or breaking glass ceilings or something like that. It has to do with God's care and provision for people. It has to do with a revelation, something about God, about his promise to Abraham, even falling to some degree, the blessing that will happen to Ishmael. And, um, anyway, it's just totally not an allegory. Read the text. This is not an allegory for you to use for your political agendas, may I say, your unbiblical political agendas, to try to push this sort of, uh, ultimately, like kind of a feminist or woke theology onto people that you don't find in scripture, unless you're willing to hijack Hagar like this. Like, Hagar would laugh at you for this dremel. She'd be like, that's not what happened. That's not what this was about. 37 00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:01.000 She sees it now as hers. Let me begin with my truth about this portion of the text. 38 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:54.000 With what my truth? This gives Jermell permission to do two things when he goes, it's my truth. A, he doesn't have to prove it's really true. B, he doesn't have to defend it against anyone else, right? So I can just state it comes from me and then kind of leave it floating out there as this sort of nebulous thing. I don't have to defend. That's not how theology works. That's not how Jesus treats scripture or anybody in the New Testament. It talks about truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. It doesn't say, Jesus is my truth, my way, my life. It's just an objective reality for all people to know. Jesus is the only one, the only one who can mediate for us between God and, uh, ourselves. My truth language is to lower the bar for what it's required for him to prove he's right and to take away any need to defend himself. 39 00:20:54.000 --> 00:21:02.000 I think if we look at it closely, we will see it being steeped in misogyny. 40 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:31.000 It's steeped in misogyny. We all say words wrong sometimes. That's just funny. So the misogyny is what it's really about. Again, who cares what this passage is really about? Who cares what Hagar and her son and the story that God was dealing with Abraham and Sarah and all that. All we care about is woke ideology. In this case, a type of egalitarianism. But you'll see it's tied to the whole woke kitten caboodle. 41 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:41.000 We used this woman who had been overlooked in her life, outcast, treated as anything but a human, to show us that God's eyesight is. 42 00:21:41.000 --> 00:22:13.000 Sure, okay, I get the allegory now. Um, LGBTQ are treated as less than human. Women are treated as less than human. That's his belief. And therefore, Hagar was treated as less than human. She went through some hard times, horrible times. Um, it's probably a bit of exaggeration to say she was treated as less than human, right? That she wasn't treated like a rat or something like that, or like they actually forgot she was human. That's a bit of hyperbole that's there, but it helps to build a bridge to the allegory he wants for the. 43 00:22:13.000 --> 00:22:25.000 Uh, woke purposes that God does not overlook. And for that, I don't know about you, but I am grateful. A, uh, God who worships me is quite the statement. 44 00:22:25.000 --> 00:26:29.000 Now, first off, slow down. One. Scripture has been read nothing in the context about God worshipping anybody. Not that there's anything like that anywhere in the Bible. For those who don't know, like there's nothing in the scripture that says God worships other beings of any kind. Scripture seems to say that only God is worthy of worship. We see this in scripture, in the book of revelation. We see that the father is worthy. Worthy are you, o Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they exist and were created God's worthy to receive the worship, the glory, the power, the honor, all that great stuff. Why? Because he created and by his will, they exist. You can't say this of Jermell, or of me or of you. We don't create all things. They don't exist by our constant, preserving power. That's, like, certainly not the case. They don't exist because we decided. We see also in revelation five, worship given to the lamb. Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open the seals. You were slain, and by your blood you ransom people for God. M now, does Jermell done this? Certainly not. These are reasons why God is worthy. God is not worshipped because it gives him a sense of self affirmation. He is not worshiped because it makes him feel fulfilled. He is not worshiped to help him be a whole and holistically gratified being. He's worshiped because he's worthy. He is worthy of worship. And so God alone is worshipped in scripture. You shall love the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve that. This sort of service that belongs to God. It belongs to God only. You shall worship no other that's clearly commanded in scripture. The Ten Commandments is not just about not worshipping images. It's about not worshipping anything other than God. That there's nothing. Not a male, not a creature. You can't worship something other than God. Why do you think God would worship something other? That would be to deny his own nature, to deny his own worth, to lie about our worth and our nature all wrapped up. We have an actual event in the book of revelation, um, where someone actually goes to worship an angel and they're told, don't do that. Let me show you the verse in the book of Revelation. John is experiencing visions of amazing heavenly things. He's seeing the throne of God and the elders and angelic beings and all this stuff. And he gets overwhelmed. And here in verse eight, he bends down to worship, uh, a created being. I, John, he says, I am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down. He's overwhelmed to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. Who's he worshiping? It's not God. He's worshiping an angel. Now, the answer this angel gives shows definitively that people are not to be worshipped, not even by people, much less by God almighty. But he said to me, you must not do that. Why? I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers, the prophets, meaning he's of the same class, uh, of servants. That John is this person who Jermell thinks God might worship, right? He's of the same class of servants that John is, the same class as his brothers, the prophets. And with those who keep the words of this book, every Christian is kind of in that same class. They are not to be worshiped. This couldn't really be clearer. Instead, worship God, only God is to be worshiped. To him alone belongs the glory. He says in scripture, I could give you verse after verse. I will not share my glory with another. The psalms, it says, praise the Lord. There's never anything about God worshipping us. It's the most inverted, crazy, opposites day kind of theology that you could imagine. God worshipping you is you deifying yourself and shrinking God down into a little self service God bot who just gives you gratification and attention and affirmations. Because one of the things that happens among, uh, woke ideologies, you just can't get enough affirmation. You can't get enough affirmation. Uh, it's not enough to know who you are. You have to have everybody telling you, these are the things you are. At least that's what seems to me okay. When I interact with people that I feel have gone down this road, self affirmation is becoming idolatrous. Uh, and that's actually exactly what we're seeing here with this video. 45 00:26:29.000 --> 00:26:39.000 Now I get it. We've started to worship a very big heteronormative white Jesus. 46 00:26:39.000 --> 00:27:56.000 Okay. Heteronormative is a term used to marginalize the idea to make normal sexuality seem weird. We've been conditioned to worship, uh, a not gay Jesus. That's what he's ultimately saying. White. Uh, no, I mean, most Christians I've ever encountered don't think Jesus is white. Ah. Nominal people who are not really Christians, who kind of. Their experience of Christianity is very, very shallow. Like, they've seen pictures, that kind of thing. Often they do think Jesus was white. I don't think your average person thinks this, but more like nominal Christians who kind of don't read their bibles, don't really know much about geography. Probably they might think Jesus was white. I've never really thought that. Um, I've always been irritated by the blonde haired, blue eyed images of Jesus that I saw. I relaxed on that when I realized that cultures in all different areas make portraits of Jesus that look just like them. So if you go to China, there's images of Jesus that look chinese. Um, European. He looks european. You go to looks, there's images of him looking African. Nothing wrong with that. In the sense that everybody they know looks this way. So then when they draw an image of Jesus, they draw based on what they see. Now, we live in a very multicultural world, and so we're sort of without excuse to recognize Jesus was jewish, he was middle Eastern. At any rate, this is garbage that. 47 00:27:56.000 --> 00:28:03.000 We constantly thank for standing between us and a mean God. 48 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:56.000 This is, uh, actually standing between us and a mean God. This is the caricature of Christianity. God's never actually mean in scripture as an unjustifiably cruel. Rather, he does have wrath towards sin, and Jesus does stand between us and the wrath of God. But it's God himself getting in the way of his own wrath and taking on himself the punishment for our sins. It's God paying the penalty that we owe. So it's a great act of love. Uh, this is important. A holy and just God according to scripture. So that he, based on what scripture says, could be just. And the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus, that is, God, will actually, actually deal with sin, actually bring punishment to sin while still forgiving. So he's both just punishes sin and the justifier, the one who makes us holy of the one who believes in Jesus. It's a beautiful thing. He's just spitting on the gospel and misrepresenting it. 49 00:28:56.000 --> 00:29:08.000 Or we are so caught up in taking each moment to say thank you to a God who has been wrestling with a mean devil and finally wins the bargain. 50 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:24.000 This is a caricature. Where do the Christians he's arguing against are me, right? He's arguing against me and my theology here. Um, where have I ever taught that God's wrestling with the devil and finally gets through the. No. Or maybe that's my masogligony, I don't know. 51 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:35.000 And then sacrifices God's own son because God has some fetish with blood. 52 00:29:35.000 --> 00:30:45.000 I'm going to link below my video on penal substitutionary atonement. Penal as in penalty. This doctrine, PSA for short. This is the doctrine he's arguing against. Uh, every progressive I know hates this doctrine, and it's entirely biblical, but the way in which they argue against it is usually to do this, to just caricature it, to say, oh, here's what it. It's petty, bloodthirsty, like, bloodlust God kind of thing. This is, um, the most embarrassing kind of kindergarten name calling. Instead of actual teaching scripture, actual dealing with theology, tons of scripture supports the idea that Jesus is the atonement for my sin, the propitiation for my sin, the one who died on the cross as an actual sacrifice. It's the center of Jesus's own ministry. As far as Jesus is concerned, the son of man must be killed. He is the ransom for our sins. That's Jesus who quotes and refers to, alludes to, I should say, isaiah 53, this amazing passage that talks about how he was sinless, but he suffered on our behalf for our sins. That was done on our behalf as our representative. This is a beautiful thing. We're just going to talk about it with icky language. That's the strategy here. 53 00:30:45.000 --> 00:31:00.000 But really, really who, what, when and why. The breath of God that calls us into God's self, that adores us for who we are. 54 00:31:00.000 --> 00:32:01.000 This statement of, um, two things there. Uh, the breath of God that calls us into God's self. This again, is about. The wording here is careful. It's about self deification. That's ultimately what I think it leans towards in progressive theology. Whereas the breath of God you could call the Holy Spirit the breath of God. I mean, the word numa in the Greek is the word for spirit and the word for breath, in Hebrew it's the same word. So that's a fair thing to do. But to say calls us into himself acts like we're being made part of God, as opposed to God filling us with himself. See, because if I see it that way, the way Jesus talks about it, I will send the Holy spirit and he will indwell you. This does not mean that you come into God like you're becoming part of God, but rather God is joining into you. That way your identity and God stay separate and you're not being absorbed into deity in that sense of, uh, progressive. Some progressive teachers, like this one. Oh, the other thing he said, um. I'll have to play it back. What was it? 55 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:09.000 The breath of God that calls us into God's self, that adores us for who we are. 56 00:32:09.000 --> 00:34:13.000 That's the phrase. Adores us for who we are. A partially true idea. God does truly love us and care deeply for us, even when we're sinning. Even when we're sinners. God so loved us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, the ungodly. But this phrase, in our modern context means a lot more than just that. It means who you are, as in you do not have to change your chosen gender identity, your, uh, sexual proclivities. You don't have to change anything that you consider part of your identity. So you take anything you're doing. It's a sinful thing. You call that identity, even though that's not what the word traditionally has meant. You call that identity, and then God loves you as you are, which means he affirms your lesbianism, your homosexuality, your polyamory. Fill in the blank. God is a tool for self affirmation. Here, you are worthy. It's not that God is worthy. It's that you are worthy. Is the main emphasis here that beautiful God? Right? But let's contrast this with Jesus, who his first public preaching we see in the gospels is he goes out and tells people, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and he asks them to actually change their lives. John the Baptist, uh, goes as a forerunner for Christ, and he's telling people specifically things to repent for. Repent of that sin, and repent of that sin. Jesus gives a sermon on the mountain. He says, you look with lust, you've committed adultery. You hate someone in your heart. He's telling there's these things that desires that come from within us, that actually we have to turn from so that our desires cannot prove to us our identity and then have God affirming our desires to us. That's not what Jesus does. He comes and says, now you're a mixed bag. You're made in God's image, but you are fallen. And anybody who's honest with themselves knows this. That I'm a mixed bag, right? I've got major sin issues, even though I have this intrinsic value from God as a human being. But, man, I've blown it. And I cannot just choose my path and live my way and have God patting me on the back incessantly, no matter what I decide. It's not how it's going to work. It's not how Jesus did it. It's not how the apostles did it. Don't call that Christianity, who looks to. 57 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:39.000 Us, uh, her deeply in our eyes. Maybe in worship, we find that God. Maybe all of this is a search to find the God who worships us. When things are yours, they take on their own language and meaning, the idea. 58 00:34:39.000 --> 00:36:04.000 That when something is yours, it takes on its own language that can be understandable. Uh, language changes over time. In logic and critical thinking class, one of the first lessons was language is a system of shared conventions. Okay? So, yeah, language does shift over time, and different cultures and groups say even different words for the same things, but the principles never change. That's where he gets wrong. The definitions, the meanings don't ever change. Otherwise, Christianity doesn't mean anything. Because if your Christianity can have not only different language, but different meanings than what Jesus meant when he spoke, then it's not Christianity. You shouldn't project that onto God. You shouldn't project that onto the Bible. You should just come out and say it. I am forming a new religion. It's called me, me, and it's all about my desires and my affirmations. And I don't even know if I really believe in God, but if he did exist, I would say he has to worship me. This is not Christianity. Uh, you can't just change the language and the meanings and call it the same thing. Definitions are where it's all at. When we look at language, you go from, say, greek to English, to go from the New Testament from Greek to English. You change the words, but you change the words into english words so you can preserve the meaning. Otherwise, you've butchered the Bible and you've written it some other text, and you've just called it the Bible. That's what's happening with Christianity here. 59 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:18.000 What is worship for, uh, our time together? I name it as a mutual affection. What if this understanding of a God who. 60 00:36:18.000 --> 00:37:23.000 Wait. If we're defining worship as mutual affection, we're definitely defining it in a different way than the Bible does because you can't worship. I can't worship my wife, but I'm commanded to have mutual affection with her. So what's weird is he'll define it that way. But then through the rest of the sermon, seems to talk about worship in the biblical sense. Um, and then says, God worships me. This is again here redefining the very terms of religion. So you don't know what's going on. All you know is God affirms me. God affirms me. It's the religion of self affirmation. The sad thing is how much this robs you of true freedom in Christ. Remember, Jesus? As I said, he told us that he who commits sin is a slave of sin. But Jesus, he's come to set us free. He's come to set you free. But if you. No, no. God affirms my issues. He affirms everything I do. The mixed bag that I am. He affirms all the mixed issues. He doesn't just cleanse me and leave me different and call me to something holy and good, so he leaves me in bondage. It's what ultimately I'm saying, because I can't give this up. 61 00:37:23.000 --> 00:37:54.000 See, God, I believe, isn't intimidated by what is God. God is not intimidated by what is indeed all of, uh, its handiwork. God looks at God's image. I believe in God's, God's small g and sees the beauty of creation and is secure. 62 00:37:54.000 --> 00:39:49.000 The language here is interesting. Um, there's the obvious blasphemy of calling us little gods. That's a, uh, blasphemy that sometimes has cropped up with, like, Kenneth Copeland or like, some of the word faith, some of the word faith groups. Um, not all, for sure. There is, however, this other element that's going on here, which is to portray the idea that God wouldn't worship you as him being insecure. And so what I found is progressive Christians are propagandists, firsts above logicians. Right? So propaganda is the main thing. Um, why is penal substitutionary atonement wrong? It's because that would be God would be bloodthirsty and mean. There's no theology there, no scripture, no real reasoning that's going on there. It's just propaganda. What about, why would God not worship me? Oh, well, I'll just explain. He's so secure. He can handle worshipping you. Plus, you're a God, too, so he's not really breaking any rules because you're a God. This is just the most insane stuff you can think of, spiritually speaking. Um, it will bring the condemnation and judgment and wrath of God upon those who teach, preach, and follow these types of things. What's laughable is the folly of the logic. What's terrifying is the spiritual results of teaching and believing. This kind of stuff clearly goes against scripture. What did Satan promise Eve? You'll be as God. This is what Jermell's promising. You'll be as God. You'll be as God. Right. Except the only way in which she would have been like God was knowing good and evil, but Satan was implying that she would be much more than that. Like in some glorious, wonderful way. There's nothing Jermell has to offer. We already know good and evil. What he's giving you is merely delusion, the idea that you are some sort of little g. God. God can worship you, all, that kind of thing. Uh oh. It's just soul wrecking affirmations. 63 00:39:49.000 --> 00:40:06.000 Our very existence is a demonstration of God's wonder. So we wrestle with how do we honor God? How are we being honored? 64 00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:18.000 Wait, what? See how he switches it? How do we honor God? How are we being honored? Right. Worship God. Oh, no, God worships you. 65 00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:27.000 How are we being honored in this process of relationship with the divine? Are you all still with me? 66 00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:28.000 No. 67 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:46.000 Okay, here is what I believe. That God is seeking a way to heighten our consciousness so that God can help us become our best selves. Worship, I believe, calls us to a threshing floor of sorts. 68 00:40:46.000 --> 00:41:02.000 Do you like when people say, here's what I believe, and then they say stuff where it's like, nobody knows. Nobody knows what that means? Let me be clear, Hubbard. Um, does he mean self deification? Is that what he means by heightening our awareness? 69 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:12.000 Y'all know what a threshing floor is? Some do, some might not. That is totally okay. See, a threshing floor, it helps separate the grains from the chaff. 70 00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:23.000 Right. Jesus uses the analogy of a threshing floor to talk about the wicked and the righteous, those who are saved and those who are unsaved. I guarantee you that is not what he's going to use it for. 71 00:41:23.000 --> 00:41:43.000 There's an example of it in Matthew three and twelve. Right? Taking the beauty of what can be used in us and then separating that which we have acquired on our journey that does not serve our innate being. And that was not a part of the breath, the ruach of God from the beginning. 72 00:41:43.000 --> 00:42:05.000 All right, anything that doesn't tell me I'm God, is that what it is? So the threshing floor is not wicked and righteous people. It's rather, I have my own internal threshing floor. Now, I'm going to take Jesus'words and hijack them and use them for my own purposes. Um, and I'm going to get rid of bad thoughts that don't talk about how I share in the divine, the ruach, the spirit of God. 73 00:42:05.000 --> 00:42:19.000 Worship helps to bring into our peer view the beauty and gives us strength to evaluate the other. There is repentance, not as unto condemnation. 74 00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:45.000 What does he think repentance means? Progressives that I've encountered usually think repentance just means changing your mind about something. It doesn't have to do with turning from sin. Um, now, repentance can be used in a sense of changing your mind. In the New Testament, it's generally used in the sense of turning from something bad to something good. That it's like that annoying, classic christian kind of concept. Probably not the case with Jermell, but as unto change. 75 00:42:45.000 --> 00:43:02.000 There is a taking of the mind of God, a place where God sees us. Uh, can you say this? God sees me. Not only does God see us, but God helps us to see. Ah. 76 00:43:02.000 --> 00:43:45.000 Uh, so, Hagar, when she said God sees me, she meant God cares about me. He isn't just aware of me, but he cares about me. He's going to provide for me he's going to take care of me. I was at death's door. Effectively, Jermell's version of God sees me is God sees the true me, m the inner me, the me that I'm trying to sort of tease out in this sort of long winded sermon where I talk about, um, my nature as being divine. Um, so God sees. It's a whole different concept. Scripture doesn't matter what it originally meant. It doesn't matter what it should have meant to us. It matters what it can mean. Because Jermell gets to know, I get to make new words and new definitions. My truth. 77 00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:55.000 What if, since we are asking questions, what if God cares so much about humanity that God would become flesh and dwell amongst us? 78 00:43:55.000 --> 00:44:06.000 Okay, that's not new. That's not new. But I'm pretty sure he's going to segue from what's old and true to what is new and false. 79 00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:10.000 Oh, I'm talking about the flesh that we've always been told was nasty and evil and dirty. 80 00:44:10.000 --> 00:44:39.000 What if that, uh, uh, what, uh, now the subtext of that is he's saying Jesus takes on our flesh. It's an affirmation that the things that you're told you're not supposed to be and do, they're really okay. So Jesus was sanctifying sin as opposed to taking on human nature. Flesh in that sense, not carnality in some affirming way. Uh, that's like some high level progressive kung fu he's doing there. 81 00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:47.000 God, who we desire deeply, who we need, deeply, desires and needs us. 82 00:44:47.000 --> 00:45:29.000 God doesn't need us. He needs nothing. He has no needs. He actually makes a big point of this. He's telling Israel this sort of thing. When he goes, you're not sacrificing to me because I need anything. There's nothing I need there. He desires relationship with us because of his love, but he doesn't need us. There's no scripture that teaches this. Uh, in fact, there's an important doctrine in Christianity called divine asaity. It's the sense that God is. He is self, uh, existent, and he doesn't have any sort of external needs like that. It's actually kind of an important doctrine about the theology of who God is, but it's also very biblical. Jesus didn't come because of his needs. He came because of our needs. He came to rescue us because we needed him. It's not this reciprocal kind of God needs me thing. He m loves me, he doesn't need me. 83 00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:39.000 What if worship is less about God's desire to be lifted up, but rather our need to be brought into the consciousness of God's eyes toward us. 84 00:45:39.000 --> 00:46:42.000 Right? So you're supposed to get into God's eyeball, and you look at yourself, and you go, wow, look, I'm so amazing. Worship is about really seeing how amazing I am, instead of it about, I mean, like, in scripture, read the psalms like, God is worthy. That's why you worship him. You know, why you thank somebody who helps you because they deserved the thanks. Why do you worship God? He deserves worship. It's not needy. He's worthy. It's a glorious and lofty and wonderful thing. It's so fitting to worship God that it's some kind of spiritual robbery not to worship God. To be ungrateful to him is an actual sin, because that lack of gratitude is to just ignore all this debt of worth that we owe towards him. It's a beautiful and wonderful thing. Um, his concept of worship is entirely self serving. I'm going to climb up into God's eyeball, look at myself, and see really what Jermell wants me to see, not God. That I'm like, I'm this super, super special amazing just as you are, stay as you are, affirmed as you are kind of thing. 85 00:46:42.000 --> 00:47:03.000 A God who sees us. Uh, no, like, I mean, really sees us. Uh, the truest, most beautiful parts of us. The God who sees me. And this is the thing, hear me when I say it. This is going to be a very maybe controversial statement. 86 00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:04.000 Surprise. 87 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:20.000 But worship has become so God centered that it risks the subjective colliding of our own things, our biases, et cetera, and often takes from the purity of God's mutual affection for us. 88 00:47:20.000 --> 00:48:43.000 Worship is too God centered. He says, anything that's not God centered can't be biblical or true or christian or proper worship. Worship belongs to God and God only. If it's not God centered, it's just not worship. Uh, except that it's some apostate, some, like, ungodly thing. I'm worshiping something else instead of God. He wants us to turn our worship back upon ourselves. Ultimately, what Jermell is doing now, I understand the impulse, because Jermell is in a worldview that's not a christian worldview. It's the woke worldview or progressive worldview. I don't know what else to call it. I'm not trying to offend you guys. If you're progressive, it's not that progressives have every single thing wrong. It's not that, right? Uh, nobody has every single thing wrong. It's that the core of the worldview has some wrong things that are, like, driving the worldview. And here, self affirmation is at the center of the worldview. Instead of the glory to God, it's glory to man. It is properly titled, what if God worships me? And it's like, well, then you've invented your own God. You've created a false God, and you're worshipping yourself. It's you. You're your God worshipping you, and God sees you and sees the folly of it, the blindness of it. There's no real, true, lasting gratification that's going to come out of that. It's only going to lead to condemnation. 89 00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:49.000 Because worship is less for God, I believe, and more for us. 90 00:48:49.000 --> 00:49:15.000 I don't know what that means. Less and more. I mean, God doesn't need worship, but he deserves it, and it's right for him to have it. I, uh, actually kind of feel in my life I need worship, though, for my own health and my own well being and for my right relationship with God. So, in a sense, you could say I need it more. But, um, it's not that I need worship towards me. I need to worship God. Jermell's not even preaching that. He's preaching self worship, intimacy. 91 00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:25.000 What if worship is, uh, us on the mountain of, uh, transfiguration? 92 00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:36.000 I guarantee you what he means is you're the one being transfigured. You worship, and you become transfigured into glory, because that's exactly the subtext of every blasphemous thing he's said so far. 93 00:49:36.000 --> 00:50:11.000 This space where God spoke, that God was well pleased. This place where God spoke about God's son in such a way that the light shone on him, and God looked and said, wow. Oh, how I worship him, the beauty of what I've created. What if worship is the confidence that is spoken to us by God? 94 00:50:11.000 --> 00:51:34.000 This passage gives the condemnation that is due to satanic thinking to any human or being in creation that thinks and does the kinds of things that Jermell is doing. Let me read it to you. Now. This is from the Old Testament, and it is absolutely a condemnation. It is not like you're not here transfigured. This is not a good thing here. This is a very bad thing. How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. How you are cut to the ground, you who weaken the nations, for you have said in your heart, why were you cut down? Were you fallen from heaven? Not exalted, fallen. You said, in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. This has to do with, I'm going to be on the throne of God. I'm going to be an exalted piece of creation here. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be, like, the most high. What does God say to one who says, I'm going to be, like the most high? I'm going to climb into the eye of God, and I'm a transfigure on the mountain, and God's going to worship me. He says, you shall be brought to death, to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. That is what the scripture says to Jermell says to those who follow this teaching, it is not freedom. It is bondage. It is lies, and it is self deception and destruction. 95 00:51:34.000 --> 00:52:04.000 What if worship is God in the garden that notices them even when they try to hide? What if worship is Genesis three and eight that says, when God says, where are you? And who told you that you were naked? Who told you that there was a flaw in your beauty? The God who meets us and keeps confirming that who we are is good enough. Uh, what? 96 00:52:04.000 --> 00:53:36.000 Total, bold faced deception. There's no other way to put it. Read Genesis. As you read in the passage, God comes, and they are naked. Right? And they're ashamed of it now, and they're very cognizant of the issues of temptation and possible sin and embarrassment. And so then they cover themselves, and God says, who told you you were naked? Not as a way of denying their nakedness. Or, uh, in fact, what does he do next to prove that he's not saying, take those leaves away. You can expose yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. Instead, he actually makes them clothes with animal skins so that to prove that they should cover this shame and this nakedness, to prove that this was a rejection on God, rejection from God to them. You can see that he kicks them out of the garden to prove that it was a bad thing that they did and that he's not affirming them, uh, and approving everything in their LGBTQ Alphabet. He's saying instead. That would be the analogy that Jermell's trying to put on this passage. Instead, what he says is female. This is going to happen to you, man. This is going to happen to you. Thorns and thistles and things, and you guys are going to die. You're going to literally die now. God is not affirming them, he's rebuking them. Jermell doesn't care about what the text originally means. I know he's read it. He has to have read it. He's up teaching about it. He cares what it means to him. And what it means to him is the opposite of what it actually means to God. This is a inverted opposite gospel and it's progressive Christianity like wokeism, full on full blast as a religion. 97 00:53:36.000 --> 00:53:51.000 What if worship is Genesis one where it says so God created humankind in God's image. In the image of God. God created them, all of them. And called them good. 98 00:53:51.000 --> 00:54:18.000 All of them. Why did he skip the part that says male and female? He created them, right? That's what the text actually says in Genesis one. Let's look at it. Uh, male and female, he created them. When he got to this part of the verse, he skipped that and just said all of them. Because he doesn't affirm male and female genders. He's editing the Bible for you to fit his multi gender ideology. This is wokism as religion. It's not something biblical. 99 00:54:18.000 --> 00:54:28.000 God's worship of us first has strengthened us to worship God forever. 100 00:54:28.000 --> 00:54:43.000 I don't even know what that means. He has not quoted one verse that shows that God worships us. There's lots of scripture, lots and lots and lots, that shows the opposite and even pronounces punishments and God's judgment upon those who would say the opposite. 101 00:54:43.000 --> 00:55:11.000 One of the questions that was asked that pastor Roy sent me that I based this off of was simply, what if I didn't worship? Uh, what if I did not worship? Was one of the questions that someone submitted and one that I hope to answer with less scholarship and more of my life and my testimony, my experiences, my heart. What if I didn't worship? 102 00:55:11.000 --> 00:55:17.000 What if you couldn't get less scholarship than what he's had so far? 103 00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:25.000 Uh, what if you not worshipping didn't stop God from worshipping you? 104 00:55:25.000 --> 00:55:49.000 Oh my gosh. He's addicted to himself, to loving and worshipping, praising himself. Look at the glee on the man's face, at the idea that you could ignore God and he will be there worshipping you. This is real Satanism, guys. This is it right here. Satanism in its final form, right? It's super saiyan Satanism. 105 00:55:49.000 --> 00:56:02.000 And so we continue to speak the words of truth and love and grace and inclusivity because we understand that we've got to push past our experiences in order to worship. 106 00:56:02.000 --> 00:57:36.000 When they just push past experiences. He doesn't mean don't follow your experience. Don't have experience led religion. He means experiences of past people who have told you that you should or shouldn't do these things based on, say, scripture. I don't know. There's plenty of people that have misrepresented the Bible, who have been oppressive and mean spirited, um, and who have focused on minor little issues and nitpicked people to death. That kind of thing. Plenty of that. The solution, however, is not to throw out scripture. Throw out what God has said, and then exalt yourself to godhood so that you're sort of imagining, um, like, a self affirming version of you. That's what God is. That's such a small and petty God that's got to leave you feeling so empty. You've got to know how vapid that religious stuff is. It's almost held together by the despising of biblical Christianity and instead realize there's so much glory in seeing God as the one who's truly worthy of praise, who's so much higher than you, so much greater than you, so much far above you, that you just can't even conceive of his infinite value and worth and glory and dignity and integrity and holiness. And to know that you totally fall short, but that he does still welcome you in, but he doesn't do it to stay as you are forever. This is glorious. This is cleansing that deals with the angst of our knowing about our sin. It deals with our need to know that we are loved. It deals with the reality of Jesus dying on the cross for my sin to draw me near to God. This is where true satisfaction will come. Uh, the lasting kind, the real kind. It's not self affirmation, though, right? It's God affirmation, because you do every. 107 00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:50.000 Day of your life, want to know that there is a God who sees you. Be clear. You want to know it. You want to know it in the hard times. You want to know it in the good times. You want to know it when no one else is present with you. 108 00:57:50.000 --> 00:58:08.000 That's 100% true. Uh, he just defines, sees you as, affirms you. But God does see you. He does care about you. He sees you in your hardest times. He also sees you in your darkest times. And he sees all the things you've done wrong. He sees all your needs. He sees the times you've been betrayed. He sees all of that, and he cares. That's a beautiful thing. That's 100% true. 109 00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:39.000 And we bring it into this space corporately, knowing that in our private life, God sees us, and knowing that in our present worship time, God is for us and sees us. What if God worships us? That we would try a little harder to tap into the spirit that goes beyond and above the trauma that we've experienced and that we would know. 110 00:58:39.000 --> 01:00:04.000 That phrase is interesting because, um, while God does help deal, help us deal with our trauma, and if God's helped me deal with my issues and the things than the dirt I've experienced from others, what is even more precious to me is that he's helped me deal with my sin issues. I mean, that is genuinely more precious, more than any harm anyone has ever done to me, that weighs on my conscience and weighs on my heart heavily, is the sin that I've committed against God. I think that that is one of the marks of the real work of the spirit. Bringing conviction into your life is that you realize that your sin is the biggest issue that you take to God, not just the ickiness that others have dumped on you, even though that can be truly, truly hard. Ah, it can be horrific. It can be life scarring. It can be. It often isn't for people. They don't have lives where they've gone through those things, but some people have. But even more so, it's my sin. I like the hymn, my sin, o the bliss of this glorious thought. My sin, not in part, but the whole, was nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. O my soul. This is such a beautiful, beautiful idea that my sins. I'm washed. God doesn't look at me and affirm everything I've done and then tell me that everybody who told me I was sinning is icky and they need to grow up. Instead, he washes me of my actual sins, the stuff that nobody even knew about, the stuff that nobody even rebuked me for, because only God knew. Because God sees. That encourages my soul. Okay? And this is the true grace that we're offering, the true freedom, freedom from sin, not freedom to sin. 111 01:00:04.000 --> 01:00:15.000 I, uh, won't go back. Can't go back to the way it used to be. 112 01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:29.000 Again, this is just sad because it's a worship song that's about self affirmation. When he says, God worships you, he then goes on to worship himself. 113 01:00:29.000 --> 01:00:49.000 For the presence came and changed me. This is what I believe is the word of God. For us, the people of God, thanks be to God. 114 01:00:49.000 --> 01:01:34.000 Seals it by claiming it's God's word. Pray for Jermell's. Repentance. Anybody who's part of this church. I love you. But not to remain however you desire to be. But to be what God has called you to be, which is so much better than our inclinations, our tendencies, or our chosen self identities. God helps us work through all that us. And he calls us to his glorious self, that we might worship him with our arms out, selflessly, because it's all about him. And that is where you will find greater satisfaction than you can ever find in soul searching, digging deep and expressing and being the best you. It's just not where it's at. Uh, Jesus is the treasure. It's not.