Wait. There is a world of articles, books, and information out there when it comes to Christianity, but we are mostly stuck with rhetoric and double talk when it comes to our relationship with the Lord, our new identity as believers, and the security and finality of the work of Christ. Are you getting everything you need spiritually from your church, or do you find yourself feeling hungry for more? Join Lenny as he unpacks what Scripture really taught about our Lord Jesus Christ in context and why this matters to you. Wake up, wake up, wake up to grace.

If you ask a Christian what their church teaches, the most common answer you'll get is my church teaches the Bible. To this answer, I can only ask, what Christian church doesn't teach the Bible? We know that our church doesn't just sit down and read out of the Bible for an hour, but I think even the most naive Christians have come to expect that their church is going to read a passage out of the Bible before they begin telling you what to believe. Some churches teach verse by verse, this is more rare, while others teach by topic. How do we know that we're not just following a list of false teachings in the church today? When reading directly from the Bible, we'll always be reading something that's true. But you have to take caution and listen carefully to what your church says outside of those verses and how they string them together. It's those who explain the Bible that can be an error. It's not the fault of our Bible that the churches can't agree. Although there are many items on the list of false teachings in the church today, the teachings of Jesus and his apostles will always be true. If you believe there's no way of knowing the truth in Scripture, you become what today's youth are calling people in the gaming world. You've made yourself an NPC, a non-playable character. You'll follow your feelings and you'll fall for anything. What I'm about to say might make you upset, but if it does, it's most likely because you're afraid. If I found anything to be true in my Christian walk over the years, it's that Christians are afraid of the truth. If you tell them that you can prove their church is in error about something, they just don't want to hear it. They don't want to change their thinking. It reminds me of the Pharisees when Stephen was breaking down their theology with great force. In Acts 7 fifty four we read, Now when they heard these things they were enraged and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. And he said, Behold, I see the heavens open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him. Some make light of the truth, while others express anger. But among the masses we find willing ignorance. Of course some will come forward and relentlessly argue to no end, but how many of these naysayers actually test their own theology? I don't think it's common to put away what we've trained our minds to believe in order to be sure we're actually correct. We don't want to entertain things that make us feel uncomfortable. We want that familiar comfort food that we've grown accustomed to. But I'm here to tell you that at least half of everything you are learning at your church is error. Yes, I'm saying half of what you have learned is wrong. It's not what the Bible teaches. There's a nearly one hundred percent chance that you are indulging in the false teachings in the church today. Your pastor taught out of the Bible in his lesson, I know. That's not my argument. I'm saying your pastor is not teaching what the writers of our New Testament scriptures taught. You're only getting half truth about Jesus in the scripture. You never learned how to understand scripture. You only get bits and pieces with no means of completing the puzzle. You obscure the truth in Scripture because you'll not let go of what others told you. You keep relying on that commentary in your footnotes to do your discerning. Pray for the Spirit of God to lead you to the truth. You're gonna have to clean your slate and be led from a clear mind. You're probably thinking, why would I believe you? My pastor teaches hundreds of people and follows proven doctrine. Look, if you want to play the popularity game, go to the Catholic Church. Their doctrine would have to be the most proven of them all. They've been doing what they've been doing long before the Protestant reformers came along, right? Yet if any church is a shining example of ignorance, certainly the Catholic Church, and their influence is all around us. I don't care what teacher you follow, they're wrong half the time, and your pastor's contributing to the false teaching in the church today. It's your job to figure out where they're wrong. We're not to depend on our instructors for all things. The Holy Spirit guides us to truth. Do you believe that? I don't think there's any truth less believed in the church today. We have white coat syndrome. We think that seminary school and doctorate degrees lead us to truth. If we're honest, today's Christians' thoughts would sound like this. Unless a white coat says it, we have to be careful. We need career pastors to tell us what to believe. These are the professionals God gave to help us so that we can do what we do in our daily jobs and rely on them. We have to wake up from our dependency on those posing as our professionals. My purpose in this message is to get you thinking. I desire for you to learn how to understand your Bible. I want the life-giving Spirit of God that dwells within you to come alive like never before. Seeing what you believe clearly in the actual context of Scripture, rather than in light of some pastor's sermon, will change your life. The written word of God will come to life before your very eyes. This is where spiritual growth accelerates. Your church is wrong about far more things than you realize. You need to stop accepting this. You're grieving the Holy Spirit by rejecting things that you don't feel good about. When I tell you there's a massive list of false teachings in the church today, and your church is teaching you at least half of them, it probably upsets you a bit, doesn't it? Maybe it even scares you. Who has the time to relearn everything others taught them? That's really stressful and overwhelming. But what if I told you that this list of false teachings has stunted your spiritual growth? What if I told you there's so much more to know about your faith and what they're telling you, and it's far better than you could ever imagine? Think of how amazing your church is in your mind right now, and imagine knowing more than your pastor knows about Jesus. What would that be like? Well, it's not as hard as you might think, but you'll have to let go of your ignorance. It'll take a little time and a little energy when you let Jesus take the wheel. He's going to take you places if you let him, I promise you this. Christian evangelism today has become bland. We don't know how to share our faith because we don't understand scripture. We're not confident because no one taught us well. We can't share what we've learned because there's just not much there. Shallow messages have pumped us up with all kinds of emotion and very little truth. Our best move for sharing our faith is saying you should come to my church. And then at most we've invited another person into an obscure understanding of grace and welcomed another person into our confusion. I don't think because you watch television pastors that you've obtained special knowledge. It doesn't matter if you follow John MacArthur, Greg Lorry, David Jeremiah, Billy Graham, Joel Osteen, John Piper. You can follow any of these people and you're still missing out. You'll find breadcrumbs in all these places, but error will fill you all the while if you can't understand your scripture. In 1 Corinthians chapter three, Paul writes, But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you're not ready, for you're still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, I follow Paul, and another I follow Apollos, are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. Was it that Paul didn't want them to understand what he taught? No, Paul knew he taught truth. Christ sent him directly for this purpose. Paul didn't want the sheep to need him for everything. When they heard his teaching, he wanted them to prove it for themselves in Scripture. This is why the synagogues were so important. The synagogues had scripture. Today most of us have a Bible, but we lay it on a table for others to see. We proclaim belief in the Bible and never question what's actually in it. We pick it up once in a while, and it's hard to understand, so we go back to the professionals. Do you think the false teachers of Paul's day didn't teach from the scripture, just like our church? Think about that for a moment. Of course they did. That's why Paul didn't want his church to blindly rely on him. If they couldn't prove their own case in Scripture, they'd fall for anything. He called these type of people infants. If you're being honest with yourself, are you still an infant? I went to church for years and never got out of that position of infancy. Many go for a lifetime and then find this out. Your church doesn't care if you depend on them like babies. They're all set up to be a full time daycare for infants. But who's actually growing in the truth about Jesus? Paul wanted his church to depend on God, not him. Writers of our New Testament proved their case in Scripture, and they desired for each member to do the same. In Acts seventeen we read, the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the Word of God with all eagerness, examining the scripture daily, to see if the things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the Word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. So we see here that the Bereans earned the title of noble for searching the scripture and putting Paul's teaching to the test. They didn't just listen and nod their heads, they challenged it to the extreme. Have you ever challenged your theology in Scripture? Would you earn the title of noble or infant? Do you follow Scripture, or are you led by the warm fuzzy feeling you get when a large group of people sing and act like they agree on everything the church teaches? Is it noble to follow our feelings? We don't see that written anywhere in Scripture. Another point of interest in this message about the Bereans is that those who did not challenge Paul or search the scriptures were angry. They didn't like what Paul taught. So who do you see following their feelings? Was it the noble Bereans or the Christ rejecting Jews? It was those who oppose truth who followed their feelings, wasn't it? So shall we follow our heart, so to speak? Shall we say if it feels wrong it must be wrong? Well, if you want to be a truth rejecting Pharisee, you can say those things. That's what the church I went to decided be when I shared the truth. The truth has no place in the institutional church today, it just doesn't fit the business model. Your church will not let the truth get in the way of a good sermon. Just like the first century Christ rejecting Jews, our Christian churches teach from the Scripture. And exactly like we had with the first century Christ rejecting Jews, we have many examples of false teachings today. This massive degree of error blinds us from the ability to truly understand anything. Are you going to be a Berean and put what I say to the test? Or will you follow that feeling in your gut and say something isn't right here? I don't agree with this, and never give it another thought. What if the Spirit of God is speaking through me right now? Are you willing to take the chance that you've rejected truth? Well, if you're still listening, I can finally start my list of false teachings in the church today. It'll be your job to investigate these things for yourself. Of course, I have several messages that might help you along the way, and they're linked in my blog post if you want to check that out. But don't believe it because I said it. Don't reject it because it scares you. Do the noble thing and search it for yourself. If I'm right about these things and you're wrong, I'm not the one missing out. It's you who is missing the greatest truth that the Bible has to offer. Search these topics for the truth, not for what you want to believe. Look for what the Lord wants you to believe, not your favorite pastor. So here we go with the list. Number one, God will bless you if you tithe. You rob God if you don't. Number two, water baptism is a requirement for salvation. Number three, one must self-cleanse by asking God for more forgiveness. Number four, you can be out of fellowship with God. Number five, we must repent and stop sinning in order to walk by the Spirit. Being a disciple requires following Jesus' commands. 7. God punishes Christians. 8. Church institutions are the house of God. 9. Church buildings are where you go for Christian fellowship. And ten. Jesus is coming soon to rapture us. It's a scary thing to realize that Jehovah's Witness establishments are teaching their people as much scripture and good behavior as your church, and they don't even believe Jesus is God. We follow our church with full trust because they open up a Bible and teach from it. How do you know your leaders are teaching you the truth about Jesus? Let's quickly zip through these examples of false teachings today and observe the issues that result in these great errors. Number one, God will bless you if you tithe, and you rob God if you don't. This might well be the most obvious of all the error. It's troubling how today's churches get away with teaching people this stuff. I've heard so many Christians through the years saying things like they gotta do what they gotta do, at least they do good things with the money. What if your church is the one robbing God and blaming you? Are you okay with that? The tithe, to be clear, was never ten percent of anyone's income. When Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, it was spoils of war. When Israel tithed under the law it was a portion of their inheritance, such as grains given to the Levite priesthood to support their duties in the temple. Jesus himself calls the tithe a matter of the law. In Matthew 23 we read, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Is it time the church starts giving back what they've taken from the saints who live under grace and not under law? two, water baptism is a requirement for salvation. The idea that you must undergo water baptism to gain salvation is quite controversial in the church. The biggest problem I see with denominations that teach this doctrine is that it doesn't stop there. Water baptism's merely the first step in earning your salvation. They call it a work of faith in order to convince you that they don't support a works-based salvation. But we know that the thief on the cross was not a Christ follower prior to his sentence. He wasn't able to access any water, yet Jesus saved him. Why? Jesus tells us why. In John 6 29, we read This is a work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. Make water baptism a celebration, the way God always intended it, not a legalistic religious obligation. three, one must self cleanse by asking God for more forgiveness. Contrary to popular belief, this doctrine does not appear in our scripture. The apostles never taught it to Christians. To be clear, when I say Christian, I mean a person who has received the indwelling Spirit of God after Christ rose from the dead. People often use first John one nine to support Christians asking for more forgiveness. But John wrote that passage about Christ rejecting Pharisees and how God saves them. God saves everyone the same way, by agreeing with Him about our sin and accepting Jesus' sacrifice for us by faith. The church has used one passage of Scripture to build an entire doctrine which conflicts with all of Scripture. Ask forgiveness for believing this rubbish and start living the forgiven life that God gave you. You can't achieve forgiveness, you must receive it. And you already have all you need if you're a Christian. Don't follow this religious bar of soap theology that keeps you focused on yourself instead of Christ. Live a life of thankfulness for what Jesus did for you. four, you can be out of fellowship with God. If we possess only positional forgiveness, as so many churches teach, then we must also bear positional condemnation. Although we can be out of fellowship from one Christian to another due to error, we cannot be out of fellowship with God. We were born into a perfect fellowship when we received the Holy Spirit. About this truth Paul writes in Second Corinthians thirteen, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. If the Holy Spirit provides our fellowship with God by dwelling within us forever, then how can we lose fellowship with him? Does the Church teach you two truths that oppose each other? I believe religious tradition trained us to think that cognitive dissonance is higher learning. That's why it doesn't make sense to us lay people. But the truth is that God designed us to depend on Him. Adam and Eve were in perfect fellowship before the fall when the Lord took his spirit away from them. Christ Jesus restored this perfect fellowship at Pentecost, and promised it would never leave you. You're in the hand of the Lord, and he dwells within you forever. Don't let your church obscure this amazing truth from your view through their double talk. Wake up to grace and see with clarity. And again, don't forget to check out the links in my blog post. I have it linked right in the podcast description, so that you can just click on it and go right to that page if you want. five. We must repent and stop sinning to walk by the Spirit. Self-righteousness makes light of sin. When we become good in our own minds, we condone the sin that we become comfortable with. We make our sins small and see others as large. While critics blame grace teachers for giving a license to sin, it's legalism that makes light of sin and teaches people to condone it in their lives. It actually lowers the bar so that it looks achievable. There has to be a carrot on the stick in order to guide like this. This is exactly what the Pharisees did. Jesus addressed this at the Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord Jesus called this hypocrisy. We must first walk by the Spirit, dependent on the Lord, before we can experience a change of heart that pleases God. In Galatians 5 16, Paul writes, But I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Legalism has this completely backwards. They tell you not to gratify the desires of the flesh, so you can walk by the spirit. It's going to be hard not to stumble or fall when you're walking by. Backwards. Don't depend on your behavior to abide in Christ. Depend on Christ to change your desires and transform you. six. Being a disciple requires following Jesus' commands. The more we study the context of Scripture, the more we find that there's only one command from Christ that has the power to make us anything in Him. It's John 6 29 when Christ says this is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. Believe. The rest is all about abiding in this truth and belief and allowing it to lead you. The disciples did not choose Christ. He chose them to bear fruit. In John fifteen Christ says, You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide. So whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. And Jesus made it very clear the people he chose wouldn't become disciples by human decision. In Luke fourteen twenty six, Jesus says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife, and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. It's impossible to become a Christian without God opening our eyes. Being a disciple of Christ under the standards we see in Scripture is simply being a Christian. We don't always act like Christians, but that doesn't make us any less of a Christian. Discipleship doctrines do not make you a disciple. They're in opposition to the gospel and the teachings of our Lord Jesus. These false doctrines place you on the side of the first century Pharisees, the hypocrites. Legalism has to make it seem possible to achieve something while it remains just out of reach. Christ made it impossible apart from him so that no one could boast. seven. God punishes Christians. In the Old Testament, sin carried a penalty. If you broke the law, you paid a price. The law counted sin against the people of Yahweh. Punishment is the consequence of something we've already done. In Christ, God has forgiven us of all sin. Contrary to popular belief, this changes the way God is dealing with his people today. We can no longer go to the Old Testament to prove our case here. In Hebrews 8 12 we read, For I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. God is no longer punishing us for our sin. Don't believe it because I said it, it's a promise from God. Discipline acts as personalized training to prepare us for the future, and Christ God trains us like athletes for endurance. This doesn't serve as a payment for our misbehavior. That concept belongs to law based living. The indwelling counselor strengthens us. Reject those lies others tell you about God and accept his reconciliation. eight. Church institutions are the house of God. Christians today have become dependent on professionals. Men in powerful positions lead what we call the church today. They do a great job teaching you to beware of those who disagree with them. They call them wolves in sheep's clothing. But who else let someone other than God himself guide them? Adam and Eve fell into this, didn't they? Adam and Eve listened to one of God's angels and believed him when he spoke against what the Lord taught them. As Christians we start out our journey seeking Christ, but we quickly lose our way and start seeking our church's opinion on everything. We get comfortable with the people and the pastor. We get the books they recommend. We join the study groups that use their approved content. But we must remind ourselves Acts seventeen, the God who made the world and everything in it, being the Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man. nine Church buildings are where you go for Christian fellowship. John's first epistle in chapter one verse three he wrote That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. John proclaimed the truth about Jesus and exposed a list of false teachings in the church of their day throughout his letter. He proclaimed that his fellowship was in the Lord. He wanted those who he wrote to to share fellowship in this truth. He wanted them to rejoice in the truth with him. He tells these Christians that rejoicing in truth is their fellowship with one another. Many were being led into the error that was causing problems among the believers. Many of those that John wrote to were out of fellowship with one another. They had drifted from the truth that God gave them in Christ. Fellowship with one another is not something you find in bricks and mortar. You find it in truth, you find it in Christ. Jesus and his apostles corrected error. Error breeds sin and division in the church. Christian fellowship does not require an institution. Furthermore, an institution that ignores community participation and teaching and elevates one man as a perpetual speaker stifles fellowship and growth. The Christian church in our Bible look nothing like what modern leaders present to us today. They've taken the fellowship out of the church and replaced it with career pastors seeking salaries and retirement benefits for remaining loyal to the institution. When push comes to shove, is it God they serve or is it the institution? Would your pastor trade his pension for truth if he found the institution to be an error? Can we trust a business-based fellowship? And big number ten, Jesus is coming soon to rapture us. In Matthew 24, 39, Jesus describes one person departing and another remaining. Matthew offers no further explanation, but Luke records a little more of the conversation. In Luke 17 we read, Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed, one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together, one will be taken and the other left. And they said to him, Where Lord? Where the corpses? There the vultures will gather. We clearly see here that those we think experience the rapture actually go to their death. Is this what so many people actually want for themselves? Is this escapist theology something we can rely on to save us? I think it's time to rethink what we've been parodying for so many years and start believing what Jesus told his disciples in Matthew 24. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. We can escape bad theology by believing that the events of AD 70 fulfilled Jesus' prophecy, just as he predicted, in their generation. In conclusion, please realize, if you take this list to your pastor, he'll quickly comfort you and tell you, it's all wrong. Stay away from that wolf in sheep's clothing. But it's when you challenge your pastor with good questions after searching the scripture for yourself that you will find how lacking their knowledge truly is. Just like in the popular science fiction film The Matrix, you now face a choice between a red and a blue pill. You can take the blue pill and go on in willing ignorance with the masses, never seeking the real truth. Or you can take the red pill and see things how they truly are. Are you afraid to take the red pill? It's your choice. We don't wake up to grace by taking the blue pill. The apostles didn't promote anything like the false teachings we have in the church today. And like we see today when lies are exposed, people did not welcome their message on every street corner or synagogue. The authors of our scripture and Jesus himself rejected error. I encourage you to push past the fear of being different and seek what is good and true. If you seek, so shall you find. Matthew 7 7. Hope you guys have a good week out there, and I'll see you next time. The content of this message can be found on my blog post at wakinguptograce.com. My writings include linked references and visual aids, which will give even more valuable insight, and it's always free of charge. The comment section below each message is a place where we can share mutual encouragement and insight with one another outside of the social media net. My blog post is always a click away, linked right in the description section of each episode in your podcast at us. And don't forget to support us. 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