Holiness in the Age of Fulfillment

Live from the Mecca of Mormonism, SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, this is Heart of the MatterTGNN’s original show where Shawn McCraney deconstructed religion and developed fulfilled theology. – where we are working through together how to live the Christian life in the Age of Fulfillment – and I’m your host, Shawn McCraneyFounder of TGNN and developer of the fulfilled perspective—calling people to faith outside of religion.. We’ve been on a rant about clearing the deck in the faith and throwing overboard everything that gets in the way of a direct unencumbered relationship with God through Christ. Well tonight I want to argue that we need to rid ourselves of religious governance over sinMissing the mark of faith and love—no punishment, just lost growth or peace..

Show 34A I’m Doing My Neighbor
Taped July 30th 2020
Aired Monday August 10th 2020

The Call to Holiness

Remember, the bride of Christ in the Apostolic age had to be holy and pure, without spot or wrinkle, and the call to holiness is frankly upon all of God’s Children. In that day, the directive was really specific – avoid fornication, especially in connection with idol worship. When we think about it, fornication today, (in a Christians life) continues to exist and continues to be a form of Idol worship as the Christian participants are saying, in effect: My intercourse with this individual is more important than my communion with God. God has told us to avoid it but I am choosing to engage with a fallible human being instead of hear his command. The fact of the matter is, in reality, that our flesh is stronger than our spirit, and as humans will do, we feed the needs and wants of our flesh OVER the Spirit’s directives to abstain out of love for God.

BEAT

By summarizing this down in this way we can then address the issue with the true antidote – feeding the spirit! And we talked about this as the antidote last week rather than just spouting off to everyone: Don’t have sex! Sex is evil! You are bad!

The Religious versus Relational Approach

The demand for Holiness of the Saints then is present and cannot be avoided if you are a serious student of scripture. And we talked about why this was the case then in the early apostolic church – because they were Jesus' bride! But the call to holiness remains in the lives of all sons and daughters today. The question is what is the best means to bring this holy state ultimately about in the lives of God’s children. Is it the Law, discipline, judgment and the anger of Man? I suggest that in this age, which is different in methods than in that age, that the Spirit is the way and means to holiness, and that the fruit of the Spirit is LOVE . . . AS IT IS DEFINED IN SCRIPTURE – which is patient, kind, longsuffering, merciful, and never fails.

So, let’s just put this to an example. Let’s compare two ways we can approach believers who are not living holy lives. The Religious Way or the Relational Way by and through the Spirit. A congregate comes to their pastor and says: I am fornicating with my neighbor, I am sleeping with my best friend’s husband, I am addicted to porn. Depending on the denom and frankly the pastor, the reactions to this typically include:

1. You need to stop – now. YOU need to STOP
2. YOU need to pay – to be disciplined – especially if you don’t stop now, by the church.
   (Which may mean)

• excommunication from the group or some other discipline. (And . . .)

3. You need to show contrition. (And)
4. And in some cases, you need to confess this to the church.

The basis for these things are because of passages in the New Testament where the apostles are, in fact, guiding the bride in and through similar channels of correction. Often in the religious approach, the pastor will engage in deep weekly counseling with the congregate, mandatorily. Then once the congregate has overcome their sin, stopping it all together, shows contrition, and makes all the steps possible to bring about reconciliation with offended parties, they will be absolved of their crime and received back into fellowship – to some degree or another, again depending on the denom.

A New Testament Context

I have to emphasize that THIS is the way religions do it because they take the New Testament and apply what was happening then with the Apostles and the Bride to the present. AGAIN – Why WAS this approach present in the New Testament church? Again, Jesus was coming to take his bride and she, because she was going to be HIS BRIDE, culled from dedicated believers out of the Nation of Israel and gentiles moved upon by the Holy Spirit, and she represented Holiness by and through.

The Distinctness of Apostolic Age and Present Faith

Literal actual insufferable dedication to Him – which he demanded. All you have to do is read Jesus’ words to the Seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 to understand this. However, this approach was also POSSIBLE because there were

Characteristics of the Apostolic Age

1. Living apostles, called by Christ himself, who were witnesses of His resurrection AND were filled with the POWER of God to discern and guide His church so that the GATES Of HELL would NOT EVER PREVAIL AGAINST HER. (Also)

2. The bride and church was small enough to be managed and overseen as I would believe most converts from Jesus deathSeparation from God—now overcome. Physical death remains, but it no longer separates us from life with God. to the destruction of Israel were known by name and personally by the elders who governed them.

3. This set up, this bride, was only possible in the times of the Apostolic age! And once Israel was destroyed, God himself instituted the age to come, the age of fulfillment, where the following, ACCORDING to HIM and HIS WORDS, would be instituted – where HE SAID:

4. That He would write His laws upon the hearts and minds of individuals and they would individually become his Sons and Daughters.

5. That everything else that could be shaken – first the temple, and genealogies and priesthoods and men and their religions (including ministries and churches and denoms and the institutional attempts at keeping Church alive) would be shaken so that NOTHING would remain on earth (relative to His Kingdom) except unshakeable principles – which come by the Spirit. (Don’t believe this read Hebrews chapter 12 in total)

Advising on Personal Struggles

Therefore we are left with the faith operating by and through something different than what once was. How would I go about counseling a person who comes to me and says that they have a problem with fornication, adultery and the like? With the principles of Agape loveSelfless love marked by patience, mercy, and humility—central to living in spiritual liberty. – patience, longsuffering, forgiveness, kindness, non-judgement and allowing the Spirit of God, which governs the lives of believers, to work.

Why? Because GOD himself set this system and approach up. He established it entirely! Men have ignored the passages that describe this system altogether, as well as the substantiated doctrines of eschatologyStudy of “last things”—TGNN teaches all biblical eschatology was fulfilled in 70 A.D. More, and have attempted for 2000 years have tried to replicate what they read in the new Testament, but what we read has NEVER work on a large scale, leads to legalisms, drives sinners from the pews, and makes the rest of us liars and hypocrites, which usurps the work and power of the Holy Spirit to do its work among us.

The Religious Versus Spiritual Approach

But MOST of all, the religious approach rarely changes the heart and will of Man. So, a person comes and says, I am doing this or that? I would say, Wait, who’s doing this or that?” And they would say, “I am doing this or that?” And I would say, “Are you a Christian?” And they would say, “Yes.”

And I would say, “Do you understand that as a Christian you are a new creation and all things become new, and that it is impossible for you to sin as a Christian? So is it you the Christian that is doing this or that?” And they would flounder probably. And then I would cite Paul’s own words written as an apostle when he said in Romans chapter seven the following:

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin.
15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
17 So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.
20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me.
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.
22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self,
23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members.
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
25 Thanks be to God through

The Struggle Between Flesh and Spirit

Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I of myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. And I would ask, after having read this to them:

“So who or what is fornicating, or sleeping with their neighbor or watching porn?” And they would have to say: “My flesh.” And I would say, “are YOU your flesh (Which is going to die and erode and go to the grace) or are you a New Creation that is going to go to God when you die? Which is going to live on? And they would say, “my flesh is going to die and erode away forever and my spirit is going to go to God.” And I would say, “So then what you are having trouble with is the power of your temporal flesh OVER you as a new creation in Christ. And they would say, “I suppose so.”

Understanding the Conflict

And then I would make this VERY VERY CLEAR TO THEM: “So when you say that YOU are doing this or that, I want you to understand that what you are really saying is that you have allowed your flesh, which is your former person, which houses your Spirit, to reign over what Christ gave you – your new life, your new heart, your new mind and spirit. And I would say, say it. And they would say: “I have allowed my flesh, which is my former person and should be dead, to reign over what Christ has given me – which is my new identity.”

And with that I would say: “So then, what is the solution to this disparity that exists between your new creation and your mortal flesh?” And they might say, I have to change and I have to really work hard to overcome my flesh, and (if its porn) they would say I need an accountability partner, and (if its sex) they would say, I have to just break it off, and in they end they would probably say that they have to repent.” And I would stop them and say:

True Repentance

Repentance best means “a change of mind.” And I would ask, “In your Christian mind (which God gave you at rebirth) haven’t you always known what you are doing is wrong? Even before you did it? Haven’t you known, by the Spirit which abides in your new identity given you by Christ, that what you were going to do was wrong?” And if they were honest they would have to say, “yes.” And I would say, “of course YOU YOU knew it was wrong! Your mind given you by Christ is not the issue. It does not need to be changed. It has already changed. And then I would remind them that they had already repented, in the true sense of the world, when they came to Christ.

The trouble, I would say, is that their flesh has not agreed with their mind or their real, new identity in Christ. Instead, their flesh has exercised its strength and rode roughshod over what their true identity which is in Him. So again, I would ask them: “What does a Christian do?” And if they are catching on they would come to the conclusion that the need to fortify and feed and nourish who they really are – spirit. That they need to know that when the Spirit is strong and reigning over them the flesh does not stand a change to do what the flesh does.

I would remind them that the flesh – what surrounds them and houses their new identity and is, in fact, headed to the grave, will never ever change. It cannot be fixed and to never allow themselves to believe that what they were born with will ever be tamed. It was an animal at birth and if and when given enough of a leash will do what it does – feed itself. So to focus ON the flesh THROUGH the flesh is a futile endeavor which may do SOME good, but it will never change the fleshly heart.

I would also remind the person that every person’s flesh on earth is tuned-in to specific sorts of crimes against God. Some would never cheat on a spouse, but would gossip, some don’t gossip but love revenge. Some people abide in flesh that is capable of almost any type of evil – that’s me – but that their particular flesh failure or failures are no better or worse than ANY other – because all flesh stands

The Challenge of Human Desires

In opposition to God.

So again, sister, brother, my friend whom I love unconditionally and as you are, even as a fornicator, adulterer, porn fiend – just like Jesus has loved me as I am, how should YOU respond to YOUR situation? And hopefully they would come to some of the following conclusions:

They ought to sit back and talk with God – honestly. They ought to tell him that their flesh is strong and has taken hold; that in their flesh they are enjoying their sin, that they like the sex with someone not their spouse – or whatever it is. The Father of their SPIRITS can take it- so be honest. But first get God in the mix.

Spiritual Renewal and Community Support

Then hopefully they will ultimately see the benefit of feeding their spirit, renewing their new mind and heart that God has given them by the washing of the Word and what it says. That engaging with people who strive to live by the Spirit instead of the flesh may benefit them as well.

And I would tell them to relax, to remember that the sins of the flesh have been paid for by Christ who loved us – who loves her or him – and that in gratitude for this love given to all Christians can will and do change – by His might, and His power, and His goodness.

An Approach to Transformation

And I would pray with them, follow up with them every now and then, letting them know I cared and loved them, and would wait for the LORD (by His Spirit) to move them, knowing that all things work for Good for those who love Him. The only exception I have ever taken to this approach (and by the way it was this approach which I self-imposed when religion would not do it that changed me that got me away from my flesh) but the only exception I have ever taken to this approach was when non-consenting parties are involved (children or depradations on the innocent). Then I will strongly counsel the person to explain their behavior to a spouse (because of the inherent dangers to them) and when children are involved I have called the police.

Religion and its ways have never really worked effectively and when they have it was in the time when the Spirit was abundant, apostles were present, and the body was small enough to be managed. God knew this – and even all the way back in the Old Testament addressed what He would do once the former age and all that it was about was addressed by and through His Son.

WRITE YOUR COMMENTS BELOW! And we will see you tomorrow night, here on Heart of the Matter