Words of Jesus Podcast - Jesus Came to Complete the Church

Episode Date: July 8, 2022

Jesus did not come to start a new religion.  He came to gave personal instruction to save the world - house by house.  The ways of the Kingdom of God are contrary to established practices. Listen to the instruction, "Give in secret.  Pray in secret.  Do what you do for good.  Avoid the pleasure of acknowledgment." It is tempting to receive glory for giving or for praying. (Shhhhhhh….) In quietness, examine your ability to meet the needs of those around you.  Receive personal instruction to save the world - house by house. “Jehoiada the priest took a chest, and bored a hole in the lid of it, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one cometh into the house of the LORD: and the priests that kept the door put therein all the money that was brought into the house of the LORD.” 2 Kings***Chapter 19: The Sermon on the Mount...Give to every man that asks of you, and from him that would borrow of you, turn not away. And of him that takes away your goods ask them not again. You have heard that it has been said, You will love your neighbor, and hate your enemy. But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what reward have you, what thank have you? Do not even the publicans the same, for sinners also love those that love them? And if you salute your brethren only, if you do good to them which do good to you, what thank have you, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans and sinners so? If you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you? For sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again and your reward will be great, and you will be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Be therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. Take heed that you do not your charity before men, to be seen of them: otherwise you have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when you do your charity, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when you do alms, let not your left hand know what your right hand does: That your alms may be in secret: and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, you will not be as the hypocrites are for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. But when you pray use not vain recitations, as the heathen do: for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knows what things you need, before you ask him. After this manner therefore pray: Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread, day by day. And forgive us our sin debts, for we also forgive everyone indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:...

Think Red Ink Ministries presents The Words of Jesus Series with Don C. Harris Hello my friends, welcome once again to the Words of Jesus series. I'm Don Harris from Think Red, Inc. Ministries. We've been talking about the Sermon on the Mount and taking it by subject matter as well as possible and as completely as possible so that we can learn what did Jesus do? What did he say to do?

This whole idea is to, well, to re-found our Christianity on the words of Christ. It's amazing how it has gotten off over the years, but I'm afraid that it has. It just has. It's turned into churchy stuff, and it's turned into religion and such as that. And the Lord Jesus had no intention on coming here and setting up a new church. I know that's said. It's very common that people say that his intention when he came here was to establish the church. And in some cases, I think people think that he came to replace or to build a church. And when I say build a church, he did, of course, come to build a church.

Upon this rock, I will build my church. But we're not talking about bringing into existence something that didn't exist before. There's always been a group of people out there that have a recognition, a familiarity with God or at least with having some desire to serve Him. Those people have always existed. And although they've been few, they've always existed. And when He adds to the church is when He is building

His church. But to come and establish a brand new idea it's not that He has come to set a new religion. To develop a new religion, so to speak, but his intention was to come and complete the situation that the Jews were living in, to be their high priest and their king, and to, by that manner, save the entire world through the Jews.

Unfortunately, this plan was thwarted, and it was thwarted by his murder, and in doing so, there were certain things that had to change. Actually, we as Gentiles certainly, we cannot thank God for the unbelief of the Jew, but the unbelief of the Jew and their rejection of Messiah is really what swung the door open for the Gentiles.

And it's hard to be grateful and thankful for something as terrible as that, but it has indeed worked to our benefit. Anyhow, as he came to this earth to establish what we understand to be the church, I think that what you'll find is that his instruction to us is very, very personal, and I think that his intention is to save this world house by house, not group by group or color by color or denomination by denomination or even political

persuasion by persuasion. No. I think that his intention is to save this world house by house on an individual basis. And he does so I think very efficiently in his words that he's taught us and that he's given us through our Bibles. And we've been talking about the Sermon on the Mount and one of the subjects that we're talking about today. Now this little book that I've been using as a guideline for the show

called The Words of Jesus, although I appreciate this book, from time to time I run into very conventional ideas in here that are hardly substantiated. Today we're talking about one that has been headed as ostentation. And as if he is teaching us what ostentatious behavior is and how we should avoid being this way, whereas I don't think that was the intention of what he was teaching at all so you know there comes times that i have to disagree with our little book and um and today is one of those days now uh let's read what he says take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them otherwise you have no reward of your father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when men, I'm sorry. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet

before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand This first section of this particular section we're reading deals with giving. We here at TRI, we have meetings from time to time in different cities and with people. And of course, people come here to Pytown to enjoy the Feast of the Lord, the Feast of Tabernacles and such.

And I think that some people are surprised or caught by surprise in our meetings out in public and such that there are no offerings taken. We don't take offerings. We do give people opportunities to give, but we don't take offerings. We don't mention it. We don't talk about it. Money is not a part of what we do. It's an incidental part that I think is very, very private

between a person and his God. Frankly as I have been able to protect what money and finances come into this ministry, I think that the Lord has blessed what we are able to do with as little as we have. One way that we protect what we do, you might have thought that I meant invested in a nice investment package. No, that's not what I'm talking about at all. I want to make sure that whatever gifts are given to this ministry are not given to this ministry as much as given to the Lord

and done so in a way that is somewhat secretive. It's not my business to know who gives what and that kind of thing, and I distance myself from that as much as possible for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is that people deserve to hear from me. If they come to me for counsel, they deserve to hear the truth. And if the truth is distasteful to this person and they do get mad and walk away and it happens I don't need to consider the fact that this person is a key financial giver in the ministry and

soften whatever outcome comes from this particular meeting. Or even soften the rebuke or the counsel or things, you know, softening toward persons of means that are able to affect things in a greater way than perhaps someone who is poor and financially insignificant. I don't know about other preachers. Maybe they

have the ability to separate that in their mind. I know that I don't and therefore I make provision for it. And so one of the ways that we protect what is given to this ministry is that we insist on it being anonymous. And in doing so, nobody gives unless it's between them and the Lord. Nobody gives if they don't want to. And frankly, I don't want

I don't want money that's been given by someone who doesn't want to do that. So when I say protect the finances of this ministry, what I'm intending, what I'm trying to do is to keep things pure. Jesus said that there is a way to keep your giving pure, and that is to do it in secret, that nobody knows what you're doing. One thing that we do at this particular ministry, it doesn't matter if you're visiting us in town in a meeting or in a church or out here

on the grounds at Pytown, whatever main thoroughfare there is or whatever main entrance or door or whatever to whatever we're doing, we always take the offering box, which is what we call a Jehoiada box. It's just a box. and you can't necessarily see through the hole that is bored in the top and people are able to give in secret. Well I noticed that when they instituted the Jehoiada box in the days of Jehoiada the instructions were to set it at the right hand as you enter into the temple. This is just an interesting aside. I don't know if you're interested in these things. But it is to be set at the

right hand as you enter into the temple. And I remember making that instruction that that's where the box should be located, but it was really weeks after that it occurred to me this particular scripture we're reading today. And what does he say? Don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. And so obviously this right hand, when he's talking about giving alms he's talking about giving and uh we know that this box was at the right hand on the way into the temple uh we we

know that now that when he says don't let your left hand know what your right hand does it is that you're giving the right hand in the box on the right, is to be given in secret. And it's to be secret even from your left hand. I mean, I don't know how he could have made this any clearer that we are not to give in public. I don't know how he could have done it any clearer. How could he have said it any clearer than that? But that's exactly what he said. Now, so what have we

as the church done with this scripture? Absolutely ignored it. We have focused on the ostentatious part, which is the part that I have trouble with in our little book, that they're saying don't give in order to impress other people. And I don't think that that is the main message in what's being said here. I think he's saying don't do things not in front of men to be seen of them, but don't do things in front of men that they might see.

But more correctly, more perfectly, more to the point, don't give it in front of men so that you know that they know that you gave. Because when you do that, you enter into a state of hypocrisy that absolutely ruins, number one, it ruins your gift. He says there, you'll be honored of men for your gift, but the idea is to be honored of the Lord. And the gift has to be given to him. And some of that, when people come into the temple, is when you give.

You give when you get there you don't give when you leave he says it's at the right hand as you enter and so there's a lot of instructions that we can gain from this but i don't think that you're fully fulfilling the wishes of christ here when it comes to these rules of giving. I don't think you're fully fulfilling them. Fully fulfilling. Is that necessary? I don't think that you're fulfilling what Christ wants you to do as far as giving is concerned. If your main concern is that, well, other people might see me give. I might know that other people know that I give. People, they know, and they indeed do know that I give, but I don't do it for that reason. I think it's cop-out. I think that

you're still operating in a dangerous area. I'll tell you what, it'll come clearer to you as we continue because he doesn't stop at offerings. He is also talking about prayer. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Now, it's important that you understand

that he uses the word hypocrite here, and we're going to see this again. He uses the word a lot, but Jesus is not under the impression that a hypocrite is a guy who, you know, goes, you know, behind the bar and drinking a beer or whatever other little sin or thing, whatever your pet sin is in your church

that he hides and does it. We have a tendency to want to put those into the category of hypocrite. The other people who are known as hypocrites are people who are high and mighty or they're holier than thou or whatever. And they're just like everybody else. And they're just hypocrites or people who are high and mighty or they're holier than thou or whatever and they're just like everybody else and they're just hypocrites uh you know i'm afraid that that word has been misused so long that it is bordering on abuse because a hypocrite is is someone who does anything with an audience.

I mean, anything that you do with an audience is in danger of being insincere. And my preacher friends out there, hey, from one preacher to another, you border on hypocrisy every minute you're in the pulpit. I don't know if you're aware of that. When I first became aware of this, it absolutely hindered my preaching so bad I hardly had anything to say. But doing things, saying things, and acting certain ways in order that others might hear you

and come up in their mind with some kind of conclusion or surmise something about you about your church about anything that is not necessarily correct but it looks that way you're talking about hypocrisy here actually jesus called this 11 uh he said the 11 of the scribes the 11 of the not the scribes i'm sorry the 11 leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And he even threw into the mix Herod. And we're going to talk about this as time goes by in more detail. But the leaven, the doctrine that these people lived by was to do whatever the people wanted them to do. Friend, I don't know if you know this, but when you sit at the table with your family

and you pretend that you're not as Christian as you might have let on, or pretend that you are more of a Christian than perhaps what somebody has determined you to be, or whatever acting that you're involving yourself in, you are jeopardizing your soul when you do that. It is a very dangerous operation. When it comes to prayer, Jesus says, what I want you to do is not stand in the synagogues like the hypocrites do. There's the word hypocrite. This is exactly what we're talking about. Don't pray in church like hypocrites do. And who are hypocrites? These are

people that are doing things, saying things, acting a certain way in order for or allowing others to make judgments of themselves. Judgments that, of course, are in the best light because that's what we want to accomplish. Now, when it comes to prayer, preachers really ought to be ashamed of themselves. Some of the foolish things that they have done in the name of prayer. Everything from, oh, Father, if there be one here that needs Christ today, help him to do whatever or whatever else, and let him know that his life is short and it's uncertain, and help him to know that,

and help him here and help him there and may you do this and may you do that. When in reality, they're not talking to God. They're not praying to God. They're praying to that poor smuck out there in the audience. And they're trying to tell him something. They've been preaching to him for 45 minutes. But just in case you missed it, we're going to recap it in the prayer.

You know what you're doing is going to recap it in the prayer. You know what you're doing is you are involving yourself in hypocrisy. You're involving yourself in leaven, and you're praying essentially so that others can hear you. But it's not ostentation. It's not to make them think better of you. You're just not praying to God and you are pretending to do that. Oh God, let them know that we need $75,000 for a new pavement on the parking lot. What's God supposed to do at that particular point? Say, there's no need.

You just told them. What are you doing? Are you talking to me? Is this prayer supposed to be directed somehow toward me because it looks to me like you're talking to everybody else in the audience oh god you know bless our our missionary team as they go down to africa and help them do this and help them do that and and and all he's doing is he's giving his missionary team a list of instructions. You know, some of the worst offenders in this are the big mouth women

who have their little prayer clutches, their little coffee clutches where they all get together and want to, you know, it's just a gossip session. And they look at each other and they, you know, they might look side to side and lean over and whisper very carefully, very slowly so no one can hear them. Is there anything I can pray about? What do you mean? You want to pray about something, or you just want to know the dirty scoop? You know, the Bible says you don't know what to pray for as you ought. What makes you

think you know? The scriptures say that you don't. The Holy Spirit is supposed to pray through us because he knows the hearts and minds of everyone, including you, by the way. And none of this stuff means anything to him. Is there anything I can pray about? Yeah, pray about being a gossipy old hag. There's an idea. How about that? Maybe God will clean you up and clean up your desires to know everybody else's business. Go home and make a pan of biscuits for your husband. Go do something fruitful. Oh, you want to figure you're a prayer warrior? Yeah, okay, keep a notebook. Let me know what you pray about. Let me know what gets fixed. Let me know what gets ignored and what gets worse. You know, I really get tired of people using things in the scriptures just to get their

own way, to do whatever makes them happy and in in worst case scenarios preachers that are building churches building congregations um you know gossips who are getting all the all the the news and the scoop and the dirt on everybody everybody just pretty much doing their ungodly thing and attaching it to godly principles such as prayer and giving and things such as this and this is nothing short of hypocrisy you know again here comes some good advice gave it to you the other day shut up just be quiet do you really think that god is just sitting on the edge of his throne wondering what the latest gossip is waiting for you to show up and tell him? Is that what you're doing? Or I could help this couple. I could help this guy. I could help this woman. I could heal this baby. But I'm waiting

for one of you to ask me. Really? Is that the case? Is that what we're dealing with here? Because that's the way we act. that he could do all these wonderful things, but he won't unless you ask him. And you got Jesus over here crying at the top of his voice, my heavenly father knows you have need of all these things. So what are we supposed to do? How about going and listening

to see what the Lord has to say? How about not asking somebody, is there anything I can pray about? But ask the Lord, is there something in me that makes me unqualified to handle this situation? My heart goes out to Susie Q. I care about her. I don't want to see her life go bad. Is there any way I can help this? There's your nice prayer. And you know what? That's one you don't have to do in front of Susie Q. There's the one you don't have to sit around the table like a seance, holding hands

and asking God to appear before you and praying with her and giving her instruction about what she's supposed to do by pretending to pray to God. Don, are you upset? Yes, I'm upset. I get very, very weary of this stuff. I can't believe that the Lord honors it. I just can't. Not when you got Jesus saying, do these things in secret, folks. What's the matter with you? Why are you giving money in public? why are you praying out there in public listen to the next listen to the next public prayer you be the judge get your little

notebook out write down take notes on the prayer tell me who's he praying to who's she praying to i dare you i dare you to take a look Very few people pray as if nobody hears them. The only way to do that, my friend, the only way I have ever found is to go into your closet, shut your door, and pray. It's the only way that you will ever convince yourself that nobody hears what you have to say.

People would ask me, do you believe in speaking in tongues? And I say, in public? And they say, well, yeah. And I say, well, if you do it at home, in your private, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. But I got a feeling that you don't.

I got a feeling that it's a performance for your church. You know, I come from Pentecostal background. So I've seen some stuff. And we used to have what was known in the backwoods churches. I bet they don't use the term anymore. But they used to call it shouting. Now, you might think that's making noise with your mouth. But it's not it's uh it's dancing and carrying on jumping and you know uh well it's it's wild i don't know if you've ever been there can i see a hand or is there anybody out there like that

anymore um but um you know a lot of that, it's just performance in front of people. We cultivated that because it's okay to pray in public. Jesus said it's not. Well, we say it is. Okay. Take up an offering. Oh, and you pray over it. You pray before you preach. You pray before you sing. You pray before you end the service. Pray when you start the service. These are all times to pray. And I just think that there's something fundamentally wrong with prayer. Mostly it is that we don't know who we're praying to, and we really don't believe that he has either, he has anything to say, or that if he says says it we're going to hear it if you really thought that the lord had the intention and the ability to speak to you in prayer and you had 20 minutes with him what would you do talk or listen come on now what would you do if you knew he was going to speak to you if you knew he had something to speak to you, if you knew he had something to say to you, what would you do?

Would you step in there and say, oh, our father, thou art wonderful, thou art holy, thou art whatever. Would you really go into one of those vain repetitions? Or would you just lay there and say, father, speak to me, tell me what you think I should know. Time's gone already. So sorry about that. But the clock just ticks right along. I want you to do something for me. Write to me. Tell me who you are. I'd love to know who you are and how you're hearing this broadcast.

And you can do that at Don at ThinkRating.com. All right. Until next time, Don Harris. We'll see you next time bye you've been listening to don c harris of think red ink ministries ThinkRedInc.com. That's ThinkRedInc.com. Join us again for the next episode in the Words of Jesus series. you