Best Of: Redefined!

Hey, this is Jim Graham from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we explore relationship instead of religion every week. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.

This is the Truth Network. The chaos of COVID and politics and it's nuts out there and if we could only get the right politician elected who believed exactly like we believed then maybe our problems would be solved. Right, Pastor Alan Holmes, the author of Redefined. What's wrong with that?

Man, I think we all wish it was that easy. It kind of reminds me of the Old Testament when Israel was demanding a king. They wanted somebody to fix their problems for them rather than recognizing the key was to allow God to work through each one of them individually and that's what Redefined's all about and that's what Jesus came to offer us. A personal relationship where he would build his kingdom not without us, not despite us, but through us. So the work of building the kingdom begins in our hearts.

You know when you think about the Sermon on the Mount, it was his first sermon, his longest sermon. In this sermon he is laying a theological and philosophical foundation for his life and ministry and in the Beatitudes he describes our relationship with God and how that relationship affects other people. So for example, the first four Beatitudes are this, blessed are the poor in spirit which is humility. Blessed are those who mourn which is brokenness. Blessed are the meek which is surrender and blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.

That's dependence. So my relationship with God should be characterized by humility, brokenness, surrender, and dependence. That's the Christian life and when that's true the kingdom of God begins to grow in my heart and as his kingdom is established in my heart it changes the way I relate to other people. So the next four Beatitudes describe now how my relationship with Jesus affects my relationship with other people. So the fifth Beatitude is blessed are the mercy which is merciful which is just mercy. The next one is blessed are the pure in heart which is authenticity. The next one is blessed are the peacemakers which is peace and the next one is blessed are the persecuted and the idea there is faith. So in other words when my relationship with God is thriving I relate to people in my world with mercy, authenticity, peace, and faith and when that's true now I can be the salt in the light of the world.

But here's the problem right now in America. In America we want to be salt and light but we don't want God to have our heart. And at the end of the day what Jesus is saying is you're called to be salt and light but it begins in your heart. When you look at the American church over the last couple of years and you see all the all the chaos and immaturity what's obvious is our relationship with God is weak. Our relationships with other people often is a disaster and so we've lost our saltiness.

Our light has been put under a basket. So Jesus is trying to describe how can you be salt and light? How can we fix all these things that we're concerned about in our culture? And he wants to do that.

It's very very important. He just understands that that work begins in my heart and the way I treat other people. And when we get that right then together we can change our world. Wow and that's the voice of Pastor Alan Holmes, the pastor of Definition Church in Greensboro. If you hear any noise, yes it's the chaotic world.

We're talking about the chaotic world. It's like the traffic. Some guy just may have lost his muffler a few miles back because we're on the patio outside beautiful fall day of Don Juan's. And I had a privilege just to, you're running so fast.

I'm running so fast. So I had my handy dandy mic here so I had to grab this guy and interview him real quick about his brand new book, Redefined, which is just a book that's given a lot of people hope. It's out now and you can get a copy at alanhomes.org.

You can get a copy anywhere books are sold. Just type in Redefined, Pastor Alan Holmes. And you're, tell us, I guess let me back up. We kind of came out swinging with this Sermon on the Mount stuff that says just rich. I mean I don't think I'll ever look at that Matthew 5 passage the same again after you kind of discipling me and teaching me about this and reading this Redefined, your brand new book Redefined. Pastor Holmes, who is Alan Holmes?

That's a good question. And when you read the book you'll get to hear my life story. So throughout the book I really talk about how God took me through this journey. In fact, maybe the most crucial thing to understand is that when you think about those first four Beatitudes, humility, brokenness, surrender, dependence. The truth is that's not very American.

And it's not very human. The truth is we struggle with pride. We struggle with denial. We struggle with fighting, fighting, fighting.

We struggle with independence, not dependence. So for most of us what happens is we have to come to a crisis moment where God exposes the true condition of our heart and leads us into a deeper relationship with Christ where he begins transforming our hearts. Because for most American Christians the truth is all they're doing is managing their behavior. Now they believe in Jesus and they're going to heaven. But the rest of their Christian life is about trying to behave. That is not Christianity. That's religion. Jesus came to transform my heart.

So my behavior is actually a reflection of who I am instead of just something I manage to impress people and to keep my image up. So in order for us to experience humility, brokenness, surrender, dependence, we have to come to a point of crisis. And that happened to me. Tina and I, my wife of 25 years, we got married and five months into our marriage she told me one day, I don't love you, I don't want to be married, I will never be in the ministry and I'm going back home. And I was in seminary preparing to be a pastor but what I discovered was I was just religious. And I loved Jesus and I was glad he died for me and I was glad I was going to heaven but I didn't know how to really cultivate that relationship and allow him to transform and to heal my heart. I had all kinds of baggage and garbage from my past and the way I grew up and a broken family and a lot of issues. And so I was dragging those issues into every relationship I had and I was covering it up by managing my behavior. So in the midst of my crisis it exposed me. I could no longer hide.

I could no longer pretend. And really in desperation I began crying out to God, you've got to fix this mess that is me. So I began to experience humility. You know, most people, there's a saying, I don't even know who said this, but humility often only comes on the backside of humiliation.

Wow, that's good. Well that was when my marriage was falling apart and I had to drop out of seminary and my image was shattered and I was humiliated that God in my moment of humility could really produce a brokenness, a godly sorrow that led to repentance, could begin producing a surrender where I stopped striving and learned to give up. You know, producing a dependence where rather than me trying to produce change, trying to be more Christian, I learned to depend on Jesus to produce his life and character in me. One of the greatest things about Christianity that people don't understand, this is too, it seems too good to be true, I mean, is that God wants to produce in you all that he expects of you and then he's going to reward you for what he produced when we get to the other side.

That's how generous our God is and he doesn't even make sense. And so so many Christians are striving and they're discouraged and the truth is they've kind of lost hope about the condition of their own heart, their soul, their heart, their soul, their behavior, what's happening in our world and Jesus would just say, here's what Jesus said, in fact in Matthew 11, he said, just come to me if you're weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. In other words, I'll do the heavy lifting, learn from me. I am gentle and humble in heart and you'll find rest for your soul.

That's what Redefined is all about. Jesus came to lift the burden of religion and performance and lead us into life. That's so encouraging. Pastor Alan Holmes with this brand new book, it's just out, you need a little bit of hope, need a little bit of encouragement, want to go and sit at the feet of Jesus Christ, you'll hear a pastor who unpacked it from his pulpit at Definition Church in Greensboro. Now he's provided for all of us to share this amazing message of Jesus Christ's message of hope, relationship versus religion from his book Redefined, which is out now. What's the biggest takeaway you want, pastors? We wrap up this segment on Truth Talk.

I'm Stu Everson. What's the biggest thing you want people to take away from this book, whether they get it for themselves or give it as a gift? Maybe they want to buy a case of these books just to bless some of the friends with. You know, I think I would say this simple idea, if we understood what Jesus really came to offer us, we'd give up everything to have it. Most people have no idea how good God is, how much he's for them. One of the things that I love about the Sermon on the Mount, just think about this, Jesus begins this sermon and nine times in a row he says, I want to bless you, I want to bless you, I want to bless you, I want to bless you.

He wants to lead us into a blessed and abundant life, but we've got to let him have our heart. Wow. Okay, the book is redefined.

His website is alenhollmes.org. His church is Definition Church. The book is out now, you can get it, you'll be blessed by it, and we're so glad to have you on.

There's the engines rolling, that's what's going on. You know, it's interesting, the timing of your book and the Sermon on the Mount, we talk about the turbulence, the racism, the cultural chaos, the political vitriol in our culture right now. Well, Jesus Christ was born in the fullness of time, Galatians 4.4, right? God brought his son into this world, born of a woman, the seed of the woman, prophesied in Genesis 3.15, and he came into a turbulent, oppressive government, all kinds of evil stuff going on, all kinds of mandates going on, and he came not to change the government, but to change the hearts, and that's where your book redefined goes right to the heart. Thanks for this book, and thanks for being on Truth Talk, Brother Pastor Alan Holmes. Thank you, it was so good to be here.