The Real Jesus Doesn’t Burn

I speak to you because I don't want you to burn in the fire. I don't want you to find out at some point that the Jesus that you have embraced is not the real Christ. There's a lot of build the Jesus ministries in this generation.

Don't build your own image of God. In 1 Corinthians 3, 12 we read, If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, their work will be shown for what it is. This shows us that each one's work will be tested by fire. And on today's program, Carter will remind us that trial will test the Jesus you believe in. The real Jesus doesn't burn is the title of today's message.

Here's Carter. This foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear for the day will declare it because it will be revealed by fire. And the fire will test everyone's work of what sort it is. So Paul the Apostle is saying, I have brought to you the real Jesus. I have laid a foundation of truth for you as the people of God. And of course, knowing Paul, we would understand that at the center core of all of the theology that he wrote down in the gospel is this underlying principle that Christ will not forsake you. That I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

All things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to his purpose. And he also writes at the end of Romans, he said, I'm persuaded that there's nothing that can come against any of God's people that can separate us from the love of God. Paul says, I brought to you the real Jesus. The real Jesus will not fail you. He will not forsake you. The real Jesus is not some fair weather friend that will take off when things get tough.

As a matter of fact, he will walk with you through the fire, through the trial, whatever it is that you're about to face or whatever you're going to have to go through, he promises he's going to go with you. Now we are as a society entering a season very similar to the ones which people of previous times have had to pass through. There are seasons throughout history where the world itself becomes hostile, at least the world around us, becomes hostile to the truth of God, to the word of God, to the presence of God, and ultimately to the people of God. The prophet Isaiah in chapter 59 of Isaiah verses 4 and 13 and 15 says these words.

He said, no one calls for justice. Now this is a season Isaiah is talking about where the people of God are about to come under a persecution. There's going to be a justice in a sense come into the land because they have dealt casually and in great measure falsely with the truth of God's word that has been conveyed to them. In Isaiah 59 verse 4 he says, this is the social condition. No one calls for justice nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and they speak lies and they conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.

Verse 13, in transgressing and lying against the Lord and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. Isn't that described our day? Where lying is abounding. It's unbelievable how people lie now. You can't believe almost anything or anybody now when they speak.

It's just absolutely astounding. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands afar off for truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter. So truth fails and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Now Isaiah is talking about a season that the people of God had to go through in the past where truth became a matter of personal opinion and absolute truth is rejected. The standard of truth was thrown out.

This is the only standard of truth folks. When you throw the Bible out you have no more a standard of truth. And as Romans chapter 1 warns when any nation deals falsely with this truth and throws it out of their borders they are given over to a depraved mind and they begin to do everything that the sinful heart of man has always longed to do apart from God's restriction on his or her life. And begins to call that which is unholy holy and begins to call that which is good evil. And not only that but it's a time where the culture itself turns against those who believe that God's word is the standard of truth.

You know that for a fact. Many here today you know you can't speak the truth of God's word in the workplace. As soon as you open your mouth and start speaking the standard of God's truth you're now a divider, you're now a hater, you're now an unwanted person, you're now in danger in a sense of even losing your employment. People will walk away from you, you'll be marginalized, you'll be... You see Isaiah said it comes to the place in a society where truth falls into the street, truth fails and people who depart from evil become a prey.

In other words the society itself attacks the people of God who hold to the standard of truth that's in the word of God. Whoever departs from evil becomes a prey. In other words the symbolism is a lamb in a field and a lion is going to devour it.

That's the symbolism of what he's talking about. When you turn you find yourself turned against, turned on. You find yourself in a sense devoured by the mouths of people around you who have abandoned truth and they're now walking in a lie and they believe their lie is truth. Now suddenly the word of God warns that the true gospel will be attacked in the last days both from without and from within the professing church. And that's a sad reality and now a lot of people don't realize that the gospel has been attacked for a few decades in this nation.

We're just waking up and beginning to realize what's been happening. Paul said in 2 Timothy 4 to his young prodigy Timothy, he said, verse 1, I cherish you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who will judge the living and the dead that is appearing in his kingdom. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. In other words Paul says to Timothy there's a time where your audience is going to be receptive and there's a time when your audience is going to be hostile to the truth. But be ready.

Don't compromise. Keep preaching the truth. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But according to their own desires because they have itching ears they will heap up for themselves teachers and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. Now the interesting thing about turning aside to fables it doesn't necessarily mean lies. In the Greek when you look up the word that's used for fables it really just means stories, good stories and many of these stories have a moral actually to them and they can actually bring you to tears.

I could stand here today and tell you a story about maybe my grandmother or my grandfather. It would really move your heart. It might even bring you to tears. But folks it's not the word of God. It has no power to transform your life. You can memorize my grandmother's story but it will not transform you and see that there will be this lust for entertainment in the house of God. And so the people many of the people will begin to gather to storytellers not preachers of the gospel anymore but people who just tell nice stories. They make people laugh.

They make them feel good about themselves and you walk out and it's just a momentary pleasure may I put it that way. But there's no transforming power in it. It is not the word of God. They will turn their ears away from the word of God and be turned into places where they're told stories that make them feel good and entertain them. Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verses 3 and 4 he said to the Corinthian church but I fear lest somehow as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

It's a craftiness that comes in. It's deviating the people of God away from the truths of the word of God that really matter. Repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost.

If you could fully acknowledge those three truths it can transform your life. It can take you into a place of fruitfulness in God and bring you into a place where you're carried by the Spirit of God through whatever it is that you're going to have to go through. He goes on in verse 4 he says for a few comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received or a different gospel which you have not accepted you may well put up with it. Paul said I fear for you Corinthian church I fear for you being so open to entertainment that somebody might come and present to you another Jesus and you might say well this is really a good idea I kind of like this Jesus. You know there's a store, it's a marketing store but you'll find it in malls all throughout the country now it's called Build-a-Bear.

Have you ever heard of that? Build-a-Bear? I actually went there with some of my grandchildren one time and it's fun to build a bear. You get to build a bear, that's what you do. If you don't know anything about it you can Google this and it gives you the steps to building a bear. So you go into the Build-a-Bear store and the first thing you have to do is you pick an image. You pick an image of a bear in a sense that appeals to you.

Isn't that amazing? In the last few decades a lot of churches have just been franchise operations for Build-a-Jesus. You come into the church and you pick an image of Jesus that you like, you find it palatable. So that's why you go to the mall, you go to the store that you want to go for the image of the Jesus that you want to follow. Remember Paul said, I warn you, somebody might come and bring another image of Jesus and you might very well bear with it.

You might think this is a great idea. I was preaching at a conference one time and it was a very large conference, it was in a stadium, an arena. In between sessions I decided to just go and sit among the people so I just went up in the bleachers and I found a seat and I sat down next to some people. And the gentleman who was on my right hand, he leaned over to me as the next session is beginning and he said to me, he said, I can't listen to you preach. I can't listen to you. I literally have to shut my ears when you get up and preach.

And normally I would just leave that seat and maybe find another seat. But I found it curious so I leaned over to him and I said, why can't you hear me speak? Because I had been up and just with an impassioned presentation for encouragement for people to give their full lives to Christ. And here he said to me, he said, my Jesus, now it's always a little bit of a, when somebody says my Jesus, you better examine that as to whether or not he's the right Jesus. He said, my Jesus would never raise his voice.

I found that interesting. And I looked at him and I said, when he went in the temple and he overthrew the tables of the money changers and he made a whip and he kicked the animals, do you think he might have raised his voice when he did that? And I said, when he sat on the hillside and there's like 10,000 people there that he was going to feed and he spoke to them, do you think he might have had to raise his voice to speak to the people?

I said, so why do you have an issue with a Jesus that raises his voice? And he didn't answer me, he just stared straight ahead. Then the Holy Spirit revealed it to me and I looked at him and I said, did your father yell at you? And he said, he yelled at me every day of my life.

My father was a screamer and a yeller in our home. And I said, so you are trying to build a Jesus that's not like your father. I said, be careful of this Jesus you're building. I said, because you might miss something that God is trying to speak to your heart because your image, you chose an image of Jesus but it might not correspond. I tried to be gentle with this man.

I didn't rebuke him or anything. I said, it just might not correspond to the real Jesus. So be careful with this Jesus that you're building. The second thing to build a bear, when you first choose the image, there's all kinds of bears, so you choose the one you like, it appeals to you. Then you get to choose the stuffing, isn't that amazing? You get to choose the stuff that goes inside this bear. Just like when you go to churches, you get to choose all the stuff that's inside this Jesus. All the stuff that he is, you get to form his insides as it is. And then you choose his eyes, what he chooses to see, and he doesn't see obviously a build-a-bear, but a build-a-Jesus maybe overlooks sin. You get to choose the eyes of this build-a-Jesus. Then you get to choose his heart, isn't that awesome? You get to put his heart inside and you get to kind of define what his heart, you can even write stuff on the heart of your build-a-bear. And lastly, and most importantly, you get to record your own voice, and you put it inside the bear so that when you pull the string it says exactly what you want it to say.

Isn't that amazing? Does that sound a little bit like some of the doctrine that's gone around in this nation for a couple of decades? You get to choose the image of Jesus, you get to put the stuff, you know, you get to choose the stuff that goes inside of him, you get to choose his eyes so that, you know, what he sees is what you want him to see. You get to choose his heart if maybe some of the parts of the Bible maybe seem a little too hard, you get to eliminate that and you just put all the soft stuff in there and all the nice words and all the kind words.

None of the warnings about sin, none of the things that maybe make you uncomfortable, you get to eliminate that and you get to write just good stuff on the heart. And then most importantly of all, you get to put your own voice so that when you pull the string, the voice of Jesus sounds a lot like you, build-a-Jesus. But in John chapter 14 and verse 6, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. So you can't get to the Father through your own Jesus, no matter how hard you try. You can do whatever you want, but there's only one Jesus. And in John chapter 10, verses 29 and 30, speaking of the security of the true believer, he says, My Father has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.

I and my Father are one. So he speaks of the security that is only found in the hand of God. It's not found in anything else in this world, but in the hand of God. This promise that my Father is greater than I and I put them in my Father's hand.

That means you, that means me. But you remember, the Scripture says you can't get to the Father's hand but through the real Jesus. There is no real security in this world if you have in your heart a homemade Jesus, a personal Jesus, a build-a-bear Jesus, may I call it that. There's only one Jesus that will survive the coming fire, and you and I are going to go into a season of trial. We have warned you from this pulpit for many, many years and everything that God put on our hearts years ago. We were warning when the tech boom was making so many people millionaires. We were warning when everything was going smoothly. We were warning because God was speaking to us about the days that we were about to experience as a nation. But today I want to tell you we are there now. We're not coming to those days.

We have entered those days. The world as we know it is launching a wholesale and perhaps a final rebellion against the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The lawlessness is not going to get better. The lawlessness is going to get worse.

The deception is going to get deeper. There is going to be a revulsion against Christ and against the people of God that will intensify until the Lord himself comes and returns and intervenes. We are living in the days that the Bible speaks about, and it is only the real Christ that will take you through. I speak as a pastor, a former pastor of this church, and I still have a pastor's heart, and I speak to you because I don't want you to burn in the fire. I don't want you to find out at some point that the Jesus that you have embraced is not the real Christ.

It's a Christ of your own making, a Christ of your own heart. Beware of all the sermon tasting that's out there on the internet. There's a lot of build-a-Jesus ministries in this generation, and don't fall prey to them.

As Paul said, I'm concerned for you. I'm concerned for those whose Christ is not the Christ yet of the Bible. The truth of God is not yet fully formed in you. Don't be led astray by these voices. Don't build your own image of God. God has an image. You cannot alter it.

You cannot change it. You cannot make it say what it doesn't say, no matter how hard you try. There is only one Jesus. Now Paul says, I'm going back to the original scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. According to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. So Paul says, I've given you the foundation of truth.

I've given you the real Jesus. And others, including yourself, are going to start building on this foundation. But he says, let everyone take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become clear.

For the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one's work of what sort it is. Trial will test your Jesus. Trial will test the Jesus that you've laid hold of.

I understand this from some of the past experiences in my own life. We've gone through fire. Those of you who know the story, you know that Pastor Teresa and I have gone through fire, the loss of all things. We've gone through flood. We've gone through trial.

We've gone through sickness. But by the grace of God, we've had the real Jesus. By the grace of God, the real Jesus has walked with us through the fire, through the flood, through the trial, through the sorrows, through the heartaches, through the accusations. Everything that came our way, and everything that came to burn us, couldn't burn us because the real Jesus doesn't burn.

Then the real Jesus had us in the palm of the Father's hand. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You will never be triumphed over. If you have a living relationship with the Son of God, you cannot be triumphed over.

Fire, trial, flood, circumstance, accusation, threats can come against you, but you will not be taken down because you are in the hand of the living God. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Glory to God! Glory to God! Glory to God! In the book of Daniel there was a season where a king called Nebuchadnezzar decided he was going to put an image of himself up and he was going to command the people to bow down to this image.

Societies get this insane urge in their heart from time to time to say, we're going to redefine the image of man. We're going to redefine the image of God. And it's not going to be a voluntary worship, it's going to be a mandatory worship. Now he said at the time when you hear the horn, the flute, the harp, the lira, the salt tree, the symphony with all kinds of music, you will fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Does that sound like our day? Where fallen men one more time says, we will tell you what truth is, we will tell you what society should look like, we will tell you what the image of God is and what the image of man is.

And you will agree with us and you will bend and you will bow and you will do it our way and if you don't it's going to get exceedingly hot for you. There were three young men and they had good jobs, they were set over the affairs of the province of Babylon. That means they had a good income, they had influence, they had authority, but suddenly in the midst of all of this they had to make a choice. Do we bow to this other image or do we hold to the true image of God? And the report came that these three young men refused to bend and they refused to bow. They refused to bow to the cultural order of the day, they refused to bow to this new form of worship and this new truth that was being conveyed among them. And Nebuchadnezzar the king called them in and he said, is it true Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image which I have set up? If that is the case, they said our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us from your hand O king. But if not, let it be known to you O king that we do not serve your gods nor will we worship the golden image which you have set up. And so the king in his fury commanded the furnace be heated seven times hotter.

It's amazing how nothing ever changes really, it just repeats itself. And we are living in an age where there is an anger against the people of God and we are coming soon to the borders of a time when we will be considered an impediment to the progress of this society. We will be considered expendable enemies in the sense of this new order that this world is now embracing which is in direct rebellion to the lordship of Christ. And so he bound them up and threw them in the fire, fire so hot that it killed the people that threw them in. And then suddenly in verse 25 he says to his counselors, look I see four men loose walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt and the form of the fourth is like the son of God. And this is my point, the real Jesus doesn't burn. And nor do those who are in his hand.

The flame of fire could not touch them. The scripture says God sent his messenger and delivered his servants who trusted in him and they have trusted the kings, frustrated the kings word and yielded their bodies that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own god. And here we are today and we each have to make a decision. Who is it that we are going to serve? Now if you are serving a bill to Jesus then you probably will have no problem bowing your knee. Because your Jesus when you pull the string will tell you it's okay you can do that. But it's your own voice, it's not the voice of the son of God.

It's your own selective truth. But if you make the choice to serve the living God, you see the end result of these three didn't bend their knee as if the laws of the land became changed. And it's going to require in our generation people of God who will stand up, will speak the truth, will live for the living God and suffer whatever consequences they have to suffer. By God's grace we'll triumph, by God's grace we'll go over the finish line, by God's grace we will walk with the real Jesus all the days of our life. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. You've been listening to Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information and resources to help you in your walk in Christ, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. And be sure to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.