Gregory Dickow - Obliterating Everything Holding You Back
Open your Bibles with me to John, chapter 14, verse 9, John, chapter 14, verse 9. Today, I want to talk about obliterating, obliterating everything holding you back, obliterating everything holding you back. And this is a part of my Getting to Know God series, getting to know God, understanding God's nature, his true nature, obliterating everything holding you back. You know, really when it boils down to it, there's only one thing holding you back. Now, there's several things in that one thing. But the one thing that's holding you back is a distorted view of God, a distorted view of God, a wrong concept of God, a misconception about God.
Now we've all heard stories like God helps those that help. We've all heard sayings like God helps those that helps themselves. And that's not true. That's a distorted view of God. God doesn't help those that help themselves. God helps the helpless. We're the helpless. We couldn't save ourselves. He didn't help us because we were helping ourselves. He saved us because we were helpless and we were hopeless. And yet while we were helpless and while we were hopeless, and while we were enemies of God, he loved us and demonstrated his own love towards us. In that while we were sinners, Christ died for the ungodly, for the helpless and the ungodly. But Jesus came to obliterate every distorted view of God that man had accumulated over four thousand years.
Look at what Jesus says and John 14:9 have I've been with you so long? Because Philip said, Show us the father Lord. And he said, If I've been with you so long, Philip, that you would say that because he who has seen me has seen the father. He was seen me, has seen the father. You never can understand God. Without the Bible and you're never going to understand the Bible without understanding God's nature, God's nature is the lens from which everything will be understood in the Bible. You will not you know what people say. I just the Bible so hard to understand. It's hard to understand if you just read it as a book from Genesis to Revelation, it's not hard to understand when you understand God's nature, when you understand what God is really like, it makes sense.
It's sort of like this. If I if you didn't know me and I and I texted you, like, if I like I'm when I when I talk to people, when I communicate with people, I'm a real I'm very light hearted. I make fun of stuff. I'm sarcastic. I'm a jokester. Like when when it comes to communicating with people, I'm very like I like to laugh and make people laugh and I like to just have fun with laughing about stuff. And so I might send you a text. If you don't know that I'm a kind of a jokester or sarcastic, you will take my text the wrong way and you'll have a wrong view. Even though I'm saying exactly the same thing. If you knew me, you would take it the right way. And if you didn't know me, you'll take it the wrong way.
So God is like that when we so the but the giveaway is like, if I if my first text to you is I'm a jokester, I'm sarcastic. So from this point on, just know that I'm going to play with you. I'm going to tease you. We're going to have fun in our communication. We're going to make fun of each other. We're going to laugh. And then I start talking to you in that from that point of view, you're like, OK, he defined who he is. So now I understand where he's coming from. And most people don't realize God is defined who he is, but they don't understand his definition or they haven't taken it as it is. And so they read something and they completely misinterpret it because they don't understand. He said he said himself, I am love. This is the gospel. This is the nature of God. God is love. This is theology.
There is no other theology that is accurate. Everything about God stems from this truth. God is love, 1 John, for God is love. Everything else about him flows from love. Everything about him is because of love. Everything he did in the Old Testament was because of love. Everything he does in the New Testament is because of love. Everything happening in your life today is because he loves you. If something bad is happening in your life, it's not because God God's not bringing something bad, but because he loves you. He's going to turn that bad thing into something good.
That's his nature. That's what he's like. He doesn't change his nature. He said, I am not a man that I should live. I am not in need of repentance. I am not going to change my mind. I've made up my mind. I'm going to save you. I've made up my mind. I'm going to rescue you. I've made up my mind. I'm going to deliver you. I've made up my mind. I'm going to treat you good. I've made up my mind. I'm going to protect you. I've made up my mind. I'm going to heal you. I've made up my mind. I'm going to bless you. I made up my mind. I'm going to prosper you. I've made up my mind. I'm going to take everything that you need and I'm going to give it to you in Christ.
And somebody said, Could that be that good? Could it be that good is the way. But religion has told you other things, misconceptions and distorted views of God like. No, no, no, no, no. God is going to discipline you with sickness. He's going to discipline you with hunger. He's going to discipline you. Really? Then then then what are the poor what are all the poor children in Haiti and what are the poor children in around the rest of the world? What is God teaching them through the hunger? What is God teaching them through disease? What is God teaching them through death and illness and waterborne sicknesses and millions of people with AIDS and millions of people with disease and millions of people that didn't do anything to deserve what is happening to them.
Let me tell you something. All of that is what all of that is what Satan brought into this world through Adam and Eve's obedience to Satan, that Satan brought sickness, disease, pain, disaster into this world. But through Christ's obedience, Jesus has brought God has brought through Jesus obedience. He's brought healing and salvation and deliverance and righteousness and everything you could ever imagine, everything you could ever hope for and everything you could ever dream. Oh, my God. God is love. God is love, God is good, he said, oh, I think we're hearing a little too much about that, you know, we need to get into some sin.
Pastor, why do we need to get into something Jesus already died for, buried, absolved? Well, you've got to warn the people that Jesus is coming back. OK, you have been duly warned. Jesus is coming back. But let me tell you what he's coming back for. What he's not coming back for. He's coming. He's not coming back. With reference to your sin, Hebrews Chapter nine says he is going to return and in his second coming, it will be without reference to sin. You know why he's going to come back without reference to sin? Because the first time he came, he became sin.
Look at what's look at Second Corinthians 5:20. What did you want? Some education today. And it's getting to the God's word a little bit. Can we get into some before we get into some stuff that will really help you grow? He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we would become the righteousness of God in him. You don't become the righteousness of God because you prayed enough. You you pray with power when you know you're the righteousness of God. You don't become righteous because you pray with power. You pray with power because you know you're righteous. Man. He made him who you know, sent to be sin on our behalf.
So he made reference to sin the first time he became it and nailed it to the cross. Your sins have been nailed to the cross. You say, what if I sinned tomorrow? That was nailed to the cross two thousand years ago. You say, oh, no, no, no, my future sins, those aren't nailed to the cross, I got to confess them lie. That's wrong. Because. Because when you were one, all of your sins were in the future and Jesus paid for those two thousand years ago. So guess what? When you're thirty one forty one fifty one sixty one, it's just like being one. It's just like just being born. All your sins have been paid for in advance. It's called paying it forward. He paid for it in advance so that the second time he comes it will be without reference to sin because it's been washed away.
Because he's the only way. The truth. And the life. And every other way is distorted and every other truth is perverted, and every other life is inferior to the life that comes from knowing God. Look at Deuteronomy one twenty seven, the children of Israel see Satan's number one goal is to distort your view of God. Deuteronomy one twenty seven. He says to the children of Israel, You grumbled in your tents and said, because the Lord hates us, he has sent us, brought us out in the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us.
So look at look at what they believe. Look at their theology. God hates us and he's sending our enemies to destroy us. That's their theology. And these are people who saw a lot of miracles already. And yet their theology is distorted. Why? Because they it's all rooted in God is not love. A distorted view of God will lead to something. Let me tell you what. It will lead to a distorted view of God here. It led to their destruction, obviously, but it leads to failure. But how a distorted view of God will then lead to a distorted view of you. I want you to see this now, a distorted view of God will lead to a distorted view of yourself and a distorted view of yourself will lead to defeat and it will lead to failure.
Let me show you what I mean in Numbers 13:31. So God sends 10 spies to spy out the land in the land of King, the Promised Land land of Canaan. And the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go against the people. So they come back with a bad report. We're not we're not able to go up against the people. So they gave the Sons of Israel a bad report about the land that God told them to scout. God just wanted them to see how good the fruit was. He didn't ask them, tell us, tell come back and tell us if we can beat the enemy or not. The Lord is our avenger. The Lord is our warrior. The Lord is fighting for us. The Lord fights our battles. He's not concerned about.
Do you think you can take them? He just wants you to see how good the land is that he's about to send you to because he leads us with goodness. It is the goodness of God that leads us, he wants you to see how good it is. Someone said, well, don't tell people about how. Don't tell people about how good heaven is and how good God is because that's the wrong reason to go. Really? Because why did you go to Hawaii? Because you heard how bad it was. Oh, it's bad. I better go suffer in Hawaii. No, you went because you heard how good it was. So all the people he said who we saw in it are men of great size. But the men who got up with him said, we're not able to go against. He said they're all great size. And we split up the land and we see that it devours it happens verse 30 to that land of ours, its inhabitants and verse 33.
Look at this. So they say. And also we saw the Nephilim, the Nephilim there and the Sons of Anarchy, the Sons of Giants. And we became like grasshoppers in our own site. So we were in their site. In other words, you will become in the enemy's eyes. Whatever you are in your own eyes. And look at what it did to the people like you talk like trash, then all the congregation cried. Look at what he says and everybody cried. Imagine coming to church saying I said, we're going to we're we're going to lose. We're going to fail this week, it really, really is bad, and you know what, you might as well just prepare yourself to lose because we're a bunch of grasshoppers at work. We're a bunch of grasshoppers at our jobs are a bunch of grasshoppers in our business. We're a bunch of grasshoppers in our health. We'll never get better. We'll never get healthy.
You know, we eat all sorts of Twinkies and, you know, we're just all going to die. We're all going to get cancer and it's going to happen pretty fast. But, you know, long enough for you to writhe in agony over it. And because God spoke to me, those things. And that's just what I see. And just what I you know, what we'd all be leaving here crying. But you know what? I guarantee you, we'd all be leaving here. You know, and church would be lonely next week because nobody would come back for that because it's a lie and everybody knows enough in their heart of hearts that God is good. And he's not like that, but nevertheless, they had this idea about themselves, which gave the enemy an idea about them. And so you hear they're going to see yourself the way God sees you. And when you do, the enemy will see you that way, or you're going to see yourself based on your comparisons and your failures and your shortcomings and how how how inferior you feel.
And so that's how the enemy will see you. And they and the enemy will exploit your view of yourself and will defeat you. And that's why my point is, is that a distorted view of God leads to a distorted view of yourself, which leads to failure, which leads to defeat. And it's because and so self-help gurus will will grab a hold of certain principles from God's word like this. How you see yourself is how your enemy will see you. How you see yourself is how people will see you, how you see yourself and how your obstacles will see you. And they'll use those things. And then Christians will be like, well, we can't listen to that because that's just self-help. That's not the Bible, but it is the Bible. That's where they got it from. Don't dismiss a truth because it came from somebody that took a truth and ran with it. Even though they didn't attach it to Jesus, it's still a truth, but attached to Jesus. It is the truth and it'll make you free.
And so let's receive and be willing to be open to everything God's word says, because that's how we're going to live victoriously. And that's we're going to get the right image of God. Remember what I told you before that when you know what God is really like, it will shape your perspective, how you look at things, your expectations, how you expect things to turn out. It'll shape your response to life circumstances, how you respond to things that will shape your emotions, how you feel about things, and it'll shape your decisions, how you choose things. But if you look at scripture, you'll see a God that is very clearly and definitively, consistently love and consistently good. And here, let me give you an example.
For example, if you look through scriptures, let's see how good God is. He gives hope in a future in Jeremiah 29:11. He gives sun and rain for crops in Matthew Chapter five. He gives strength to the weary in Isaiah 40:31. He gives wisdom to those who need it in James 1:5. He gives faith to everyone who who asks for it or wants it in Romans 12:3. He gives blessing to everybody who will receive it in Acts 3:19. He gives power to anybody that wants it in Deuteronomy 18. He gives rest to everybody who needs it in Deuteronomy 12:10. He gives provision to everybody who's lacking in Psalm 136:25. He gives deliverance to everybody who's in bondage in Psalm 80:50. He gives increase to everybody that needs increase in 1 Corinthians 3:6. He gives sleep to his beloved, to everybody that is weary and can't sleep in Psalm 127:2. And he gives us all things with Jesus in Romans 8:32. He gives us all things pertaining to life and godliness in 1 Peter 2.
Let me tell you about the God of the Bible. He is good and he is always good and he's always wanted to do you good. Why? Because God is love. And this is why Jesus came to distort, to to destroy and obliterate every distorted view that had been accumulated in the minds of men for four thousand years of human history. Up until that point, it's been 6000 now, but 2000 years ago, all these years of accumulated theology and accumulated opinions about God and wrong concepts of God from the very people that God showed himself strong for.
So be careful that you're not deceived because it's easy to be deceived when you don't keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. We had our eyes fixed on our problems. We've got our eyes fixed on our need. We got our eyes fixed on what other people think about us. We've got our eyes fixed on all of what we've done wrong. We got our eyes fixed on our guilt. We've got our eyes fixed on what somebody said about us. We've got our eyes fixed on the mistakes we've made. We've got our eyes fixed on the devil. We got our eyes fixed on say, we got our eyes fixed on perfection. And we have to live perfectly in the standard of never disappointing God. Don't keep don't fix your eyes on that. The Bible says, fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith.
Listen, listen. This is why Jesus came. He came to destroy the works of the devil in 1 John 3. He came to destroy the works of the devil. What are the works of the devil? Not sin is not the only work of the devil. That was the easy part. Satan's work is to weave into the minds of men, to distorted views of God that leave people with a view of an angry God, a view of a judging God, of you, of of a God who demands Your Holiness, a view of a God who is measuring you by how long you prayed or how long you've been obedient, or how many sins you've committed and how many good things you've done. And that those distortions have weaved their way into churches, weave their ways into Christians. We've their ways. And this is the work of the devil that Jesus came to destroy and to obliterate. Yes, he paid for sin, but he came to destroy the works of the devil.
And what's the devil working at? Painting a disfigured version of God, he knows he can't get people to doubt that there is a God, so he just gets them to have a new and wrong and inferior picture of God. And so that's why Jesus said, when you've seen me, you've seen the father, let me be perfectly clear about what God is like. Walk with me, Jesus said, let me show you. Like, why did he if if dying for our sin is the only thing Jesus came to do, why did he need thirty three years to do it? Why couldn't he have done that at 12, 18, 21? Thirty. Why? Thirty three, because he was maturing and developing and had to live the life that we all live with and tempted in everything because it takes a few years to be tempted in all things.
You know, the Bible says he was tempted in all things as we are yet without sin, took him that long to be tempted in everything. And then and then he demonstrated what God is like for three years, from 30 to thirty three. He demonstrated let me show you what I do to the sick. I heal them. Let me show you what I do to the condemned. I forgive them. Let me show you what I do to the lamb that had been in that condition for 38 years. I healed them. Let me show you what I do to the to the broken mothers who've lost their children. I raise their children up. I comfort the hurting. I heal the sick. I feed the hungry. I deliver the those in bondage. I cast the devil out that has been tormenting people and putting them in chains and causing them to live among tombs. I cast those out. Jesus. Everything he did was a picture of what God is really like. He came to clear up every misconception, to clear up every distorted view.