Jentezen Franklin - I Refuse to Be a Professional - Part 1
Give Him glory and honor and praise. Give Him glory and honor and praise. You'll be healed in the name of Jesus in your body. Be healed in your mind of depression, hopelessness, darkness, worry, torment. You be healed ion your family, contention, strife. You be healed in your marriage, you be healed in your future. Your future shall be brighter. The path of the righteous grows brighter and brighter, not darker and darker. He is life and He is in this place today. Do you believe that? Incredible. You can be seated.
If you have your Bibles, you can open them with me for a few moments. We'll go wherever the Lord wants us to go and be done. I'm reading from Judges 17, I'll begin reading with verse 6. Judges 17, "In those days there were no kings in Israel everyone did what was right in his own eyes". That's a dangerous time in a nation, when everybody does what was right and we don't have a king named Jesus. And, "now there was a young man from Bethlehem, in Judah, of the family of Judah," Notice it mentions his family. He was a Levite, which means he's in the lineage of priests and he started staying there. "The man departed from the city of Bethlehem to Judah to stay wherever they could find a place and then he came to the mountains of Ephraim and the house of Micah, as he journeyed," or some translations say, "So journeyed".
That's an interesting word. "And Micah said to him, 'Where do you come from?' She said to him, 'I am a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. And I am on my way somewhere else,' is what he's saying, 'to find a place to stay.' Micah said to him, 'Dwell with me. Dwell with me and be a father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten shekels of silver per year, a suit of clothes and your substance.'" Shelter, food. So the Levite when in. The Levite, notice the big word was, "content". He was content to dwell with a man. And the young man became like one of his sons to him. So Micah consecrated the Levite and the young man became the priest and lived in the house of Micah.
"Then Micah said, 'Now I know that the Lord will be good to me since I have a Levite as a priest.'" You read the next chapter and he sets up a idol in his house. Started worshipping it and he said, "It will be alright. It will be alright. I've got me a hired priest. It doesn't matter how I worship or who I worship or what I worship. I can worship idols. I have hired me a priest from Bethlehem, Judah". And in that moment, this man had to make a decision, was he going to, was he going to basically sell out his faith that he knew was right to worship another God? For contentment, for security for ten shekels of silver per year, a change of clothes? And in some Bibles, it says over that section, when the priest became a professional.
And I'm preaching today on, "I refuse to be a professional". Because we're New Testament priests, you are and I am. You think the preacher is the only one that's a priest, but the Bible said in the book of Revelation, "We're all kings and priests under our God". And sooner or later, you're gonna have to make the same decision that this young man had to make. Who are you going to serve and who are you going to love? And is your faith in God, is it... are you a professional? Meaning, when I say professional, I don't mean that he was a cut above like a professional athlete.
In that moment, he decided it would become a profession for him, not a passion. It would become a job for him, not a joy. It would become a life, not the life. It would become something that was taught, but it would not be really, really treasured all week long. You'd come hear a little teaching and then go back and forget about it. And every Christian, we're living in a defining time where playing church is over. And if you're for sale and the enemy can make you content, he will make you a bargain and you can become a lukewarm Christian if you want to. Are you one of those Christians that's become a professional Christian? You do your duty? You've become content? Where's the passion? Where's the longing? Where's the yearning? Where's that move of God that matters more than silver or gold?
I'm a blessed man. God has blessed me mightily. But I can tell you, I am not a professional. I don't care how blessed I get I can't trade out. I'd rather have Jesus, I'd rather, and I don't know if you have to choose sometimes, but I do believe your heart, your heart has to be holy, committed to Jesus Christ and then He can trust you. When is the last time God broke you loose? When is the last time your tears were streaming down your face? I don't care who you are. Because you were so overwhelmed at the fact that God is so good, and so precious, and so mighty that the world can't give it and the world can't take it away. Everybody give Him a hand clap of praise, you know.
Notice that this young man was from Bethlehem, Judah. And he decided to journey or so journey away from that in the opposite direction. He came from Bethlehem, Judah. Little tiny, little country bumpkin little town in Israel. Those poor, ignorant people who worship God they, look at 'em, look at 'em. They don't have nothing, they don't know the big lights of Sodom and Gomorrah. They don't know all the world has to offer. Look at that little, little dinky place called Bethlehem, Judea. It's a picture of the church and it's a picture of a generation of kids that have been raised in the church. And then they decide to so journey or journey down another path because I'm tired of, I'm tired of that life, I don't want that life. And you taken it for granted is the truth.
I've preached long enough to seen this thing go full circle. I've seen people be in church, raised in church, leave, go out, go off to university, party, live it up. Always sin leaves you in shambles, always sin leaves you broken, always sin takes more than you wanna give. Always it ends up so, so dark. And I've seen them come back home and I've seen them and they're even in this room here today. And they can say, "Truly, I didn't really appreciate where I came from". I just wanna preach that Bethlehem, Judea is still a wonderful place to be from.
I'm so glad I was raised in church. I'm so glad that I came up in church. I'm so glad that I was taught little songs from my childhood, the B-I-B-L-E. I'm so glad my momma and my daddy raised me in church. We went to church on Sunday morning, we went to church on Sunday night. We went to church on Wednesday night, we when to prayer meetings. We went to this. Choir practice. I didn't know how to play no musical instruments, I got in the choir. I had to learn musical instruments in church. Everything about my life I am nothing but an old church boy. I'm from Bethlehem, Judah, which means praise. And I'm telling you, if you've been raised that way and you're listening to me preach right now. You've been raised in this thing, you are ruined.
Go on out, go to your university, let some Godless professor tell you that the Bible is a lie and God isn't real and how ignorant those people are but I wanna proclaim Bethlehem, Judah is a blessing. If you been raised by Christian parents, you have a granny who knows how to pray, it's not a curse, it's a blessing. I believe this boy will say, "I can't wait till I get 18. I can't wait till I get out of this old, dumb religious mess over here. Can't do this, can't do that. I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna do everything I wanna do". I'm preaching better and y'all let it know. It's still a good place. Woo! We ought to shout right there a minute. It's still in times like these I'm glad I got one stable thing in my life. If I can just get to the house of God. If I can bring all my mess and all my problems and all my burdens and I can get in the presence of Jehovah. Wipes my tears away.
He picks me back up. He says, "You can do all things through me. Get up and try again". And you can walk out of this place saying, "'I'm more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ.'" Take a praise break wherever you are and give God some glory for Bethlehem Judah, the church. Every step you take away from God is a step down. Jonah stepped down from Joppa to Tarshish. He went down. And then, the Bible said he went down into the ship. He went down. And then, he went down into the ocean. He went down. And then, he took another step and went down into the fishes belly, down, down, down. Every step you take away from the church, every step you take away from the faith of your father or mother or whoever had faith in your family. Every step you take in the opposite direction of what you know what they had, you know they had a walk with God. Every step you take away from that. Because culture will curse it, culture will tell you you're crazy.
I believe that this priest was like the modern ministry today, probably had a rainbow flag outside the church. A hired gun. Just say what we want you to say. Don't say what we don't want you to say. If you don't know by now, this ain't that church. We just wanna say what the Lord says. It's not about us. It's about, what does this book say? This book says, "Thou shall not lie. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain". Blanked, blank. Thou shall not go into a drug store and take up the $999 and run out with it in the street. As long as you don't take a thousand dollars you can't be arrested. What have we come to? This is a generation that has lost its way. There's nothing good to come from going in a different direction away from Bethlehem, Judea.
And I'm telling you, we're living in a time where we need to say again, the fact that there's hundreds and hundreds, and hundreds of children on the lower level of this building having their brain indoctrinated with the Bible and the world of God. And I've been telling our team, I wanna go back to old school. I want Bible memorization. I want them to know the books of the Bible. I want them to be able to quote the scripture left and right. I said, I want them to win big prizes. I want them when they graduate from high school, if they can quote the books of the Bible and everything else we can get them a scholarship, we can send them to a Bible school or some good college. We're not gonna send to some woke place where they're told God isn't real and to mock everything that was ever good in our society.
Oh, come on and help me preach just a minute. We gotta get it back. We gotta get it in our children. Deuteronomy 6, Talk about it in the morning, talk about it in the afternoon. Talk about it in the house, talk about it in the car. Talk about it all day long. Praise Jesus, speak Jesus, lift up Jesus. It's casual Christianity being a professional Christian? "Come on kids, get into church. Hurry up, hurry up. And when we get over, let's get outta here. And then, it's right back to turn the radio to blankedy, blank boom, boom, boom". What is wrong with us? He's a holy God. He deserves, He deserves our whole heart.
You say "I know, I know, I know". But see, this is what you don't know, I've been doing this a long time. And I've watched a little nicey, nicey church. I'm tired of nicey, nicey Pee-Wee Herman Christians. We need a revival. We need young people to see the glory of God. We need the Holy Ghost to fall on the house until they are filled with the spirit and so filled with the vision of God for their life that culture can't turn them around. And I don't know who I'm preaching to, but I wanna know, are there any Christians listening to me who refuse to be a professional? I want passion. I want fire. I want anointing. I want love of God above all!