2 Corinthians 13:5 (GW)
5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are still in the Christian faith. Test yourselves! Don't you recognize that you are people in whom Jesus Christ lives? Could it be that you're failing the test?
This afternoon I want us to examine ourselves. A little different lifestyle. We’re going to take a trip through the Devil’s drugstore. Do you see yourself in the Devil’s Drugstore? Many of us would say No way preacher How in the world could you even suggest something like that? Approach this with an open mind. And let’s see
There are different brands, different types of Christians that Satan is working in and working through. Many have the idea that you have to live up to some unreasonable standard way before you can walk through the doors of some church. Of course, they probably got that idea from some Self-righteous Christian, that said, "You’ve got to do this and you’ve got to do that. Stop this and stop that." You know if I can get well before going to the hospital.Then I really don’t need the hospital. Man, I’d save a lot of money. Jesus said that it’s not the well that need the physician it’s the sick. We need to realize that the church is not a hotel for the saints. It is a hospital for the sinners. We need to also realize that there are Christians who are out here that do more harm to the cause of Christ than any sinner who is out living in sin.
I have heard that there are two reasons why someone doesn’t get saved…They do know a Christian...They don’t know a Christian. That’s why on this day, on this fellowship/evangelism day, I thought it might be good to stroll up and down the aisles of the Devil’s Drugstore maybe we’ll see what kind of a Christian we might be.
Hypo-dermic Christian
This Christian that lives off of periodic injections of religious excitement. They only come to church when they need a fix. They wait until they’re broke. They wait until they find a lump. They wait until the children run away. They wait until they are being carried into divorce court. They wait until they get into a problem that the pain is so severe that they can’t stand it anymore. Then they run to the church to get their fix. They stay out of church until they can’t stand it anymore and they only come to church when they absolutely have to. They live from chill bump to chill bump, from thrill to thrill. Never eating a steady diet of the Word.
Hypo-dermic Christians are special event Christians. You could announce that somebody is going to be raised from the dead, and they will be here. You could have T.D. Jakes and they’ll be here. You can have some famous singer, and they’ll be here. But you say, "Pastor is going to be teaching on fasting and discipleship." "Well, I don’t need that."
Or you say, "We’re going to have a prayer emphasis service." "Well I don’t need that. I pray enough at home."
These type of people are revival chasers. They run from place to place, looking for a thrill, but never settling down and putting down roots somewhere.
Hypo-dermic Christians living from thrill to thrill and chill to chill. Fix to fix.
Rolaids Christian
Seeking only temporary relief. They're everywhere. They don’t want an everlasting change in their life. They just want an ease from their discomfort. They’re not into real repentance. They’re sorry, but not sorry they broke the heart of God. They’re usually sorry they got caught.
They don’t want lasting help. They’d rather spend their time and money on Spiritual Rolaids from the preacher. Than a lasting heart surgery from Dr. Jesus. They say, "Dr. just call off the surgery. Just touch up the x=ray. I just want temporary relief."
By the way, Rolaids Christians consume 47 times their weight in the minister’s time. Because they don’t want lasting help. It is just temporary relief from their indigestion.
Novocain Christians
These people couldn’t feel the Holy Spirit moving in a service If it were screaming in a mega-phone, shouting and throwing lightening everywhere. They come in with the attitude, "Well, preacher, bless me if you can. I’ve had hell all week and you just try and pick me up if you can." "Well, the sermons going to be dry tonight." "I don’t know why they have to sing so long." "Why don’t we get out at 12 like other people?" "Why do we have to stay in church like we do?" "Can’t we sing the first, second, and last verse and get gone?"
1 Timothy 4:2 says
"Their conscience has been seared with a hot iron"
Have you ever tried to talk with a Novocain Christian when you are so excited about what God is doing? I mean you’re about to come out of your skin and they just sit there like bumps on a pickle? Wishing you’d shut up. Wishing you’d hurry up and get through with your story already.
God moves in a service, people are really worshipping, lifting hands, shouting, and they sit back there and say, "Lord have mercy I don’t believe these people. What they said about this place is true." Can’t feel a thing.
You notice that it’s the Novocain Christian who thinks everyone else is abnormal. It is abnormal not to feel. It is normal to feel. You go into a church where there are Novocain Christians and the Holy Spirit starts to move, and you raise your hand. Watch out one of the Deacons will carry you out. Now, that’s abnormal. If you want to raise your hand, or you want to shout in worship to the Lord, that’s normal. Abnormal is when the Holy Spirit is moving and you sit there,
saying, "I dare you to move me."
I’m telling you right now, Heaven is not going to be a Novocain place. "Well, I don’t know why you got to get so loud, God ain’t deaf." "Well, no He isn’t, but He ain’t nervous either."
Band-aid Christians
These are people who are like little children who put on a band-aid so that they can get attention, "See my boo-boo." They just want you to look at their boo-boo. The church is full of Band-aid Christians. They wear their feelings on their sleeves. Don’t ask them how they feel, that is unless you have 30 minutes. Because they will tell you every little hurt and every little aches and every little pain.
You walk up to them rejoicing. You talk with them. 30 minutes later you leave in a state of depression yourself. Don’t ask the band-aid Christian, "How you doing?" Nobody’s ever been as sick as they are. Do you know the people Everything anybody’s ever had, they had it worse. They are the ones who read a Pepto Bismol bottle and contract three new ailments. Do you know who they are?
Some of them will ask you for a cigarette so, they can get their breath right before they die. They say, "They help me breath." They dwell on their problems constantly, always looking at their band-aids.
You know what they want? They want everyone else to look at them too. The tragic thing about them is that most of them have had their band-aids on so long that the hurt is already healed. But they don’t know it because they haven’t taken off the band-aid. They don’t know that God has already healed them years ago. They’re still talking about their boo-boo. It’s tragic. But churches are full of people like that.
It’s not wrong and a sin to be hurt. It’s not wrong and a win to be wounded. Its’ not wrong and a sin to be infected. It is wrong and it is a sin to live in a state of infection and then to spread your infection everybody else and to live in a state of misery and pain. Showing everybody else your pain. So that your whole life revolves around your pain.
These people don’t want to be healed. Because they wouldn’t get the attention the crave. They wouldn’t have anything to talk about if God healed them so, they just leave the band-aid on. They draw attention to the hurt that is there. You see it’s already healed and if you looked you couldn’t even see where they were wounded. But that’s where their life revolved around, their pain. "Oh, I was so wounded so I’ll never trust anyone again." "I was so wounded at that church, so, I’ll never go to church again." "You do that to me, you’ll never do that again." "I just want to tell you, I just never am going to get any better. Grandpa was a band-aid. Our whole family wear band-aids. We’ve kept band-aids in business. I have one back slidden sister, She’s a Curad, but we all got band-aids."
Their whole life is about the hurt. How life is so unfair to them. I have three words for you, "GET OVER IT!!!" Take the band-aid off and throw that old infected nasty thing away. Enjoy the healing and go on and do what God is calling you to do. Stop living and making an idol out of your band-aid and your past hurt. Nobody wants to see your nasty old band-aid. Nobody wants to see your boo-boo. Go on with life and grow up.
Maybelline Christians
Spiritual beauty just throbs on them on the outside. But on the inside, they’re ugly as sin. Take that make-up off and whooo. Some would rather come to the church with no make-up on in the physical rather than no make-up on in the Spiritual Why? Because we are trying to show people that we are prettier than we are on the inside. They cover up the real self by appearing to be nice and Spiritual. Some of you might have done this on the way to church this morning, or this afternoon. You fussed and cussed all the way to church but when you pulled in the driveway, you got out of the car, you said, "Why hello there, brother Bob. Wow, isn’t it a wonderful day?" Some of you can’t even enjoy the message and worship, because she had the last word when you got out and you have been trying to think what you will say when you get back in, so that you can have the last word.
You threaten to kill the kids. Then pose them all nice and neat for a pic for FaceBook, so that people will see what a good parent you are. I personally believe that, Hair dryers and commodes are going to send more people to hell then anything else. Think about it. You don’t fight over that stuff until Sunday. Sunday rolls along and, "Well then, let’s just all stay home. I’m not going to church like this." But when you finally get here. It’s a totally different story.
I wish we could have a video recorder hidden in the dash of your car while you’re driving to church. Then play it for you when you get here. So that you could see the difference when you crawl out of the car. You crawl out and say, "Praise God." That’s Maybelline. You put your Spiritual make-up on. When you get home, you take it off. Especially when you sit down to the dinner table. It’s not food you have. You have roast preacher. You go out of here shaking the preacher’s hand, "Oh, bless God. I love you preacher. Wonderful message." You get home, "I don’t know why they don’t get somebody else to do that down there at the church."
You gripe about the ones that are, but you aren’t doing anything. But when you come in you hug the same neck with all kinds of affection. And you kiss on the same face that you have gossiped and lied about all week long. Come in here and hug them. Go and say, "She has always smelled like that. I sure do wish she would take a bath before she comes to church. What is that odor anyway, Midnight at Columbus?" But next Sunday, you put that make-up on and hug her and say, "Oh, darling I just love you. I just look forward to hugging you every Sunday."
Odor Eater Christian
Always looking for something bad to absorb. Don’t tell them any good news. They will never call you, never text or message you with good news, it will always be bad. When they say, "Did you hear about?" Hang up. Or if they say, " I’ve got something I just want you to pray about." Watch out bad news is coming.
Maybelline and Odor Eater Christians are right side by side. Odor Eater never hears good about the church. They don’t hear about all the good stuff that’s going on, just the bad. Never hear good about the pastor. Never hear good about the music. Never hear good about the leaders. They only sniff out the bad in everything. "Don’t tell me anything good. I don’t want anything boring and good. Give me some of the bad and juicy stuff."
Have you ever taken out an odor eater out of your shoe? One that’s been in there about a month and smelled it? Did you ever notice that the odor eater Christian smells like the stuff they’ve been sniffing? You are what you eat. Mike Warnke (Christian Comedian) said, "If you eat fat greasy food. You’ll be a fat greasy dude." These folks wonder why in the world God doesn’t ever move. Why they are in such a state of depression all the time. Why nobody wants to be around them. It’s because they have been smelling out all the bad stuff and you are what you eat.
Be careful that folks don’t mistake you for a trash can. Some of you God is trying to do some good thing in your life. and you’re letting the devil pour things in your ears and in your lives that is negating everything God is trying to do. You’re not a garbage can. Do you know how to end gossip? Don’t give it a receptacle. Because if you sit and listen to it, you are as guilty as the one telling it. You’re an odor eater. Tell them to take it to the devil and let him hear about it. You don’t need that. Ask God to put an Angel to guard your ears, so that what goes in your spirit is not going to make you smell, or be tainted. Whatever things are good, Lovely, Holy, Just, Perfect, Good, And good report think on these things.
One more in the Devil’s Drugstore
Alka Seltzer Christian
We have a lot of these in the church today. Start out with a lot of racket, lot of noise, then they fizzle out to nothing. When you drop those things in water and let them sit there long enough, you can’t even tell there’s anything there but water. What are you saying preacher? Alka seltzer Christians get excited about something and it lasts about a week. They’re the first ones to sign up, and the last ones to show up. They never follow through with anything they start. They get a great idea and say, "We ought to do this." They get everybody excited and enlisted. Then when it’s time to do that...Where are they? Fizzled out. They get you committed and then leave you holding the bag.
Okay enough about the devil. Let’s hop the street and get into the Lord’s drugstore. Because if we’re going to be any Christian on the shelf, we need to be out of that store.
We need to be a penicillin Christian
Penicillin doesn’t see the body as problem. It doesn’t attack the body. It attacks the outside disease and bacteria that’s trying to destroy the body. Penicillin Christians realize that we war not against flesh and blood, but against principalities against the devils of this world. The enemy is not anybody that we can see. It is the spiritual forces that we cannot see the ones that influence the people that are around us.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everybody was a penicillin Christian? When they saw an infection, they didn’t try and go magnify it. They would go and try and eradicate it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful that when you see a brother having a problem? You wouldn’t go over beside them so that you look better and say, "Look at the problems that they are having and look how much more Spiritual I am." Wouldn’t it be wonderful that instead of trying to cover up one another’s sin? We would go to that person and say, "I’m going to walk through this with you until we eradicate this problem. I want you healthy. I want you well." Because you see, we are only as healthy as the weakest member of this body. Every one of us has areas in our lives that we need a shot of penicillin. Nobody here is perfect in every area. I don’t care who you are. One person over here might be struggling with something that you over here might not be you have victory over it. But you might be struggling with something that they already have victory over. You see you both have penicillin to share with one another that will help one another. Penicillin Christians realize that the enemy is not inside the camp. The enemy is the alien forces on the outside that is trying to get into the camp and invade and destroy what God is doing. Wouldn’t it be good if we were all Penicillin Christians? Into promoting healing in the body rather than division in the Body. Wouldn’t it be good that the only reason we sought out ugly things was to kill it?
Rather than to magnify them and make ourselves look better. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our only aim in this body was to eradicate anything that was hurting anyone in this body? And make our focus to be that we want to make Jesus’ desire to come after a spotless bride.
Jesus doesn’t’ want a diseased bride. He doesn’t want a bride that’s dying from a cancer of unforgiveness. He doesn’t want a bride that has bad breath for God. He’s coming after a bride that is spotless, without blemish, till we all come into the unity of faith, building up on another, every joint supplied, every joint doing what it’s supposed to be doing. I am not pleased to God until I have alleviated your pain and made you better. In the body we are to minister one to another for the good of the whole body.
Examine yourself today. What kind of Christian have you been? Do you spend as much time fighting Satan as you do fighting certain members of the body? Are you promoting healing in the body? Do you follow through faithfully what you start or is it plop, plop fizzle out? What do you spend most of your time absorbing? Because that’s what you are. "As a man thinketh so is he" What do you really look like under your spiritual Maybelline? What are you keeping in the dark that no one else knows? That’s the real you. Nothing more and nothing less. We have enough sense to know that you aren’t like you are in here all the time. I’m not either. I am what I am in the dark. You are what you are in the dark. Nothing more and nothing less. That’s your character. What you are here is a front and show.
Can I say, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart be pleasing and acceptable to you oh God."
Can I say, "Search me and try me to see if there is any wicked thin in me. Shine the light of the Holy Spirit on my life in every crevice of my being and eradicate anything that is not of you."
Do you still dwell on things that God healed years ago? All of us in here have been hurt. The victory doesn’t come from the hurt, the victory comes from living beyond it and through it and going on and letting it be the past. Take off your band-aid and go on with your life.
Are you sensitive to the Spirit and expect God to meet your need in the services that you attend? Or have you come in shot full of Novocain?
Do you seek lasting help or temporary relief?
Are you a Rolaids Christian?
Are you on a steady diet of the Word of God, or just a periodic fix? I’ll come and get excited when I have to. God’s wanting some steady steadfast. Stickablility in His children. We don’t need thrill seekers. We don’t need signs. We don’t need believers following signs. We need signs following believers. That only came through mature steadfast Christians.
2 Corinthians 13:5 (GW)
"Examine yourselves to see whether you are still in the Christian faith. Test yourselves! Don't you recognize that you are people in whom Jesus Christ lives? Could it be that you're failing the test?"
What shelf are you on? What kind of a Christian are you? Let’s be penicillin Christians! Let’s minister healing in the body! Let’s leave people better not bitter! Let’s do what Jesus would do when we find infection! Let’s get out of the devil’s drugstore, and get into God’s!
Let’s stand
