F4F | Victoria Osteen - Protect Your God Sized Dreams

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith here on YouTube.

If you've ever been told, especially like by a televangelist or a female pastrix type or Joel Osteen or Victoria Osteen, it just doesn't really matter who, but you've been told that God has a special assignment for you and that he's going to whisper that in your ear and reveal it to you in your heart, go ahead and hit the subscribe button.

When you've been taught a false doctrine, we like to call it the dream destiny thingy doctrine here.

It's also known as the purpose -driven doctrine. There's different variations of it, but it's absolutely not at all what

God's Word teaches and it's not a proper understanding of what good works are or even what it means to be sanctified as a

Christian. Case in point, we're going to head over to Lakewood and we're going to listen to Victoria Osteen and her message titled,

Protect Your God -Sized Dreams. Let's just say that this is a complete train wreck from the word go, because number one,

God's Word doesn't permit her to do what she's doing in this video, and number two, boy is she really twisting

God's Word. There's a false narrative in here as well. Let's get to it. Here's Victoria Osteen.

I want to encourage you today that you have the power of the living God on the inside of you.

Do you ever get tired of hearing that? I don't either, and I think we constantly need to be reminded that God's power lives in us.

You see, you're equipped. God's power is a little bit abstract, by the way. Christians are filled with the

Holy Spirit, a little more than just power. You know what I'm saying? Power is impersonal and abstract.

The Holy Spirit, notice the word holy that goes along with it. See, that's something different.

Good morning, and I want to announce that you're equipped for your unique assignment.

God has left nothing out that you're going to need for anything that he's called you to do.

Oh, I'm equipped for my unique assignment. Wow, I'm so special.

That's the false narrative, by the way. Let's do a little biblical work here so you can understand the danger of what we're hearing.

Here's what the Apostle Paul, prophesying under the direct inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, says regarding the days that we seem to find ourselves in. Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.

This is 2 Timothy chapter 3. People will be lovers of self. Those are narcissists, lovers of money, like the prosperity preachers.

People like the word of faith teachers, like Joel of Victoria Osteen. Proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power.

Avoid such people. And so you're going to note that this message, oh, you have a unique assignment, and God's going to reveal this on the inside, and he's going to equip you because you have power inside of you.

You are so important. This displays into the narcissism of our generation, and Jesus calls us as Christians to proclaim repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and then bearing fruit in keeping with repentance in good works.

Let me give you another text. Ephesians chapter 2 puts it this way, literally the 10 most important verses in the

New Testament as far as like the epicenter and great rough outline sketch of what the

Christian life looks like beginning before we are regenerate says this. And you, you

Christians, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us up with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.

It is the gift of God. It's not the result of works so that no one may boast.

And now here's verse 10. For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, ergois.

That's plural, good. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them, or conduct our life in them, which then immediately begs the question, what are good works?

Notice it doesn't say that God has called you to a special assignment, no. He has prepared beforehand good works for you to conduct your life in.

And if you want to get an example of what those good works look like, then we look at the tail end of one of the major epistles, like Ephesians or Romans.

These are great places to go as far as looking at how Scripture defines what a good work is.

So in Ephesians 5, we read after Paul has told us that we are saved by grace through faith, he now explains what good works are, and he says, be imitators of God as beloved children, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God.

Sexual immorality, all impurity, covetousness must not be named among you as is proper among the saints.

Now, funny enough, I don't ever hear the Osteans really railing against sexual immorality. Let there not be filthiness, a foolish talk, nor crude joking.

These are out of place. Instead, let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

Let no one deceive you with empty words, because of these the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.

Therefore, do not become partners with them. For at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the

Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.

And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness.

Instead, expose them. It is shameful even to speak of what they, what these things they do in secret, but when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible.

For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead.

Christ will shine on you. So you're going to note a call to holiness, a call to repent of our different sins of the flesh and to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

And he says, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be foolish. Understand what the will of the Lord is. And don't get drunk with wine.

That's debauchery. But be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the

Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ, submitting one to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then here comes like a really good list, you can see, of the good works we're called to do because we do our good works in the different vocations or stations that God has put us in.

So presently, are you a husband or a wife? Are you a father, a mother?

Are you a child living in your parents' home, underage and under their authority?

Are you an employer or an employee? These are where our good works are lived out.

So wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church and is himself its

Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. So husbands, this is how you are to care for your wives, as Christ has loved the church, lovingly, kindly, patiently, self -sacrificially, not domineering, so that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the

Word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish, in the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.

He who loves his wife loves himself. No one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, hold fast to his wife, the two shall become one flesh.

This mystery is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ and the church, however let each one of you love his wife as himself.

Let the wife see that she respects her husband. Children, obey your parents and the Lord. This is right.

Honor your father and mother. This is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you, that you may live long in the land.

And fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but bring them up in the discipline and the instruction of the

Lord. So you're going to note that raising your kids in the Christian faith, teaching them God's word, and that's how you raise somebody up in the instruction of the

Lord, so that they know their Bibles well, these are the good works that we as Christians are called to do, which

Christ has prepared in advance for us to do. And you're going to note that in the day that Paul wrote this, there were people who were slaves, bonafide slaves, who were converts to Christianity, and he nowhere says that they were called to greatness, instead he says this, bondservants, these are slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would

Christ. Not by way of eye service as people pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

And this then would apply to any of you out there, do you work in corporate America? Do you have a boss?

So think how this then applies to you. Obey your boss with fear and trembling, as you would

Christ, and don't do your job by way of eye service as a people pleaser, but as a slave of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the

Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a bondservant or is free.

Masters do the same to them, stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both master and yours is in heaven and that there is no partiality with him.

So you get the idea here, all right? So good works are done in our vocations, you do not need to make a missionary trip to set up freshwater wells in Africa, although that's a good work, but you need to recognize that our good works are done in our everyday jobs as husband, wife, father, mother, child, employer, employee, and this goes back to the idea that we are called and prepared in Christ to do good works, plural.

This idea that God has a special and unique purpose or super special assignment for you, that nowhere does the

Bible teach that. And that just plays into narcissism, and it's a perfectly great alternative narrative to biblical

Christianity if what you're trying to do is scratch itching ears rather than preach the truth.

But that's exactly what the Osteans do, they scratch itching ears. So listen to this.

Not only has he thought about you, I like what Cindy said, that his thoughts for you, his plans for you are good.

See, he thought about us, he knew our assignment, and he put everything in us that we would need.

He knew our assignment. You just added to the biblical text. Nowhere does it say God knew our assignment. Every gift, every talent, our personalities, our dispositions, everything is just right.

And then he did something one step greater. He put his power in us.

He put his power in us. So you have the living God on the inside of you if you're a believer today.

So I don't want you to feel ordinary, because we all do. Sometimes it's just an ordinary life.

We go to work, we come home, we eat dinner, we do it again, we get up. Notice what she does.

Don't think that you were made for an ordinary life. And what is she describing?

You go to work, you come home, you eat dinner. What I just read from Ephesians 5, going to work, making dinner, feeding yourself and your family and your kids, clothing them.

These are the good works that God has created us to do in Christ. And notice she's eschewing that.

Oh, you just need to despise all that ordinary stuff. No, no, no.

You were made for greatness. Oh, you have significance. Oh, there's some special assignment for you.

So she's literally dissing the very good works that God calls us to do as Christians and not consider them good works, but instead, oh, consider them to be the ordinary things that are getting in the way of the great important things that God wants us to do.

Listen to it again. I don't want you to feel ordinary, because we all do.

Sometimes it's just an ordinary life. We go to work, we come home, we eat dinner, we do it again, we get up in the morning, we go mow the lawn, we do this, we do—it can feel ordinary.

And yet those are the very good works we're called to do. You remember Adam and Eve were created in order to care for the

Garden of Eden. Even gardening and taking care of the property that you own or that you're stewarding is a good work.

But I want to tell you something. God didn't save you. He didn't call you. He didn't choose you to be ordinary.

No, so all of those things, you know, like feeding your kids, not important.

No, He didn't call you to be ordinary and do that. You know, like paying for them to have braces and making sure that they're educated and you know, and the small ones have their diapers changed.

All that ordinary stuff is—that's not what God created you to do. Yet Ephesians 5 makes it clear.

That is exactly where we do our good works and all of those things are our good works as Christians.

He called you to be extraordinary. Oh, yeah. And you gotta understand because you—

Oh, I'm so extraordinary. I—as if my ego isn't big enough,

I'm now extraordinary. Yeah. No, this is wicked. This is narcissism and this is a false narrative that undermines and undercuts the very good works that we're called to do in Christ.

How's the living God? You are extraordinary. You're set apart.

You're called by God. And He has assignments for you to do. You see, it's so interesting because sometimes people don't recognize the call of God on our life.

They don't understand the call of God. Or like I said, we may feel ordinary. We wonder if we're accomplishing what

God even wants us to accomplish. Yeah, you don't have to wonder if you actually read the book.

No wondering necessary. Read Ephesians 5 and you sit there and go, Oh, I'm already doing these great good works that Christ has called me to do by caring for my spouse and my children and doing a good job at work.

Yeah, those are the very good works that Jesus will reward on the last day. And so you'll get a note.

When you believe that you have a special assignment from God, you know, God's supposed to whisper it in your ear after you've shown him that you're serious about it.

You know, and you're always wondering, am I doing, is this really the assignment that God has called me to? I'm not sure.

And the reason why you're not sure, because no biblical text says it. Do you think that Jesus would call us to do good works and then not tell us what a good work is?

That doesn't make any sense. So often we determine the power of God within us by what's going on around us.

You see, if I was maybe doing a little better, if God liked me a little more, this wouldn't be happening. Or maybe if I could just get a little closer to God, I wouldn't be going through this trial.

But can I tell you something? That's the way man looks at things. In fact, God told the prophet

Samuel, he said, you're going to anoint the next king of Israel and I want you to know this one thing about this anointing.

You're going to anoint the man that I call, but I don't want you to begin to look for what you think would be the king.

I don't want you to look for the man that's the right height, the man that's in a certain position, the man that has the talents that you think would make a good king.

Notice she's not reading the narrative from 1 Samuel 16. What's the point of actually reading a biblical text?

Because if she were to read it, she couldn't be saying these things about it because it wouldn't make any sense. He said, because I don't look at things that way.

That's the way you look at things. He said, you look from the outside. You respond to life.

Yes. You see, and by her telling this story, see, you're just as important. You have as important of an assignment as King David did.

You know, see, because God looks on the inside. From the outside. But see, I am a

God of the inside. Man looks on the outside, but God looks on the heart.

Yeah, let's do a little biblical work here. I'm going to do a search here in the

Gospels. And I'm going to just look for the word heart. And let me limit my search to the

Gospels themselves. And we're going to note what Jesus says about the heart.

And like, for instance, Matthew 12, 34, you brood of vipers.

Notice it's red letters. How can you speak good when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Uh -huh. You know, this people has, their hearts have grown dull, Jesus says in Matthew 13.

And so the idea here is that the heart is actually the place where bad things start.

In fact, Matthew 15, Jesus says, what comes out of the heart, this is

Matthew 15, 18, and proceeds from the heart, this defiles a person. Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Yeah, those all come out of the heart. And so here she's saying, but don't worry.

God looks on the heart. Yeah, look inside your heart.

You're going to find out, yeah, that's where the problem resides, lady. Qualified today because God chose you to be qualified.

He looked at your heart, and he said, that's my child. He looked at my heart and said, that's my child?

No, when God looks at our hearts, he would say, you ain't my child. That looks like the devil's child.

So yeah, Jesus says out of the heart comes the problem. So this is not even the biblical gospel, okay?

You could talk about how being born dead in trespasses and sins were, as one prophet says, we're born with a heart of stone, and Christ replaces that with a heart of flesh.

You could talk in those terms, but that's not what she's doing. You know what I love about that is that God is the

God of second chances. God is all— No, he's not. No, no. You see, if God were the

God of second chances, you messed up the first chance. You're going to mess up the second chance, too.

That's a lie. That's a totally different gospel. Given a million chances, you'd blow a million of them.

You still wouldn't get it right. Christ got it right for you. That's the gospel.

He's inside of us working from the inside out.

He's working on our thoughts. He's working on our actions. He's working all the time.

God never sleeps. What text are you exegeting from now, woman? You're just, like, making up doctrines and blaming them on God.

He never slumbers. He's always at work in the heart of a believer. David said it like this.

He said, you teach me wisdom in my innermost parts.

That's where you're speaking to me, God. Yeah, let's take a look at the context for that one as we get ready to wrap up our little look at this sermon.

We won't do it in its entirety. The part about God looking at our innermost parts is actually from one of the most famous Psalms ever, and that's

Psalm 51. And let's just pay attention to the context, by the way.

The three rules for sound biblical exegesis are context, context, and context. And here's what

David wrote. And note the occasion here. To the choir master, Psalm of David, when

Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone in to Bathsheba. So, yeah, this is about Nathan the prophet calling

David on the carpet for his adultery and murder. Yeah, his adultery with Bathsheba and then murdering her husband and then marrying the woman under the pretense that she was some kind of a war hero, the widow of a war hero.

Here's what it says. So Psalm 51, we'll start at verse 1. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

Note the context when you read it in context. It ain't saying what she's saying it says. And then he says, Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness, and let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins and blot out all of my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart,

O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your

Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

And then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness,

O God. O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.

For you delight not in sacrifice, or I would give it, and you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart,

O God, you will not despise. Weird that she would make reference to Psalm 51 and totally ignore the entire heart of the matter.

In fact, that's what the Osteans do. They do not significantly preach God's law to convict people of their sins.

They do not preach the gospel and placard Christ and him crucified for our sins as the solution so that we do not have to be damned and spend eternity in hell.

And worse, they fill people's heads with nonsense about them having super special assignments from God that he's going to speak to them and stuff.

And yet all of their doctrines are based upon a false narrative and a twisting of scripture designed to scratch itching ears and appeal to people's love for themselves rather than convict them of their love for themselves as the very problem, the very sin for which

Jesus had to go to the cross and bleed and die. I think you get the point. Now, if you found this helpful, please feel free to share this video.

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.