Christian Growth and Spiritual Victory (Part 2)

Things that I will mention real quick as we get started here, a

few announcements #1 we have the Papa John's cards back in there.

They changed them a little bit. It's not it's.

I mean, it is a card, but it's like a piece of cardboard now

with a code on it. But they free large pizza and I

say free. I mean, you're paying for it,

but 50% off your entire order five times they changed it.

I think they must have lost too much money or something.

So they charged us actually then then they charge us more for it

too. So we're going to, we're going

to charge the same price would be $15.00.

But brother Josh has those in the back.

So if you're interested in getting one of those, it's still

a good deal, however you look at it.

But anyway, we have those in and we're going to try to get those,

try to pass. I mean, try to try to get the

word out to as many people as you know.

All of this is going to be the fundraiser for the, for the

Belize missions trip for our young people.

So, you know, if you can, if you can get it out, get out the word

at work and everything else, then that'd be a a big help.

And then also, it's going to be really cold on Saturday, but

we'll, we'll meet here on Saturday for out the outreach

and everything. And what we'll do is just work

on some of the cards that we've been doing.

One of these days, the weather's going to be good and we're going

to be able to hit the ground running and we want to be able

to do that. So if you can be here on

Saturday, we're still, we have, we had all those cards that we

had to change with the, with the service times and all of that.

So we've been, we've been putting the new stickers on

those cards and then also writing out the cards that we're

going to be sending out here as soon as the weather breaks.

And we're going to use those as a, as a tool to get into some of

these neighborhoods, kind of send them to the neighborhoods

and, and get them there before we start knocking the

neighborhood, knocking doors on that neighborhood.

So we'll plan to be here on, on Saturday for that.

And then men of the Zoom prayer meeting on Saturday night, we'll

we'll meet for that as well. Other than that, I think that's

about it for this week. It's nice that the, you noticed

the parking lot was completely dry.

You know, the, the sun hit that yesterday, not really today, but

yesterday mostly and day before and just melted all the rest of

the ice that was there. So thankful for that.

Go ahead and let's turn to John Chapter 15 if you need.

John 15 · chapter mention

Does anybody need a copy of it? If you forgot your book,

Charlie's got a few there. Any adults that need a copy of

it? All right, Julie, Charlie, Yep,

Julie, anybody else? Now I'll mention this as we go

through this. There's questions at the end and

obviously you notice that I've asked those questions.

I ask questions from those it's it's literally just take the

questions directly from the end of this lesson.

So might be helpful for you to kind of look at those ahead of

time. They, they pretty much goes

right in order with all those questions right in, in order

that they're in the book. So if you, some of them are just

fill in the blank type thing. So if you're looking at them

ahead of time and you can write an answer next to it, it might

help you for when we, when we go to do that next week.

So we will, we will have some of those questions again next week

like we normally do. Now this is Christian growth and

spiritual victory. And obviously we started on this

last week and kind of gave you, I guess, more of an introduction

to the whole thing about what it is.

What is Christian growth? What is spiritual victory?

And so Part 2, Part 3, part 4 each have 4 things in them.

And I think we could probably call it principles of Christian

growth and spiritual victory, or maybe Steps to Christian growth

and spiritual victory, because that's what all these things

are. He kind of mentions it as keys

to Christian growth. I think that's a perfectly fine

term to use, you know, and I think that's the reason he also

puts keys in quotation marks because we we talked about this

decent amount of of time last week or, or when we did Part 1

is just that, you know, there is no one key to spiritual growth

and Christian growth and spiritual victory.

But four of the ones that we're going to talk about tonight are

are listed there at the top. But abiding in Christ, putting

off the old man, putting on the new, confessing sin, pressing

toward the mark. It's, it's, it's simple.

And we're going to try to just kind of scratch the surface with

these. But, but honestly, I've preached

messages on every one of these topics some recently, you know,

and that's what I'm saying. We could, we could stay on each

one of these topics for a long time.

We're not going to do that necessarily, but we want to, we

want to be thorough with it as much as we can, but really just

kind of talk about these as ideas or principles and steps to

help us with that growth. So the first one then is abiding

in Christ. The keys to Christian growth are

found in the entire New Testament.

But these are some of the major elements abiding in Christ.

John chapter 15, and we'll read the entire passage here and then

John 15 · chapter mention

we'll we'll kind of break it down a little bit.

I am the true vine, and my father is the husbandman.

Husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth

not fruit he taketh away, and every branch that beareth fruit

He purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now you're clean through the word which I've spoken unto you.

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit

of itself, except that abide in the vine, no more can ye except

ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the

branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in

Him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

For without Me ye can do nothing.

If a man Abide not in Me, is cast forth as a branch, and is

withered, and men gather them, cast them into the fire, and

they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words

abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done

unto you. Herein is My Father glorified

that you bear much fruit, so shall ye be My disciples.

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.

Continue ye in My love. If you keep My commandments, you

shall abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father's

commandments and abide in His love.

So all of that to talk about abiding in Christ.

Now the term abiding in or abiding, I just, I looked up a

definition to kind of give you a formal definition, if you will,

but it means to remain, to stay, to dwell or to continue in a

specific state, place or relationship over a long period.

I think sometimes abiding in Christ gets a little bit of a of

a Pentecostal type feel to it. And maybe it's just because a

lot of the Pentecostals, the ecumenicals, have taken that

term and kind of twisted it in to mean something that it was

never intended to mean in the Bible.

But the true Christian life is not a religion, and that's what

sets it apart. That's what sets the true

Christian life apart from all the other religions or all the

other institutions, if you want to even call them that in the

world. It's not just a bunch of

regulations and rituals. It's not just do this, do this,

do this, do this, and you'll be a good Christian or do this, do

this, do this and you'll go to heaven.

That's what all these other religions have in them, right?

I mean, we, we point out Catholicism a lot because it's

easy to see that they have all of these rituals that you're

supposed to do. But Mormonism is the exact same

way. Mormonism has all of those

elements when it comes to the temple recommend.

You have to do all of these things to keep your temple

recommend. And if you don't, you lose your

temple recommend. You can't go to heaven.

There's all kinds of stuff that that they have to do in order to

keep their temple recommend. And if you're not on good terms

with the Mormon church, when you die, you don't go to heaven,

which their heaven is very different than than what ours

is. The Bible makes it very clear

what heaven is there heaven. And and I don't want to get off

into Mormonism tonight, but you know, the whole idea behind that

is that God was once a human like we are, but he's he'd been

elevated to godhood because of all the things that he did.

And now he's the God of his own planet.

And eventually we can all become gods of our own planets if we

keep going the same way that our God did.

I mean, doesn't it, you know, if, if, if, if people really

understood what Mormonism was, they would not even call a

Mormon a Christian. It's not Christianity at all,

right? But but Mormons get lumped into

the idea of Christians. Same thing with Catholics.

Catholics get lumped into the idea or the term Christian.

They're not that they don't, they don't follow the Bible

because it's all about rituals. It's all about regulations and

doing all of those things. The true Christian religion,

true Christianity is not a religion.

It is a relationship with Jesus Christ.

And I have people tell me all the time when I, I try to give

them the gospel and they say things like, well, I hate

religion. And I say, you know what I do

too? I agree with you.

I hate religion too. What I'm trying to tell you is

not to join a religion. I'm trying to tell you that you

need to have a relationship, a personal relationship with Jesus

Christ. That's what I'm telling you.

I'm not telling you to join a religion.

I'm I'm a Baptist because I believe that Baptist doctrine is

the closest to the word of God, but that being a Baptist is not

a religion. It's about having a relationship

with Jesus Christ. Those who have spiritual victory

are those who know Him personally and walk in

fellowship with Him day by day, serving Him, learning of Him.

That is what abiding in Christ is.

If a believer forgets Christ and starts living his life apart

from conscious fellowship with Christ, he's in very grave

spiritual danger. And that's what John 15 is

talking about. Jesus emphasized that it's, it's

God's will for us to bear fruit. And then he says more fruit.

And then he says much fruit. We should be growing.

And, and the growth is the product of abiding in Christ.

It's exactly like, and, and this is exactly what what Jesus is

doing is giving us an example that we can understand that

makes sense, right? What do you do?

And, and maybe maybe you've never had fruit trees.

I don't know. We have pear trees.

We have apple trees, plum, we have, we have several different

fruit trees in our yard. And especially for my pear

trees, if I just let them grow and, and branches start coming

out of everywhere. What I noticed is that we get

really tiny pears. If you trim those things back

and sometimes way more than you think you should, you feel like

you're killing the thing the most.

But then the next season, the next growing season, you get

really big pears. You don't get as many of them,

but they're actually edible and they're good and they, they're,

they're they, they produce, they produce good fruit and in many

cases a lot more than the last couple years.

Well, it's not that I haven't really pruned it, but I didn't

prune it back enough. I think in the last couple years

we have not gotten a lot of fruit off of the, off of the

pear trees. I mean it, it was, I mean, most,

some of you remember you've been here for a few years and we

bring in five gallon buckets of pears.

Just bucket after bucket after bucket.

In the last couple years, we haven't got that course.

Last year all the buds popped out and then we got that freeze.

Remember that It killed everything.

We got no fruit on any of our trees this year.

But this is exactly what Jesus is talking about, right?

A branch that's laying in the middle of the yard is not going

to produce fruit because it's not tied into anything that's

keeping it alive, that's helping it to bear fruit, right?

So if you're not even on the, the, the vine, of course you're

not going to bear fruit. But if you're on the vine, then

what's your job? Bear fruit, right?

And not just fruit, but more fruit and much fruit.

That's, that's what we should be doing.

That's, that's the way this fruit should be going.

And, and, and that, that it should be being produced in our

lives. And sometimes it takes some

pruning, sometimes it takes some trimming because we, we have to,

we have to be made simpler. I guess I don't know what the

right word is, but but we have to have some of that, that

pruning and all of those things. And all of that is hinging on

the fact that we are part of the vine.

We are the branches, He is the vine.

If we're not in Him and He is not in us, then we're not going

to bear any fruit. The farther we get away from

Him, the less fruit we're going to bear.

So Jesus taught that the key to abiding in Him is obedience to

His Word, obedience to His Word. John chapter 15 and verse #7 If

John 15 · chapter mention

you abide in me, and My words abide in you, you shall ask what

you will, and it shall be done unto you.

Verse 10, if you keep my commandments, you shall abide in

my love. It's all hinging on obedience.

That is the key to abiding in him.

Abiding in Christ is not mystical in the sense of this

popular contemplative philosophy.

And there's this idea out there and you can look into a

contemplative prayer. It's a lot of these non

denominational ecumenical things that are going around there now,

right? The prayer of Jabez is a perfect

example of that. You know, it's, it's it the

prayer of Jabez is a great prayer in the Bible, but they've

taken and they've turned it into this mystical thing, you know,

that that it was never meant to be.

And there's others. There's other things in the

Bible that are used in the same way, But that's not what we're

talking about. That's what I'm saying.

This, this, this idea of abiding in Christ has been twisted and,

and, and made to be something that it never was actually meant

to be. It's not a feeling, it's not a

sensual experience. It's not being overcome by the

Spirit. It's not speaking in tongues,

falling on the floor, laughing hysterically, being swayed by

powerful music, entering into a meditative state through

contemplation, or being moved by candles and incense.

That's what all, that's what a lot of religion is about.

And they call it abiding in Christ.

But you, you think, go, go look it up.

Look up laughing revival. You ever seen any videos of

that? It was a Pentecostal revival

that was going on. And I use that word revival

very, very loosely. But literally everybody in the

auditorium was rolling on the floor laughing hysterically, and

they were being slain in the spirit.

And they were, you know, this is all part of this whole

experience that they were having.

There was another one. And, and, and you think it's

you, you, you think it's a joke, almost barking like dogs because

the Holy Spirit had come upon them and that everybody in the

auditorium was barking. I mean that that's not, that's

not what the Holy Spirit does. That's, that's not what the

Bible is talking about. They've, they've changed it into

something that it was never meant to be.

And the same thing is true. Speaking in tongues is not a

movement of the Holy Spirit. It's gibberish.

You're just saying something that doesn't make any sense to

you or to anybody else, right? And it's, this is not that.

The whole purpose of this is not to talk about speaking in

tongues, but all of those things go together, you know, overcome

by the spirit. But but then you throw in the

the music aspect of it and it does the exact same thing.

So you might laugh at somebody that's laughing hysterically and

rolling around on the floor and barking like a dog and all of

these other things. You might laugh at somebody

that's doing that, but then you're having the exact same

experience with the music that's doing the same thing to you,

right? Your experience is different,

but it's the same thing. Overcome by the Spirit and all

these other things. And then obviously you have

people that are the contemplate of prayer is is sitting in a

state of meditation until you're overcome by the Holy Spirit and

all of those other things. None of those things describe or

explain what abiding in Christ is.

Abiding in Christ is just walking in fellowship with

Christ by honoring and obeying his word.

That's as simple as what abiding in Christ is.

And every single one of us ought to be abiding in Christ every

single day. And if we're not, then there's a

problem. We're not growing, we're not

going to have spiritual victory, right?

That's what abiding in Christ is, walking in fellowship with

Christ. I, I, I was looking at up some

other things today and I came across an article that was that

somebody wrote about abiding in Christ and they said, well,

abiding in Christ means that you're saved.

So if you're not abiding in Christ, that means you're not

saved. That's not what this is talking

about either right now, obviously, you have to be saved

in order to abide in Christ, but you make a decision if you're

going to abide in Christ or not. And when you'd make that

decision to do that, to walk in fellowship with Him by honoring

and obeying His Word, then you're going to have that

Christian growth. You're going to have that

spiritual victory. The second one, and I'm going to

cover this pretty quickly because we've talked a lot about

this, but putting off the old man and putting on the new man,

let's go over to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

He describes this in Ephesians, and then he tells us how to take

off the old man and how to put on the new man.

But I want to bring it home a little bit closer to us because

I think everybody would say I understand exactly what putting

off the old man and putting on the new man is, right?

The old person who I used to be. I don't want to be that person

anymore. That that's, that's part of what

repentance is all about, right? I was walking this direction.

That's not who I want to be. I'm turning around and I'm going

a different direction. This is who I want to be now and

with God's help, I will be. But the Christian life is

presented in this passage here in Ephesians chapter 4 as a

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

matter of growing and we're just real.

We'll read those 3 verses first verse 22 that you put off

concerning the former conversation, the old man, that

word conversation, by the way, we when we say conversation, we

mean talking back and forth. But when we see that word in our

King James Bible, it's an older word.

The conversation means our lifestyle or living, right?

So that you put off concerning the former lifestyle, the former

conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the

deceitful lust and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you

put on by the way, that that that verse 23 right there is key

to a lot of things. People, people are not walking

in the spirit. People are are are messed up

because they're not renewed in their minds that you put on the

new man verse 24, which after God is created in righteousness

and true holiness. So it's presenting this putting

off the old man putting on the new man as a matter of growing.

It's a process of, of doing those things that that sinful

nature that we inherited from Adam, we put that off the new

man, which is Christ. We put that on.

So Paul explained how to do that.

Verse 4, How do you get sorry, chapter 4, verse 25, How do you

put off the old man? Well, he says this verse 25

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his

neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon

your wrath, neither give place to the devil.

Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor

working with his hands the things which is the thing which

is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.

Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but

that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister

grace unto the hearers. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of

God, whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamber and evil

speaking be put away from you with all malice, and be kind one

to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as

God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

So there's a contrast here. He's telling you, this is what

the old man was. Put that off.

This is what the new man is. Put that on right, Put away

lying. Speak the truth, be angry, sin

not, let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

Let him that stole steal no more, but labor instead working

with your hands and things which are good.

So put that off. Put this on.

That's what he's telling you. He's given us.

He's given us all kinds of examples of how to do that.

So the interesting thing about this I think he brings up in the

next paragraph. These are high and holy

standards that go much deeper and are farther reaching than

the Law of Moses ever went. Well, I'm not under the law

anymore. I have grace.

Yes, you do. If you're saved, you're not

under the law. You are under grace.

But that grace is not a license to sin, right?

And he makes that very, very clear in the book of Romans.

God forbid that we should live any longer therein, right?

Is is should I sin because I have grace?

Just because God will forgive me, does that mean I can go live

my life how I want to? Technically, yes.

But no, that's not what the intention of grace is.

Right, It's not so I can go live how I want.

It's I'm under grace. So it, it should change how I

live. And that's exactly what what

we're talking about here. These, these standards are, are

much higher standards than what what was in the law of Moses.

To stop lying involves learning to be honest in every way and

situation. Let's let's, let's think about

that for a second. You know how many times do

people use or do do people lie as an excuse right?

If if, if your mindset is not I'm going to tell the truth 100%

of the time, then you'll find yourself telling lies all day

long every single day you get pulled over.

Oh, I didn't see that. No U-turn sign.

Yes, you did. You just lied.

You saw it. You're just trying to get out of

it, right? He's not here right now.

Can I take a message? But he's sitting right there,

right? It's a lie.

You might not feel like talking to somebody.

I mean, look, there's ways around that.

He's not available right now, right?

But how many times have people said that he's not here right

now? Can I take a message or he can't

come to the phone? He could.

He doesn't want to, right? I mean, say whatever you want

to. There's a, you know.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Yes, you did.

You just lied about it because you didn't have an excuse,

right? I mean, how many times?

If you're going to be honest and if you're not going to lie, then

you ought to be honest about every single thing, right?

If you actually think about it throughout the day and, and this

is not something that's on the forefront of your mind, then you

are probably lying all the time and you just don't think about

it because you do it so much. A lot of people do that, right?

We call it an excuse. It's just a lie is what it is,

right? And that's what I'm saying.

That's a very high standard, right?

Don't steal. Well, then what are you taking

from wherever it happens to be, right?

Well, there's leeway on it. And maybe there is, right?

Maybe you work in a place where they're like, hey, we don't

care. Take it.

And if that's fine, then then then that's what they've allowed

you to do, right? But how many times people steal

things from work? How many times people steal

things from other places and just say, well, they got plenty

of it anyway, right? Well, they're a huge company and

they're not going to notice it, right?

You walk out and you realize you didn't pay for something, right?

It's happened before to me. I don't, I don't walk out on on

purpose without stealing some. But I've walked out of the store

before and realized I didn't pay for something and I would go

back in to pay for it. And you know what the workers

do? What?

You came back in to pay for this?

I've never seen that before. Why not, right?

Why not? But but how many times it

happens, right? It's a high standard to put off

the old man and put on the new man and do it consistently every

single day, right? If we actually are holding

ourselves to that standard, then how many of us far fall below,

fall far below that standard, right?

And when you actually start thinking about it and when you

actually start focusing on it and concentrating on I've got to

put off the old man and tell the truth.

Every time I've got to put off the old man and stop stealing,

I've got to put off the old man and stop getting angry.

I've got to put off the old man and start doing all of these

other things. You'll be surprised at how many

things you actually don't do that you think you do that make

you a good Christian, right? It's a high standard for us to

live all so let no corrupt communication proceed out of

your mouth. Put away all bitterness, wrath,

anger, clamor, evil speaking. That's an amazingly high

standard. But most of us give ourselves a

pass because, well, it's just what people do.

Not you shouldn't. Just because that's what people

do doesn't mean that it's OK for you to do it, right?

So you want to, you want to grow in your Christian life, you want

to have spiritual victory. You have to put off all of the

old man and put on all of the new man, right?

You think about what if, what if you know, you found some mummy

wrappings and you decided you were going to wrap only half of

them around you and walk around. You know it's dead.

It's, it's dead person's clothes, right?

Well, it's only a, it's only a couple wrappings, right?

I mean that, I mean, maybe now as we're so far away from it

that, that that wouldn't even be that weird anymore.

Everybody would, you know, be people are dying to buy mummy

clothes, you know, just wear it once and see if you can start a

new trend and everybody will be wearing them, right.

But it's not, it's not normal, right, to be wearing something

that came from a dead person. Well, that's exactly what we do

when we don't put away all of the old men we're walking around

with, with, with something that belongs to a dead person, right?

I'm alive in Christ. I need to put off the old man.

I need to put on the new man, All right?

It's like we talked about on Sunday.

Just do right, right. If you think about that with

every single thing that you are faced in a day, you'll find out

that there's a whole lot of things that you thought you were

OK on that you're not. When you start focusing on that

and you, you make a determination with God's help

that I am going to tell the truth every single time.

You'll find out that you lie a lot.

I'm going to be honest with every single one of my dealings.

You'll find out that you're dishonest a lot.

You know, I'm not going to be bitter about anything.

You'll find out that you're bitter about a lot of things.

I'm not going to get angry. You'll find out that you get

angry a lot, right? It's a very high standard.

But if we are going to grow in our Christian life, and if we

are going to have victory in our spiritual life, then we've got

to put off the old man 100% of the time, and we have to put on

the new man 100% of the time, right?

Easy to say, we've talked about this a lot.

It's easy to say that. It's easy to say, put off the

old man, put on the new. All right, I'm doing that.

But are you really, are you really interested in making sure

that every part of that old man is put away and every part of

the new man is put on? It's a high standard that He

gives us, but if you want to have growth in your Christian

life and you want to have spiritual victory, then we have

to do that. And that involves something that

we just talked about on Sunday. But at first, John chapter 1 and

John 1 · chapter mention

verse #5 #3 the third thing there is confessing sin.

Confessing sin, which again, if the Bible and not if, because I

should say because the Bible talks about confessing sin as a

Christian, then it's just proof that we can and do sin, right?

But the sin is to walk in darkness rather than light.

That's not the way God intended for us to live.

We can sin unfortunately, and we do sin unfortunately, but that's

not the way God intended it. Verse #5 of first John chapter

one. This then is the message which

we have heard of him. And declare unto you that God is

light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in

darkness, we lie and do not the truth.

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have

fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His

Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin,

we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in US.

If we confess our sins, is faithful and just to forgive us

our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and

His word is not in us. So when we sin, God gives us a

way to restore that fellowship, and that's confessing our sins

to Him. Confession of sin keeps me in

the light, keeps me in fellowship with God.

He is light and holiness and He's not going to fellowship

with sin and darkness. So it just makes sense, right?

If I'm walking in sin, I can't expect God to walk with me.

If I'm living in sin, I can't expect that God is living with

me in those things because if I want to have fellowship with

Him, I have to walk with Him in the light.

So a few things about confession of sin then confession of sin

means to agree with God against my actions.

It takes humility to confess the sin because it proves then that

you have sinned, right? I can't confess a sin that I

don't admit to, right? If it's the opposite of making

excuses for my sin, which, again, we're very good at.

We do that all the time. We give ourselves a pass.

If boy, I tell you what if, if, if I'm ever going to stand

before a judge someday, I want it to be me.

Because we are so easy on ourselves, right?

We, we find loopholes, we give ourselves a pass on all kinds of

things. We have all the reasons why it's

OK for me to do what I did right.

But it's the opposite of making that excuse.

Making excuses and blaming others is exactly what Adam did.

Adam blamed his wife, and then she turned around and blame the

serpent. Right.

And so we have a natural tendency to follow in those same

unwise footsteps. We blame our nationality.

Well, that's just what we do in our culture.

Well, I'm I'm young or I'm old. We blame our age.

Well, I I'm just a guy, right? Or I'm just a woman.

Our background, our circumstances.

Well, I didn't. I didn't grow up in church.

Yeah, but you've been in church for 40 years.

You don't have an excuse, right? Well, if you knew how I grew up,

well, you're not there anymore, right?

I grew up with a lot of people who use their, their experience

growing up as an excuse to not live for the Lord at all, right?

You could use any of those as excuses if you're looking for an

excuse. A lot of other things that

people use, but here's an example that he gives, and I

think it's a good one. If I get angry and bitter at my

wife, that's a sin. But it's easy to make excuses

and blame her or blame something else, such as the fact that I'm

having a bad day or she is unreasonable.

Or instead of admitting that I've done wrong in God's eyes, I

have blame whatever other circumstance that I have to to

give myself a pass. Or if I lie, I can make an

excuse and say, well, everyone lies sometimes.

Or if I disobey and dishonor my parents, I can make an excuse

and say that they're too demanding or they're hip

critical. They're telling me to do this

and they don't even do it themselves so I don't have to

obey them. No, you do.

You're just giving yourself an excuse.

You're giving yourself a way out.

You're giving yourself a pass. On the other hand, I can't admit

to God that I have sinned and agree with Him that it's evil.

If I make excuses for my sin. I'm walking in darkness rather

than light, and I do not have fellowship with God.

You want to grow in your spiritual life, You want to.

You want to have victory in your spiritual life.

You've got to get the sin out. I don't know how how I can say

it any more than I did the other day, but God promises that he'll

forgive us and cleanse us if we confess our sins to Him.

He's faithful and just to forgive us because Christ died

for our sins. He can do that because he died

for our sins. He's the only one that has the

ability to do it. And I say this often that we use

that verse for people who are unsaved to say, Hey, God will

forgive you and he will. But this, it was written to us.

It was written to Christians, It was written to those who know

better, who have to get things right and stop walking in

darkness and start walking in the light.

Start having fellowship with him again.

See how many times will God forgive us?

Will he forgive us as often as we confess?

And that's that's why I say we should keep short accounts with

God. We're going to make mistakes.

I don't even want to say it that way.

We're going to sin. It's not a mistake, it's a sin.

We're going to sin and when we sin, we need to get that right

with God right now. Don't let that build up.

And by the way, the shorter accounts you keep with God, you

sin and you get it right. What you'll find out is the

longer in between times it is when you actually have to get

things right with God because you don't want to be on your

knees all day every day confessing, Oh, I messed up

again. God, I'm sorry.

I sinned again, God, I'm sorry, I sinned again, God, I'm sorry,

right? Eventually you're going to get

to the point where he's saying, all right, I need, I need your

help to try a little bit harder with these things.

But doesn't he get tired of us sinning and then confessing?

No, we have the promise that he'll forgive us and cleanse us

every time. And if you look in Matthew 18,

that's the story. When he, Peter asked how many

times we forgive him, seven times.

Jesus said no 70 * 7. That's 490 times.

Jesus said we ought to forgive somebody else.

If we can forgive somebody 490 times, imagine how many times he

can forgive us, right? But at the same time, we

shouldn't presume upon his grace either.

Well, I'll just go ahead and sin.

I'll confess it when I get done, and I'll, I'll ask forgiveness

and he'll forgive me, right? I know I shouldn't go there, but

I'm going to go there anyway and he'll forgive me.

That's presuming upon his grace, right?

That's that, that is I'm not saying that God won't forgive

it. He will forgive that, but but

how genuine is it when you know that you're going to go do it

and then try to ask for it's no different than a Catholic going

to the priest and saying, forgive me, Father, for I have

sinned. There's no different, right?

You're using, you're using God as a Catholic priest to make

yourself feel better right now. If there's genuine repentance

and you genuinely are sorry for it, he will forgive you and

forgive you and forgive you and forgive you all right, because

there is no limit to how many times he'll forgive your sin.

But at the same time, don't presume upon his grace.

Keep those accounts short with God.

So confession makes things right with God.

It puts us in the light. It's, it's, it's the way of

victory. It stops the spiral of sin.

And again, it's hard to get into a spiral of sin if you're

keeping those accounts short with God.

You can't keep spiraling down and down and down and down

deeper and deeper into those things if you're keeping those

accounts short with God. The reason we end up spiraling

into sin and getting away from him and getting out of our

Bibles and getting out of our prayer clothes and getting out

of fellowship with Him is because we sinned and we didn't

get it right. And we sinned and we didn't get

it right. And we got farther and farther

in that darkness and we, we were walking further and farther away

from Him. And the next thing you know,

we're deep into it and we've spiraled all the way down.

We have no desire to pray. We have no desire to read our

Bibles. We have no desire to get right

with God until finally someday God has to slap us in the face

and wake us up a little bit. And then we say, how did I get

here? You didn't keep short accounts

with God. And you let it go and you let it

go, and you let it go and you let it go.

And the next thing you know, you're completely out of

fellowship with him. You have no chance of having

spiritual victory in your life. And you wonder, why am I in the

same rut again? Why can't I get victory over

this thing in my life, right? This is the key to spiritual

victory. You've got to confess your sins.

You've got to confess your sins. The wonderful thing is you can

take them all to Him and dump them on Him and he can handle

it, right? He can handle it and he is

faithful and He's just to forgive us our sins and to

cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But you have to come to Him first.

It's not. Well, God, if that was wrong,

forgive me. Oh, I'm sorry again.

I don't know if you, you know, I don't.

I don't know if that was really wrong or not, but if it was

right, no confession. It takes humility because it

takes confession. Is is an admission.

It's an admission of guilt, right?

You can't confess to something that you didn't admit to doing.

It stops the spiral of sin. But when we sin, we have to get,

we must not get discouraged and faint.

We have to confess it honestly claims God, claim God's promise

of forgiveness, and stand on our spiritual birthright.

And then the last one is this. Let's turn over to Philippians

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3. And obviously this is a very

short section, but it has a lot to do with Christian growth and

spiritual victory as well. Philippians chapter 3 verse #13

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one

thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and

reaching forth unto those things which are before I press toward

the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ

Jesus. Now some of the things that Paul

talked about when he's saying forgetting those things which

are behind were spiritual failures.

But there was some things that he said that he was putting

behind that in his mind were spiritual victories, right?

So just because you've accomplished something for God

doesn't mean you can say it. It's all done.

Now I've done everything that I can do.

No, forget those things too. But I think in particular what

Paul is talking about is all of those things that that really

don't count for anything. All the things, all the person

that I used to be at, that thing that I used to consider was such

a badge of honor. 8th day circumcised, the 8th day of the

stock of Israel tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of the Hebrews,

Pharisee persecuting the church. All of those things, those were

all things that I did that I thought were accomplishments.

And I realize now that they did not count for anything.

And you can put whatever you want to in that blank.

I'm I rose up the chain and I made it to the top and I was the

CEO, I was the president, I was this, I did that.

All of those other things that really don't count for anything.

And Paul says, I'm putting all those things in my past.

I'm reaching forth to the things that really matter.

And so after we confess our sin, we need to put it behind and not

fall into the temptation to dwell on it and the fear that

God hasn't forgiven us. Now, I'll say this because I

talk to people often who end up in a situation where they say,

well, I just, I just can't get over it.

I can't believe that I did that. I just can't get over it.

And I, you know, I know that God's forgiven me and I know

that that those sins are under the blood, but I just, I just

can't forgive myself. And to that I say this, God says

that when we confess our sins, he's faithful and just.

He'll forgive us our sins. He'll cleanse us from all

unrighteousness. And the Bible talks about our

sin as being, He puts our sin as far away as the east is from the

West. I don't think that was an

accident because you can go to the North Pole and you can go to

the South Pole. You can find those places on the

map. But there is no E pole and there

is no W pole. He puts our sins as far away

from this as you can possibly. You can go as far as you want to

to the east and you'll never run out.

You can go as far as you want to to the West and you'll never run

out. That's as far away as He puts

our sins from us. The Bible says their sins and

their iniquities will I remember no more.

Once He forgives you for your sins, He purposely forgets them.

He puts them behind you, He puts them behind him, and he will

never He buries them. The Bible says in the deepest

part of the sea, if a God who is absolutely perfect and a God who

is absolutely holy and a God is who is absolutely just can

forgive us for those things, who are we to not forgive ourselves

for those things if he'll do it and we sinned against him?

Don't you think we ought to be at least willing to forgive

ourselves for the same things? And we're not perfect, we're not

holy, and we're not just the way God is.

So when Satan reminds me of the things I regret, I bring up

Calvary lest he forget. High on a mountain of sorrow and

shame. Christ gave me a pardon as he

took my blame. That's what I want to remind

Satan of when he comes and says, well, yeah, but you or yeah,

remember when you hey, that's under the blood, that's under

the blood of Christ. I've asked for forgiveness.

He's faithful. He's just, he's forgiven me.

He's put my sins as far away as the east is from the West.

He's buried them in the deepest part of the sea.

My sins and my iniquities, He are is not going to remember

anymore. Why should I remember them?

Why should I hang those things over my head if the God of the

universe, who has all the authority and all the right to

do that, is not? We need to forgive ourselves and

move on. It's exactly what Paul is

talking about here. Forgetting those things which

are behind, I reach forth into those things which are before I

press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God

in Christ Jesus. What?

What do you think he's talking about when he says forgetting

those things which are behind? It's all the things that he just

listed, right? You think Paul was proud of the

fact that he persecuted the church?

Imagine how many times the the screams of the women that were

being ripped away from their families and the cry of the

husbands that are being pulled away from their wives and their

children. Imagine how many times those

things echoed in Paul's mind after he came to know Christ as

his Savior. And yet he says, I'm forgetting

all of those things. Richard Brand, That's the old

me. That's not who I am anymore.

I'm somebody different in Christ.

He forgave me, I'm forgiving myself.

I'm putting those things behind me, and I'm just going forward

for Christ. That's how you have spiritual

victory. That's how you grow in your

Christian life. Keep looking ahead, not behind.

When God convicts us of sin, he does that in order to lead us to

confession and cleansing and victory.

But when the devil accuses us, he does so in order to

discourage and devour us. So when you allow yourself to

dwell in the things that God's already forgiven, you are

allowing the devil to let you get discouraged about something

that you should never be discouraged about.

You are allowing the devil to devour your spiritual life and

your spiritual victory that you should never allow him into your

life to do in the 1st place. You've been forgiven for those

things. If you've truly come to the

cross and kneeled before Christ, humbled yourself, confess those

things to Him there under the blood, and he's put them away,

you need to do the same thing. You're never going to have

spiritual victory in your life if you keep dwelling on the

past. You're never going to have

spiritual victory in your life if you keep dwelling on who you

used to be and what you did before.

Now doesn't mean that all the consequences automatically go

away. There may be some consequences

for those things, but the sin that's under the blood, let it

go and let it stay there. Stop trying to pull it back out.

He's already forgiven it. Let him do it.

Let him do it. Press toward the mark.

Man, what a, what a, what a concept, what a, what a goal.

And, and I've, I said this at the beginning, but I've preached

messages on every one of these things because every one of them

is so full and so rich that you can preach a message on all of

them. I've tried not to do that

tonight with all of these different things.

That's four. We got eight more, 8 more things

that'll help us to have that Christian growth and that

spiritual victory in our lives. And I hope hopefully as we

continue through these things, especially this week, aim at

some of these things, right? Aim at abiding in Christ.

Purposely focus on abiding in Christ.

Are you walking in fellowship with Him right?

Do you have the fellowship with Him?

Have you put off the old man and put on the new man?

Focus on that this week. Have you confessed your sin to

him? Focus on it this week.

Are you pressing toward the mark?

Focus on it this week. Those are things that are going

to give us that growth in our spiritual life, and they're

going to give us that spiritual victory.

And if you're not going forward, you're going backwards.

So are you going to go forward? Are you going forward?

That's the that's the choice that we have in front of us

tonight. Let's pray.

Father, again, we thank you so much for your goodness to us.

Thank you for the opportunity we have to be here tonight.

And thank you for the the lessons that we have from for

the cloud and the way that we can take them and dissect them

with your word and hopefully be a help to us as we try to make

progress in our spiritual lives and go forward for you.

God, May you help us all to have that victory that only comes

through Christ. May you help us all to grow in

our spiritual lives so that we can continue to be useful in

your service. Thank you again for all you do

for us in Jesus name, Amen.