Sermon

Naturally First

Anchor Faith Church

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  1. Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message Podcast

  2. from St. Augustine, FL.

  3. Now enjoy this message. But this goes along with our

  4. message today because naturally, first look at First Corinthians

    1 Corinthians 15:46

  5. chapter 15, verse 46. I love today.

  6. I love today so much. I love today #1 because no one's

  7. going to complain. It's cold.

  8. No one's going to be upset about the lights in your eyes.

  9. I see many people not having to wear sunglasses right now.

  10. And I'm not saying those are complaining people.

  11. Lights are an issue. I get that.

  12. I'm just saying we don't have that today.

  13. My point is, is it's not necessary.

  14. Again, it's not necessary that I have to put the scriptures up.

  15. It's not necessary. We have to put the word.

  16. It'd be nice to actually learn them so you can sing them

  17. yourself. I mean, we've turned into a

  18. karaoke generation. I can't even do worship unless I

  19. see the words. Come on, are you hearing me

  20. 'cause it's not actually in your spirit.

  21. Amen. How you going to be able to take

  22. notes today? I mean, you should be.

  23. There's so much content. But in First Corinthians 1546 it

  24. says this. However, the spiritual is not

  25. first, but the natural, then the spiritual.

  26. Wow, I'm going to say that again.

  27. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the

  28. spiritual. We have become a society that

  29. has disconnected from the natural and we think we're

  30. spiritual. Hallelujah.

  31. Now the context of this particular verse is about a

  32. resurrection. OK, but it is talking about a

  33. natural body and it says and let.

  34. If you want a spiritual body you're going to have to 1st sow

  35. a natural one because it says the first Adam was earthly, the

  36. last Adam was of heavenly and you're not going to get over

  37. into heavenly until you deal with the natural because God

  38. made man natural First Genesis chapter one verse 26 and 27

  39. says. Then God said let us make man in

  40. our image according to our likeness and let them rule Over

  41. the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the

  42. cattle, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps

  43. on the earth. God created man in his own

  44. image, in the image of God he created them male and female, He

  45. created them well man came from the spirit but before man came

  46. to earth. Look what happens in Genesis 27,

  47. says Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground.

  48. What did he do? Formed man from the dust of the

  49. ground. What did He do?

  50. Formed man from something natural.

  51. Then once the natural was first, he breathed into that natural

  52. dust suit and he became the breath of life and the man

  53. became a living soul. Natural was first, then

  54. spiritual, because he had to create a natural body to carry

  55. the Spirit. Jesus Christ has to come in the

  56. form of a man, so he must put him in a natural suit.

  57. And that natural suit was woven in the womb.

  58. Now, before we were ever in our mother's womb, God knew us.

  59. He knew about us before the foundations of the world.

  60. So in the realm of the Spirit we exist, but we do not manifest

  61. till the natural shows up First, the natural will cause the

  62. spiritual to get into play. Are you hearing me?

  63. So with that being said, notice natural spiritual example.

  64. Now let me just say this, you can naturally do things and it

  65. not be spiritual to a degree. Now that I just said that it

  66. came out of my mouth. We may adjust that everything

  67. you're doing natural is impacting something spiritual.

  68. Let's say it that way. Everything you're doing natural

  69. is impacting a spiritual realm. Adam is made in the image of

  70. God, both male and female. Him, Adam and Eve.

  71. They were in the nature of God, like God, the DNA of God.

  72. They thought like God responded like God had dominion, like God

  73. on the earth. They were supposed to function

  74. this way. Or you hear what I'm saying.

  75. Within the confines of the natural realm by which they were

  76. to have dominion over which means.

  77. Then when they exercise the spiritual dominion they have

  78. through the natural, then it would manifest on the planet.

  79. It would be when it was released from the natural into the

  80. spirit. Are you hearing me?

  81. So then we have Adam and Eve in the garden with God.

  82. Perfect world, no sin. It's amazing this supernatural

  83. man contained within a natural body doing natural things.

  84. Look what it says in Genesis chapter 2, starting in verse 15

    Genesis 2 chapter mention

  85. said. Then the Lord God took the man,

  86. put him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and keep it.

  87. That is a natural assignment. But that natural assignment will

  88. produce spiritual things, he then says.

  89. Then the Lord God commanded the man, saying, from any tree of

  90. the garden you may eat what freely, but from the tree of the

  91. knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, For on the day

  92. that you eat from it you will surely die.

  93. So here's Adam, who was naturally, when naturally

  94. hungry, going to any tree other than the tree of life, and when

  95. they pick from it, eat from it, it still contains life.

  96. Their environment stays life. Their personal life stays life.

  97. Their connection with God stays life.

  98. God can walk in the cool of the day and spend time with them,

  99. and there's no hindrance, No Fear, no issue.

  100. It's oneness. It's amazing.

  101. Every time they pick from a tree, whatever tree, wherever

  102. except one, Life goes on in the garden, dominion goes on,

  103. spiritual authority goes on, power goes on.

  104. Their dominion goes on. Because every time they function

  105. naturally in the will of God, it releases the spiritual.

  106. But. A serpent comes in.

  107. Are you hearing me? And he says to the woman, has

  108. God not said that you can't eat from any tree, so that isn't it

  109. just one? And he says to her.

  110. You're not going to die. Now notice he needs to hear the

  111. word of the king, because in order to hear the word of the

  112. King, I must know truth in order to start a lie.

  113. But notice saying a lie doesn't change the spiritual just

  114. because he introduced a concept foreign to Adam's thinking.

  115. It doesn't change. The atmosphere doesn't change.

  116. It 'cause spiritual life is still in operation.

  117. But we understand if they're eating fruit it must mean they

  118. were hungry, 'cause you all know we're really not eating if we're

  119. not hungry. Now I understand sometimes we

  120. just eat because we're bored. But they didn't have a boredom

  121. problem. I'm at the house.

  122. I'm bored. Let me go grab something because

  123. I you know I need to. Right.

  124. That's a different issue we're going to talk about a little bit

  125. later today. OK, that wasn't their reason.

  126. They're like, oh, I'm bored. Let me go grab something.

  127. No, they were natural beings. They were supernatural spirits

  128. in a natural body. Are you hearing me?

  129. So as a result of that, they then hear, but it doesn't change

  130. the spirit realm. What changes the realm of the

  131. spirit? Natural first, the minute Eve

  132. takes the fruit, eats it according to Genesis 3/8 right

  133. and then or six hands it to her husband.

  134. Then he eats a natural bite. Oh y'all, don't want to hear

  135. this. Fine.

  136. A natural bite had a spiritual implication.

  137. So much so, it's still in the earth today.

  138. A natural bite has a spiritual implication.

  139. And now it's in the earth today. Still there, still there, still

  140. here, still in the earth. Because one man's transgression.

  141. What was his transgression? He disobeyed God.

  142. We could even say it this way. He disobeyed God in his heart

  143. before he ever ate it, but it wasn't till he actually ate it

  144. that the environment. No Eve eats and his eyes aren't

  145. different, nor hers. Are you hearing me?

  146. He's already considering eating because he's watching her.

  147. If he wasn't considering, he'd say don't eat that.

  148. You know what the king said? Who you talking to?

  149. My wife right now. You better get up out of here,

  150. 'cause that's against the king. That's against our Kingdom.

  151. That is not what the king says. This is his.

  152. We don't touch this, we don't eat, We do not eat this.

  153. And if he would have stayed with that thought, but because it

  154. resonated in the inside, for him to but it did not come to the

  155. earth until he ate. And the.

  156. Minute. He sunk his teeth in, began to

  157. chew. I'm going to go as far as, say,

  158. a swallow, because it's pretty specific.

  159. You got to eat it. Then everything changed because

  160. of a natural action. We have disregarded our natural

  161. so much that we act like the spirits release beyond without

  162. our natural involvement. We have made the things of God

  163. so really demonic in response instead of how God intended.

  164. Well, it's naturally it's first because what I am a natural

  165. being natural. I'm in a natural realm, and the

  166. only way the spirit can be released is through my natural

  167. responses to the Spirit. I don't speak in tongues without

  168. my own tongue. And you'll never speak in

  169. tongues if you don't let your natural tongue voice what it's

  170. hearing on the inside. You're not born again until

  171. you're doing something in the natural.

  172. The natural brings for the IT is a layer of communication.

  173. OK, let me preface that because again, what if a person can't

  174. speak? However they communicate is

  175. their confession, and it is still an open confession that

  176. identifies their heart, what they are intending to do by

  177. faith. And that natural first opens up

  178. the Spirit. So a verse that we tend to

  179. overlook most of the time is First Thessalonians 523.

  180. It says Now may the God of Peace himself sanctify you entirely.

  181. Entirely. Say entirely, say entirely.

  182. Look at your neighbor, say entirely, OK, not partially.

  183. If we don't watch out, we want a partial change.

  184. We just want to be changed in our spirit.

  185. But he wants an entire entirely be sanctified.

  186. Sanctification is to have an entire impact on you.

  187. Come on, y'all doing all right. Yeah, glory to God, he goes on

  188. and says this, he says. And may your spirit and soul and

  189. body be what preserve, complete without blame at the coming of

  190. Our Lord. How in the world can you keep

  191. your body complete when it's mortal?

  192. How is it that your body can be complete when you know you're

  193. getting a glorified 1? Now when it comes to the new

  194. birth, we know that our our spirit was dead without Christ.

  195. And when we confess Jesus as Lord, we became a new creature

  196. in Christ. The old passed away.

  197. Behold, all things become new in our Spirit.

  198. Inside what you can't see, the real you became in Christ a

  199. spirit alive to God. Who wants to hear God?

  200. Who wants to obey God? Because that's all it really it

  201. knows to do. It wants to stay connected to

  202. life, and it can hear the Holy Spirit that comes and lives on

  203. the inside of you. It bears witness with you that

  204. you are a child of God and it wants to release this on the

  205. inside. The problem is, there's two

  206. areas of you that are natural and that you've lived in those

  207. natural places. Because when Adam fell from

  208. dominion, not heaven, he resorted to living naturally

  209. only in the context that he could not go to the spirit of

  210. God, but he had to ignite. He's now limited to his Spirit's

  211. dead cut off from God, and he's limited to live only by what he

  212. sees and by what he sees. He'll respond that way based

  213. upon feeling, emotions, and the new nature that he is, which

  214. then his natural responses now usher in the spirit of death.

  215. This is why people cheat on their wives.

  216. This is why people fornicate. This is why people are in

  217. pornography. This is why people, you know,

  218. don't do right with their money. This is why people why 'cause

  219. they're connected to a dead spirit and they always model it

  220. in their natural that's why they gossip.

  221. That's why they lie. Nobody told you to lie, but you

  222. open your mouth. There is no such thing as gossip

  223. if you're not talking. But they're talking, so they're

  224. natural releases the spirit realm they're connected to.

  225. If Adam had never eaten the fruit, then we only would have

  226. been connected to the spirit of life, and our natural would have

  227. only released the life of the spirit.

  228. But now that we are actually raised in a society where we've

  229. all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, then we now

  230. are so connected to death. We speak of it, we feel from it,

  231. we respond by it. We we've lived by it.

  232. But God, being rich in his mercy, He died for us, gave us a

  233. new spirit to reconnect us with the spirit realm of the Kingdom.

  234. But in order for us to pull that realm in, we've got to get our

  235. natural side together 'cause our natural side is what short

  236. circuits are spiritual. This is why Paul said I can't

  237. even come and speak to you as spiritual people.

  238. Why 'cause your naturals in the way you're carnal.

  239. You're not allowing the spirit in you to be released through

  240. your natural you're arguing, you're fighting, you're

  241. comparing. You got jealousy that's not from

  242. your spirit. That's a part of your Nat.

  243. You got to repent, change your thinking.

  244. You got to renew your mind to the Kingdom.

  245. Guess who's in control of mind renewal?

  246. You are God does not open your head up, snatch your brain out,

  247. pop you another one in, and you're instantly thinking,

  248. right. You have to renew your mind.

  249. How do you do it? Through your body.

  250. How do you renew it? Through your body.

  251. You have to sit and look at the scripture.

  252. You have to then meditate on. You have to do.

  253. You have to put your body into subjection to so that your soul

  254. realm can get into a place to be renewed.

  255. But if your body controls you, then you'll never renew your

  256. mind. So This is why he says in First

  257. Thessalonians 523 that if you're going to have a spiritual

  258. impact, you're going to have to have your sanctification

  259. happening in your soul and body realm, 'cause I have seen the

  260. body has become the greatest prison of most people, 'cause

  261. they cannot control their body. They're stuck in prison.

  262. Now look what it says in Romans chapter 8.

    Romans 8 chapter mention

  263. Hallelujah. I mean, do we want to change

  264. Saint Johns County and Saint Augustine?

  265. We want to continue to increase. Guess what?

  266. We're going to do some natural things like naturally build a

  267. bigger building, right? I mean, this is a test in

  268. putting your flesh down right now, and you're doing a great

  269. job. We can do this.

  270. I I've come to find out. This is why I've kept myself in

  271. certain places and I make myself do certain things.

  272. Why? Because I want to stay

  273. conditioned in certain environments.

  274. I've said this before, I would hate to get to a nation and

  275. there is an unreached people group on a mountain, and I

  276. couldn't get there because I wasn't physically conditioned

  277. enough to go, because I let myself go so bad that God

  278. couldn't even use me. I'm carrying a message that I

  279. can't even carry. Now look what it says in Romans

  280. 812 through 14. It says.

  281. So then, brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to

  282. live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the

  283. flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are

  284. putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live for all

  285. who are being what led by the Spirit of God.

  286. These are the sons of God. How do we know a person's LED.

  287. It shows up in their natural, their natural releases, the

  288. spirit in the earth. How do I know you're being

  289. spirit LED? Because it shows up in your

  290. natural it manifests, it comes to pass.

  291. It shows up based upon you obeying the word of the Lord.

  292. It is a pudding to death, the flesh or the deeds of the body.

  293. Meaning things stuck to a natural world only and

  294. responding through what we see only that's actually connected

  295. to a spirit realm called death. Are you hearing me?

  296. You're close, but I'm keeping my jacket on, Galatians 220 says

  297. this. I've been crucified with Christ.

  298. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me and the life

  299. that I live now. Are you hearing me?

  300. I live now in the flesh. I live how?

  301. By faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for

  302. me. So there's this thing that God

  303. wants us as Saints to do, and that is to live entirely

  304. sanctified in every part of our being.

  305. As we've said, we are spirit, we have a soul and we live in a

  306. body. Notice we're keeping them all.

  307. Now when I say keep them, we'll still keep a body to just be

  308. glorified. Our mind is being renewed daily.

  309. But you understand when you get out of this confines of sin,

  310. when that's stripped off and you get in your glorified body, your

  311. mind's really going to open up. I mean, we are not even open up

  312. our minds, not even functioning at the capacity that the first

  313. Adam functioned when he was first here.

  314. But again, listen, we won't even be limited to natural only,

  315. because we'll actually have a glorified body, something that

  316. Adam himself didn't even have. Are you hearing me?

  317. So with that being said, we still, because of the power of

  318. the Spirit, is able now to affect the other two parts of

  319. our being so that they stay in alignment with God's Word that

  320. now my mind doesn't control me, nor the abuses put upon it.

  321. My body doesn't control me, nor based upon the abuses put upon

  322. it or the self indulgences that have been put upon it.

  323. And if we want to release the spirit in everything we're

  324. doing, we need to entirely get it all together.

  325. Because I'm telling you, you are a walking billboard, You are a

  326. walking billboard. And people will determine the

  327. Kingdom first by looking at you naturally.

  328. If you naturally get aggravated, everything, meaning you

  329. demonstrate frustration, people be like, well, 'cause.

  330. It's different when you get around a person who exercises

  331. great patience, long-suffering, who knows how to hold their

  332. tongue. And you only hold your tongue

  333. because you make your body shut up, because your mind's like,

  334. say it, say it, say it, say it, say it, then hit him, hit him

  335. first, then say it. Right.

  336. David Mackey would say the old man would, because he knew what

  337. the old man was. Let's talk about that.

  338. Romans chapter 6, starting in verse four.

    Romans 6 chapter mention

  339. He says. Therefore we have been buried

  340. with him through baptism and to death, so that as Christ was

  341. raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too

  342. might walk in newness of life. We might, we might what?

  343. Walk now to be born again. You are new born of God.

  344. Your spirit man cannot get any more like God.

  345. We just trying to release what you already are.

  346. But you're not going to release who you are until you get the

  347. other two areas under control, and now you're strong enough to

  348. do it. Not only you yourself in the

  349. spirit, your spirit man, but the Holy Spirit living in you will

  350. strengthen you to do it as well. Hallelujah.

  351. Are you hearing me? But we might walk in newness of

  352. life if we get the other two under control.

  353. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His

  354. death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His

  355. resurrection, Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with

  356. Him in order that our what body of sin might be done away with,

  357. so that we would no longer be slaves to sin.

  358. Notice that something doesn't say our spirit of sin, but our

  359. body of sin. The reason we were so proficient

  360. and sinning is because our natural dictated our decisions

  361. all the time. If it felt good, we did it.

  362. It was our natural responses alone because and it always

  363. produced the death. But that body of sin is dead,

  364. meaning you don't dictate how I respond.

  365. Now you're not. It's no longer left alone to

  366. your decision making. I have a spirit in me that's

  367. alive to God, and I got the Holy Spirit in me too.

  368. So you're now subject to something different.

  369. You don't control me anymore. You don't own me anymore, you

  370. don't tell me what. In fact, I'll decide if you go

  371. over there or not. And if you go over there, how

  372. you respond, I'll decide the real side.

  373. And then when I decide how to do it, it will release the Spirit

  374. in that situation, he said. For he who has died is free from

  375. sin, so you have no excuse. Well, you know I can't.

  376. Yes, you can. I can't help it.

  377. I just know. Yeah, you can.

  378. You're choosing to let the other two aspects of your existence to

  379. be unsanctified. You're choosing to live unruly.

  380. You're choosing to live against the nature you are.

  381. You're choosing to not release the spirit of life through your

  382. natural Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall

  383. also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from

  384. the dead is never to die again. Death no longer is master over

  385. him, for the death he died he died to sin.

  386. He died to sin, not for sin to sin.

  387. Now he died so that our sin would not be accredited to our

  388. account. But notice that he died two sin

  389. once and for all. Why is that?

  390. Because no matter what sin comes after his death, he's paid that.

  391. Why? He's already taken care of that

  392. and sin no longer has a right over you should you become a

  393. child of God and let naturally first release the Spirit.

  394. He goes on and says this. He died to sin once and for all,

  395. but the life he lives he lives to God.

  396. Even so verse 11, consider yourself dead to sin.

  397. You have to consider this. Paul is writing.

  398. Paul knows righteousness. Paul is the master at writing

  399. the subject of righteousness. That you are the righteousness

  400. of God in Christ. Yet he tells the righteousness

  401. of God in Christ to consider to not sin.

  402. And that's what he's saying. Just 'cause you've been made

  403. righteous doesn't mean you can't go back to living in sin.

  404. Doesn't say that yes, you've been made righteous.

  405. Now let the righteousness manifest.

  406. But in order for it to manifest, you're going to have to get

  407. control of the other two realms, those natural realms.

  408. And once you subject those natural realms to what's going

  409. on in the spirit, then those natural realms will release the

  410. spirit. Come on, you're hearing me, he

  411. said. Even so, consider yourself to be

  412. dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

  413. I mean, the 1st 10 verses of this chapter is saying that

  414. you're dead to sin, dead to sin. If you've made Jesus the Lord of

  415. your life, you're dead to sin because of grace.

  416. Shall we continue to sin so that grace may abound?

  417. May it never be? How can you live to sin when

  418. you're dead? If you're dead with Christ, then

  419. you're dead as well. He says all this, and then he

  420. said, now consider it. Which means you're going to have

  421. to change your thinking on how you respond to things of death

  422. or the spiritual side of death. And the only way you're going to

  423. do that is by getting control of the other two realms.

  424. Verse 12. Therefore, do not let sin.

  425. Do not let it. This is the person that's made

  426. righteous. Now that you've been made

  427. righteous, it says do not let sin reign in your mortal body so

  428. that you obey its lust. I mean you're born again,

  429. sanctified, redeemed, set apart unto God in the spirit.

  430. And he said don't let sin reign in your body.

  431. So if sin's reigning in your body, is it God's fault, whose

  432. fault is it? Because we're not controlling

  433. our natural we're not subjecting it entirely through

  434. sanctification. We're letting it tell us how

  435. we're going to do verse 13. And do not go on presenting the

  436. members of your body descend as an instrument of

  437. unrighteousness, but present yourself to God as those alive

  438. from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness

  439. to God. Wow, why is this important?

  440. You know what the spiritual life is embedded in the ability for

  441. you to control your natural realm, and most of us abandoned

  442. the natural realm, acting like we're spiritual.

  443. However, your spiritual side is not going to manifest until you

  444. control your natural, because it's through your natural that

  445. your true spiritual realm shows which ones having the rule or

  446. reign. Are you hearing me?

  447. Are you hearing what I'm saying? So unless you control that by

  448. your spirit and make those two areas, the soul and the body,

  449. submitted to your spirit, then it will still rule you even

  450. though you have a reigning spirit on the inside.

  451. Wow, she's beautiful. Wow.

  452. Had to come see the baby. I hadn't seen her yet.

  453. No cameras. I can do what I want to do

  454. today. So I am going to give you some

  455. practical thought processes. And these practical or more than

  456. practical, they are spiritually charged because the minute you

  457. can evaluate yourself in the realm of natural things, you're

  458. going to know where you are on spiritual things.

  459. I had some people come over from other churches, quite a few,

  460. actually. Quite a few other churches that

  461. have come over and have asked my staff, is it required to be in

  462. great shape to work? For the ministry, yeah.

  463. They required. Well, it's not a requirement,

  464. but I have learned that when I subject myself to certain, in

  465. essence there are certain things I do in to my body to tell it

  466. you don't own me. The Bible says this physical

  467. exercise profits what's it? Comparing it to spiritual

  468. things. But it's not never saying forget

  469. your physical exercise, it's a waste of your time.

  470. Doesn't say that. It's saying if I was comparing

  471. the effect of natural exercise to spiritual exercise, it's not

  472. even comparable. But I would tell you this, it's

  473. really on a matter of intensity. What do I mean?

  474. I mean, if you go, Wayne, where you at?

  475. Wayne, come here, Wayne. Go to the front.

  476. OK, go all the way to the front, Wayne, so everybody can see you.

  477. Wayne, how much weight have you lost?

  478. 67 lbs. Now you think that you know this

  479. is? Don't get offended, just go

  480. ahead and drop your fence now. Wayne had some serious health

  481. challenges. In the form of cancer that he

  482. was dealing with the staff, we were praying with him, taking

  483. time with him. You know what?

  484. And God did some very supernatural things in his life.

  485. But some things that happen in your body is a byproduct of just

  486. your body, OK. And so we said, Wayne, you need

  487. to exercise. So Pastor Marcy put him on his

  488. exercise regiment. You know what it was?

  489. This is it. This is where?

  490. Where he lost 67 pounds. Are you ready for this?

  491. Every day after work, he walked around the mall.

  492. How many times? Seven times inside, four times

  493. outside. Four times outside he did.

  494. What's that about a mile? One mile after work.

  495. That's all he did. Then he made some adjustments in

  496. what he was ingesting. Obviously I'm saying £67 left

  497. not because he went. And where people get it in their

  498. mind that if you go work out, you got to look like Pastor

  499. Mike. That is not the case.

  500. Not everybody has to look like Pastor Mike.

  501. Not everybody aspires to look like Pastor Mike.

  502. Not everybody has to be. You just need to be your fit

  503. 'cause you have a fit and you can answer the question right

  504. now. Are you at your fit?

  505. Thank you. You can sit down, Wayne.

  506. Thank you, Wayne. 'S now Wayne.

  507. Wayne, as you're going, Were there days you did not want to

  508. walk where there are multiple days?

  509. Did you walk? Anyway, You know what Wayne did

  510. that day? You don't control me, I control

  511. you. Now, why is this so powerful?

  512. Because if you can't control what you can see, then I'm

  513. telling you right now, you have a hard time controlling what you

  514. can't see. Coach Hurley, we condition those

  515. boys naturally because it gives them longevity towards

  516. championships. I'm fixing to read that thing.

  517. That means they submit to Y'all's program.

  518. Do they feel like it? Probably never.

  519. Any day, right? I mean, we lied to the drill

  520. Sergeant because the drill Sergeant made us lie.

  521. He said come on in the cadence, make it hurt.

  522. Drill Sergeant, make it hurt. Right.

  523. We would say that we didn't really mean that we didn't want

  524. it to hurt, you know, But we said it, you know, Are we done?

  525. Give us another one, drill Sergeant.

  526. Give us a nut like we want. We're dead.

  527. I mean, we're already a muscle failure, man.

  528. Our whole body's shaking like, please, can I just go get a

  529. drink of water? Right.

  530. But they were conditioning us for a fight bigger than us.

  531. Because what happens? What you don't understand is

  532. when you attack the body, you begin to actually strengthen the

  533. mind. People think that mind renewal

  534. or the sole realm is solely in the area of knowledge.

  535. Meaning the minute you read the word, you know it, you're going

  536. to do it. Most people do not do what they

  537. know in their mind because they can't keep their body in

  538. submission, can't do it, even though they know in their mind

  539. not to respond that way because they've not conditioned, they've

  540. not taken dominion in their natural realm.

  541. Says no, you're not going to make me do that today.

  542. And I'm going to beat you today. I'm going to beat you today.

  543. You're going to do what I say. I can tell you every time.

  544. I mean probably at least 25. Only 25% of the time has it been

  545. like, I want to go. I love to go.

  546. It was amazing. The rest was I heard don't go

  547. you're tired you shouldn't. But every time, every time

  548. except for 5% do I leave saying thank God I went.

  549. The other 5% is not thank it. It is a thank God.

  550. But it's more like this stinks cause I've been out.

  551. Gosh, and that hurt. I wish I wouldn't have quit.

  552. I wish I would have stayed consistent.

  553. This is the thing about you becoming a spiritual force is

  554. that you need to learn how to dominate your natural

  555. consistently. Ministries are not popped up

  556. overnight. They are consistent.

  557. They pound, they go, they do the intangible, they do the

  558. fundamentals. Championships are won because we

  559. do the fundamentals, we do the fundamentals.

  560. If you're failing in the fundamentals, we go back to it

  561. because we're not trying to get you on the top ten highlight of

  562. ESPN. We're just trying to get you to

  563. do the fundamentals. Because if you'll stay

  564. consistent and if you'll consistently tell your body no,

  565. you're going to get up and pray. Today.

  566. How many of you are like, I just need to get up earlier and pray,

  567. and then you don't do it. Why?

  568. Because your body says, And what do we do?

  569. We justify. Well next time, well next time,

  570. well next time. What I'm saying is the Bible's

  571. very clear. If you want a spiritual impact,

  572. you're going to have to dominate the natural first.

  573. You're going to have to do that period.

  574. Now at the end of the day, if everybody was in shape, your

  575. shape, we're still not going to look the same.

  576. We're all going to look different.

  577. We're all going to be different. And it depends on what you're

  578. training for. And we're all in a training.

  579. Look what it says here in First Corinthians Chapter 9.

    1 Corinthians 9 chapter mention

  580. I'm going to go 24 through 27 and I'm going to read out the

  581. passion it says. Isn't it obvious that all

  582. runners on the racetrack keep? Long running to win, but only

  583. one received the victor's prize. Yet each one of you must run the

  584. race to be victorious. You're going to have to run.

  585. You're not victorious just because you're born again.

  586. A true athlete, which implies a false 1A faker, A wannabe, a

  587. true athlete will be disciplined in every aspect, practicing

  588. constant self-control in order to win a Laurel reef that

  589. quickly Withers. But we run our race to win a

  590. victor's crown that will last forever.

  591. I mean, true athletes, they can't just go to the gym.

  592. They got to watch what they're eating, their diet, their their

  593. sleep, their who they hang out with.

  594. I mean, how many athletes have gotten in trouble 'cause they

  595. hung out with those who were boozing, running to the club.

  596. Now they're paying child supporting the people they don't

  597. even one night, you know, or they got in trouble, you know,

  598. there was that one Gator that was a tight end.

  599. I'm trying to think of his name. I've seen right now that, God,

  600. what was his name? Hernandez.

  601. I mean, what talent but couldn't control his mind got caught up

  602. in killing somebody. So God is saying to us as

  603. believers, you want to be spiritual?

  604. Well then let me see your whole life, Get it together, 'cause

  605. what we can't control, that we can see.

  606. I'm telling you, you're going to have a hard time in the spirit

  607. pop. Jesus literally says to Tim, to

  608. Thomas Thomas you needed to see me right in order to believe

  609. said bless those who without seeing can believe.

  610. We have taken that to a context that we act like we don't need

  611. anything naturally occurring yet.

  612. But how do you see God now? The word manifests in someone

  613. cause the word always becomes visible and the reality is I

  614. believe what I hear, then I have to act on it.

  615. Which means now I'm going to have to deal with the natural to

  616. release what inside is being spoken.

  617. I got to realize, man, I'm training.

  618. There's a race to win. There's people's lives to touch,

  619. to impact, to see overcome. People that can.

  620. This is why people that already have a natural discipline when

  621. they really make Jesus Lord can excel so well.

  622. Why? Because they've they've already

  623. conditioned themselves to be able to overcome.

  624. I cannot tell you it was the will of God for me to go on the

  625. army. I cannot tell you that.

  626. I mean, really it was kind of out of frustration, you know,

  627. angry at my mom. And it really, it was grief.

  628. My dad died and I had gone to school for that year extremely

  629. unfocused, you know, And you know, it was just a a process.

  630. Long story short, I'm like, I'm, I'm done.

  631. I'm going to go, I'll just join the army.

  632. And my brother-in-law convinced me to go into the National Guard

  633. because if I don't like it, it's only a weekend drill.

  634. If I love it, I can go in full time.

  635. I had options, right? So I took the advice, you know,

  636. just to run. But I will tell you this, the

  637. discipline was amazing for me because by by nature, prior to

  638. that, in what I did, I was pretty gifted with not much

  639. effort, especially in my mind in academics.

  640. I was not the smartest person, but I was not dumb.

  641. I would have been the smartest person if I would have actually

  642. exercised it more in the realm of the natural.

  643. I was already learning that because I did athletics and I

  644. had won some championships and it required me to condition.

  645. I was already learning how to keep my body down, especially

  646. when I had to make weight for weightlifting and I was

  647. overweight. All right, because I was too

  648. fat. I was 125 and I need to be 1/23

  649. and 1/4. So I was just this fat guy that

  650. had to lose a pound and a half. See, fat's relative OK is what

  651. I'm saying. I need to get down into the 123

  652. LB class and 1:25 HE. Would say you're too fat.

  653. They would. You're too heavy.

  654. That's saying in a nice way, you're too fat.

  655. To compete at this level, we have to go up a class.

  656. OK, so I know what it means to run in trash bags, to sit on a

  657. toilet, to release weight. I know what that means, Why I

  658. had to condition myself. I had to put my body down.

  659. But in order to be competitive, I actually had to put my body

  660. down to be able to do weight, you know, And Coach James was

  661. not a nice guy. He was not especially on the leg

  662. press, because when we push the leg press with the little

  663. plates, I'm talking about the universal type, he would say.

  664. Now you got to touch it like an egg could be in there.

  665. It's got to tap real easy and then come back up.

  666. If I put an egg in there and you break it, then you know it don't

  667. count. So you're like, OK, we're going

  668. to do 10 reps, ready? Go 123334555.

  669. I mean, I should have been done by now, but the clank, he makes

  670. me keep doing it and your legs are shaking.

  671. I mean, how do you get it quiet when your legs are shaking,

  672. going down, right? But you submit yourself to the

  673. natural to produce something else.

  674. And the body of Christ has become very lethargic.

  675. So I put myself in multiple environments, like what we're

  676. doing to you today. It'll condition you.

  677. Because right now Patricia and Eloise, who was 7-8 months

  678. pregnant at the time we went to Nicaragua, it was three times

  679. hotter than this right now. I mean, it was fiery furnace

  680. stuff. What in hell yet?

  681. But it was hotter. It was 7 times hotter than hot.

  682. Are you hearing me? I mean, the women did not

  683. perspire. They were sweating profusely,

  684. Profusely. There was sweat everywhere.

  685. They were sweating like crazy because it was hot.

  686. But you know what? You conditioned yourself and

  687. you're like, I remember when I did my first mission trip

  688. overseas and I had to come back. It was horrible.

  689. It wiped me out. It was the most horrible thing

  690. in jet lag. I've never had jet lag since

  691. because I said I'm going to eat different, I'm going to train

  692. different, I am not going to come back and be wiped out here.

  693. I am trying to make a spiritual impact, but I can't make it.

  694. I can't come back home and jump right into it because my body's

  695. all jacked up and we want to be spiritual at the expense of our

  696. natural. I got.

  697. I got ministers that are six years older than me fixing to be

  698. 60, and they're talking about transition in their ministry.

  699. Why? Because they can't.

  700. They don't have the physical stamina to keep going.

  701. Why 'cause they disregarded the rest.

  702. You know what? It showed up in their services.

  703. Why 'cause they wouldn't take natural They wouldn't take

  704. risks. To grow.

  705. That means I'm going to have to naturally have more money.

  706. I'm going to naturally have to build, I'm going to naturally

  707. have to go through this process. I'm going to naturally have to

  708. do that. But in order for the spirit to

  709. show up in all those processes, I've got to start the process of

  710. the natural first. I don't need to see the money to

  711. have the money, but I got to start the process naturally.

  712. Because if we stay understanding the goal that we've heard in the

  713. Spirit and then begin to speak it out into the natural, the

  714. naturals first and the Spirit will follow.

  715. And we'll turn back and say, wow, look what God has done.

  716. But he didn't do it because we weren't naturally connected to

  717. the Spirit to release it into this realm.

  718. Nor did we not submit to what was necessary when I look out

  719. into this auditorium today. And I see.

  720. All who showed up knowing there was no air condition.

  721. I'm pretty excited. For those who didn't know it,

  722. Surprise. Right.

  723. Surprise, surprise. If we want to make a spiritual

  724. impact in government, Anila just gave me a statistic of the

  725. government officials that are representing us in Washington

  726. compared to the population of the United States, they make up

  727. .01%. Yep.

  728. Which tells us the greatest influence is the local

  729. government. And if the church really wanted

  730. to make a difference in their community, then they would

  731. naturally get in that sector of society to bring a spiritual

  732. effect. What do we do?

  733. Let's pray for our government. Now there's a natural side of

  734. that 'cause it takes you naturally, praying spiritually,

  735. But yet we think our government's going to change if

  736. we never take a seat. Yet God needs you to naturally

  737. run so that then your natural everyday sitting on the seat can

  738. make a change. Because you can say you would

  739. have wisdom to refute the stupidity and the the the things

  740. that are in error are from the enemy, the dark sayings that are

  741. only natural. As James says, they've become

  742. demonic and evil. You would have a voice why

  743. 'cause you actually naturally ran.

  744. And I'm telling you, in the next five years I should have a

  745. county commissioner attending this church faithfully.

  746. Seriously, aggravate church should have that kind of

  747. influence. So someone needs to answer the

  748. call in our school boards if we're going to touch the sectors

  749. of society, we got to go there. Now the reason why family counts

  750. is they're they're begging us to do another class this year.

  751. But it create, it requires natural bodies to come and

  752. submit to the weeks, to condition themselves, to put

  753. down their TV and their own wants and desires, to be able to

  754. invest in someone else, to change their lives.

  755. We're not going to avoid this just by being spiritual.

  756. In fact, we're not even spiritual unless we're naturally

  757. motivated. We have to be able to say here I

  758. am, Lord, send me. God did not do things in the

  759. earth without a natural man or woman.

  760. And but when they went naturally underneath his authority and

  761. leadership, then he supernaturally showed up.

  762. In fact, if you look at Mozi like Lord, here we are.

  763. There's water. They're coming and going to try

  764. to kill us. What do you want me to do?

  765. He's like, why are you talking to me?

  766. I've already anointed you. I gave you the staff.

  767. You've been performing miracles with the thing lifted up, man.

  768. So he naturally first and then spiritually, the water obeyed

  769. and it parted, dried the ground and they walked through it.

  770. Oh, we're believing. God, finance, There's NASA.

  771. You got to naturally bring the money.

  772. Minister and spirits are out there doing their part, but you

  773. got to naturally go work. It says they had to go.

  774. He's giving you the power to get wealth, not give it to you while

  775. you lay on your couch and eat bonbons.

  776. Man don't work. A man don't eat.

  777. I don't care how much you praying in the spirit.

  778. You've got to get your hands out there and do something.

  779. Get connected. Get out there and in a pool, in

  780. a harvest. So don't ever reduce yourself to

  781. this. Oh, I'm spiritual and you have

  782. no natural connection to what's going on.

  783. Every one of us have a naturally first part to play, to be

  784. spiritual, and the first place starts with us just getting

  785. ourselves together every January.

  786. Many of you have said this year I am, and the only reason you

  787. didn't, it's because you let that part dominate you.

  788. Hey, I'll be the first to raise my hand.

  789. I've had many things in that I wanted to accomplish and the

  790. only reason I didn't is because I didn't because the only thing

  791. stopping it. Is me.

  792. We all go here. The Bible says the Spirit and

  793. the flesh battle daily. And when we say the spirit and

  794. the flesh, we think the flesh of just thoughts and things.

  795. No, it's you. I mean it's fleshly to let your

  796. body tell you not to get up. Now do you think the Holy Ghost

  797. can tell you you should rest and he will?

  798. No, he will. I mean your body can only take

  799. so much. Period.

  800. So there's no issue with rest. In fact the ground God says we

  801. going we going to cultivate this thing for 6th year like nothing

  802. but the 7th year don't let it rest so that the the nutrients

  803. the things and I got you back in the sixth year we going to have

  804. so much that it carry through the 7th year, 8th year before

  805. you start pulling the harvest off the 9th.

  806. Year. Right.

  807. So there will be a, but we're not even listening to the rest

  808. of the Lord. All we're doing is listen to our

  809. body every day. And let me tell you, it talks

  810. louder when you eat a lot of sugar.

  811. I will say that. Huh.

  812. I mean, I've gone to some restaurants, man, Have you gone

  813. there? You eat all the bread and the

  814. cupcakes and all that stuff and then you leave and then a few

  815. hours later you're like, I mean, you want to take a nap.

  816. So what do you do? We go get a cup of coffee.

  817. I mean, it's no different than a person taking drugs that are

  818. uppers and then they're doing Downers.

  819. Oh, y'all don't want to hear that.

  820. That's fine. I'm not dumb enough.

  821. I'm not so dumb that I don't realize what food has a part in

  822. the play. Now, I can't tell you what to

  823. eat. That's the Bible says that don't

  824. tell people what they should and shouldn't eat.

  825. You got to eat what's right for you.

  826. But what I am saying is you know when things affect you and how

  827. it affects you and you can say, you know what?

  828. I'm not doing that anymore. Or you know what?

  829. If I'm going to allow myself to have that, I'm not going to

  830. allow myself to have it at the expense that it derails all that

  831. I'm doing. And I'm telling you if you can't

  832. do it in the natural. You're not doing it in the

  833. spirit. It's not going to happen.

  834. So you need to say what are. Some things I can naturally do

  835. to Take Me Out of my comfort zone.

  836. And I choose to do them so that I let my body and my mind know.

  837. You take orders from the inside and then you'll condition that.

  838. Do you know what in this room, right there in this room today

  839. and I'm not being maybe maybe one today in this room

  840. currently, but I do believe that they could as well all of you

  841. could run a marathon. I'm not saying fast.

  842. Maybe I'm not even saying in one day.

  843. What I am saying is you could condition yourself because there

  844. there's there are people that are 8090, a hundred years old

  845. running and some of them didn't start till later.

  846. They were not lifelong runners. You know what they decided to

  847. do? I'm going to.

  848. And then they began to submit to it.

  849. You can write a book if you submit to it.

  850. You can write a song if you submit to it.

  851. You could read 15 other books this year.

  852. If you submit to it, you tell yourself what to do.

  853. Well, you know life. Life doesn't control you.

  854. You control life. It should be your goal to find

  855. something that's a little uncomfortable.

  856. And say I'm going to do this because I'm telling you, when

  857. you do it, it will impact your spiritual resolve.

  858. That way, when the attack comes, you'll be like, well, no, I'm

  859. not going to accept that word. And you'll actually do the fight

  860. of faith. You'll stay consistent.

  861. You'll stay with the word. You'll stay with your

  862. confession. You won't pull down.

  863. Why? Because you'll have something on

  864. the on the outside that you've already proven I dominate.

  865. So when he says prop exercise profits little, he's saying if

  866. you would just figure out how little that is, it will make

  867. huge spiritual implications. Because an hour workout, it

  868. takes you an hour to get that results.

  869. You can get stuff done in the spirit in extremely less time.

  870. What takes decades to build in muscle you can do in moments in

  871. the spirit in comparison. But both require the exercise.

  872. Both do. Are you hearing me?

  873. Let's pray, Father. We love you and we honor you.

  874. Think we. We're at our limit?

  875. We should be today, Father. They're natural things we have

  876. to do to build this church. Revival's not coming just

  877. because we say it is. Revival comes because we

  878. naturally come together in prayer.

  879. Revival comes to get comes because we naturally partner and

  880. get in different sectors of society and release the Kingdom

  881. of God. There are things that were done

  882. through the natural that affected the Spirit.

  883. For moves of God to come, the rain to come by the Spirit.

  884. There are things that you have on a timetable and you're

  885. wanting them to move, and they're always exceedingly,

  886. abundantly beyond what we did in the natural.

  887. But our natural released the overflow of the Spirit because

  888. it's not first the Spirit, then the natural.

  889. It's the natural first, then the Spirit.

  890. That's why sometimes the service Lord, you speak to their hearts

  891. and you say go down and worship me up front.

  892. And when they yield to that response by naturally moving and

  893. coming down, it has a spiritual effect in their life.

  894. But if they sit in their seat, they do not get the spiritual

  895. effect. That comes with the obedience of

  896. moving in the natural, moving their natural in connection with

  897. that word. If you tell us to dance, if you

  898. tell us to shout, if you tell us to be quiet and we have to

  899. control the natural, and when we respond to it correctly, it

  900. increases the spirit, it releases it.

  901. Just like when there's the call to salvation for someone to be

  902. born again, it's not because Jesus hadn't already paid the

  903. price. It's not because the blood

  904. hasn't already been shed. It's not because from his

  905. perspective, he's already forgiven you.

  906. It's you naturally responding to his message, then believing in

  907. your heart and confessing with your natural mouth.

  908. Jesus Christ is Lord, and then you're born of God.

  909. It's the same way when you get baptized in the Holy Ghost, you

  910. hear from heaven. You know you want the power you

  911. come to receive it, and sometimes it's administered

  912. through the natural laying on of hands, just like healing can be

  913. administered a spiritual power. That shows up.

  914. Through a natural touch, for Jesus naturally took stripes

  915. upon his back. For a spiritual healing plan, he

  916. took on a natural beating. So we could have physical.

  917. Healing to our natural body that came by the Spirit, the natural

  918. first, then the Spirit Father. May we not disregard the power

  919. that we possess when we subject our natural to what we're

  920. hearing in our inner man and when we act on it in obedience.

  921. That natural response to the Spirit in US will release a

  922. spiritual power is how your Kingdom shows up in the earth.

  923. Your Kingdom comes through our natural expression of what we've

  924. heard. So, Father, whatever your head

  925. bowed in, every eye closed, no one's looking around.

  926. If you're here today and you've never made Jesus the Lord of

  927. your life, you cannot be born again unless you respond.

  928. Thank you so much for listening to this message.

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