06 July 2025: Discerning our flesh (David Pounder)

Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South

Australia. Sin no longer has dominion over

us. Romans 6 We can live victorious

over sin over the flesh. We can live righteously, and we

should. But more importantly, we can.

Yeah. And I just want to just try and

help us define, you know, the flesh.

What is the flesh? When we say that, you know, we

need to not be in the flesh but in the Spirit, what is it?

What are we talking about? So we are, we are in the flesh.

You know, that might just mean our physical bodies, like

there's our physical bodies are made-up of flesh.

And you know, God breathed the Spirit into us.

So if we were flesh and spirit and God is spirit like there's

there's a difference between the man that he formed from the dust

and God himself. God is spirit. 2 Corinthians 3

says now the Lord is the spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord

is, there is liberty and it and it teaches that Jesus is the

word that became flesh. So that was God coming into a

fleshly body. God is not flesh.

God is spirit. Jesus is both.

But Jesus was, Jesus is very special.

Jesus was God as a man in the flesh.

Amazing. And so there is a difference

between the spirit and the flesh.

And we mustn't trust in our flesh.

We must trust in the spirit. I'm going to, I'm going to let

me just keep going. So there's, there's a

separation, as I said, between the spirit and the flesh.

And we're called to live in the spirit and not the flesh.

So the two like, although I am a spiritual being in a fleshly

body, but there is a separation and there is a difference.

And I'm and I'm called to live a life submitted to God the Spirit

and follow the spirit and not follow the flesh.

And we're and again, we're not talking about my physical body,

but but So what is the flesh then?

So the flesh, the flesh wants to to rule.

Gosh, I haven't worded this well so far.

Our flesh wants to rule, right? So, so when, when Adam and Eve

were created, we were created to be subject to, to God.

God ruled over over his creation over people.

And so there was a problem when when we stepped outside of that

of of that rulership, outside of that lordship, how did we step

outside of that lordship? God through sin.

So God gave us command, don't eat from that tree, from all of

these other trees, just don't eat from that tree.

And we stepped out from under the authority of God, under his

Lordship, under his rule. And when we did that, when we

separate ourselves from being under his, his lordship, do you

know what happens? We become Lord, we become they

chose to do what they wanted to do.

They listen to their own desires, their own flesh.

This is the flesh. It's it's wanting to rule.

Your flesh wants to be king. Your flesh wants to have its own

way. But we were never created to

live that way, to be the king, to be the Lord to to be the

ruler of of myself. We were always created to be

under the Lord, under his protection, under him.

This is what we're designed to do.

So when you step out of design, things don't work anymore.

You know, if I try to use a spoon to cut a steak, it doesn't

work. It's not designed to do that.

And so when we live outside of God's design, things don't go

well for us. And you can vouch for that.

Like, you know, think about the life that we've lived in.

Things just haven't really gone right for us.

There's a reason for that because we were never designed

to be Lord and to be king of our of our own universe.

And so we see that. Does this make sense?

So, so your flesh wants to the rule wants to be #1 that's the

thing inside us that we need to recognize.

That's what we need to be able to discern.

Am I trying to be my own boss right now, or am I submitted to

the Lord? We need to be able to discern

that. Satan tempted flesh, didn't he?

He tempted that desire to be king, to be Lord, to rule for

yourself. Did God really say that if you

eat that you will have this for yourself?

You what does he say? It says that you will be like

God, which is interesting, isn't it?

So you can see clearly that Satan is tempting this fleshly

desire that wants to rule and and obviously Adam and Eve fell

to that. They thought, sure, that sounds

good, wasn't good, right? And so, you know, the Bible is

very clear that, you know, that that temptation came from Satan.

Satan wasn't doing anything new. You know, Isaiah 1414 says this

of Satan. This is his words.

He says, I will ascend above the heights of the cloud.

I will be like the Most High. Do you see the problem?

Satan thought it was a good idea that he should rule.

Well, I, I'm wonderful, I'm powerful.

I should rule. You should share, you know, your

lordship with me. It's exactly the same thing.

This is exactly what Satan tempts Adam and Eve with.

It's the same thing that they fell to.

And so, you know, we would say that they, that you know, they,

they, they came out from under the lordship of Christ of God

and became their own gods. But we know that what really

happened is they became under Satan.

He was now their Lord God gave a commandment.

They rejected the commandment. Whose commandment did they

follow? Satan's.

They followed Satan's leading. Satan gave them an option, and

they took that option. Not gods.

So they became under his authority.

Do you see? All right.

I hope that's making sense. What happens with me is I go off

note and then I say all the things that are in my notes, and

then I have to come back in here and try and find out where I'm

at. Maybe one day I should just do

away with the notes, right? All right, so resisting the

flesh and coming back under God's authority and being led by

the Spirit. Well, I just gave it away.

What's that called? That's been called led by the

Spirit, right? We are called to be led by the

Spirit. And so when we, we choose, you

know, we spoke earlier about there's a choice that needs to

be made by us that we choose to open ourselves up to the Lord.

We choose to come back under his authority.

That's what happens when we're saved.

We say, Lord, you are my Lord, you are my king, you are my

Saviour. I yield to you.

And when we do that, we are yielding to the Spirit of God.

And that's like a moment by moment walk for you and I now,

because we still live in the flesh.

We still live with these desires that want, you know, I want

what's best for me, not what's best for others at any given

moment. Gosh, I just think about my life

and, you know, having kids and and these sort of things at any

given moment. I just want things to work out

better for me. You know, it takes sacrifice to

raise kids well because you have to put off your own wants and

desires to for them to help them to be raised up.

It's no different with the life that we live.

We have to submit our own wants and desires for the good of

others. And that's what love is.

When you define love, that's what love is.

Love is selflessness, isn't it? So we're where God is trying to

form us to be like him, loving. Did Jesus do the will of the

Father? Yes, of course.

Did Jesus do the things that he didn't want to do for the

greater good? Yes, he did.

Jesus didn't want to go to the cross.

Jesus's flesh really didn't want to go to the cross.

And we read that, which is a powerful thing because you know

Jesus. Like we see there's this pattern

here that Adam and Eve, they fell to these desires to do

their own will and they and sin came into the world and ruined

everything. Jesus, God in the flesh came and

lived and didn't succumb to the, to the flesh, to the, to the, to

the pool to want to do what he wanted to do, but he, he was

subject to God's will and he was victorious.

He saw that thing through, which is pretty powerful that you and

I could be saved because we didn't see it through either.

You know, I, I say that, you know, Adam and Eve is just like,

gosh, any single one of us in the garden would have made

exactly the same mistake as Adam and Eve did.

Every single one of us would have fallen.

God knows that. But thank God that that that God

sent his son Jesus, because he knew my son, my son will be

victorious. My son will not yield.

Yeah. And we are the sons of daughters

in Christ. And so let's just talk about

emotions for a moment here. Are emotions bad?

No. God gave us emotions.

Did Jesus display emotion? Yes.

Did what? What sort of emotions?

Joy. Peace, sadness.

You know, he, Jesus wept. Jesus showed compassion.

Jesus showed anger. Don't look at me like I'm just,

I'm just reading what the Bible said, right?

Jesus showed anger. Did Jesus show anger in a, in a

fleshly way? No, it wasn't selfish.

Jesus was angry for what they had done.

You know, Jesus made a whip. Jesus drove him out.

Jesus turned the tables. Was Jesus mad because they'd

messed things up? Oh my gosh, they've done it

again, throwing the tables. No, Jesus was had zeal for the

house. What if you guys doing to the

Father's house zeal, anger. You know, the the Bible says be

angry and do not sin, So you could feel anger and not sin.

Isn't that interesting? Like we think that if you're

angry that you've fallen into sin, that's not true.

What about people that are abusing children?

What about people that are doing horrible things in our earth?

Should we be angry about that? Should that stir something in us

to go, no, we're not going to stand for that.

Righteous anger is a good thing. Acting out in in a, in a fleshly

way because of the anger is a bad thing.

If I take it on myself to, to rid the earth of all of these

people, is that righteousness now?

No, I'm acting out in my flesh, right?

God will judge. God will deal with it.

God will deal with it. All of the atrocities in our

earth, all of the things that have happened, God will deal

with it. I can be angry about it, but I'm

going to trust him, right? We're going to trust that our

Lord and Saviour, he's finished work and the work to come,

right? There's a finished work on the

cross, but God has work to do still.

God's going to judge the earth, right?

There's a work in that. And so all of that to say that

emotions are not an enemy. We just have to make sure that

our emotions don't rule over us, that the Lord rules over us.

We have to submit our emotions to the Lord.

Lord, I'm feeling something right now.

Gosh. Plus submit to you, Lord, just

just use me, do whatever it is you want.

Don't let me act out in my own flesh.

Don't let me act out in my own strength.

Lord, you know, we see that Jesus was tempted by Satan.

Did Jesus like it's the same story again.

The, the, the pattern is all the way through the Scripture.

Did did Satan tempt the Spirit of God or did he?

Did he tempt the flesh? You're hungry.

You've been fasting for 40 days. Why don't you just make some

bread and eat the bread you know you'd like?

You're the Son of God. Why don't you just throw

yourself down there and see if God will save you?

Why don't you just take the Kingdom for yourself?

It's yours anyway, right? He's tempting the flesh, and

Jesus is not having it. I will take nothing for myself.

I will let the Father decide, you know what he is going to

give me. I will yield to him.

I will do his will right. And and we love talking about

how Jesus fought, fought Satan in this by the word of God.

And he didn't just like, it's not like he just picked up a

Bible and just, you know, he didn't pick up a Bible, but it's

not just he didn't just speak these words to Satan to rebuke

Satan. It wasn't just like, well, the

word of God says this, so run away.

Do you know that he actually believes these words?

Do you know that when Jesus spoke the word that he was

submitting to the word, he was submitting to God, He was

saying, no, what you say is, is a liar.

These words are true. What the Lord says is true.

So it's not, it's no good just to know the Scripture and to say

it and to try and fight the enemy and fight your flesh with

the word. You know, it's believing it,

it's having it live inside you, it's trusting the Lord, it's

yielding yourself to to God and to his word.

That's how we fight the enemy. That's how we overcome Satan, by

believing it, not by just knowing it.

All right, I'm actually doing pretty good for time.

This is great. All right, so I'm going to read

when when Bruce was sharing in one of these meetings, I can't

remember which one it was, but a scripture came to mind for me

from John 831. And I'm going to read it for us

here. But I just want to sort of set

us up for this because I want to try and test us a little as I

read this. And so I'll give you some of the

context of the passage. Jesus is, is teaching and, and

Jesus says that he is talking to believers, those that believe

Jesus. And Jesus is sharing good news.

You know, he's talking about freedom.

Jesus is sharing a good thing. He's saying good things to

believers, right? That's the context or some of

the context. But I want us to be aware of how

these believers respond to Jesus.

I want to help us to be able to discern the response that's

going on inside them, whether it is of the flesh or whether it is

of the Spirit. And this is going to help us to

be able to discern in our own lives when the Word of God is

spoken to us. When you read the Word of God,

the things that I'm sharing today, what is our response?

Is it a fleshly response or is it a, a response in the spirit?

Because this matters a lot. And so I'm going to read from

Galatians 5 before we get there. And this is the fruits of the

flesh, right? These are the things that we

need to be looking out for, fruits of the flesh, enmity,

strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions,

divisions, right? Let's look out for some of those

things and the works of the Spirit.

These are the other, the other side that we need to be looking

for. Love, peace, joy, patience,

kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

self-control. All right, does that make sense?

We know what we're looking looking for.

Excellent. John 831.

There's a big chunk of Scripture here, so I'm just going to read

through all of it. So Jesus said to the Jews that

had believed him, If you abide in my word, you are truly my

disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set

you free. They answered him, We are

offspring of Abraham. We have never been enslaved to

anyone. How is it that you say you will

become free? Jesus answered them truly,

truly. I say to you, everyone who

practices sin is a slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the

house forever. The sun remains forever.

So if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me

because my words find no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen of my father, and you do not.

And you have not heard from my father.

They answered him. Abraham is our father, Jesus

said to them. If you were Abraham's children,

you would be doing the works that Abraham did, but now you

seek to kill him. But now you seek to kill me, a

man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works of your

father, they said to him. We are not born of sexual

immorality. We have one father, even God.

Jesus said to them, If God were your Father, you would love me,

for I come from God and AM, and I'm here.

I come not to do my own accord, but he that sent me.

Why do you not understand what I say?

It is because you cannot bear to hear my word.

You are of your Father the devil, and your will is to do

the Father's desires. He was a murderer from the

beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no

truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of

his own character, for he is a liar and the father of liars.

But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.

Isn't that interesting? How are these believers going?

Not great, right? Not great.

Jesus is speaking to believers. How much joy and peace and

patience and self-control can we see in their response there?

It's like from the get go they're offended.

Oh my God, you, you can't say that, right?

Strife, jealousy, fits of anger, divisions.

There's the the fruit of the flesh is evident in their

response right now. I would say they are fleshing

out right and and it's crazy because Jesus again, Jesus is

speaking to believers and Jesus is offering them freedom.

He's offering those that believe him something good and they're

offended and they don't want to borrow of it.

And Jesus even tells us that they're in the flesh.

He says you are of your father the devil and your will is to do

the Father's will, right? Your will is not the Father's

will. You're not seeking the Spirit of

God. You're not being led by the

Spirit of God. Your will is to do the will of

of your father, Satan, which is again, it's what we started off

talking about. This is what happened.

People were LED astray by their flesh by temptation.

So you realize that this is super relevant for us today,

right? Because we do this like when we

hear the word of God, those challenging things that the the

challenging words that that start to to spike something in

here. Like we're we flesh out

sometimes to the word of God, to truth.

I can think of many things for me and I know that you can like

we've been, we've been under the word of God for long enough to

just go not listening to that thing.

And it's scary because it's like Jesus speaks to believers and

offers them freedom and straight away they're offended.

They don't hear a word that he says.

They hear nothing. And Jesus is almost marvelling,

actually not listening to what I'm saying.

But then he goes, of course you're not listening because

you're of you're of devil, you're of the flesh, you're not

of the spirit. Of course you can't hear, you

are unable to hear right. And it's, and it's relevant to

us today because we do this all the time with the Word of God.

God wants to shape us and form us and grow us to be like him.

And quite often we're digging our heels in and just unwilling,

unwilling to hear. And the problem is that when you

first dig your heels in, you're not going to hear the rest of

it. You could dig your heels into

something I said when I started talking and miss every other

word. You could dig your heels into

something that was said at the start of the meeting.

You could dig your heels into to something that we've sung.

You could come in with a heart that's already dug in because

something didn't go your way this morning and you could just

be fleshing out right. You might just come into church

and everything's gone wrong and your people did just hurt you or

whatever. You could miss the whole thing

And, and it's funny to us because it happens all the time,

all the time. None of us are safe from that if

we're not able to discern. You have to be able to discern

where you're at right now. You know, I said something to

Hillary this morning. I said he's up the flesh or he's

up the spirit. She didn't want to hear it like

I and I know that she didn't. And but we sort of we're joking

now and because it's because it's like it's lighthearted in

our relationship with one another.

You can get out of it. But when you're truly offended

and you're like, this person is just trying to ruin me, you're

not going to hear it, you know? So it's through relationship

that we're able to poke and Oh, I don't know that.

What about that one? And you just go, oh gosh, you

know, she does it to me all the time.

And you just walk away and you just go, I don't want to hear it

yet. Just give us 10 minutes, you

know, just give us 10 minutes to the for the flesh to settle

down. And then I'll listen.

You know, I'm going to get better at listening straight

away anyway. This is I'm getting sidetracked

here. And so again, like these, these

were believers, it said and, and Jesus said, like the scripture

says that that he was speaking to the believers.

And so, you know, our confession, like, how do we know

that we're sons of God? How do we know that we're

daughters of the king? How do we know that we follow

his will? Is it through confession or is

it through action? It is through action. 1st

through His confession, then through action.

But the action has to be there, otherwise it's just the

confession. These people were confessing to

be followers of Jesus. What did they do in action?

Rejected completely, couldn't hear him.

So for us, we need to be following Christ in confession,

but in action that means putting to practice the word of God.

And so I just got a couple of scriptures here that I just want

to read just to just to, you know, strengthen this point that

is through action and not not just through confession.

Matthew 715 says beware of the false prophets who come to you

in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous

wolves. You will know them by their

fruits. That's saying that, you know,

someone could be a leader in a church and they on the outside,

you know, through confession, they could say all the right

things, but through the life that they live and the things

that they submit to in in God and in his will, you will know

them by their fruits. You'll be able to look at their

the action side of this and you go, something's not right here,

right one John 2 but whoever keeps his word, truly the love

of God is perfected in him by this.

We know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him or

also himself also walk just as he walked.

So it's confession, but it's in action.

We have to. It's no good just to say that

you believe if you don't walk this thing out.

One more. James 214.

No, that's not right. I think it's 18.

Anyway, let me just read it. I don't know if it's I've got

the right number here, but someone will say you have faith

and I have works. Show me your faith through your

works and I will show you my faith by my works.

You believe there is one God. Listen to this.

You do well to believe that even the demons believe.

Even the demons believe that Jesus is who he says He is.

So it's no good for me just to confess that Jesus is Lord and

not submit myself unto Him, and to do what he's called me to do

and to live how he's called me to live.

Even the demons know that Jesus is Lord.

They don't submit to His will though, I can tell you that,

right? This is really powerful stuff

for us guys, because, you know, you could sit in a church your

whole life and confess, confess, confess, confess and it could be

meaningless. You would you, you could miss

that. It takes you actually living in

it. You know, if Jesus could have

confessed the word of God to Satan and it would have had no

power, but he, he knew it, he lived it.

The the power was in him. Do you see very powerful, I

mean, Jesus, you know, when Jesus tells Satan to run, he

runs anyway. So he's God, all right, So

learning to discern. I wonder what's going on right

now. I wonder what's going on in US

right now, whether there's this thing in US that just going, oh

gosh, I don't want to hear any of this or, or whether you're

just like, like, you know, I wonder what's going on or

whether we're sitting and we're like, Lord, I want to yield to

you. I, I struggle, it's hard.

I know that I must change. I know that I must, you know,

review my life and go, oh, I can't do that anymore.

You know, when, when we talk about the, the good seed of the

good soil of our hearts, I love this.

It says that, you know, when the word is sown.

Let me just read it. Mark 414 The so or so is the

Word and, and these are the ones on the path where the Word is

sown. When they hear it, Satan

immediately comes and takes it away.

The Word that was sown, that is a hard heart.

That is someone that is not yielding to God and to His Word.

That is someone who could hear the Word.

And Satan comes and tempts your flesh and grabs it and runs away

with it, and then it doesn't take root inside you.

So this is the soil of our hearts.

And so when we respond to God and to His Word and to His

leading and to His guiding, when we respond in the Spirit, when

we willingly yield ourselves completely over to Him, it's

just like, well, the Word of God says it.

That's it. If that's what you were telling

me to do, I'll try it. I'll try my best, Lord, but

you're going to have to help me. Do you know what I mean?

Like I like I want to Lord, you're going to have to give me

grace. You're going to have to

strengthen me. You're going to have to help me

work, work this out. You're going to have to help me

to be have courage to be accountable, right.

But I want to and I choose to. And so this is when the when the

seed can take deep root in our hearts.

So this is by but these are the ones whom that was sown on the

good ground. Those who hear the word, listen.

Those who hear it accept it, accept it, and it bears fruit.

Some 30, some 30, some 60, some a hundredfold.

They hear the word and they accept it and it and it takes

root in our hearts and there's a harvest there.

All right, So when Satan comes to steal the seed, how do we

fight that? What do what do we do with that?

Because he's coming and he does and he and he pokes the flesh

and you've got it. You know, you're not free from

it, right? So he's got Satan's got a way in

through the flesh. How do we battle that?

You know, it starts with humility.

It really does. Like it starts with being humble

with, you know, I've said all this already, but like bending

the knee of your heart to the Lord, humility, move right back

from the beginning that he would be God, that I would be not, you

know, that I, that I would be subject to him that he's Lord,

that I'm not that he's God that I'm not that I'm his servant.

He's my master. Humility does that.

You can't submit to God with a prideful heart.

It won't allow you to. We have to be humble to come to

God and you know that the word says God gives something to the

humble. Do you know what it is?

Grace. How good is that?

God gives grace to the humble to help us, to grow, to shape us,

to empower us. God gives grace to the humble.

We should be seeking grace because we need it.

How do we seek it? Through humility.

And I am closing here. I'm doing, I was like 4 minutes

to spare. We are we're smashing this

today. Thank you Lord, so you know,

everything that we need is in Scripture.

Hope you guys know that it's just like every single thing

that you need for life and God, godliness can be found in his

word. Everything.

There is nothing that you are lacking that God hasn't put in

his word for you to find. But you know, the word says that

like it's an honour to dig in there and to find it you have to

go searching. You know, you got to go

searching for the treasure and God's willing to give it to you,

but you have to do something. There's action, right?

Confession. Lord, I believe your word action

is going and finding out what it says, right?

And so God offers us these amazing promises in his Word,

and He also gives us the path to be able to take hold of the

promises. And so I'm just going to, I'm

closing by just reading this one last text here in James 4,

starting from verse 6. Have a look at this with me.

It says that James 4, verse 6, it says God resists the proud

James 4:6

and gives grace to the humble. Verse 7, listen for this.

This is a command. Verse 7, verse 7 is a command,

OK? And what we're looking at here

is God's commands and promises, commands and promises, commands

and promises. You know, that you can't take

hold of God's promises if you're just not willing to walk in his

commands, like these promises he's given us.

You know, there's conditions to the promises.

It's not. Yeah, freely, like just all the

promises of yours. Just walk in them.

Yeah, I'm just going to sin and, like, walk in the grace of God.

Like there's conditions to to receiving the promises,

humility, right? God gives grace to the humble.

But anyway, so verse 7 is a command.

It says therefore submit to God, resist the devil.

That's the command. Resist the devil, submit to God.

And then there's a promise. What is the promise?

And he will draw near to you. There's a command and there's a

promise. Verse 8, Command.

No. Did I do that one already?

Yeah. OK, so the next command is it's

the end of verse 8. It says clean your hands, you

sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded.

Lament and mourn and weep and let your laughter be turned to

mourning, and let your joy into gloom.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord.

It's like don't just go on living, you know, just in, in

ignorant bliss, just in happiness and joy and peace.

If if you're not willing to submit to the Lord and you're

living in your, it says like humble yourself.

Realize that you are broken. It takes humility to realize

that you are broken. You know what people don't want

to hear that they're broken. I've experienced this in the

last couple of weeks. Broken people don't want you to

tell them that they're broken. Maybe I just need to be more

tactful. I don't, I don't know.

And so, you know, that was the command.

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord.

Promise, and He will lift you up.

How amazing are these promises? And He will draw near to you and

He will lift you up, right. So all of that just to say like,

let's be encouraged today. Let's not just live like, Oh my

gosh, that was heavy. There is such peace and and life

in the truth of the word of God. But in order to take hold of the

truth, it's going to require something of us.

And it's a simple thing. God hasn't made it hard for us.

God has just made it so that we would willingly, how good is

this, willingly submit to him. That's the reason that that's

what God has designed us to do. And there's such peace in living

in your design. My gosh, there's peace in living

in your design doing the thing that you're called to do.

How amazing is that? So I just, I encourage you like

I again, I don't know what was stirring in our hearts in this

place. In a sense, I, I, I hope that

there was a bit of the flesh going on because we're talking

about discerning. We're talking about being able

to see the difference between the flesh and the spirit when

the word of God is spoken. How am I responding to you,

Lord? But we don't I don't want to

leave us there in this place of of just, you know,

unresponsiveness. And so Ioffer us an opportunity

to seek the Lord together. You know, the word of God is

challenging, but it's challenging because there's a

powerful work that needs to be done in US and through US.

Amen. So let's just pray.

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for your divine purpose.

Lord, we thank you that that you are a good, good Father, that

you're a good God, and that you have nothing but good intentions

for us, your creation, your people.

We thank you, Lord, that you made a way for us through Jesus

and through the cross, through the death and the resurrection,

for us to be restored to you, for us to be able to overcome,

to be able to be empowered, Lord, to walk this thing out, to

have victory over sin. We thank you for that this

morning. And Lord, in in whatever the

things that you're speaking to us in this place, we willingly

choose to yield to you. And we know that we're not going

to just walk out of this place and get it all right and be

living, you know, perfect because there's still work to be

done. But we prayed earlier, Lord, we

want to leave this place greater equipped, shaped to be more like

you. And we believe we take a hold of

that by faith, Lord, that you would be doing a work even right

now, that we would walk out of this place empowered and strong

and able to walk this thing out. We thank you, Lord, we love you.

Lord, we bless your mighty name, Jesus name, Amen.

Excellent. Cool.

Yes. Yes, we are OK.

It's. The it's the problem of how hard

it is. You've spoken about it and I

think we all agree that when you're tempted, it's very hard.

And and I want to share 1 little thing that was a great blessing

to me. It has really helped me and that

is Jesus said I I must go for if I don't go, I can't send.

This is of course, paraphrasing. I can't send the helper, the

Holy Spirit. And he said when he comes, he

will, he will he he will lead you into all truths and all the

other things, but we need to nuts.

All right, I'm OK. I put my brakes on you.

So we don't as I got brakes, wheels and brakes.

The, you know, if you study, if you know something about the

history of our English Bible, it's in the most amazing story.

And we, it, it, it, it virtually was based on the Greek text of

the day. The Greek language, which isn't

the same as today was the, the, the lingua franca, the, the,

the, the, the, the language of the whole of the Mediterranean

spoke. It was the Romans had the power

and the Greeks had the, the culture, you see.

And so don't confuse those two. But it's based on that Greek,

that Greek text and the Greek that we translate as the helper

or and so on. The Greek word.

And I don't want to make you all Greek students now, but it's

pretty simple. These paracletos.

Now if you if you take that word and you break it up, you find

that para we know is alongside like parachute.

OK, Para is alongside Claytos is a form of kaleo, which is a

Greek word for calling. So it is calling something

alongside and it, it evolved from the the practice in those

days people were not wealthy. There were the masses were very

poor. Very few of them could have a

donkey, let alone a horse. And if you didn't have a donkey

and you wanted to get, take your, your produce to the

market, you had to have some means of transport.

So they made little carts and they, they would drag these

little carts behind them. And so the, and, and of course,

in those days, the roads were just tracks up and down the

mountains. I hadn't cut anything out.

So there were lots of hills. And the practice was that when

they, when, when you got to the bottom of a steep hill, there

would be a paracletos there. He's a guy that's waiting there

and you say him how much? And he will say OK, X amount you

pay him. Now this is the secret and this

is the thing that's helped me tremendously.

He you take the they, they would take the cart again and he would

start up the hill and the paracletos would go behind the

the the the cart and push. Now the, the key issue is this.

The two of you are pushing that card up the hill.

You're still straining working at it to get to the top of the

hill and and he's pushing. You don't feel, you don't sail

along, You don't. He doesn't push the whole thing.

He gives his, his, he's come alongside to help.

You see, when you get to the top of the hill, you turn around and

look down the hill and you think, Gee, I couldn't have done

that without his help. Now the secret is this.

And, and, and it has to do with that moment where you get to the

fork and your spirit of God is showing you what the Lord wants.

And the flesh is, is shouting its head off on the one side.

And and you, it's so hard. It looks impossible because your

your flesh, you know, even Paul said in, in, in Romans 7 and not

Romans 7. Yes, Romans 7, he said, I, I

want to serve God with my whole heart, but there's other thing.

There's another thing in me, this other law in me that that

is so, so making it so hard. Now the issue is this.

We think, if the we think too, we do not understand very often

how the Holy Spirit works. He's more gentle than harsh.

He can be harsh, He can blow the mountains away, but he works

gently. And so when you get to the fork

and you, you have the choice between the Spirit and the body

and the, and the, and the, and the flesh and you, you, you,

you, you make a decision at that point.

That's the problem. We have to make a decision.

I am going to walk in the spirit.

That term is not used very much. It's disappeared from our

scriptures because, and it's such a pity because we how do we

go through life? We walk along a journey.

See, that's what the Bible says, walk in the Spirit and not in

the flesh to fulfill its lusts. The.

Moment you make the decision as hard as it looks and you say I

will walk in the spirit and you launch out and do or say what

the spirit is showing you. The paratry starts pushing and

you find it's easy. You find you can do it.

You see we look at how hard it is and we I just go and do I'm

not that kind of person. I haven't you know, I'm not like

that. I'm I'm I'm I'm just this that

in the next thing and but if you make the decision and because

the spirit is there, the Paracleteus is alongside us all

the time. Actually English Anglicization

of that is Paraclete, maybe the Paraclete.

So the Paraclete is alongside us.

He's waiting. Jesus has paid him.

He doesn't have to be paid and and you and and so so if you and

it comes to any kind of temptation for food or anything

and and I think most of us men know that the problem is that

the big problem is to look away. You know, that's a big problem

and the ladies don't understand that their curves are a big

problem. Well, this is a real good all

you guys all you guys know we're talking about.

I'm really taking over your ceremony.

But, but let's say that the minute, the minute you, you are

tempted and you say, I will walk in the spirit, you find you can

do it. And what happens is that many of

the habits that we've developed in our lives because of the

flesh, we've lived in the flesh. We didn't know anything else.

All these little ones that are running around here are

operating in the flesh. That's why we're going to look

after them and we grow up in it. And, and, and, and, and so we

have a habit. So we habitually respond to some

of these things. Now you're going to break that

habit. And I can I can testify today

that if you keep choosing to walk in the spirit and you trust

the Paraclete to push from the back and you can get it done

eventually, break that habit. Thank you for joining us for

today's message. For more information about The

Way Church, please visit [email protected] dot

AU. Have a blessed day.