Dying To Live: The Secret To Spiritual Power | Jason Martin

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Up your tea. Dying to live, Dying to live, the

secret to spiritual power? Wow, secret to spiritual power. Okay,

we guys, I tell you a spoiler. There's no secret. Okay,

it's all in the Bible. It's a secret because maybe

you didn't find it. So now I show it to you.

Then you realize that atally it's not a secret. It's

been there all this time. Okay, So dying to live.

So the picture here is the explosive power when the

Holy Spirit, they said the dunamis power is dynamite, dynamite.

You can a dina. Even a dynamite cannot explode quietly.

You know. The small US example of a dynamite is

your pop up. You know, you playing Chinese here, you

have your pop pops and then you throw it on

the floor. It also makes a small pop. But a dynamite.

If the Holy Spirit the word dunamis power, it means right,

it has a major impact. It has a major impact

in our lives, and it has a major impact on

the people around us. And that is the kind of power.

I'm like man, how come I don't I'm not experiencing

that kind of power? What is the difference? What am

I missing?

You know?

So next night, so the paradox of power. So at one,

this is when Jesus told the disciples, you shall receive

power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and

you shall be my witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in

all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

This same power. If we are having the same power, okay,

I'm just giving you putting it up front. We have

this same power, okay, and this same power. How powerful

was it? This power was so powerful that it turned

a coward into a world changer. That was Peter, you know,

from someone who denied Jesus into the first sermon, converting

three thousand. They went to the temple. For example, imagine

on your way to church today you saw someone begging

for money and stuff like that, and then you're like,

silver and gold have I none? But you may, or

Jesus rise up and walk. That was how that is

the power Peter had. Can you imagine if you're coming

to church this morning you saw someone who was disabled

who was asking for alms, and you if you have.

If not, If you have, we have the same power.

We should be able to do that if the Holy

Spirit leads us to But why can't we do it?

Or why is it not happening? Is it because it

only happened in it's due to the time. That means

only I think it was thirty three eighty right or

sometimes after Jesus. Right now, it's like two thousand years

has passed, So maybe time has changed, Maybe the Holy

Spirit has changed. You know what, God is the same yesterday,

today and forever. He's the same. What has changed? We

we have changed. So if the spirit, if the power

the spirit is not working, it's not there's something wrong

with the spirit. Is something wrong with who the Spirit

is living in? Again? Right? This is not a condemnation message.

This is how I process things because I want to

live with the power of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so

this is my thought process. So I'm not condemning anybody.

I'm telling you right now, I am not living. I

am not satisfied with how much of the power of

the Holy Spirit that is living in me, and I

am not doing what X one It says that I

shall be your witness in Jerusalem in Samaria and to

the ends of the earth. Okay, so this is me.

The question is if I have the Holy Spirit, why

am I not living with His power? That's the question. Okay,

that's the question. And this question, right, it is the

same question that kept like this morning, I woke up

like four am. I'm like, cannot sleep. I'm like, man,

we got disgusting this question. I'm like, I need to sleep,

you know, I need to sleep. I need to because

I had to put all this together, you know. And

is this this question is the question that has been

bugging me. I mean ever since I prepared the first one.

But it's I could never put things together, and then

it just so happened that then now Sunday, like sundly

four am, suddenly without the alarm, suddenly wake up. They're like,

I forced myself to sleep, cannot fight wake up. After that,

I'm like, I'm just gonna get up and try and

work on this. Okay, So next thanks, Like so powerless.

Christianity is the result of a spirit inhabited life, but

governed by a self centered heart. So what this means

is that we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal

Lord and savior. Yes, Holy Spirit lives in us. Yes,

Does the Holy Spirit govern us?

No?

Because if the Holy Spirit governs us, then we will

do whatever he tells us to do, and we will

live according to what he wants us to live, and

that's when his power will be manifested. You know. But

most of the time why I am probably struggling is

because instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to govern my life,

I am falling back to the flesh. The flesh is like, okay, hey,

the Holy Spirit asks you to go and speak to somebody. Okay,

that's what For example, Holy Spirit tells you, Hey, go

and speak to this person. Tired too, tired, it's been

a long day. I'm tired. I'm not going to do it.

Someone else will speak to this person. And just like that,

you are diminishing the Holy Spirit's power in your life.

Each no is putting the Spirit more and more into

a box. He's still in your life, but he has

less You are giving him less power and authority, and

you're giving the flesh more and more authority. There's no

middle middle ground in your life. There is a flesh

and the Spirit. You either give the spirit more ground

or you give the flesh more ground. Each decision we

make is a vote into who is governing our life. Okay,

next life. So what does Jesus say, right, Because Jesus

said in one x one eight, wait here, and the

Holy Spirit will come upon you, and you will receive power.

He told this to who his disciples. What are disciples?

Disciples are those who follow Jesus. But what does it

mean to follow Jesus? So what it means to follow

Jesus is Luke nine twenty three. If anyone desires to

come after me, let him deny himself and take up

his cross daily and follow me. So this is actually

a prerequisite to act one e. You know that most

of the time, right, we think that a I accepted

Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior, I got

a free ticket to haven't I got the golden ticket?

You know? You know, Willy Wonka, you found a golden

ticket and then you can go into the chocolate factory.

Most of the time, that's Christians we think like that.

But this is the secret. This is the secret to

having a spiritual to living with the full power of

the Holy Spirit, which is to let deny himself, take

up his cross daily, and follow Jesus. The key word

here is daily. Okay. So the three distinct actions deny itself,

take up the cross, and follow. You cannot skip to

the third without doing the first two. You can't say

that you're a follower of Jesus if you don't deny yourself. First,

take up your cross, and then follow. Okay. And we

may have done this once. You might have done this

during a church cam, during a youth cam. Jesus, I

give you my life, I give you you send me

to the ends of the earth. You come up for

altar call, but next day you forgot about it. So

I'm not saying you haven't done it before. But Jesus

says we have to do it daily. You have to

come to the altar daily, surrender our lives, daily, die,

and then follow him. It's a daily thing. Unless you

don't sleep right. All of us sleep right, you sleep,

you wake up. Then it's a reset. Okay. So let's

go a bit deeper into it next night. So deny himself.

So what does it mean to deny himself? That means

there are things in our life that we are we prefer, Okay, Like,

for example, we will always prefer to do something that

is easier. We prefer to do something that is within

our comfort zone. We prefer to do something that is safe,

you know, that will not get us into trouble, that

we have full control of. That is what we naturally do,

any of us. You purposely go and look for danger, like, hey,

I'm bored today, Let's go and look for danger, you know,

or whatever it is. Most of the time we would

want to be in a safe place. We want to

have full control. But when he says deny ourselves, it

means whatever is important to me must be second. I

need to put what is important to the Holy Spirit first,

and what is important that the Holy Spirit usually is

the opposite of the flesh. That's the tough part. That's

why you must always choose whether you want to say

yes to the Holy Spirit or yes to the flesh. Okay,

so your surrendered rights, your opinions, your your preferences, and

agendas are no longer the ultimate authority. You know right now,

the main thing is feelings. You this make your decision

based on how you feel, and feelings are driven by

the flesh. You know, how many of us right you

feel like, wow, you feel awesome? Getting up tomorrow and

going to work. How many? I'm all right, you don't

if you go by feelings, right, I think majority of

us will not get up and go to work tomorrow.

But the fact is we still get up and go

to work tomorrow. It's because we don't decide based on

feelings when it comes to the natural. If we decide

based on feelings, then we will not have food on

our table, we will not have been able to provide,

we won't have a roof over our head, we won't

have a car, we won't be able to provide for

our kids or our parents. Right, we do things because

we have a responsibility to do so, and not by

emotions of feelings. But when it comes to the things

of God, suddenly it's like, hey, I don't feel like

doing it, and feelings seems to take precedents. So it

is a shift in the center from what do I

want to do versus what does God wants me to do?

So every decision you make you can evaluate it what

do I want to do versus what God wants me

to do. The more you walk closer to God, the

more it becomes that what you want to do is

what God wants you to do. Then you know you're

walking in alignment with God. But if what you want

to do is the opposite, then you know that it's

decision that you take that on will make you work

further and further away from Him. Okay, so this is

the first one denying ourselves. Next next is crucified. Yes,

take up his cross. So take up the cross. You

know right now, the cross is like a fashion symbol.

You know, some people weary as a fashion symbol. They

think it's cool. Some people they wear it on their

T shirt. Some people get tattoos of a cross. In

terms of it. But in Jesus' time, the cross only

had one meaning that it was for the worst kind

of criminals. And that's what Jesus said, take up your cross.

Take out a cross means to die, That means to

kill whatever fleshly desired that we have. You don't carry

a cross to be uncomfortable. You don't carry it for

inconvenience or difficulty. You carry it because you want to

die to self. So you carry a cross to die.

You don't carry across just to like punish yourself or

whatever it is. You carry across to die. And crucifixion

is the end of the self will, so that the

divine will can rain. Only when one thing ends can

something else start. And that's why you have to do it.

What daily? Okay, next, that's why there's a daily death

and there's a daily resurrection. Only if there's a daily death,

will there be a daily resurrection. You don't wait for

resurrection on Easter. They were like man once one day

in three hundred and sixty five days, only we celebrate

the resurrection. No, we should be celebrating the resurrection every

single day, because that's what Jesus' command is to us

every morning. So Luke adds the word daily. It is

not a one time crisis decision. It's not like Jesus,

I surrender my life to you, like for example, you

say the salvation prayer the first time you get saved,

or you'd say it and then you forget about it.

That's why whenever we say the Salvation prayer at the end. Right,

even as we are Christians, I still believe that we

need to re dedicate our lives every single day because

if not, our fleshly desires will keep on coming up.

So it is a morning by morning practice and crucified

again is every morning the self resurrects with its own

plans and lust. Every morning it must be led back

to the cross and be crucified again. Do you believe this?

An example is every morning, when your alarm clock rings,

you got two decisions. One decision is snooze. One decision

is to wake up straight away. So right when you asleep,

the flesh rose up again. The moment your alarm rings,

the flesh is awake and tells you snooze versus why

did you set the alarm in the first place, The flesh,

as you said, the alarm. You know, you set the

alarm because because you have obligations, you know, and stuff

like that. But if, for example, if you set the

alarm because you want to do your daily devotion at

a certain time, and you went to sleep saying that

you set the alarm so that I'll wake up at

six to do my devotion, the first decision itself is

already a decision of flesh versus the Holy Spirit when

the alarm rings, and each decision after that will follow. Oh,

that first decision, because once you snooze, what happens. All

of us know this story, right, All of us know

this story. Nothing ever good came out from losing. Right,

we either U came late, you forgot your khakis, you've

got your phone. You you start shouting at the kids,

the kids, and so we come late, and you know

it's a it's a whole thing. But it all starts

with a decision. They start on the flesh, and that's

why we have to on a daily basis, die to flesh,

take it, deniw ourselves, take up the cross, which is

to dive to flesh, and then follow Jesus, which is

resurrect So the purpose of dying is not that itself,

but the liberation to follow. So this is by Born Hoffer.

He was a German preacher. So you think about it,

most of us are we say, well, Christians are very difficult.

Every time must die, die to sell, die die. It's

not the full story. You die so that you may live.

That's why the title of the sermon we die to live.

If we don't die to sell, we cannot live the

life God intended us to live. So by dying to self,

we liberate ourselves. We have freedom, We have freedom from

the flesh. And that's why this this phrase. The purpose

of dying is not that itself. Don't think about it

very difficult Christian. You know, most people like you you're

probably have heard this from your friends or whatever. Being

a Christian, marihana everything cannot. Everything must die to itself

in a sense of saying everything cannot. You know, I

can't do anything that I want to do. But we

got the wrong concept, because if we do everything that

we wanted to do, then we will be in a mess.

But if we do what God wants us to do

and do less of what we feel like doing, that's

when we can experience freedom. Okay, So next light, So

this is from Galatians sixteen, verse seventeen. So there is

a difference between the flesh and the spirit. He says here,

I say, then walk in the spirit, and you shall

not fulfill the last of the flesh. The flesh lasts

against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh. These

are contrary to one another, so that you do not

do the things that you wish. You see, you cannot

have the flesh and the spirit guiding you at the

same time. That's why I was thinking, why am I

not living in the power of the Holy Spirit. It's

probably because I keep on choosing that the answers of

the flesh, which leads me further and further away from

where the Holy Spirit wants me to be and where

the Holy Spirit. If it leads me further and further

from where the Holy Spirit wants to be, then there

won't be the power of the Holy Spirit in me

being manifested because I'm not where he wants me to be. Right,

So can we go to verse nineteen? So what happens

if we walk in the flesh? Okay? Now, the works

of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, phnication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousy,

outbursts of rass, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murder, drunkenness, revelries,

and the like of which I tell you beforehand. Just

I told, as I told you in the time past,

that those who practice such things will not inherit the

Kingdom of So I told you. It starts the moment

our alarm clock rings. There is a battle between the

spirit and the flesh. And the works of the flesh

is this, And do you know that the world is

in this place? The world is getting more and more evil,

because more and more people are succumbing to the flesh.

And when you see all these items here, right, it's

all about what's in it for me? You look at it.

Why envy, why murder, why drunkenness? Why everything is pointing

towards me getting what I want, regardless of who gets hurt,

regardless of what happens to everyone else. But what is

it if we live by the spirit next verse? But

the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

next gentleness and self control I think verse twenty three, Yeah,

against shut such there is no law. So when we

choose the Holy Spirit, the fruits of the Holy Spirit

become so real in our lives. But if we choose

the works of the flesh, then those are the results.

So if I go back to my slight next light,

so the evidence of the flesh. So like what I mentioned,

just all right, So there will be relational, moral, spiritual,

and social. But the main thing you can see that

the root here is all self. We are doing it

because of self protection, self gratification, self sovereignty, and we

want to exalt self. If we choose the works of

the flesh, we will keep on choosing things that will

put us in the center. When we put us in

the center, who is not in the center God? And

the result of that, the evidence of it is all

of this hatred, contention, jealousies, wrath, selfish ambitions, and all

this is because we chose so works are manufactured fast

and require human effort to sustain. You know, if you

want jealousy right, you will work harder. You will force

yourself to work harder, or you will slender other people,

you know, any you because you continuously want to do

that until you become the top. It takes a lot

of effort. It takes a lot of effort, and it

destroys everyone around you, including yourself. But the Holy Spirit,

if you take follow what the Holy Spirit wants you

to do do, then you will have the fruit of

the Spirit, which is next light, love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,

and self control. And fruit is okay, you can't force

fruit to grow, but if you choose the Holy sp

Spirit daily, this fruit will just manifest. You don't have

to worry about making this fruit happen. The fruit of

the Holy Spirit will just appear in our lives. So

if we want more love, joy, peace. We want more

power of the Holy Spirit in us. Do we have

these characteristics? If we do have these characteristics, it means

that the fruit of the Spirit is growing in us.

And it's because we are choosing to follow his leading.

So fruit, it is not produced by striving. It grows

naturally when the tree is healthy. Right, So where do

we go from here? Where do we go from here?

Next night? I think there's one slide it before this?

He sorry, yeah, yeah, correct thislike yeah, So think of

it this way. Our life is a garden. We're thinking

that why do I have to die to self every day? Right?

Why do I have to die to self every day?

It's very tiring. How many of you all love gardening? Okay,

some of you all love gardening? Do you know that gardening? Right,

it's a it's a daily effort on some people. They

may not be daily, but periodic. That means, right, you

cannot just plant the garden and just leave it. What

will happen if you don't. There'll be weeds, you'll be

la lang, there will be uh yeah, there will be

so many become a forest, you'll become yeah, there will

be past, there will be different things. But there needs

to be a daily maintenance to remove the things that

you do not want in your garden. The same thing

happens in our lives. We need to daily remove the

weeds of self in our lives so that the fruit

of the spirit can grow healthily. If we don't, the

weeds will take over. That's why the secret is daily.

The secret is what Jesus said, right that to surrender

our lives, to take up the cross daily and follow him,

then we will have the fruit of the spirit. Okay, next,

so how do we go from here? This is like grand,

This is like how so now we need to know? Okay,

we know all that. Why probably I'm not experiencing the

fruit of the spirit is maybe because I've been choosing

more of the flesh instead of the spirit. So what

do I need to do? What do I need to do?

So what we need to do is every time we

are faced with a decision. I know it might be tiring,

but think of it as big decisions are don't like

do I have to have coffee or tea? Not the

kind of decisions, but decisions that have weigh on your conscience. Okay,

is the flesh or the spirit driving? This is the

flesh or the spirit driving this decision. So if the

spirit is the first step is you obey the prompting,

you step out in faith. Okay. Next, when you obey

the prompting, you become small are sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

So when you become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit,

the Holy Spirit will say that, hey, I will prompt

you even more because you are listening to me. You're

not ignoring me. So I'll increase the prompting. And when

it becomes an active dialogue that the Holy Spirit suddenly

becomes one in your life. He's not just a part

of your devotion. He's entwined in your life, in your

decision making. It becomes an active dialogue. And that's how

we live to become powerful Christians. That's how the disciples

in the First Church lived every decision they made. They're like,

Holy Spirit, what do you want me to do? Holy spread?

What's next? Holy Spirit? You asked me to ask the

laymen to stand up, I will do it. You ask

me to go preach to three thousand, I will preach.

You asked me to do this, I will do this.

And that's how the power of the Holy Spirit manifested.

There was no light. I think that, well, that's quite embarrassing.

Holy Spirit, he asked me to go ahead, ask the

laymen to stand up if it doesn't stand up. How

most of the time I also be asking that question, right,

But that's why I don't experience the power the Holy Spirit,

because instead of obeying him, I questioned him, and then

I choose the flesh, which is self preservation on a

safe face. And when I say face, I don't experience

the power the Holy Spirit. So this is the This

is how we grow closer to the Holy Spread and

experience his power. But the inverse is also true. The

inverse is if you ignore the prompting, then you will

get less prompting, less sensitive to the Holy Spirit. When

you get less sensitive to the Holy Spirit, you suddenly

feel like, hey, God is not speaking to me. Why

God not? Why I feel very far away from God?

I feel very dry. Church is boring and stuff like that,

because suddenly you're very far away. And then what happens

is powerless Christianity. So you accept Jesus Christ as your

personal Lord and Savior while you're not experiencing the power

of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives and church.

This is where I'm asking us are we powerless Christians?

This is a question that I had to ask myself.

Am I a powerless Christian? That means I know accept

Jesus Christ is my personal law and savior, but I'm

not experiencing the power in my daily life.

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