Walking in Victory Seminar Part 4

Um I was I was given some some good insight into into how I can present some things here.

We've been talking about the four R's.

Guess you're waiting on you, Gerald.

Reconcile, redeem, restore, and righteous.

Okay, rec reconcile, redeem, restore, and righteousness.

One thing that I that I didn't think about is sometimes um terms can be can be used, and we kind of know what they mean, but then at the same time, we don't really, and if it's four points that I want to keep hammering home, I should make so that we know what I'm talking about.

So I wanted to just take a little bit of time and just talk about those four points.

Um reconcile.

Um the first two, like I said before, are not our choice, they're his.

He sent Christ to reconcile us to himself.

What does that mean?

To be made one with.

So we lost connection with the Father, and Christ came that we might be reconciled, we might be brought back to oneness with the Father.

And so that's in short, that's what reconcile means.

And then to redeem is simply to buy back.

So to put this in perspective, we were created for his image.

We sold out to Satan, and he bought us back.

So in the whole scheme of things, we were never our own.

We can never say, well, it's my life, I'll do with it what I want.

We weren't created for us, and we were bought with a price.

It's not our life, it's never been our life.

And that's what it means to be redeemed, be to be bought back.

And then restore, that's a special one for Janine and I.

We were talking about it.

Um, I talked a little bit about our story from my context, you know, just the the bondage that I was in.

And one of the things that that really that really I hung on to for a while was the idea of restoration.

Um there in Joel, you find you find the account where he talks about the years of the locusts.

And he and he he's making an analogy with the fact that the locusts came in, and that I I should have looked it up again just to just to bring it fresh in my mind, but there were a couple different kinds of locusts.

The one came in and ate the leaves, so to speak.

I I don't know exactly what another one came in and took everything down to the stalk.

Another came in and took the stalk, and the the the fourth group came in and just wiped out everything, okay?

But then God made a promise.

He said, I will restore the years the locusts have destroyed.

I will restore the years that the locusts have destroyed.

Now I know that that was a promise given to Israel.

It was to his people.

It wasn't to me, it wasn't directly to me that he said that.

But all through scripture, you see God as a God of restoration.

And he's the same today, yesterday, forever.

So if God restores in that manner to them, to those people, then why shouldn't I believe that that's the way he restores to me?

If if that's the kind of restoration that he brings, then I can believe that for myself.

And so I I was like, I had I had brought you know our marriage to a point where it just, I didn't know how I could ever make it right.

And the thing is, I couldn't.

Things I had done were beyond um repairing, beyond changing.

There wasn't anything I could do to undo what I had done.

But one thing I could do is hang on to the promise that God said, I will restore the years that the locusts have destroyed.

And so I did.

I don't know how.

I don't know how it's gonna happen, don't know how it's gonna work.

And here we are together with a desire to share our story with people that God can be honored and glorified.

Not that a person has to have that kind of a story, but just the idea that God would take what we messed up and he would restore it in that way.

Do you hear some rain dropping?

Oh.

The Holy Spirit is in this place.

We know that.

So, but just to just to reflect on what restoration is.

Restoration is beyond what we can even imagine.

And so don't ever lose sight of what he wants to do when it says restore.

So I don't know if that helps with that, with that word there, but that's what restoration is, to to do beyond where we where we left Christ, to take us beyond that and closer to him.

And then the the last word, righteousness.

That one there is simply means right standing before God.

He has made us righteous in his sight.

Now, that there's a choice that is involved here, okay?

And that's what we want to look at tonight when we look at this idea of putting on righteousness.

Why why is it so important that we put on righteousness?

Um, how do we put on righteousness?

Um, we talk a lot about a lot about um entering into his rest because of the finished work, and then we're talking about all the things we need to do.

And it can get it can get um confusing and disorienting sometimes.

What are we talking about?

Are we really uh are we really resting in the finished work, or are we doing things that that um that are making this take place?

And so I want to try to try to explain that.

First of all, I want to I I want to look at 2 Corinthians chapter 3, the first part of the chapter there, and um just just a little bit here, you know, one of the reasons that that righteousness is is so important is we don't need the world doesn't need another sermon, okay?

2 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

What the world needs are living epistles.

Now, what is a living epistle?

Well, we've been looking at epistles, and that's that's what they called the books that were written, the letters that Paul wrote, the letters that that John and Peter wrote.

Those were epistles.

They were written with ink on paper, they were handed out, they were they were instruction on how to conduct yourself, how to live out what Christ taught.

And here in this in 2 Corinthians 3, here he's he talks a little bit about living epistles and calls us to that.

He says, Do we begin again to commend ourselves?

Or do we need as some as some others epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you?

You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men.

Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on the tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

So we are living epistles, not written with ink, but the Holy Spirit is writing on our hearts what he wants other people to see.

We can't have this understanding that we were saved so that we can go to heaven.

That's a true statement.

We do get to go to heaven, but that's not why he redeemed us.

That's not what he bought us back to.

He brought us back so that we can have his spirit minister to others through our lives.

The disciples asked Jesus about eternal life.

He said, eternal life is to know the Father.

You know, so yeah, I mean, we talk about the place because it describes a place, but in all reality, to know the Father, that's eternal life.

That's where that's where eternal life begins.

That's where eternity begins.

What's that?

I feel like it's because that can be a good thing.

Yeah.

Right, yeah.

Yeah.

Turn to Numbers 14.

We're gonna do um look at uh at a little bit more scripture tonight than we did other nights or other sessions, but uh Numbers 14.

Yeah, twenty-one I think twenty-one and twenty-four.

This is this is the Lord speaking, okay?

Verse twenty-one, but truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.

That's a decree he has declared.

That is his goal, that is what he intends to accomplish.

In verse 24, it says, But my servant Caleb, um actually, let's just go ahead and read the other verses because it explains a little bit because it verse 22, because all these men who have seen my glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded my voice, they certainly shall not see the land which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected me see it.

But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him.

How many of you have heard messages on the spirit of Caleb?

I know I have different times.

You know, the spirit that is in Caleb, the spirit that was in Caleb.

Uh the story that always intrigues me is Caleb, he comes into the promised land, and he had been promised 40 years before that this mountain.

And here he is, 80 years old.

And at that time, different ones of them were making it into the hundreds and stuff, but it wasn't like they lived 900 and some years like they had earlier on.

So you can say you can pretty much say that he was nearing the end.

But guess what?

Guess what he said?

He said, give me that mountain.

He said, I have the same strength now as I did before.

When he was promised that mountain, he had the same strength as then.

Well, why?

Because he understood that the strength that he had when he was 40 in his prime was still the Lord.

So the strength that he had when he was 80 was the Lord's.

And anything that God wanted him to have, he didn't want to miss out on.

You know, there's times that God wants us to have things and he works it out so that we can have them, and we're so indifferent with it.

We need to be careful.

We need to realize that when God gives us something for a purpose, even if we don't see the purpose in it, don't disregard the fact that God gave it with something in mind.

He had something in mind.

In Caleb here, he's he's like, hey, give me that mountain.

There was a different spirit in Caleb.

But he wanted to be a part of that of that what that decree that the Lord had said, as sure as I live, the earth is gonna be filled with my glory.

That's gonna be a great thing to witness, and I want to be a part of that.

So then we come to putting on his righteousness.

What does it mean to put it on?

Um, we talk about putting on righteousness like it's an article of clothing or something, and in some ways it is, but it's something that we can put on.

Um I know sometimes we get caught every morning.

I want to put on my righteousness.

Well, maybe don't take it off at night.

Maybe just wear it, you know.

But but it is that idea that he has, you know, we're given the analogy of a robe of righteousness.

So it is, it is alluded to like it is an article of clothing, but he's given it to us because he wants to see us in it.

He wants others to see us in it.

So he wants us to put it on.

Well, how do we put it on?

Turn to Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

We're gonna look a little bit at some verses that talk about putting on righteousness.

There's there's actually, before we get to that point, you still turn to Romans 10 because it's there, but we have to we have to come to grips with the fact that there is two different kinds of righteousness.

And that's what he wants us to see here in chapter 10 is the different kinds of righteousness.

There's the righteousness of the law, and then there's the righteousness of God.

So he starts in verse one.

He says, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.

For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.

For they being ignorant of God's righteousness and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Now, just so we're not mistaken here, let's recap what Christ said.

Christ says he didn't come to destroy the law, but to fulfill the law.

Okay?

So when he says here Christ was the end of the law to righteousness, he wasn't annihilating the law.

It's like a contract.

When you have a contract with somebody and there's payment being made for that contract, um, if someone comes along and they pay all the final payments, guess what happens?

They've completed the contract.

They fulfilled the contract.

So guess what happens?

That contract goes away.

Wasn't destroyed, it was fulfilled.

It was completed.

The law was a was a in uh 2 Corinthians, he talks about it, the law, it was it was tremendous.

It was, it was, um, the glory that of the law was such that when Moses went up to the mountain to get to get the the law, it was so glorious that that his face shone to the point where he had to cover his face.

He said, if the glory of the of that covenant, the covenant that led to death, if it was so glorious that he had to cover his face, it said, can you imagine the glory of the new covenant that leads to life?

So he was not putting down the old law or the covenant, but he's just saying the righteousness that came from that old covenant, that old law, it was fulfilled in Christ.

Well, what was that righteousness?

For Moses writes about the righteousness which is of the law.

And what he writes is the man who does those things shall live by them.

If you do the law, guess what?

You're going to live.

And you're going to live by the law.

But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way or is interpreted this way.

Don't say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven?

To say that is to give the idea that Christ is up there, we're down here, and we're separated.

So don't say who's going to get to heaven?

Or who will descend into the abyss?

That's to assume that Christ is still in the grave.

But what does it say?

Well, the word is near you, it's in your mouth, in your heart.

What is the word?

It's the word of faith which we preach.

That if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in our heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes unto righteousness.

So, how do you put on righteousness?

By taking everything we've talked about this weekend and saying, yes, this is what he did for me.

This is true.

I believe right now I have a clear conscience before God because of the sacrifice of Christ, and I believe that I am putting on righteousness.

Now, what what kind of righteousness is this that we're putting on?

Well, if we read in 1 Corinthians, it says that Christ is our righteousness.

We have the very righteousness of Christ.

Why?

Because he is our righteousness.

It's not like he's given us his righteousness, he is our righteousness.

How righteous do you think Christ is?

Guess what?

When he walked into heaven after the resurrection, I can just imagine the eruption that went through heaven when he stepped in in the court there and said, Hey, got it done.

It worked.

We did it, you know.

And I'm sure it wasn't that eloquent, okay?

But I'm sure he said something that got the point across.

In the eruption, the gratitude of the Father for what he had accomplished.

That's the same gratitude the Father has when you or I step into his presence.

Why?

Because we are wearing the righteousness which is Christ.

Not because of who I am, not because of what I've done, but because of who Christ is, what he's done, and I've been made one with him, and I'm coming into his presence.

That was the goal.

That was what he was after.

He wants fellowship.

Why?

So that his name can be proclaimed across the whole earth.

Why?

Because he loves his creation.

If God was anything that you can name that God is, but you left out that he was love, you don't have anything we want to call God, really.

He'd be judgmental, he might be merciful, but I wouldn't be fit for for the mercy because, yeah, I don't have anything for that.

It's only because he's love that makes God who he is.

And he wants his creation to be able to experience that.

For with the heart we believe unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made to salvation.

So now, again, we see that we see you know what righteousness is, we see how we obtain righteousness, but what about why why is it so important that we that we put it on?

Well, I I touched on it a little bit in one of the other sessions, but I wanted to um look at it a little bit more in depth.

Turn to first Corinthians 15.

I think thirty-three.

Yeah, thirty-three and thirty-four, okay.

Do not be do not be deceived.

Evil company corrupts good habits.

But the the next verse is the one I one I was after.

It says, awake to righteousness and do not sin, for some do not have the knowledge of God.

I speak this to your shame.

So he directly ties our putting on righteousness and our not sinning to people having or not having the knowledge of God.

And he says, I'm speaking this to your shame.

What does that have anything to do?

What is me deciding to put on righteousness have anything to do with somebody else having a knowledge of God?

Turn to John, let's see, John fifty or John 16.

John 16, uh, five through eleven.

Yeah.

So here we have in this passage, Jesus is talking to his disciples, and he's telling them, listen, he said, when I go, um, I'm gonna send someone.

He said, actually, he said, it's it's important for for you that I go, because if I don't go, I can't send this one who is like me.

But if I go, I can send him.

Then then he wants to convey to them who this Holy Spirit is, who this comforter is, what what's going to be his his job?

And so here in this passage, he's kind of laying it out what the what the work of the Holy Spirit is.

Verse 5, but now I go away to him who sent me.

And none of you asks me, where are you going?

But because I have said these things, you saw because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I depart, I will send him to you.

And when he comes, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment.

Well, hold it, let's back up a little bit.

He's gonna convict the Holy Spirit's gonna convict the world of sin.

I thought Christ removed sin.

How what what's the Holy Spirit doing convicting the world of sin?

Well, he explains it then.

He said, in verse 9, he said, of sin because they do not believe me.

So it directly brings it back to the fact that Christ came and said he was there to remove the sin of the world.

So now all of a sudden, and they didn't believe him.

That's not possible.

People today still don't believe him.

People today still say, well, that's not possible.

You can't not sin.

You just you just have to.

It's not possible to go to just not sin.

And so what we do is we just make it so so real in our lives that we we just sin.

Good thing there's grace, right?

God forbid.

We've taken that idea that Paul was so adamant about, should we continue in sin that grace can abound?

To the point where we're like, well, we can't not sin, so let grace abound.

God forbid.

That's not at all what he intended.

He says the Holy Spirit's gonna convict the world of sin because they're gonna be looking around and they're actually gonna start seeing people that have put on righteousness and have quit sinning.

And they're gonna have no other option but to believe what Jesus said.

They're gonna be convicted that you know what?

Jesus really did remove sin.

They're not sinning, they're living righteous lives.

He goes of righteousness because I go to my father and you see me no more.

And we talked about that a little bit in one of the other sessions, but he's the same thing there.

He's gonna convict the world of righteousness because they were accustomed to seeing righteousness in Jesus.

We even today in the church will say, Well, yeah, but that was Jesus.

That was him.

I mean, I've even done that myself.

Have given, have given up on something because I'm just human.

Well, guess what?

All of those things describe Christ, someone who came in the flesh and yet was able to live in righteousness.

He's gonna, the Holy Spirit is gonna convict the people that are looking around, seeing believers, not just Christians, but believers, not just someone who follows Christ, but someone who believes Christ.

Believers that have said, you know what?

I believe that Christ's righteousness is my righteousness.

And they're walking in that.

And the world is going to be convicted by the Holy Spirit that, you know what, we still see righteousness, even though Christ is not here.

What's the deal?

You know, the the demons when Christ came across the lake there and and got out of the boat, and the demons seen him, and they were like, What are you doing?

They were shocked.

Are you here to torment us before our time?

They couldn't believe what they were seeing.

They knew who he was.

It was the Son of God in a man's body.

Guess what?

His spirit, the spirit that was in Christ, is the same spirit that he's made available to you and I.

Christ came in the same type of body that you and I have, same type of body, but with the spirit of God in him.

And he made it possible that you and I can have the same type of body that he had with the same spirit in us.

Why?

To convict the world of righteousness.

And the last one of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

We will convict the rulers of this world, and I'm not talking Trump and Putin, and I'm talking there are there are spiritual rulers of this world.

We'll convict the physical rulers of this world also, but he's talking about the spiritual rulers of this world are gonna be judged, and they're gonna be convicted of judgment.

Why?

Because of our lives, because of righteousness.

Turn to um Philippians one Philippians one, verse twenty-seven.

Says here, and this is somewhat fitting that we um this isn't the last the last um passage I want to look at tonight, but this is one of the last ones, and and it's fitting that we would that we would uh look at this now, because we looked at this passage, I think the first the first passage we looked at in the set in the series here.

But in verse 27, it says, Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

Verse 28 there, and not in any way terrified by your adversary.

When we stand firm in the faith of the gospel, and we aren't put off in any way by the enemy, in no way terrified by our adversary, look what it does to our adversary.

To them, it is proof of perition.

Perdition there simply means utter destruction.

Okay?

So when our adversary has thrown everything at us that he can, and he sees us standing there, not in any way terrified, at peace, and standing firm in the faith, guess what he sees?

His judgment.

He's convicted of his judgment because the Holy Spirit's working in our lives.

He says it's to them it is proof of perdition.

Guess what?

It doesn't stop there, but to us, our salvation, it's evidence of the salvation in our life.

And that from God, that comes from God.

For to you it has been granted.

Now get this, okay?

These are some tough verses to swallow here.

For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, what does it say?

But also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here is and now here is in me.

Paul's saying, listen, he's given you an opportunity to suffer the same way he did.

When he was looking at the cross, when Christ was looking at the cross, he said, Father, glorify thou me that thou mightest be glorified.

He knew what he was looking at, he knew what he was seeing.

What he was seeing is God being glorified.

He had to be looking past the cross.

He's seen it, he had to see it, but that wasn't what his focus was on.

When the three Hebrew children were standing in front of the furnace, and Nebuchadnezzar said, Hey, go ahead and light it up, make it seven times hotter.

You know, their faith was what gave them the ability to say, What is your fire to us, okay?

You know, they had righteousness, they understood righteousness, what it meant.

And they were now the question is, what was their faith like after they were in the fire?

Is your you know, so many times we have faith up to the furnace door.

But then once we're in the fire, we're like, what happened?

Why why didn't you why didn't you come in?

It wasn't about the fire.

You know, my these things here are not so that the storm doesn't come.

The wise man didn't build a foundation so that his house didn't experience any storms.

He built his house his house on a foundation because the storms may come.

It's not about the storm, it's about the house standing.

Guess what?

The storm came just like it did for the foolish man.

But guess what?

His house stood.

Storms might come.

It's not about the storm, it's about the fact that he's decreed, my name will be made known throughout the whole earth.

And I'm giving you an opportunity to be a part of that, giving you an opportunity for people to see that in your life Romans five, verse seventeen says here for if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, so in other words, just kind of stopping there a little bit and you know we didn't we didn't ask to inherit Adam's sin, right?

Like I said before, God God, you know, one of the one of the principles of creation is that everything would reproduce after its own kind.

Well, we have the benefit of that also.

We can look at Adam and say, Man, why'd you screw things up for us like that?

But he says, For if by one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one, Jesus Christ.

You know, he's given us an opportunity to reign in life through him.

And it's not it's not just, I mean, don't get me wrong, we benefit greatly from it.

I wanted to also just um just bring into clarification, you know, um not, you know, just because we're reconciled to the Father, just because we've been bought with a price, doesn't mean that we're a son of God.

There's a choice to be made.

In the same sense, just because we've made that choice, we've trusted in Christ, and we're on our way to heaven, doesn't mean that we're an overcomer.

It's interesting if you read the first couple chapters in Revelation, he's got some promises there for those who overcome.

And that's going to be kind of a side note on all of this because it's something something for you to look into, but it he's talking, especially at the one point, he's talking to believers, talking about those who overcome.

So just be an overcomer isn't just talking about someone who's getting to heaven, he's talking about those who've entered into the furnace, been willing to put themselves out there and overcome, been put in the fire, been uh been put in the lion's den, been, you know, been put into these situations and understand, you know what, this is this is my my privilege to through Christ make him known and standing firm.

That's different than someone who's just put their trust in Christ and they're hanging on till they get to heaven.

You know, Daniel, when he was thrown into the lion's den, we're looking at a lot of at several of these Old Testament characters that understood what righteousness meant.

Right standing before God.

Understood that righteousness meant free from sin.

These are Old Testament characters.

David, he said, he said, you know, blessed is the man who's Sins are not counted against him.

He was prophesying what was going to take place.

Daniel, he was in the lion's den.

The king came down the next morning and said, What did the lions do?

He calls into the lion's den, he goes, Daniel, was your God able to save you?

Well, Daniel's response wasn't, yeah, I prayed hard and he saved me.

No, he said, as sure as I was found innocent in his sight, he has saved me.

You know, he understood that innocence before God equaled salvation.

He didn't know what that was going to look like.

He didn't know if that was going to look, you know, if that was going to be from the belly of a lion or what.

But innocence before God equals salvation.

So all of these points, just going back through the the four sessions, the first one, just the just the emphasis on understanding that God's word is final authority.

Then moving on to seeing myself as God sees me.

And kind of a footnote of that is then being able to see other people the way God sees them.

And then we move on to a conscience free from sin.

And finally, take that robe and put it on.

Yeah, he's created it for you.

And he knows that you're going to look great in it.

And he wants you to be a part of him making himself known throughout the world.

This isn't something that just we go through these steps and boom, we're done.

No, this is something we have to remind ourselves.

When I was coming out of bondage, one of my worst fears was that I was going to mess up again.

That I was going to screw up and I was going to I was going to start over, you know.

And I would I had to come to a point where I was trusting God in what he said had happened.

The fact that I was clean in his sight.

And again, the biggest reason that I was scared of messing up was self-motivated because then I'd have to confess.

I'd have to say what happened.

And I didn't want any of those things to happen.

And so I didn't want to mess up.

And I had to come to the realization that I wasn't doing this for me.

He didn't save me from my sin for me.

He saved me from my sin for his name's sake.

We have to get rid of self.

An ounce of self totally does away with any love.

And love is the goal.

So put on righteousness.

Because righteousness produces holiness.

So that's what we're after, is we want that lifestyle that that is that resembles Christ.

Any thoughts, comments, um anything that you'd like to add to the session?