Walking in Victory Seminar Part 2

Bring us up to speed to where we're at.

Anyone remember what the the four R's are?

Reconcile, redeem, restore, and write.

Yeah, good job.

Good job.

Yeah, we looked at we're gonna look pretty heavily at um reconciled today, reconciled and redeemed.

And um seeing ourselves, seeing myself as God sees me is is the title of this session.

And um, yeah, just the importance that we we talked about the the importance of understanding um God's word is final authority.

Um and that's gonna be huge if we if we're going to if we're gonna walk in these truths.

Because if we um the fact is we life speaks pretty loudly sometimes.

And um if we're not careful, we allow that to speak louder than than what God's word does sometimes.

Um if I don't if I don't really believe what I'm saying here, then I'm I'm subject to allowing the physical to determine what what my outlook is like.

You know, I I believe that God forgave my sins, and that truth is what is what allows me to um to have the understanding that I can walk free from sin.

I can walk in victory.

Now my truth, my understanding of that truth um doesn't keep sin from coming at me.

Doesn't keep the enemy from tempting me.

But what that truth does is it doesn't allow me to be shaken by the enemy in the encounter.

Same way with with healing.

I mean, we can look at healing and healing, it's clear that by my stripes, by his stripes, we have been healed.

And so I can look at any sickness and understand that God has healed that.

And I can I can go and I can walk in the in the faith according to God's word, in the fact that I am untouchable to sickness.

Now, that truth doesn't keep me, that foundation doesn't keep me from being sick necessarily.

But if I get sick, I have that truth that keeps me from losing out.

So, for instance, the wise man and the foolish man, um, which one built a foundation?

Well, they both did.

So the wise man, he built his foundation on the rock.

That didn't that didn't determine that there was no storms coming.

But what it did do is it determined that when a storm came, if a storm came, he was on a solid foundation.

Same way with with God's word, you know, understanding the truth of God's word doesn't mean I'll never get sick.

I am living my life never intending to get sick because of what Christ paid for.

Same way with sin.

I am living my life to never sin.

Why?

Because I I'm dead to sin.

I've died to sin, been crucified with Christ.

I am never, John wrote these things.

He said, I write these things that you don't sin.

So my my understanding of Scripture is that he has made it possible for me to never sin.

Now, he follows that all up with, now if you sin, not when you sin, but if you sin, we have an advocate with the Father, and that's not there as, okay, there's a disclaimer here that, hey, you know, there you go ahead, you know, live your life, and don't worry, don't worry, you know.

I mean, if you sin, you sin.

That's not what he's saying.

What he's saying is, don't live in sin.

It's possible.

You can do this because of what Christ did.

Now, my un or my my walking in these truths don't mean that sin will never show up at my door.

He told Cain, this was even before the blood and before the sack, before the cross, he said, he told Cain, he said, sin is at your door.

You better master it.

That was an old testament in the flesh person.

And he was saying, listen, take control of it.

We have the blood that it that we're under now.

And so there's no reason for us to not walk in this truth, into, into understand that just because I have this truth doesn't mean the enemy's not going to come and suggest things, not gonna come and and present things.

Um that's what he's been doing all of all of um through all of history.

I mean, everywhere you look, he comes and suggests, presents.

Um God's word is final authority.

Jesus wasn't worried about defeating Satan in the wilderness.

Satan came and suggested some things.

What Christ did is he presented the word.

He left the word do the fighting.

Satan said, you know, if you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread.

Could Jesus have done that?

Absolutely.

He could have made a meal out of the out of the gravel that was there.

But that wasn't the point.

He didn't need to do that to prove that he was a son of God.

God had spoken and said, This is my beloved son, in whom I well pleased.

So what he said is, listen, every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God is true.

Now, if you want to go fight that, go for it.

But I don't have to prove anything to you.

Sometimes our best response to the enemy is just ignore him.

You know, he he's already defeated.

We don't need to fight him.

There's there's there was there's been some times where I've rebuked the enemy, and I think that's fine.

But more times than not, I've just ignored him, just not given him opportunity to plant things in my life.

Um there in in I think it's Matthew, Jesus said, My sheep know my voice.

And he says, a stranger's voice, they don't follow.

Not that we don't hear the stranger's voice, but we just don't follow the stranger's voice.

We we we know that that's not our master.

We're walking in the spirit, we're hearing Christ's voice, the Holy Spirit's voice.

That's who we're following.

Now, there's times when all of a sudden a thought comes, and I'm sure you've heard it before.

Um, if all of my thoughts were put up here, you know, what would it look like?

You know, well, that's kind of unfair because I don't bring up every thought that comes into my mind.

Sometimes the enemy is bringing thoughts into my mind that aren't mine.

That's why we need to take every thought captive.

And so the a thought is a thought is when we when something is presented and we begin processing it.

There's times that that things get brought into my mind that I'm walking in the spirit, that's when we that's when I'm I the voice is there, but I'm not listening because I'm following the spirit.

So that's not really even a thought.

That's just something the enemy is bringing in at times.

But when I, you know, when I need to bring it into captivity is when I when it starts to be processed in my mind, I need to bring it into captivity, understand, okay, what is this thought?

What is it saying?

Where is it from?

You know, I need to bring it under subjection and decide do I listen to this voice or don't I?

So God's word is final authority.

That was another thing we that we looked at.

Um also, yeah, another one that has been that has been um huge for me is why walk in victory.

You know, if I leave here and never again um deal with pornography, if I leave here and never again abuse a substance, if I leave here and never again lash out in anger, never again um allow myself to be depressed.

That's not walking in victory.

Walking in victory is walking in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

So why walk in victory?

Not not so that not so that I don't have to deal with the repercussions of lashing out at someone.

That's not why.

Um what I what we were talking about last night is so many times what I was after is I just wanted to get rid of the problems that my addiction was causing.

And that self-motivated.

If there's an ounce of self in it, it's not love.

And if it's not love, he says in 1 Corinthians 13, he said if if love's not a part of it, it's not worth anything.

So that's just kind of a bit of a recap.

And it brings us to this second session, seeing myself as God sees me.

Why is why is that important?

Well, um, I'm sure you've heard it before.

Um, well, yeah, okay, I I can see that God doesn't see my sins anymore, but I just can't see myself that way.

Well, we touched on this last night also.

If I don't see myself as forgiven, I will never see anybody else forgiven.

I will always be able to pick somebody else, their life apart and down because of what they did.

Because if God didn't forgive me, if I can't see myself forgiven, if I don't receive that forgiveness, I won't have that forgiveness to hand out.

There, you you see it a lot of times, um, people will say um they'll make the statement, you know, uh, I choose to forgive because if I don't forgive, I won't be forgiven.

Self-motivated again.

It's not, it's not what Scripture says.

Scripture, what he what scripture is saying there, if you don't for if you refuse to forgive, you won't be forgiven.

It's saying you have a you have a judgment scale there, okay?

And if you're going to use actions in the law to base your forgiveness on, whether it's forgiven or not, then that has to be the judgment scale that you use.

So if I'm looking at someone else and say, they did wrong, they they can't, I just can't forgive that person for what they did.

I'm using their actions against them, not recognizing that Christ already forgave them.

So I'm holding their sin against them.

At the same time, I'm saying, Christ forgave me of all my sins.

I'm forgiven.

How what judgment scale am I using there?

Grace.

So I can't use grace for me and the law for everybody else.

So if I'm going to use the law on other people, that same that same law has to apply for me.

So if I'm using the law for other people, then I can't receive forgiveness either.

I won't be forgiven either.

And so that's all he's saying there.

He's just be careful what you how you meet out judgment, because the same measure that you measure out is what's going to be measured back to you.

And he's not saying, okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, if you don't forgive, and I'm gonna, I'm not gonna forgive you.

He's already forgiven us, okay?

We're gonna look at that.

It's a done deal according to what God sees.

And that's that's what we want to look at is what does God see?

Because if God is seeing something different than I'm seeing, we got an issue because we were created for his image.

But if I can see what God sees, we got a tremendous opportunity ahead of us because it changes how we see everybody else.

Turn to Colossians, Colossians one, uh see, 21 and yeah, starting at verse 21 there.

So we touched on that last night, just to recap that.

We were alienated in enemies in our minds by our works, okay?

So to put it simply, our minds told us you're separated from God because of what you did.

What what happened was they did sin.

We're not den we're not denying that that they didn't sin.

We're we're accepting the fact that they sinned, but they allowed their sin to separate them from God.

God wanted God wanted fellowship, he wanted to, he wanted to um to be with him.

But there was no way that he could if they if they didn't have a clean conscience, if they couldn't come into his fellowship pure, and because we'll look at it later, um, without a clean conscience, without a conscience free from sin, there can there can be no pure love.

And that's what that's what we need to enter into his presence.

Um it says uh without a con without a pure heart, guess what?

We don't see God.

There's there's a there's a fog there.

We we just can't, if if our heart isn't pure, we just can't see who he is.

And without a clear conscience, we can't have a pure heart.

So that's that's the that's what was severed, that's what was broken, is that that clear conscience before God to be able to go into his presence, to be able to, I mean, can you imagine what that was like to just um I mean we enjoy our time alone with the Lord here on earth, where we just grab a cup of coffee, some of us, I'm sorry, and grab a cup of coffee, we go outside or sit down at the table and just and just have fellowship with him.

It's tremendous.

Imagine what that was like to walk in the garden with him, just right there beside you.

Well, we can do that in the spirit, and we st we still have that.

It's just a lot tougher for us in our physical to to see that.

But that was something that Adam and Eve, um, I'm not gonna say they took it for granted, but it was a just it was it was tremendous.

And that was all of a sudden cut off.

Guilt, condemnation, shame.

They were alienated, they were made enemies in their minds because of their evil work.

They got they they got done sinning, and and think of what think of what happened, okay?

They ate of the tree of knowledge, right?

So it was it was it was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, had one fruit, the knowledge of good and evil.

It wasn't like you could eat of the tree of knowledge and you could of or of good, you could eat of the tree of evil.

No, that tree had one fruit, the knowledge of good and evil.

So when they ate of that, suddenly they had a knowledge of right and wrong, good and evil.

But they there was no reference for them to compare what was right and what was wrong.

We see that in the in the in the fact that a couple verses uh in chapter two, at the end of chapter two in Genesis, it says that they were naked, but they weren't ashamed.

And then a couple verses later in chapter three, God says, Why did you you know why did you run and hide?

He said, We were afraid because we were naked and we were ashamed.

So they went from being naked and not ashamed of it, totally conscience-free, to all of a sudden they ate of this tree that says, There is good and there is bad.

Well, they knew that they had disobeyed God, and so they they became ashamed.

Now, the the difference between guilt and shame is guilt says I've done something wrong.

Shame says there's something wrong with me.

So not only were they acknowledging guilt that they had done something wrong and they were guilty, but they were they were presenting shame, which says, something's wrong with me.

Now it's interesting that God asks a question that he does.

He says, Who told you?

Now he says, Who told you that you were naked?

And really what he's asking is, who told you that that was wrong?

Who told you that you need to be ashamed of that?

Who told you that there's something wrong with you?

You did you did do something wrong.

There's guilt there, and we can address that.

But uh, who told you that there's something wrong with you?

Because God had created them in his image, no flaws, everything that he'd done is good.

And something told them that there was something wrong with them.

That's shame.

And the the thing we want to take from that is when God says you're clean, who's telling you that you're not?

So when we that's the importance of seeing myself as God sees me.

What Adam and Eve were doing is they were hearing another voice apart from God, and they were believing it.

There's all kinds of voices out there.

Um our bodies speak to us.

Um, sometimes we think that the older we get, our bodies speak louder.

But the fact is, our bodies are are speaking to us.

Um, do we believe them?

Or do we go to God's word and say, What's going on here?

You know, and do we present ourselves as instruments of righteousness to God instead of just taking what our bodies are saying and saying, Well, I guess that's I'm that age now, I should expect this or the whatever.

Um so it is important to understand what God sees.

And that I want to I want to make sure that we that we see that.

So he says, You who Were who once were alienated in enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled.

How is he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in his sight?

I want to back up just a little bit.

So we went from alienated in enemies to reconciled with God through the body of Christ's flesh in death.

What changed there?

What did we do in that time?

We were alienated in enemies.

All of a sudden we were reconciled.

Did we do anything?

No, we were we we were we were still in our minds, we're still alienated in enemies.

All of a sudden, we're reconciled.

And not only are we reconciled, but he's presented us to God, holy, blameless, and above reproach in his sight.

Now, I want us to start thinking down this line.

Every morning when we wake up, how do we present ourselves to the Father?

Do we look, do we go to the Father?

Father, I man, I just pray that you keep me from sin today.

We that you that you don't don't let me be don't let me be judgmental, don't let me be um unmerciful.

Help me to be uh to be put a hedge of protection around me.

All these things that God doesn't even see us as.

Or do we go to the Father and say, Father, I just thank you that you see me as holy, blameless, above reproach in your sight.

Thank you for that.

In Romans, and hopefully we'll get there, Romans chapter 6, we're told that we're not to present our members as instruments of unrighteousness, because when we do that, we sow seeds to unrighteousness.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

But we're to present our members as instruments of righteousness to God for holiness.

When we do that, we sow seeds to righteousness, which produces holiness, which starts turning, starts making us the image that He intended.

What happens is all of a sudden the fruit starts changing because we've addressed the tree, not the fruit.

And so we want to we want to make sure that we that we present ourselves in a way that He sees us.

And then we start seeing that.

We'll look at it a little bit later, I think, in this session, but the faith that comes along with it, what what part faith has to play in what's taking place?

So much of this stuff that we're looking at is what Christ does, the finished work of Christ.

Well, the finished work is great, that gives us a basis for our faith.

But faith is what activates what's been done.

And so we want to we want to keep that in mind.

So I think we I think we covered why God sees us in this way.

Because of what Christ did, because he presented, because he um he came and and um was our sac, was the sacrifice in our place, but that doesn't ex it doesn't totally give understanding to why that why that gives me the right to claim that.

We see Christ doing that, but some so many times we're we're caught with, okay, great, he did that for me, but how does that change what I'm dealing with right now?

Because what I'm seeing is not that.

And I I don't want to don't want to ignore, I don't want to just be oblivious and say, well, okay, because what happens is is if we don't, if we don't set ourselves in the truth of what took place, we'll we'll kind of halfway get this truth and this understanding, and we'll say, okay, I guess I just believe that happened, and I'll still keep living this life and hope something changes.

And what we see so many times is lives that all of a sudden they they're to a point where they're not at all producing fruit unto righteousness, but they're laying claim to grace.

The fact is, grace, true grace, changes you.

If you're not being changed, then it's not grace.

It's just um it's it's a cheap grace, is what it is.

It's you're laying claim to something that isn't taking place in your life.

So why do why does he see me that way?

You know, um what is it that causes him to see see us that way?

Let's go to let's go to Romans chapter 6 now.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

He poses a question there that actually before we get to that, um I want to cover a couple other verses in Romans.

Romans 3.23.

Does anybody know what that says?

Yeah.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Okay, so so who's included in that?

Everyone.

So the the very next verse says being justified freely by his grace.

Who's included in that?

Everyone.

So it's not fair for us to say, well, we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God, and not recognize that at the same time we've all been justified freely.

And that's that's where that's where this whole reconciliation thing without my choice takes place.

Justified means I like the the basic version, just if I'd never sinned.

It's easy to remember, just if I'd never sinned.

But what it means is it's as if sin never even happened.

That's tough for us to think about because we don't, we we see the sin that happened.

We see the results, we see all the all the things, all the chaos that goes along with that.

So it's tough for us to say, I'm justified.

It's as if I never did it.

It's part of the restoration that takes place.

But that's how he sees us as justified.

That's Romans 3.

Romans 4, he talks about the God who justifies the ungodly.

So this is tremendous because this gives us the ability to walk up to anyone on the street and say, hey, have you heard the good news?

What?

Do you know that God sees you as holy, blameless, and above reproach in his sight?

No, can't be.

Yeah, he does.

No, not me.

I, you know, we have all these all these understandings about why God doesn't see us that way.

It's a lot different than walking up to someone and saying, Hey, do you know that you're a sinner in need of a savior?

And Christ died to uh pay for your sins, and if you receive his forgiveness, then you'll be saved.

These those are all truths, but it's not good news because it still leaves him a sinner.

What God says is, listen, it's as if sin never happened.

John the Baptist, when he presented Christ, he said, Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.

He didn't say that takes away the ability for man to sin anymore.

The tree is still there.

We can still eat of the tree.

We can still sin.

Our ability to sin hasn't been removed.

But what God has done is He's removed the sin.

Because the sin is what has clogged our minds and caused us to understand we can't go into the presence of a holy God the way I am, what I've done, who I am.

And so he said, Well, listen, what if I take that away?

How does that happen?

There's no justice in that.

Someone else pays for my what if you come to the cross with me?

What if you hang on the cross with me?

That's what Romans chapter 6 deals with.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

First of all, he says, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?

Certainly not.

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

How is it possible for you to die and still be alive?

That's really what he's saying.

He's not saying, come on, guys, I how can you keep doing this?

How can you no, he's saying, no, just think about it.

How is it pop?

How is it even possible to be walking around alive in something that you died in?

Well, then he goes on, or do you not know?

And that's the thing, that's the question I want to look at.

Do you not know?

Maybe we don't understand what really happened.

And I didn't.

And so I'm not gonna put that on you.

Maybe you have it under, maybe you understand it.

But I'm gonna I'm going to assume that there's others out there like me that just did not understand what really happened.

What really happened, and he goes down through here, and keep in mind, terminology can sometimes trip us up, okay?

Finished work of Christ is finished work of Christ.

So what he's saying is, this is what Christ done.

What I'm asking you to do is come into agreement with this, okay?

Christ did this.

We can't take that away.

That happened 2,000 years ago.

We can't take it away from him.

It's history, it's been done.

But we don't have to agree with it.

We don't have to come into agreement with it.

So what he's calling people to is to come into agreement with it.

So when he says, when he says, uh we're to die, but he's already said that we've died, he's he's not he's not messing up.

What he's saying there is, because of your death with Christ on the cross and your resurrection with him from the grave, reckon yourself dead to sin.

Come into agreement with what has already happened.

That's why in Hebrews he talks about entering into the rest that God has prepared for us.

Because coming into that rest is just resting in what has already happened.

Just understanding our fight is not a fight physically where we're duking it out.

It's not against flesh and blood.

Our fight is the good fight of faith, putting our faith in what has already happened.

So he says, or do you not know?

As many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus, we're baptized into his death.

Okay, one thing I want to um catch up with it.

He was speaking to a group of people that had been baptized, and he's saying, Don't you know that what, don't you know what happens at baptism?

That is the agreement to what has already happened, already taken place.

In John chapter 12, he's talking to the people, and he says, Listen, he said, I, if I, in other words, he he he says it in a way that he's making sure that we understand it.

John 12 · chapter mention

Nobody else has this claim.

He goes, if I, I, me, be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself.

Now, it was very clear to the people in that passage that he was talking about his crucifixion.

It even says in the passage, he said this pertaining to the manner in which he would die.

He wasn't just saying, if I am exalted, people will come to me.

No, he's saying, if I am crucified, if you crucify me, what's gonna happen is everybody is gonna be drawn to me.

Why?

Because he is going to take on himself the sins of the world.

Guess what's attached to the sin of the world?

The world.

Okay?

So everything was drawn to Christ.

I couldn't be freed from my sin by it just being taken off.

That's not justice.

I had Jesus had to draw me to himself so that he could take my sin with him on the cross.

So he's hanging there on the cross.

I wasn't even born.

But guess what?

I'm hanging there with him on the cross.

He did he did a physical metaphor of what took place.

There were two thieves literally being crucified with him on the cross.

They had a choice.

Do I die and then live with the one who died for me?

Or do I die to myself or die with self and deny the one who died for me?

And they both made a choice.

It was physically being put up there what happened spiritually.

We have all been crucified with Christ.

There's not anybody that you can walk out and talk to on the street that wasn't on the cross with Christ in a spiritual sense because their sin was there.

They were there.

So he goes on to say, we were baptized into his death.

Baptism is that picture of being put under, being buried.

They make the analogy of being buried with him, okay?

Therefore, we're buried with him through baptism into death.

So when I'm baptized, I have the understanding that what took place then is as the water covered me, I was going into the grave with him.

Okay?

What happened on the cross to the sins in the flesh?

Says God cursed sin in the flesh when it was on the cross.

So imagine what something cursed by God might look like.

Not a pretty picture.

Pretty final analysis of what takes place.

So we were buried with him through baptism into death into death.

That just in so the way he puts this, I like, I like the way he states this because he's saying the reason for that was so that this could happen.

You know, we were buried so that we could be raised to life.

You can't you can't have new life without without death.

Because the old life, the old man, has to die for there to be new life.

And so he said, He said, therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

So, how was Christ raised?

Think about, understand this.

The reason that Christ was able to go to the cross and even be killed was he had to give his life.

The only reason for death is a payment for sin.

The only way he could die is if he took on our sin.

He had to surrender himself to that.

He had to literally lay down his life, give his life so that they could take it.

They couldn't take it otherwise because of righteousness.

Righteousness, if they were to try to take a righteous person's life, that can't happen.

Righteousness wouldn't allow that.

So he had to lay his life down.

So not only was he hanging on the cross with our sin, he was hanging there with his righteousness.

It says in Isaiah 52, I think, it says he was he was bruised more than any other man, marred more than any other person.

And yet, there he was, coherent, able to speak, able to reason, righteousness.

So he's hanging there in righteousness with our sin and us.

Keep that in mind.

We were there.

We get buried with him in the grave.

He is resurrected.

Guess what came out of the grave with him?

Righteousness.

Okay?

Do you think, do you think that after all of this happened, after he hung there, God cursed sin in the flesh.

He went into the grave, he came out.

Do you think that that there was any of my sin hanging on him?

No.

None of my sin was evident.

And we'll look, I mean, we'll look at official document documentation that states that, okay?

So he's encouraging us to listen, to to be as Christ was raised from the grave, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Verse 5, for if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, so if that united us with him in death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.

The same way that Christ came out of that grave is the same way that you and I, the new man, has been resurrected.

When we get up in the morning, you know, the closest some of us ever come to raising somebody from the dead is every morning we resurrect the old man and we take him on life with us.

Every morning.

He's dead.

He died, he was crucified.

The new man has been resurrected.

Do we come into agreement with that and say, yes, my sin in his body on the cross, in the grave?

Then he goes on.

Let's go to Hebrews.

Let me see here.

Yeah, let's go to Hebrews chapter 9.

Hebrews 9 · chapter mention

I want to look at a couple verses there.

So here, um Hebrews, I mean it's a great, great book, and and uh it it's just got so much in it.

But this passage here, um, we're gonna look at a couple different sections of this through through the rest.

of the weekend but let's start let's start with uh we'll come back to it but but one thing that that I want to look at is the it starts in verse six there really talking about how the priest the priesthood they they were they were limited to what they could do and they continued to do it year after year time after time and um in verse seven it says the high priest went alone once a year not without blood he took blood with him which he offered for himself for the people's sin committed in ignorance uh in oh it's in it's actually at the end of verse 9 there um for the present it uh it was symbolic for the present time okay this everything that the priesthood done was symbolic at the time of something to come okay in which both gifts and sacrifices were offered every time they offered blood every time they offered the sacrifice it was offered with the understanding that the things that they offered could not make the person who performed the service perfect in regard to conscience again we see that con that that perfect conscience the conscience free from sin it couldn't do that because all of all it was doing is it was just atoning for the sin.

It wasn't removing the sin it was just putting someone in position to where they could again be in the presence of God if they were just following everything according to the law.

So moving on down but Christ in verse 11 Christ came as a high priest of the good things to come with a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is not of this creation not with the blood of goats and calves what did he come with his own blood with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all it wasn't the holy of holies it was the most holy place the actual presence of God not the present not the the presence that God had established in the tabernacle in the Old Testament on earth this was the most holy place.

He entered there what did he enter there with having obtained eternal redemption uh oh that eternal security thought right that can get us in trouble quick what does that mean he obtained eternal redemption what that means is it can never be changed he has my salvation eternally secured in his body it's there anytime I want to accept it I want to put my faith in it it's there where is it it's in his body there in the most holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption for if the blood of bulls and goats in the ashes of heaven for sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through eternal who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God you know I always thought of Christ as the spotless lamb that was able to go to the cross and it's true he was but this means so much more because what he's saying here is I went to the cross I took your sin with you to the cross with me we were buried together we rose together and I came to the father and said look do you see any sin where where am I in that picture?

I'm still reconciled to him that was the whole plan is to reconcile us to the father and the father looks and says spotless so why am I still claiming that sin as mine why am I why is it so hard for me to say that's the old man that's not who I am anymore the thing we the thing we have a problem with at least and I'm speaking again for myself the thing we have a problem with is we're still trying to defeat the sin we're still trying to um defeat the enemy we're still battling the sin we see sin come we don't like sin we don't that's not who I want to be that's not what I want so I'm going to get rid of this sin instead of saying Father I thank you that sin is no longer a part of my life that's not who I am that man was crucified with you I am a new man I'm a new creation I'm a spirit being now I have been born of the Spirit of God you know when God when God spoke to Mary it says Mary received what God said in she received it and the Holy Spirit came in and sealed it when God spoke his his word is a seed when he said you're clean you're justified if I receive that guess what the Holy Spirit does he comes in and he seals that and it it's a seed that through the Holy Spirit gets birthed into this new creation it's not a physical being I'm still living this life that's why Paul says I've been crucified with Christ nevertheless I live but it's not me living it's Christ living in me.

The life I live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

So all of a sudden we become vessels that are fit for the master's use and we get kind of tripped up on that sometimes that we have this idea that a vessel can't change if you look in 1 Timothy there he says there's vessels of gold vessels of silver vessels of wood vessels of clay some are for honor some are for dishonor we have the idea that oh yeah the gold and silver are for honor the wood and clay are for dishonor doesn't say that he said there's four four different vessels that he lists there some of them are for honor some of them for dishonor guess what good news he says if you put this off you can be a vessel to honor you can change the vessel that you were that's the mercy of God that's tremendous Colossians one twenty j just again I'd like to just try to um speaking in speaking in construction terms I'd like to sat creak this in make so that it that it's it's there but he says here um let me see I'm getting the wrong verse here okay he says and in by in well backing up to verse 19 for it pleased the father that in him in Christ all the fullness should dwell so in other words he was when we see Christ we see the fullness of God in Christ okay and it and it pleased the father to do this and by him by Christ to reconcile all things to himself whether things on earth or things in heaven having made peace through the blood of his cross so the reason Christ came was that we can be reconciled through the death of Christ on the cross now we let's go back to the resurrection just a little bit Christ totally um totally put himself in a position of faith in that resurrection he gave his life he was he he laid it down trusting the father to raise him again on the third day so he put his faith out there everything that Christ did he did to give us an example of what we're to do he says listen unless you put your faith in what's done you never resurrect that's why he says um let's go to Romans 10 real quick in Romans 10 um if you can in verse 9 if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead why is that important because if my resurrection is tied with his resurrection and I believe that God raised Christ from the dead then makes sense that I'm I've been raised from the dead that's why it's so important to believe that if we say yeah we believe Christ was raised from the dead and but yeah I'm still a sinner I'm I'm I'm I'm just no I'm still struggling what you're saying is he didn't do what he said he did.

Because what he said he did is he took my old man with him to the cross to the grave resurrected in newness of life that I can look at his life and say that is what is mine so if I'm going to say that Christ is raised from the dead then I'm saying I've been raised from the dead for with the heart one believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation so one of the one of just the practical thing is this is something that that um that I've done for myself and I didn't even realize what was happening at the time until later on it I was like oh man I I see what's what's taking place here but it's just that understanding of of confession okay confession is made unto salvation um when we speak when we confess how does that save us well how um we are made up of what uh there's three parts that we're made up of what are they body soul spirit okay body soul spirit now I'm gonna be nitpicky okay though it is those three but scripture always says spirit soul body okay and so let's let's think in that term okay spirit first soul body spirit is that man that was resurrected soul is kind of my mind my my mental and then I have the physical the body the body is basically a container really that's that's all it is it's just the container um we we talk in terms of the flesh being a bad thing a lot of times it's not the flesh is is just the container you know that's why Paul said the life I now live in the flesh you know Jesus in the garden he told the told the disciples he said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak that wasn't saying oh yeah my flesh is always going to be weak no he was speaking to a group of men that their flesh was weak come back about three months later that statement didn't make any sense because their flesh was as strong as their spirit was something had changed why because their mind had been renewed the only way we're going to see a transformation in the flesh is if there's a renewal in our mind how does our mind know well guess what the mind is physical also we have to tell our mind what is true because our our mind it records data all around us and that's what it sees as true it's not wrong for for our mind to say well everybody that I see is doing this so this is true that's not necessarily true but because of the data received that's the that's the assumption it makes then my body is brought into that into that truth so if I speak truth to my mind it starts changing the what it has as truth that's why there has to be a renewing of the mind for a transformation to take place so when I say when I believe in my heart that God raised Christ from the dead and I confess with my mouth the Lord Jesus guess what happens my mind starts hearing something that my mouth is confessing because my mouth and my mind are physical my spirit doesn't necessarily connect to my mind I have to tell sometimes I have to tell my spe tell my mind what my spirit knows so when I confess with my mouth guess what happens my mind says oh this is this must be a new truth now if I confess with my mouth that you need to be punctual but every time I come to an event I am 20 minutes late now I didn't say that because you guys were late this morning okay so I wasn't wasn't pulling that out but but no if if we do that continuously and we say you need to be punctual and then we're late you need to be punctual we're late guess what it puts does to our mind our mind has absolutely no idea what truth is because we're saying something we're doing something else so when we say something and we follow through with that our mind starts realizing you know what that must be true when I when I say that Father I thank you for your protection I thank you because you you you know exactly what I'm going through and you're gonna you're gonna provide for me you're gonna take care of me and I leave go to work and terrible car accident and all of a sudden everything changes on the landscape and I get home and I say father I thank you so much for your protection I thank you it looks at all of that happened here's what what we're living and it says this must be true God must really be providing God must God must be um caring for for this body so it's important for us to to vocalize to confess with our mouth what we know to be true now same thing if we if we confess with our mouth things that are just frustrating us and we know that they're not true but it it just gets to us guess what our mind is going to understand a body's gonna be have a tough time coming into subjection with that because it doesn't know we say this we act this way we yeah it just doesn't know so what I what I figured out is um I had started it and and you'll hear me say it different times getting up in the morning and just say father thank you for your love thank you for your mercy thank you for reconciliation redemption not just saying it but thinking about it when I say it um what does that mean?

Yeah just just meditating on that and it's not long it's just it's just what I start with thank you for that thank you and it's amazing you know when we get thrown into a situation how that comes around you know if uh if something happens to the to the computer at home okay we have a computer tucker's tucker's right the computer guy at our house right now okay if something happens to the computer they don't say well we're sure glad dad's here no because I don't I don't know a thing about it okay if something if the roof starts leaking guess what they say well I'm sure glad dad knows how to fix a roof okay it we're we're not yeah we're we're glad that we have at our disposal what's needed guess what we have at our disposal Heavenly Father there is not a thing that we encounter that he doesn't have the answer for so when the vehicle breaks down when the bill comes that we weren't expecting when whatever happens happens we have the we have the ability to say wow thank you father that you are my father thank you that you care about us you already knew about this situation before it ever happened I was totally taken off guard but you obviously weren't thank you for that and that is a part of renewing our minds beginning the process of changing our mindset to where our lifestyle has something to to follow Jesus used the example of you can't put you can't put new wine in an old wineskin um they were leather they were dried up if you put it in there the wine what it does is it expands okay and and so if you put new wine in an old wineskin as it fermented it would just swell up and boom it'd burst and you'd lose the wine said you can't put new wine into an old wineskin you can't put new truths into an old mindset because it won't contain it it won't you have to you have to change your mindset to put the truth into for your for you to be able to to otherwise the truth that you just read just goes to nothing.

You lose it it's wasted so I think that pretty much covers the idea of seeing myself as God sees me okay now that we know how God sees us it's it's up to us to come into agreement with that To recognize, yeah, I have been caught up, reconciled with him.

The reason I was reconciled with him was so that I could be resurrected with him.

That's the that's that's the cool part about it.

And so if I was resurrected with him, I look to his life.

What does Christ's resurrected life look like?

I don't just look to his life on earth, even though I could, okay?

I could look to him on earth and gain a lot of value to how he lived his life.

We're even told to do so.

You know, consider Christ, you know, look to Christ.

We look at we look at how he conducted himself when he walked in this earth, and we and we say, listen, the reason he did this is so we can know how what's what's available to us.

But beyond that, even more than that, we're to see him as the resurrected Christ.

It's totally different than the Christ that was here as a lamb.

And we'll see some of that later on.

Because we're to rule and to reign, we're to restore what was lost.

You know, the the earth was brought into um frustration, not willingly, okay?

So the earth is in condemnation because of what man, the choices man made.

Because of sin, it wasn't just mankind that that suffered the results.

The entire creation suffered.

The entire creation was brought under frustration or under condemnation.

So I heard it said before, we have never seen flowers not under the curse.

We've only seen them under the curse.

Why?

Because in Romans it says, all of creation is groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

That's you and I.

That's our purpose here is to release all of creation from its curse.

It says everything.

In Ephesians, it talks about it before the foundation of the world.

It says, everything in heaven and earth God predestined.

Now, in in uh Colossians, it there it says, everything in heaven and in earth was reconciled to the Father through Christ, okay?

Not just you and me, everything was.

Do we walk out into our yard and confess the Lord Jesus that he's been raised from the dead and what that means?

It sounds foolish, really, it does.

But we have a responsibility to let creation know what has taken place.

It says all of creation is groaning, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.

So we're gonna look more at some of that in probably the last session because that's part of the putting on his righteousness.

Any thoughts, comments, um ideas, something that you came up with?

Really appreciate you guys uh taking time to invest in this because, yeah, like I said before, it's it's it's part of the reason that that I'm so passionate about it is because I've I've experienced what this means.

I didn't know some of this stuff, I didn't see some of this stuff.

And so I'm not here saying, I don't think anybody else knows this stuff.

I'm no, but what I do want is to make sure that the opportunity I have to tell people, it takes place because now you're encouraged to maybe you knew this stuff already, be encouraged to share it with people, to to talk about it, look into it, study it, you know, and dig into it.

And just the biggest thing that I want, and I said it last night, the biggest thing I want to see is just our relationship with Holy Spirit just deepened through this.

Um, just take time.

I mean, we there's times that you know on the way to work, I listen to messages, I listen to music.

Um, but there's times I that I shut even a message off, just so I can say, Holy Spirit, thank you for being here.

Wonder what today's gonna be like for us.

What do we see, what do we got ahead of us?

Just just to just to fellowship with Holy Spirit and make sure that he knows and that I know that I'm in tune with him, that I'm available to him, that he can tap me on the shoulder and I'm gonna respond because he knows what I'm gonna do with it, because we've talked about it, we've discussed it, we've we've shared with each other.

I I went to work one one day, and on the way to work, there was a young guy walking, picked him up, and uh he needed to go a couple miles and took him and we talked a little bit and uh just yeah, shared a little bit, asked if I if there's anything I could in his life that I could pray for, and then um dropped him off.

And as as I was going on to the job, I remember praying, Father.

I just pray that you would just um that he would just have an you know just an encounter with the Holy Spirit today.

And all of a sudden it was just like God's like, hold it.

You are his encounter with the Holy Spirit today.

The Holy Spirit was with me when we were there.

He encountered the Spirit of God.

Now, I can that's what I can that's what I can sew into is what just took place.

Now, I don't have to trust me, my conversation, what I said, what I didn't say.

I can trust that God made sure that he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit that day, and it was because I was willing, I was able, I was available.

So that's that's what he wants to do with each one of us.

And uh maybe we'll talk a little bit about it in the next session, but I want to look just a bit at the whole idea of you know, we've we've talked about how God sees us.

How do we see others?

You know, he we need to be careful that we don't see ourselves as God sees us and not love our neighbor as ourselves.

I've been forgiven, I've been justified, I've been set free.

And we say, well, yeah, but they haven't they haven't received it.

Reconciliation and redemption are not our choice, they're his.

Now, their choice is to receive that, to accept that.

But all of a sudden, it gives me a whole different faith to believe in.

Because I'm not I'm not, my faith isn't dependent on their choice.

My faith is dependent on what God already established.

I can pray in faith for that person because they've been justified, they've been reconciled.

Now, if they can just believe, that's that, but it's it comes with from a whole different perspective of faith.

So, yeah, we can I want to look at look at a couple verses there.