Talk—Phil Jennings
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What's up with flower heads? And afterward for His blessing, Father would just look up to Thee this afternoon. And we're thankful for another time to open Your word. And we, Father, we feel our need of the Spirit and His guidance as we go through these last two subjects in the teaching of deliverance. And so we pray, Father, for grace.
And for the glory to be brought to thee in every way.
So we give you thanks in Jesus name, Amen.
I think I can leave this over here and it will remind me when the meetings over.
So today.
It's kind of our last, our last.
Section of the truth of deliverance were found in the Gospel in Romans and last meeting we spoke about deliverance from the power of sin and I've been thinking about this.
As as I've been considering some things in that chapter we read the last verse we read in that chapter was sin shall not have dominion over there for ye are not under the law and you know the death we we we we spoke about we we won't continue in sin because we're dead to it. And when we took up the example of.
Baptism and the old the old man going or the.
The old man going down into into the waters of death and then us rising again and innocent of life. And that is really the answer to deliverance from the power of sin. And so when we get to that verse that says sin shall not have dominion over you, that is.
A true answer if we're in the enjoyment of our death with Christ and we see the end of what we are in Adam at the cross, and there's nothing else that confuses the question.
Then we can enter into liberty from the power of sin. But the problem is.
And that's the reason for Romans.
The problem is we buy our nature, complicate the matter. Death and resurrection is the answer for deliverance from the power of sin. If we see ourselves in Christ, no longer in Adam, and there's a there's a liberty that comes into our lives.
And when we see the effects of the old nature and the flesh in US, I think I will move over. When we see the effects of the old nature and the flesh and us, we can recognize that that's no longer I, but that's sin that dwells in me. And so the Spirit of God will bring bring liberty. But the the question then arises. And let's just turn to that verse in Romans 6.
And verse 14.
It says sin shall not have dominion over you. And then it says for you're not for you're not under the law. So this first, this verse speaks volumes to me.
That there is deliverance from the power of sin in our lives.
If there isn't.
A taking up of the law.
So what? What happens when we take up the law?
Well, we actually get a shovel out.
And we dig up the old man, and we put restraints.
We put conditions.
We put demands on what we are in Adam.
And the flesh never has prospered under those conditions. And so we find that, yes, I am dead and risen. God sees me that way. But in practice, I'm still in the energy of the first man. I'm still trying to create righteousness in the energy of the flesh.
And so that is our natural tendency, OK, if we go back to.
Man under the law, when the law was given, God says, I would like to bless you.
You'll need to be obedient, but I my heart wants to go out in blessing to you.
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And man's automatic response was all that you say unto us we will do.
And it says there that they spoke those words with one voice, with one voice. So what we are in, Adam automatically thinks.
That all we need to do is ask God what to do and then we will do it and we'll end up meriting favor with God. That is what we are by nature. That is how we think by nature and.
So the law was given to put that that to the test in US. So if we go back to Romans chapter 5 and verse 20.
We'll see. The purpose of the law. God gave the law not to make us righteous. He never ever expected that He was going to take man in the flesh and make him righteous before Himself. So it says in verse 20. Moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound. The purpose for the Law.
Was that you and I might have a clear understanding?
That we weren't going to merit, favor or righteousness with God and we weren't going to have life because of our own works and so.
God accomplished the purpose of the law. The purpose of the law was to show us that we were sinners and that was the only reason God gave it. He never gave it to us with the thought that, well, if we're tested enough, if we take up this this.
The way in which we can prove ourselves to God. If we try hard enough, then we'll attain to something. God knew that wasn't the case, and we have to learn it ourselves.
And so as we've gone through chapter 6 and we have found out that deliverance from the power of sin is found in death and resurrection. I see the end of what I am in Adam at the cross, God judging it there, and I leave it there. I rise in newness of life. I have a new life now, and that life delights and loves to please down if that were the only thing in the picture.
Then I would be sin would not have dominion over me. But what we find, don't we, I can think we can all just we can all be of 1 voice again here this afternoon and say that our experience is often too much the contrary to sin not having dominion over us. Often times sin has dominion over us.
But what it says here is it. It says sin shall not have dominion over you. For you you are not under.
Wall And so when sin does have dominion over, it's very simply we are trying to conquer its power by our own efforts, and that's the principle of law. So when sin has dominion over us in our life, we are trying to conquer its power in our own effort, and that's law.
So.
You know.
In order for us to be delivered and to be able to enjoy liberty, to be able to do the will of God, because that's what Christian liberty is. Christian liberty is having the ability and the desire to do the will of God.
It's nothing else. It's not as we often hear it said.
Just being able to do whatever we want to do. Well, that expression is so unscriptural and it, it's so, it's so.
We are believers on the Lord Jesus Christ. We are in Christ and we have a new life and that life doesn't want to do the things that the flesh wants to do. And so doing what we want to do, if we are in the enjoyment of deliverance through the gospel, is we want to do God's will.
That's liberty and the Lord Jesus showed us what that was like when he said I do always those things.
Which please the Father.
You and I have the wonderful privilege of learning how to live the Christian life through the energy of the Spirit, which we're going to get into. And the result will be that we will want to do the will of God. That is what this truth is bringing us into the enjoyment of. It's showing us how the cross.
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Has been the end of what we were in Adam. God's judgment has been seen in the cross.
Everything that we were, God judged there at the cross, and then he gave us the ability to rise in newness of life. And now we have this new nature which wants to do the will of God. But there's something that gets in the way.
There's something that gets in the way.
Sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law.
Let's turn to Chapter 7.
This is a chapter that.
I have to admit I've spent a lot of time in my Christian experience and I want to share the key to this chapter. The key that I have found to this chapter, it's in the first verse and it's in the parenthesis of this verse. Know ye not brethren, for I speak to them that.
Know the law. I speak to them that know the law.
You know, in my Christian experience.
Although those who sought to nurture me in the things of the Lord had the greatest intentions, but they didn't understand deliverance from law.
And so I learned what the apostle Paul in this chapter is the experience of what happened in this chapter. You know, this isn't a, these aren't meetings where we go verse by verse. And I'm not going to explain this whole chapter because I want to get into Romans 8. We don't want to spend too much time.
In the miserable condition of Romans 7:00, we we could get to the end of it and find relief. But what the apostle Paul here is saying is I'm going to show you.
Deliverance from law, But I'm also going to show you the effect that law has on you and so much of the.
Material that we have in Romans 7 is a struggle.
Much of it is a struggle.
The law is having its normal effect on my sin nature.
My sin nature is rebelling against the requirements of law.
And it's causing me to, even though the law promised righteousness and I'm seeking it, I have that desire for righteousness because I, I have life.
The law is causing me to lose the ability to walk in the enjoyment of the righteousness that I desire to walk in. And so the first verse of this chapter is very, very key. I have found it to be myself. It says, for I know ye not brethren, for I speak to them that know the law. I'm going to give you a little example of how this came home to my soul.
I was at a conference one time and there was a brother, I believe it was Stan Jacobson. Some of you know him.
And he spoke in a meeting and said, you know, he says, I've never really went through the experience of Romans 7. He said. I've heard of other people speak of the experience in Romans 7, This, this struggle between.
The the sin nature and the requirements that are made against it, and the the resulting activity of the sin nature doing that which the law is telling it not to do.
Well, maybe we can go into that and be a little clearer, but he said. I've never, I never went through that experience, really.
And I thought, well, that's interesting because I sure have. And then the Spirit of God seemed to to to teach me that there there was a difference. And not everyone goes through the excruciating experience of Romans 7 because they haven't had the exposure to law.
That others have had. Now if we want to know who has the most exposure to law, we have to.
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Understand who is under its influence.
The worst, you might say, well, the apostle Paul knew what it was to be under the influence of law. He knew the demands of law and he knew the requirements of it. And what that did when he became a Christian was it created a struggle. Paul wasn't completely delivered, you might say.
When He was saved, none of us are. We have to go through the experience of understanding how we become dead to the law, because the law will always have requirements and those requirements are always to the flesh. So the law wasn't given to man in the Spirit, was it? It says of the fruit of the Spirit, it says, and of such there is no law. The Spirit of God doesn't need.
Regulations and requirements to produce righteousness.
That is what it does because he's the Spirit of God.
But.
We have we have because of the exposure to law that we might we might have found ourselves in our conscience is always reacting, you might say, to that sin nature that is that is in us. And so let's just let's just I want what I want to do is I want to go down I'm I'm going to skip.
The example of the woman who is married.
And the how the law is binding. The law is binding and as long as someone is under it, they're not free unless they die. That's the teaching. In the first few verses, God uses the example of a woman who is married. She is bound to the law, to her husband as long as she is living and she is only loosed.
As there is death, that's really the teaching that the Apostle Paul is going to give us to set us free from the ******* of law.
And so let's read verse 5.
Excuse me?
Verse 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
Ye are dead.
To the law by the body of Christ. So this very same.
Solution that God had for deliverance from the power of sin is also.
Found to be the same for deliverance from the law. We have to understand death in order to realize that we are delivered from the ******* of law.
The law always made.
Requirements to the first man, and if we can understand that, if we can understand that principle, the law always has been directed at the 1St man. We have to see the end of the first man to get out from underneath the demands of law. And God's way of getting us out from underneath the demands of law is for us to by faith.
Lay hold of the truth that we're dead and were risen again.
If by faith, we know we have a tendency to.
Judge the truth by our experience.
And oftentimes our experience is so far removed from the truth that we never can lay hold of the truth.
But deliverance can only be enjoyed.
As we walk by faith, I also want to bring us back to a verse in Romans one, if you wouldn't mind turning to Romans 1.
I think that sometimes we don't get delivered from law in our life because we're not willing to accept the fact that we can't merit our own favor before God. Let me repeat that. We don't get delivered from law and its principle and its effect and ******* in our life because we're not willing.
To recognize that we cannot produce righteousness before God.
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This verse has been a help to me. Romans chapter one and verse 5.
By whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faith.
For obedience to the faith.
You know these, these truths of deliverance have to be received because we believe that what God says is true. There can't be any blessing, any peace, any rest in our souls if we don't take these truths and make them good by faith. But here we have the obedience of faith. I have to accept the fact that God has said in that in me that is in my flesh dwells no good thing.
And I cannot merit any of God's favor by my efforts, by my desires.
By my longings, By my willingness to go to great lengths to please God.
It's the obedience of faith and God says the only deliverance that's going to come from to you from the demands of the law is that you be obedient to the gospel and you be willing to accept the fact that death is the answer for your deliverance.
Means I have to accept the fact that I don't get any credit. I don't get any credit.
It's all what God has done. Christ gets all the credit, and as long as I'm willing to give him the credit, I can walk in the obedience of faith, and faith will take me into the paths of peace.
Of liberty, of freedom. But if I'm not willing to set aside law as a principle for blessing?
That I can't have it because God has chosen to bless on the ground of His grace.
Not on my merit and law has to do with my merit. And so I'm going to make this rather short in Romans 7 because.
Let's I believe I can go on further with a little the time that I have.
You know, as I was going, as the Spirit of God was bringing me into these truths, I began to wonder, why aren't these things understood?
Why is it when I speak of deliverance from law that I seem to get a resistance?
I People kind of shun me because.
I'm Speaking of liberty. I'm Speaking of deliverance. And yet.
It's misunderstood.
And the very principles that we have here if we take up.
Law and let's talk about this a little bit. Maybe we can define it a little bit. You know, the law was given to.
To the children a visit was given to the Jews. We were never under the law. Were we as Gentiles? We were never under the law.
Does that mean that this truth in Romans 7 has no application? If we were to read in Romans 2, it speaks of those who do by nature. The things that are in the law are allowing to themselves right those that do the things.
By nature, the things of the law, they're a law to themselves. So God has given us that ability.
To be able to recognize what is good, what is wrong, what is bad, and what is good and so.
You know, as a I'm, I'm going to give a little illustration here that might be helpful. I feel like this is my own experience, so I can speak about it. But I believe as a young Christian and as a Christian in my early years, I used to carry around a shovel, a notebook, and binoculars.
A shovel, notebook and binoculars. The shovel was so I could dig up the old man and put myself under the lawn, get him to to to.
Work, work, righteousness. And that's what we have to do if we're if we're under the law, we have to bypass Roman six that I'm dead and risen. I have to like we had the other night in the baptism. I couldn't get them down under the water and I couldn't get them to disappear.
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Well, that's our practice. We really haven't seen the end of Adam and we're taking him up. So in practice, I'm kind of taking a shovel and I'm I'm on burying that that old man that God says is of no value and the notebook was for.
The, the, the standards that I had set myself under standards that seemed to be good. And I, I, I measured my righteousness by the ability to keep those standards. That's, that's the principle of law. And that's what we're all probably can say. I can relate to that because by nature, we want to, we want to try to merit God's favor.
I used to have the binoculars because I like, I kind of like to keep track of everybody else.
And make sure, make sure they were living in accordance with the law, with my standards.
And that was a pretty miserable existence. By the grace of God, I believe for the most part, when He began to bring me into these truths, I lost my shovel, I lost my notebook, and I lost my binoculars. One of the things that I realized God was doing in my heart as the trees of deliverance from law began to dawn on my soul was I was becoming less and less critical.
Of others.
You know, the practice of law destroys individuals. I know because God had to teach me many, many difficult lessons. If I was going to take up the flesh for righteousness, God was going to show me what the flesh was. And He did that in ways that were extremely unpleasant.
And I I would never want to go back there again. Capable of it, but I would never want to go back and.
And so as as as so the law is destructive to the individual because the individual is trying to live up to a standard that in the flesh it's impossible to live to. So life is a continual struggle. And we won't go into Romans 7 here to to outline that struggle. You read it for yourself.
Ask yourself, do I want this experience to be the experience of my first day life? Just read it and ask yourself, do I want this experience? Well, we won't have it if the Spirit of God takes the truth of death.
To what I am in Adam and applies it so that the law can't be applied to the Newman if I'm if I'm living in newness of life in the power of the Spirit of God, the law has nothing to say. You know there's times.
When there's times when someone may come up to me and they, they have this idea of what righteousness is and what practical Christianity is. And, and they, they might set it before me and I don't have the same faith that they do. And it, it what it, what it seems to me is, it seems to me that somebody is speaking to a dead man.
Because if the Spirit of God has made my death in Adam real, the new man does not respond to the law. So if we're walking by faith.
We can.
Maybe be exercised about something that said, but we don't have to come under their conscience.
Because no telling where we'll end up if we come under everyone's conscience. It's a, it's, it's, it's not a, it's not a pleasant thing to always be having your conscience hammered by.
Someone who feels they need to get to something in your life. I'm not questioning the fact that there may be times when the Lord will bring certain things up. He wants us to evaluate maybe a practice or something in our life and we need to take a good look at it. But if it's on the principle of law.
Then we have reason to say, I don't respond to that because in Christ I'm dead to the law. Yes, I think it might be good for us to just read.
715 and 16, so we understand what I really want to do, I don't do, and what I didn't want to do. That's what I'm doing. OK. You want me to read that? Yeah. If you read 14 and OK for what we know for for we know the law is spiritual, but I am carnal soul under sin.
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For that which I do, I allow not, so I don't. I don't want to do it.
For what I would that which I desire to do that I do not, but what I hate that I do.
So that is the the effect.
Of having the influence of the law and having a new life that wants to do the law, but not having the power to do it.
But I want to go on and broaden the thought of the effect of law. It's going to have an adverse effect in my personal life. It's going to have an adverse effect in my family life if I if I am governing my family on the principles of trying to get righteousness out of the flesh.
It will be. It will end in death. It will end in death.
If I govern my me, my family, by seeking to get righteousness from the flesh under the principle of law, the letter kills and I will find that it will have an adverse effect upon my family. And the same thing goes in the assembly. If law is present, the practice of law, the practice of law is really legality.
We don't like to talk about legality a lot, but that's really the practice.
Of law.
In the practice of law will have the same effect in our assemblies.
It will cause death. You know, it says of there was an assembly that had a legal problem, you might say, in Galatians 5. Let's just turn to Galatians 5.
You know this, this is really, really important to me because it's my desire that there's peace and that there's liberty.
In our personal lives, in our families and in our assemblies, but this is the result of law.
It says verse 15, But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. So you know, I think that we have all experienced in our assemblies the effect that trying to live a righteous life in the energy of the flesh under the law.
The the results are that it produces.
The the activity of the flesh, it produces the activity of the flesh. Notice we haven't talked about the spirit here yet at all, have we? We haven't talked about the energy of the spirit. We're going to do that in the last part of our meeting. But if our assemblies only know or they know too much of the activity of the flesh in them.
The result will be very, very sad consequences and it's just, it's heavy on my heart.
That we learn what causes the strife and conflict in our assemblies or in our families. Sometimes I'll go to an assembly and.
There were many in the assembly years going by and there's, there's no, there's no children of the Saints, no children of the Saints in that assembly and.
It it it's just an indication that the word of God is true.
Oftentimes, maybe other reasons, but it's oftentimes a result of the fact that the letter kills. The letter kills.
I'm not saying it's always that case, but it's something that we should be exercised about. What effect has law had in the condition of our assemblies presently? I just leave that out for the Spirit of God to work, not making any accusations. I don't know. I don't know most of the conditions of the assemblies here and it's only my desire to set these truths forth at the Spirit of God might be able to take.
And apply them so that there could be maybe repentance and blessing because we're really not being obedient to the gospel if we're under the influence of the law, because we're introducing man in the flesh. So.
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I, I thought I would. We've seen the effects of what what effect the law has. It creates a struggle. So there's this new life and it desires nothing but to please God. And then there's the law which makes a demand and if the if the if the if, if the if.
The the old man in US is isn't buried, then the old man is set setting forth.
To fulfill the righteous requirements of the law and there's a huge struggle and so that.
So I would like to just.
Give a little bit of a help because sometimes we need to be able to detect what's going on when we have an assembly. It's having struggles and difficulties or if we're in a family.
Family is always in turmoil. Or if in our life we're struggling mightily with the power of sin, we need to understand.
What we need to be able to recognize if, if this principle of law is present, well, the law requires something of the flesh.
And if the law is present, so will the flesh be.
So if you're looking at a situation, wondering what is the problem here?
Is this the effect of law?
Well, the flesh is what's trying to produce righteousness. And you know what? The flesh produces everything but righteousness, everything but righteousness. So wherever the law is present, you're going to see the activity of the flesh. Wherever the law is present, you're going to see the activity of the flesh. And that's an indication that we need to be delivered.
So let's go on. We've we've, we've touched on this.
Trying to explain the principles of law and the effects of it. We've talked a little bit about the struggle, the inner struggle that goes on when we're under the when we're under the ******* of law.
We're going to go on to Romans 8 because there's a contrast. God loves to teach us through contrasts and this is wonderful truth to get a hold of. You know, it's pretty miserable if we were to just sit here and talk about law and its effects because there's nothing good to talk about. But immediately as we get into the next chapter, verse one says there there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.
And we'll stop there. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. I believe this verse brings before us a perfection of the work of Christ.
Condemnation was dealt with at the cross and as we died and rose again, we lost our identity to Adam and we rose in newness of life, and the condemnation that God had towards what we were in Adam was taken care of at the cross. God is completely satisfied with demands, His righteous demands with regard to our sins and with regard to our sin nature, and so He can put.
In this condition before himself and he can say there is you stand before God.
Outside of his condemnation, outside of his condemnation, you know, there's condemnation in the law. And at one time I thought, well, maybe this is speaking about the condemnation that one finds under the ******* of law. I think it's really has to do more with condemnation that that is spoken of in chapter 5. But it's a wonderful thing for you and I to realize that the work of Christ.
Has so satisfied God that he looks at us.
And there is absolutely no condemnation in his mind and in his He, he, he, he demands nothing from us. Everything that he, his demands required have been, have been met in Christ. And so as we are in Christ, and this is the first time I think that this expression in Christ.
Is mentioned and it has to do with. Now our identification is in him.
And we are no longer associated with Adam.
And we're in all of the perfections of Christ. And so it's a wonderful if we could just get ahold of the fact that.
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You know the law doesn't have anything to say to someone in Christ.
We we are in a position of absolute favor and blessing and acceptance in him so it says verse 2 for the law of sin and for the law of life and Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death for the.
Look for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ. I'd like to speak a little bit.
About this phrase Spirit of life.
You know, as we come into the end of the enjoyment of the gospel in this chapter, we're going to find that God has provided an energy for our Christian life. He has provided power for us to walk in the liberty of deliverance, but the energy is not.
My energy. The energy is not my energy.
It's the energy of the Spirit of God. You see the contrast between Chapter 7. In Chapter 7, you had the energy of the flesh trying to produce righteousness, and only it only ended up in death.
But in this chapter, it begins with introducing the energy, the power or the Christian life. And it is the spirit of life that tells me that the spirit of if I walk in the enjoyment and in the power of the Spirit of God, there's only one thing that it's going to produce.
Life.
You know what was consistent?
About the flesh.
All it produced was death.
All it produced was death, but there is a completely new.
Power.
For our new divine life, it's the Spirit of God.
I I guess it's taken me years to really understand and begin to appreciate the fact that I can stop pedaling as fast as I can to produce.
That which will please God.
You know, when we're under law and we're under these restraints, we just pedal faster and faster and faster and pretty soon we get tired. We get tired because we're we're trying to live the life in the power of the flesh.
And until the Spirit of God, it is the truth, and the Spirit of God is made good to us.
The Christian life can be difficult, so let me let me just give you an illustration.
Wow, give you an illustration.
I'm going to go a few minutes over if you don't mind. Okay, thanks Matt. I knew you'd be in my court.
My wife's over there saying no, no, no, no, no.
So.
I, I used to work in a very affluent part of town and I work for a school district and I would go from school to school. I would drive and I did more, I did more time on the road than I did in the schools, it seemed like, but.
I started seeing this woman on a bicycle and she was pedaling along and she looked like she was, I guess maybe she no, I think she even wrote in the rain. I think I may have seen her in the rain one time, but she looked like she was having a grand old time pedaling along and enjoying her bicycle, enjoying the weather.
And.
I kept seeing her and one day I saw her on a really busy road and she was turning. She was in the left turn lane and this is like a 40 year old lady and I thought, man, this lady really likes to ride her bicycle. And then I looked real close.
And I noticed she wasn't bent over, she wasn't exerting much energy, but she was pedaling and she was enjoying her ride. And I realized.
It was long before you have all these eggs around. It was probably when they first came up. But I realized that she had a cyst. She had power assist and she was enjoying the ride so much, but she wasn't really having to exert that much energy. And I thought about it and I don't want to make light of anyone who is going through very, very difficult times because the Christian life.
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Is not easy.
But once we learn the truth of the power of the Spirit of God, it's kind of like riding our bike with power assist. Yes, we're required to pedal, but the energy that is exerted is really not ours. It's that of the Spirit of God. And I don't know what it'll take for us to understand this. Maybe we'll have to just spend a lot of time.
Pedaling without the assist in our practical Christian lives before we realize God has provided a power for us to go forth doing what he asked us to do even.
He tells us, and I think it's John 12, that if we love our lives, we'll lose it. And if we lose our lives for the Kingdom of God, we'll find it. And sometimes we don't know what he's going to require this, but.
If we understand the power that God has provided for you and I to live in.
It is not going to be in our own energy. It's going to be in the energy of God, the Spirit who lives in us. This is a practical thing for us to enjoy. I just want to share one more verse.
One more verse in this chapter.
It's.
Verse 9 So if we could just turn to verse nine and then we'll close. But it says ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Now you and I know what the flesh is, don't we? It's a very, very strong force that.
Produces very ugly results. The flesh is a strong force that produces ugly results. But here we find that God has.
He has.
Told us our connection with the flesh as to the power of our Christian life is no longer.
In effect, the power for our Christian life is in the Spirit, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. This, I want to, I want us each to understand, has a very, very daily practical application.
We can, by the grace of God through the Enlightenment of the Spirit of God, live our lives in the energy of the Spirit of God all the time. Do we or will we? Probably not, but let's not make provision for not.
This is the energy for our life. But what will the Spirit of God do? Let's look on in this verse. If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Well, if there's somebody here that doesn't know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, you can't appreciate nor enjoy any of these delivering truths. If the Spirit of God doesn't live within you, you're still in the flesh.
But if the Spirit of God does dwell in you, you are not.
In the flesh.
Now here we go back to the experience.
I live my life and it doesn't feel this way. I live my life and it just seems like I see the flesh all the time.
And it seems like I'm in the flesh.
Well, here goes the obedience of faith. The obedience of faith. Are we going to believe God that what He says is true? He sees us in the Spirit. He does not see us in the flesh. And the wilderness of the Red Sea, which is a verse that I started out with, is the experience of us learning the reality of this.
The wilderness of the Red Sea, death and resurrection, resurrection. And we're going through this life and God wants us to teach the truth of us not being in the flesh.
Because he says we're not.
But there's one more thing now. If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
What does the What does the Spirit of God produce in US? What is the Spirit of God produce as we live our lives in the energy of the Spirit, in newness of life, in resurrection? What does the Spirit of God produce?
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It's the Spirit of Christ, everything we've already talked about, the spirit of life, so the Spirit will always produce.
The divine life. But He will also always produce Christ. You and I have the privilege of living a life in a power that's not our own, with a new life that we have nothing to do with getting.
And we have the enjoyment and the privilege of living a life that will reflect the glories of Christ, not by our own energy, not in our own power, but because God has designed.
The plan of salvation to be just this way. Do we understand now how we could have rest?
David, it said he had rest from all of his enemies. Well, with this gold mine of reality of what God has done through the work of Christ, you and I have a tremendous, wonderful life to look forward to. I'm not saying that everyone in this room is going to understand it right away.
I certainly didn't, and I there's still some more for me to get a hold of.
But I know enough to know that I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. And this work that the Lord Jesus went through on Calvary's cross and satisfying God's demands did not leave us.
In a condition where we just had to spend our lives struggling against all of our enemies, now we will.
Until we understand.
The value of the work of Christ. You know this is the wisdom of God.
This is what God designed. We didn't have anything to do with it. With man, oh man, I want you all to get a taste of what it's like. I said before, I'd rather.
Show you and tell you.
Now maybe you don't understand that.
But this is real.
And there is deliverance from all of these enemies that once plagued us, and we can live in the enjoyment of the provision God has made. Sorry, here I go apologize for the truth.
Sorry.
No apologies, just keep going. I can't keep well, I know that.
We've What I wanted to do was give an outline. It was a very, very difficult, difficult series for me to take. But you know what? God doesn't care about that. He knows he can guess through. He knows that he can help us to tie all of these truths together. He knows what he's capable of. Sometimes we prove that we're not or that we're weak.
But what?
We have here is. It's a package that hasn't left any.
Question of a full and free salvation. We've been saved from the penalty of our sins. We've been saved from what we are in our We've been saved. From the power of our sins. We've been saved. From the effects of the law, We've been saved.
Saved from the power in the the Presence, you might say, of the flesh.
It's not to say that the flesh is gone. And don't anyone get misunderstand me thinking that I say I don't still see the flesh.
But you know, you can always apply the truth when you see it. You can always apply the truth when you see it. And yes, when I see it, you know, this is like, this is like the when we're told to put on the, we're told to gird up our loins in, in, in Ephesians 6, it says with the loins. We're, we're, we're to gird ourselves with the, with the. Let me just read it.
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Stand fast there having your loins girt about with truth. You know what the Lord brought home to me the other day that this is how I dirt my my lawns with truth. This is how I get ready for the battle. I take this truth of deliverance and I put it, I put it on and I realize it's, it's a it's a walk of faith, taking hold of what God has said through his spirit.
And actually walking with it.
Daily and there are times you're probably going to see when I when I haven't girded my loins but without the truth. We don't have the ability to live the Christian life and I just want to share one more verse in first Joan.
Because this will help to cause some of the young people here to realize that.
This can be this truth can be a real blessing.
There's other truth that I'm sure the source is talking about.
But it says of the young man, it says.
Verse verse 14 of chapter two, First John 14, four of 214.
It says, I have written unto you Father's because you have known him, that it's from the beginning. And this is what I want you to get ahold of. I've written unto young men because you are strong. I've written unto you young men because you are strong. This truth will make us strong.
Now there, I'm sure there is, it says it says because and the word of God abideth in you and you have overcome the wicked one, you know, for the for the young child and the faith.
They're at a disadvantage because they haven't. They don't have the growth and the enemy.
They're they're susceptible to the enemy, but the young man has come into the enjoyment of truth like this and they have gained strength and the ability to face what the enemy has to throw at them.
And so as I share these truths, you know, this has been just the journey that the Lord has brought me on. And I know it's not about, it's not about who's speaking or what, but.
We would rather know that it's a reality.
That these, these truths have meaning, that they, they have been put to practice to some degree and blessing has been a result. And I would say for anyone here, I don't know what you're struggling with. I don't know where you are. I don't know what your thought of, I don't know whether I'm going to make it.
I've tried and tried and tried or whatever.
Let me tell you, if there's anybody that's been there, it's been me. And these truths that we have shared together have.
Have to a large extent changed my life. I want them to just the Spirit of God to take them in his time and make them good. We can't push. We can't have expectations. I don't know where you'll be in your Christian development. I don't know what it's going to take for each one of us.
To have this to become a reality, let's pray.
Father, we just come to thee and we, we thank you for the power of the gospel. It's your power and it's your power under salvation. You think of we think of ourselves. We're so vulnerable. We have so many things against us, naturally speaking for you to design a plan that brings us and and delivers us and brings salvation in all these areas of our lives.
Father, we want to thank you. I want to praise you.
For your wisdom and how you made everything.
Available to us through your Son. The Lord Jesus came and he lived a life that was in perfect obedience to yourself. And then he gave his life. And then you decided to you. You started a new creation. And that new creation is in the one who you found all your delight in. And now we have our association with him. We praise you for this. We thank you.
In Jesus name, Amen.