Bible Teaching

Calvary Temple Teaching Library

Living in Liberty Pt.3

Hallelujah! Amen. What Chris was praying has been going over in my spirit the last couple of days--how thankful I am to be in a fellowship like this. Amen? Among brothers and sisters that are in pursuit, that love God. Sometimes the standard that we all love and are after, it'll keep you hopping, and you think sometimes, "Can't I do anything right?" The answer to that is, without Him you can do nothing. Amen? The only time we get something right is when God is working in us, and other than that you're just a mess-up, that's all. Yet His grace is there and His mercy. He knows that we're, in our frame, just flesh, and yet He loves us and He's given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.

As the utterance came forth today, if you believe that God will deliver you, that His Spirit dwelling in you has the capacity to cause you to live victoriously, if you believe that miracle is available to you and you choose to pursue that free gift, those that come to Him, He will turn none away. He'll do exceedingly abundantly above anything that we could ask or think. Amen? So just change your course. Too many people are waiting for God to come and do it. Too many of us sit around and hope that somehow we will experience a Damascus road encounter. How many of you would kind of like to have something like that in your life, really? I would. But you know what most of us are going to get? A Matthew experience: everything is going great--you're a fat cat, easy street--"Follow Me." That's all you're going to get, and you've got to make a decision: this is going to cost me everything.

You know, somewhere along the line you might even be bold enough--Peter was capable of sticking his foot in his mouth all the time--a lot of us think it, but Peter was bold enough to say it: "What's in it for me?" "Nobody that's left mothers and fathers and houses and lands for the sake of following Me is ever going to come up lacking, for you will receive, in this life, a hundredfold and in the life to come, eternal life" (Matthew 19:29). But you can't follow Him without giving everything up. There's no partial commitment to this kingdom, because if we don't love Him more than mothers and fathers and houses and lands, then we're not worthy of Him. We'll never know the grace; we'll never know the revelation. Your mind will remain carnal, and all of these principles will seem foolish to you; it'll seem foolish to make that decision. Those that are walking in the spirit, we're looking around at people and saying, "What's wrong? You can't see this?" You've always got a reason; there's always a rational explanation as to why you can't, why yours can't. God has placed in every one of us this awesome power of choice, of freewill. Choose this day who you're going to serve, and that's what it all comes down to. You want free? It's just a choice away; your liberty is only a choice away. You are in the condition that you're in because you choose to be there. The gods that dominate your life are because you've erected them; you've chosen to worship them. You can become as bold as Gideon and suck it up and choose to destroy the gods and know that there's going to be a cost, and the grace will be there to make you victorious. So don't wait for God to do something; He's done everything He's going to do. Everything that pertains to life and godliness has already been given to us, and so we just need, today, to draw upon it, rest in it--seek the Kingdom first, draw nigh unto God and He'll draw nigh unto you, pant for Him as the hart does the brook--you'll be satisfied. These are the promises of God that are yea and Amen to us.

Let's go back to Luke, chapter 16. We're going to look at Luke, chapter 16 and spend a little bit of time in James and Romans and maybe 1 John; I don't know how far we'll get. We'll be there for the next couple of sessions anyway, but we want to set the basic principles down. We'll speak to some of the specifics, but we don't want to get sidetracked on the do's and don'ts and what's acceptable, because those are the questions that are usually asked by someone who's carnally minded that's wanting to know, "How far out on this leash can I get, really, and still be acceptable?" Most of the people that are asking the questions (Is this lawful? Is this OK? Is this sin? I don't think that's sin.) are seeing how far away from God they can get and still be acceptable. We will address some of these things, not for the purpose of how liberated can I be from holiness, but we'll address those things so that you don't think that there is any merit in abstaining from certain things that may be amoral and get yourself into the yoke of bondage that Paul was speaking about in Galatians [as we read] this morning. There is no merit from abstaining from these things. We don't abstain to be righteous; it does not make you holy to abstain. The abstinence, the decision, and if not abstinence, the ability to live free from the power of, the compulsion, the need of that thing to satisfy. The temporal fix of gratification of pleasure, just enjoyment--nothing wrong with that, but I don't have to have that. So we're going to talk about that. Is there the compulsion; is there the bondage? Do I get my worth in that? Can that satisfy me? It can't be what satisfies you. The only thing that can satisfy you is the rivers of living water that spring up inside of you and refresh you. The only thing that can satisfy you is the Bread of Life. The only thing that can satisfy us is the broken body of Jesus--the drinking of His blood, the eating of His flesh--that's what satisfies, that's what sustains us--the water.

Now, most of us like to think that we can get sufficient water in a milk shake or whatever it is you like. You know one of the things I like? Have any of you ever had those--they're like the lizard piña colada drink. What is that thing I drink? Liz Blizz [Pastor's wife responds]. If you haven't had them, everybody rush to the 7-Eleven or somewhere. Try one out; you'll love it. Bondage! You can't live off those things; you've got to have some water. That's just to, every once in awhile, have a little taste of flavor, and there's nothing wrong with it. But if you try to live on it, you're going to turn into a coconut or something, I don't know. So we don't want to get hung up on all of those little things that are a part of life, that are amoral, that in and of themselves are not sin. It only becomes sin when I need it. It only becomes sin when I defend it against the Word of God, when I defend it against preferring others better than myself, when I claim it as a right to deny my brother in need, when I have a brother over here that doesn't have a morsel of bread to eat and I have to go buy a six-pack of Liz Blizz and can defend that against the ministry and care and edification of the Body of Christ. Now I've got a problem. When I prefer it over the time that I spend in edifying you and then lie to myself about why I'm doing it, then I have a problem. So those are the things that we hope to address, but we're not going to focus on those as much as we want to focus on the biblical principle of being free, liberated from the flesh, from the power of sin in our members, to pursue God with all of our hearts. We are free! Sin no longer has that dominion over us!

Since you're in Luke, look at Romans for a second, and I know you all did your homework and read chapters 6, 7, and 8. Since you did, we want to just look at a couple of the major thoughts that Paul was having here in these chapters. Look at verse 11 of chapter 6, "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." Now, what is sin? Good question. Let's look at the most simple definition. Sin means to miss the mark. What is the mark? Godliness, life in Christ, total dependence upon God. Sin, then, would be any choice that begins to lead me away from that to independence; to unrighteousness; to the camp who is an enemy, a hater, at enmity with God; to the feeding of myself and embracing the philosophies that are antichrist; to getting worth from the world's wisdom, their accolades, embracing their treasures to satisfy me--all that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil supplies. That's where we get in trouble.

So Paul, writing here in the sixth chapter of Romans, when he speaks and says [verse 12], "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God . . . ," draws the contrast for us. Walk in the spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Yield your members as instruments unto God. How do you get free from these lusts of the flesh, from the sin that's in your members? Very simple. How do you do it? Yield your members as instruments to righteousness. How do you get free from the power of sin in your life? Yield your members as instruments to God's righteousness. Yield your members, yourselves, unto God.

OK. Maybe I'm questioning, Is this thing here something I should or should not be doing? There's a question in my mind. What do I need to do before I can make a determination on whether this is acceptable, not acceptable, lawful, unlawful, whatever it might be? What do I need to do before I can make a definitive statement and say, "You know, I don't really believe that this is harmful to me at this time"? What should I do when I'm in the throes of a decision like this? Underline this phrase in your Bible: "yield yourselves unto God." Whenever there's a question, which way do you run? Toward--say it--toward whom? Toward God. If there's ever a question, run toward God. If there's ever a question, run toward righteousness. If there's ever a question, run from the amoral to the holy. None of us here are questioning the immoral; most of us battle with the amoral. The problem with amoral things is the participation in them with an independent spirit, because everything that we're to do, we're to do by the Lord and for the Lord, unto His glory. The moment we're moving independently, the moment we're out there just doing our thing, looking for that liberty--we established this morning, if you want to spend more time on it; we can go back and spend a couple more hours, but how many of you got the point that we can't be independent? Let me see. How many of you got the point? How many of you didn't get it yet? OK, one.

So we realize, then, that holiness is how dependent you can become upon God, because what does the term "holy" mean? Holy means what? Separate. Holiness is living separate; not separate from (amoral, immoral), but separate to. So the question we ask ourselves, then, is: Am I separated to God? We should start every day separating ourselves to God: "Every decision today is going to be made by You, is going to be made for You. Everything I do is to be done as unto the Lord. Everything I do, I'm going to do with all my might, to Your glory." We begin to live our lives in the spirit. We begin to live our lives in serving others, edifying the Body of Christ, seeking others' riches and not our own. This is the indication, then, that we're walking in the spirit and not fulfilling the lust of the flesh.

Now, one of the things we need to look at when we talk about flesh--and these are terms that we need to see are synonymous, as we're going to look in the study: flesh, carnal, carnal-mindedness, worldly--synonyms, OK? When we begin to look at these different things--I was discussing this with [Pastor] Jeff and Kim and Greer [Pastor's daughter and wife, respectively], and we were talking about some different things with some of the pastors. The question came up, How come, so many times, the people that are weak think they're the strong ones? We're going to discuss the strong and the weak as it pertains to conscience. But you see, where many of us make the mistake is [in] thinking I am strong and therefore because of my strength I have liberty. It's not strong conscience versus weak conscience; it's spiritual-mindedness versus carnal-mindedness, because many of these things are not, Am I strong and have liberty? The question is, Am I spiritual or carnal? Strong and weak have to do with conscience, which has to do with things that are lawful. Weak and strong have to do with whether I am under the bondage of the law and self-righteousness or whether I am strong (free) with the without-the-law righteousness.

That's what Paul is talking about in Corinthians when he's addressing these situations. We'll address meat offered to idols, and we'll address meat eaten in the shambles and some of these other issues and try to draw parallels to where we are here in the twenty-first century, but before we do that, the thing that I want you to see is, many of the things that you're wrestling with won't even be issues if you'll separate yourself unto God. They won't even be questions in your mind anymore. The reason you're asking these questions is because you're carnal. You're mind is gravitating toward the world, and all that is in the world is--we all know it, right?--all that is in the world is lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and pride of life. To be a friend of the world is to be at enmity with God. Listen. We'll say it again. The apostle says it; we quote it so freely because we know it so well that it almost loses it significance: "For all that is in the world [is] . . . " (1 John 2:16). Then what are you going to find if you look to the world? We can look under moral leaves, amoral leaves, immoral leaves, and " . . . all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, [these things are] not of the Father . . . "

You can't find anything out there that's of the Father. "Aren't there things that we can do that aren't spiritual, that are amoral, that aren't wrong?" Why are you asking that question? I thought we already answered that question. Why do you keep bringing up what you can do that isn't wrong, when the point we're trying to make is, What are you doing to be more like God? "Well, yeah, I know I'm to be more like God, but what can I do over here?" Then what kind of a mind do you think you have? Why are you so preoccupied with that? Why is that dominating your thoughts? What kind of a license do you want, and who do you want to certify it? You can go to a bunch of churches, and they will certify your license. They'll put your picture on it, and they say you have a right to drive in the world. Even they will say you shouldn't drive one hundred [miles per hour] through a school zone when the lights are flashing. But they're not real opposed to parking, in the sense that some of us old-timers know it. [Pastor is using the analogy of a vehicle driver's license to refer to a "church" endorsement for living a worldly or carnal lifestyle.]

So we want to talk about what is lawful to me. You want to know what's lawful to you? To seek God with all of your heart. To walk in the spirit. You want to know what's lawful to you? Look at it. Here is what has been provided for you. Verse 8 of this same sixth chapter: to die. That's your right, right there: as a Christian, die! What are your rights? Die! Die to your own opinions, die to your desires, die to your dreams, die to your independence, and if you be dead with Christ, then you can live with Him. If you're crucified with Him, you can live with Him. The only way to start out and really have a life of liberty is to die, and if you don't die, you're in bondage to death. The fear of dying will always dominate you. The fear of doing without will always dominate you, the fear of not having. And the tragic thing is that most of you that I'm talking to are people that have been raised in the church. Those of us that have come from the outside, that have already been beat up and scarred and burned, know what's out there, and some of you think you've got to go taste it. It'll kill you! It'll leave scars that'll never go away, pains that you'll never live without--irreparable harm and damage to you and others! Why is it that you think you should be able to go out and test that and try that? Because you're a Gnostic. You want to know God on your terms; you think you know God, and knowledge puffs up. You think you're right with God and have convinced yourself accordingly, but you can't be right with God and be independent and be outside of counsel. The counselors that tell you, "Don't stand at her corner! Don't take fire into your bosom! All that's in the world will kill you!" But you know better: "I have a right to find out for myself. I should be able to determine these things for myself." Yes, Eve, you do. Go ahead and get the knowledge. Go ahead and take the bite of the fruit, and your eyes will be opened. You'll see that your counselors were right, and you can never get your purity back again. I'm not talking about sexual, though that could be part of it. I'm talking about the purity of an undefiled mind, not one of independence. I'm talking about the purity of a mind and a heart that has lived in submission to God and not that rebellion that is the spirit of the world. I'm talking about the life that is chaste and holy and separate to God, that can stand up and say, I've served Him all the days of my life, praise God, because He's been good to me!

So Paul speaks to us here in Romans, and he says if you're dead, you're free from sin. Now, when I use the term "sin," for many of us--I want you to realize that when I say "sin," I'm talking about carnal-mindedness, I'm talking about the world, I'm talking about all that is in the world. Now, what's out there? Let's go back to the temptation of Jesus for just a second. Satan takes Him up on a high mountain and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world, all their wealth, all their power, fame, fortune, fashion, entertainment, image. He showed it all to Him--now, listen--and he said, "The world, the kingdoms, these are mine to give to whoever I want to give them to" (Luke 4:6-7).

What are you looking for? If you're going to go to the world, you've got to go to one guy. He controls it. You've got to go over and say, "Come here, Mr. Devil; I'd like to talk to you. I want to make a deal. I want a little bit of world. Not too much, mind you; I'm a Christian. I want you to know, here's my limit, and I'm not going past that." "Of course, son. You don't have to go past that. I just have a special deal for you: worldliness without guilt, without consequence, without pain. I wouldn't lie to you." "What was your name?" "I'm Lucifer." "Is that the same as the devil?" "No, I'm Lucifer. Don't get us confused." "Are you the father of lies? Are you the prince of darkness?" Who is this guy you're dealing with that's telling you the "truth"? The guy that's telling you, "You've got it together. Spiritual dude! You can quote more Scripture than anybody else in the church. You're a bad dude! You're a warrior! You're free, man, to take liberty." Who's telling you that? You've got a loving counselor telling you one thing and a devil telling you something else. Now, what are you going to believe? Who do you think you are, that's different after twenty-one centuries? The audacity! The deception to think that what you are going through is unique! "Well, you know, I need to experience this. Nobody else has ever had to do this. Nobody has ever had to." Welcome to the club. There is no temptation that has taken you but such as is common to man (1 Corinthians 10:13). Everybody stood where you are, and you're either going to do something real stupid or something real wise, and there's nothing in between. The choice is not the specifics of this incident; it's whether you're going to choose to die with Christ, identify with Him, or want to be esteemed in the eyes of the world, as we saw in the Luke passage. Do you want to bear the cross and die with Jesus or be esteemed of the world? Do you want a taste of world, or do you want the riches of the Kingdom of God? That's all that it comes down to, and it's very simple.

So he makes it clear to us. Look, "Neither yield [verse 13] ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Then verse 14 sounds good, but it's conditional: "For sin shall not have dominion over you: [You who? That] are not under the law, but under grace." "What does grace enable me to do?" Don't you know that grace enables you to yield your members now as servants to God? You can't do it under the law. The law is weak through the flesh, but grace enables you now to experience crucifixion with Christ, to be able to yield your members as instruments to righteousness. But if you choose sin--now, remember what we said sin is--if you choose to yield yourselves, pursue, involve yourselves with sin, carnal-minded thoughts, philosophies, the world (verse 16), it's unto death. But if to obedience--seeking first the Kingdom, separating yourselves unto God, serving others before you serve yourself, choosing, choosing--"Well, it's hypocrisy to do it if you don't feel like it." No, it's obedience, it's submission, it's discipline! "Well, if I don't feel like it, then it's just hypocrisy! I'm just doing it because I have to." Right, and what's wrong with that? "I'm not doing it out of conviction; I'm doing it because I'm made to do it." Yes, and what's wrong with that if it's right? You will come to like it because it's the truth; it's not a lie. Like my dad told me, "You'll come to love Brussels sprouts.' He was lying. "You eat it because I'm telling you, and you'll learn to like it!" Uh-uh. But you know what? When you taste the Lord, He's good! Amen? Has anybody been told to, directed to, mandated to--you choose, against your feelings, to taste the goodness of the Lord, and [have you] ever been disappointed? No. Have you obeyed out of sheer discipline, obedience, and it brought peace and contentment and joy? You don't obey, submit, because you feel like it. You do it because it's right, because it's truth, because it's life, and all other decisions are death. You're not the exception; it will kill you! It'll kill yours; your kids are going to die. It'll go into the next generation, and they're going to die. How about stopping it right where you are; letting it end with you--the curse?

So then he goes on, and he gives us that very clear, positive, eternal law that says if you yield your members, your life, your energy, your decisions, to obey the Word regardless of how you feel, it will bring you righteousness in life. He goes on and, of course, tells us that we've been delivered and made free from sin, verse 18, and have become slaves to righteousness and that because, verse 22, we've now been made free from sin, we've become slaves to God, and you have the fruit of your life unto holiness, and the end is everlasting life.

What do you really want? A new hairdo or eternal life? Weird clothes or eternal life? Gold, diamonds, furs, mansions, jets, or eternal life? What turns you on? Where's your treasure? What satisfies you? What's motivating all of your decisions? What is this voice behind you that's telling you to make this decision? As we look at these things--flip over to Romans 8 for just a second--we then ask ourselves, Well, what is spiritual-mindedness and what is carnal-mindedness, and how does all this stuff work? Verse 5 tells us, "For they that are after the flesh [those that are carnally minded, those that are worldly, those that love the world more than they love God] do mind the things of the flesh [the world, the carnal] . . . " That word "mind," we've shared it with you so many times. In the Greek it means to set your intentions upon. It's what you think about. It's what turns you on. It's what lights your fire. It's what floats your boat. So then we have to come back and ask ourselves the question: What is it that lights my fire, floats my boat, and does all those things? What is it that I am intent upon? Is it--go back to Luke, chapter 16--is it, then, to be highly esteemed in the world and to do whatever it takes and justify all of your actions as to why you are [doing what you're doing]? Look what he says there in verse 15, " . . . Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts . . . " What happens when the Holy Spirit, the people of God, your friends, come to you with the Word of God? Are you one of those that try to justify yourself? Let me ask you a question. Are the first words out of your mouth, "I've got liberty! I've got rights!" or are the first words out of your mouth, "I'm dead. Speak on"? I'm dead. "I'm just offended when people come and think I'm not spiritual and question my actions!" If you're offended, you're alive; you're still alive. You can't offend a dead man. If you're dead in Christ, you can't be offended.

I just did a funeral yesterday. You know, you do a funeral and the guy is in the coffin, and you can go up there and say, "You're ugly!" It doesn't offend him. "Why weren't you at church last night?" He wasn't offended. Mess up his hair. What is that immediate response to justify your position? When somebody comes to bring you reproof, correction, instruction into righteousness, I wonder what spiritually mature people do when someone approaches them? See, some us wouldn't even know. If you hang around spiritually mature people and somebody comes up and begins to bring them some information--"You know, I'm concerned, and I believe that you're in danger. This is what the Word says, and this is the way you're going. This seems to be the fruit of your life; this seems to be what's manifesting in the abundance of the fruit of your life. This seems to be what you're treasure is." If things like that begin to be spoken to, what's the mature person going to do? They're immediately going to say, "Man, I appreciate what you're sharing with me. I really ask you to pray for me." If for some reason they don't think that you're right on the mark, they're not going to start telling you everything that's wrong with you. Their response is going to be, "I appreciate it. I ask you to pray for me. I'm going to pray and ask God, and I'm going to search the Scriptures, because there's one thing that I am jealous for and that's the truth and to see the glory of God in my life." Can I ask you a question? Are you one of those that justify yourself before men? God knows your heart.

" . . . for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. [Now, watch!] The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it." This is a parallel passage to where the Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. He's drawing a parallel here, and he's saying there are two different people. There are those that want to be esteemed among men, and there are those that want to be esteemed in the Kingdom of God, that are going to pay the price to press into it, whatever the cost is. Which kingdom are you pursuing? That's the real issue here. "And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." You know, those that want to be free: "I want to be free from the law." The whole thing that he's saying here is there is no freedom from the law. The law is not going to fail; the law has been fulfilled. Are you living under the law, voluntarily submitting yourself to allow it to be perfected in you? The law and prophets are summed up in this one thing: love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself. You're not free from that, ever.

So here we are as we face some of these dilemmas. We ask the question--and we'll be finishing up with this in just a moment--we've tried to look at some of the practical things, and like I said, those that want to justify themselves, they'll always be the ones to question and say, "Yeah, well, you do this and so-and-so does that and how come they get to do this and how . . . ?" How many of you know people that do that? You don't have to raise your hands. Do any of you know people that do that, and that's just how they respond every time they're approached? The government ought to hire them for smoke screens when we're going in to invade different areas. That's not the issue; it's an attitude of the heart. The blessings of the Lord make rich and add no sorrow. You see, the real issue that we're addressing here is, there's not a person in this room that doesn't want to be rich. I'm not talking about monetarily. We wouldn't mind that. That's part of the package that we would like as human beings. Anybody here like to have more money than you know what to do with? Don't dislocate your shoulders on the way up. I would! "Well, not me. I'm happy just the way . . . " You've either had a lobotomy or you're lying to yourself; you're deceived. We'd all like to have a little more. It's having to [have more], it's being discontent, it's judging God as to why we don't [have more], it's coveting others'--all of those things are wrong. There's nothing wrong with having the abundance. It's good! It's better than not having enough. Anybody say Amen to that? Yeah, most of us have been both places at one time or another. "Not me. I've always never had enough." Get out of here! You want to know "not enough," I'll take you to India and show you "not enough." When you've traveled and seen, or some of us have lived in [third world countries], then you get a little better idea.

The point that I want to make is this: there's nothing wrong--we'd all like to have that. It's in every one of us. We'd all like to never have a pain in our bodies. We'd all like to not have any emotional sorrow. Every person is seeking that. The blessings of the Lord make rich and they add no sorrow. What we're basically coming down to is this basic premise that all of these things that you're looking for liberties for, that you're trying to justify that you have rights to do, are really expressions of your discontentment--that God isn't providing what you really need, that there is not sufficient in the Kingdom of God, the presence of God, the holiness of God, to satisfy you. "God's not fair; God's not just. God's holding out. God won't let me go play. God just wants me to pray and fast all the time." That's not true, but if you're trying to justify yourself and defend the fact that you don't have to pray and fast all the time, what should you be doing? Huh? Yeah, praying and fasting.

It's the guys that have prayed and fasted that get to play, when God allows them to, when God says, "Go play." And His blessings make rich and add no sorrow. You can go play and you're not condemned, and you honor God in playtime. You're down playing whatever it is you like to play. You're playing golf and you hit a bad shot. You knock the guy out, and you get to go pray for him and the Lord heals him--because wherever you are ministry is taking place, wherever you are the Kingdom of God is there, wherever you are there's an opportunity to share Jesus with somebody. We are never totally secular. If we are separated to God, if we are holy, no matter what we're doing somebody's going to get ministered to. Amen? Can you go anywhere that you don't share Jesus with somebody? You just can't do it. I mean, you're out there, if you're walking in the spirit and God's blessing you and His blessings are making rich and you've been seeking the Kingdom and God happens to give you recreation and you're out doing whatever it is that you're doing, you're going to minister to somebody before this thing is over--because that's you're life, because you're holy, because you're walking in the spirit. Now, if you're out doing something that you shouldn't be doing and you're under condemnation and you're wondering whether you should be there, it's pretty hard to witness to somebody isn't it? If you're going to hold up a 7-Eleven and the guy next to you comes in and he starts holding it up, you can't say, "The blessings of the Lord make rich and add no sorrow."

We begin to see, then, that we're making smoke screens out of all of these things that we want to bring up. I probably shouldn't say this because it's going to discourage--one of the young adults shared a testimony last night that was good and along these lines. Something that they were delivered from when they got saved, and then after some time went by they got thinking, Well, I'm more spiritually mature now and I have liberties; I'm not going to take this to excess so I might as well, in moderation, enjoy this. So let's say it's Häagen-Dazs. So in moderation, I'm out of town on a business trip, so I go into the Häagen-Dazs store and in moderation I say, Give me twelve scoops of (whatever). Now, if I was in bondage to that--and I know we're speaking differently than what's a big problem among some of our young adults here that have been raised up in the church, but we're going to try to address both sides--but if I was in bondage to that, I need to be very discerning, and most of the time you would probably not go take your liberty in what you were delivered from. Why? Just as thanksgiving to God and honoring Him. "Well, wouldn't I be free to?" Yes, and I'm free not to. Amen? And I'm free not to. "Yeah, but shouldn't he have a right to do that?" Yes, and he has a right not to do it. "But do you think it's wrong; is it sin if he does that?" Probably not, but it's righteousness and holiness if he doesn't. "But . . . !" I don't know who this guy is over here, but I'm about ready to smack him, aren't you? This guy that's trying to justify himself in the secular thought process to minimize the blood of Jesus, the deliverance power of the Holy Ghost, the precious gift of liberty from sin. Why should I go back, then, and see how close I can get to it without sinning? So as we look at these principles the issue is: How excellent is my pursuit? How jealous am I for the holiness of God? Am I trying to justify my heart, my actions? God knows my heart. Why don't you just sit down for a minute and say, "Lord, show me my heart. Show me my heart." We're going to talk about worldly influence, what people say is good and valuable and cool and all of this kind of stuff and ask, Can I live without that? Do I have to have it, etc.?

As we close for this evening, just before we spend some time at the Lord's table [communion], back to the Romans passage, chapter 8, verse 5, "For they that are [seekers of the world; seekers of lust; seekers of self-gratification; those that are selfish; those that are independent; set their thoughts, their intentions, they're occupied with, they are preoccupied with, they are pursuers of, constantly with greater diligence than the spiritual things, the things that are of the flesh, of the world, of the natural] . . . " That's the super-amplified version. " . . . but they that are after the Spirit [do mind--their heart is set upon; they're doing everything in their strength, everything possible; they're counting everything else loss, counting everything else as dung; they are pressing toward the mark, the prize, the high calling of God; they are fully extended; they are exerting every ounce of their energy to be spiritual]." Carnal--spiritual. Which would you say defines who you are tonight? "Well, you know, I think I'm somewhere in the middle." Uh-huh. Most of us are. Next question: What's in abundance? He presents absolutes and then he says, "Well, what's in abundance in your life, and what's dominating in your life?" You, who make the final decision against the sin that's in your members, the voice of the Holy Spirit in your heart, you who cast the deciding vote every time--volition, self, will--which way do you vote most of the time? What's even determining this decision that you're making right now? Are you secretly trying to justify this position, or are you willingly offering yourself up to the cross to be crucified with Him that you might be dead to sin and alive unto Christ? When you hear this message what do you say? "That's me. I need to die. I am sick of that stuff! I hate it! I don't want it in my life! I don't want to justify it; I want to run from it--it's ugly!" Only when you're dead to it and hate it will God allow you to pick it up again, and it'll never control you again. When it does, if it does, He'll bring you through the same process again, but there is never an indifference to the world, the enmity, the enemy of God. We can never be a friend of the world. It can never attract us; it can never be attractive to us if we're walking in the spirit.

Father, we thank You for Your Word tonight, and we just ask that You would stir our hearts in pursuit of holiness. Make the issue not what can I do and what rights do I have as it pertains to the temporal, the secular, the social, but what can I do to separate myself from that to be more holy? Now, if in your mind when I say that, your thoughts immediately are, "Man, if I'm seeking and I'm just trying to be holy, am I going to have to be holy all the time?" you're not free yet. Only when you die can you live. Only when you die can you experience the blessings of the Lord. Only when you die are you at liberty to be in the world and not of it. Father, we ask that You would make that real, in Jesus' name. Amen.

As Gary comes and plays, and if the brethren will come, we're going to take some time to fellowship at the Lord's table and to seek these treasures, to eat His flesh and to drink His blood. I just want to know more about You, Jesus. I just want to know more about You. I just want to be more like You.

"Well, wouldn't you like a yacht and a Learjet and a mansion and all the money you could have and all this playtime?" Yes, if it doesn't cost me Jesus, if it doesn't cost me the joy of the Lord, if it doesn't cost me the peace that passes understanding. See, I'm not willing to pay that price for anything that's out there. Now, whatever God would choose to give me, sure I'll enjoy that; I'll take it if God will give it to me. "You mean you don't want those things; you wouldn't like them?" Of course I'd like them. Some of you young people might look at some of the things I have and go, "Yeah, I guess you'd be content!" You know what? Don't you judge me out of your own heart. I was content when I had nothing but Jesus. I was content in the backseat of my car with everything I owned and rejected of my family and friends, and I was content every time God told me to sell everything I had and give it to the ministry. I was content to drive across the country and leave all natural family. I was content to walk away from the fame and the fortune that was being afforded us among the superstars of religion today. I'm content right now to let it all go again; all it takes is one word. And anything and everything that I do happen to have, God has given me, and so it's His; it's not mine.

If you'll die, then you can take your life up again. When you realize that that life has been taken up again and you truly died and were crucified with Him, you'll say, This isn't my life; this is a new man. The life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God. It is no longer I that live but Christ that liveth in me. If you are a Christian, your life is over. Anything that you can say is mine--"I," "my"--is over. You will never become spiritually mature enough to ever take it back, and the moment you think you are, you're deceived, you're backslidden, you've believed a lie, because the process of holiness and sanctification is "I die daily," because sin is still in our members; it's just no longer dominant. Given one chance, your flesh will choose and do exactly what it did ever other time before you were regenerated. Your flesh is no different; it's only subdued. Not just suppressed; it really has been put under. It's dominated. It's not just suppressed. It's not being barely held down; it is under the power of the spirit. It has no chance unless you resurrect it again.

As you're served tonight and you hold these emblems in your hands, let them be fresh again to you tonight. Don't let it just be another communion service. Hold in your hands the body and the blood of Jesus and say, "I am so thankful that this is my treasure. I am so thankful that this is all I need to live. This is all that's necessary to satisfy me, right what I have in my hands. Everything else can be taken from me--houses and lands, loved ones, husbands, wives, children--as long as I have Jesus I'm content, praise God. This is my treasure; this is my life! For me to live is Christ. Let's sing this together and hold the emblems as the brothers serve us, and we'll all partake together. "Search me . . . " We bless You, Jesus.

As the spirit of God ministers to us as a community, who's it going to be among us that'll pray, Here am I, Lord; send me? Who's going to take it up and turn to your friends and your family and say, "Come on, let's get after this thing and see what can happen if we seek God with all of our hearts"? Who can we reach that we haven't reached? How can we know Him in a way that we've never known Him? How can we better fortify ourselves in this age to stand against the vexation of the world and the spirit of antichrist? How can we be refreshed on a daily basis when all that are around us are calling for us to compromise and still be right with God--promising us liberty and bringing us into the bondage of their own lasciviousness and making merchandise of us; promising us to be free, and they're the servants of sin? In a day when the majority of ministries, as we've shared before, just truly do not believe that you can preach the Word and seek it and that people will tolerate that, so therefore we have to meet people where they are and dummy down the gospel and change the standards. [They would have us believe] we need to add all the twelve-step programs to our ministry if we're going to really meet the needs of people, because God knows that the Holy Spirit can't do it. Why are all these twelve-step programs being introduced? Because if you do it the old-fashioned way with the Bible and the Holy Spirit, it means that people have to repent and acknowledge that they're sinners. The twelve-step programs make them victims. [They support the belief that] it's not their fault. The fact of the matter is, you are the man. That's not a very popular message, but it's the truth that makes people free.

Let's stand before the Lord tonight. Without a whole lot more said, can you, with thanksgiving, receive this bread and this cup and say, "This is my life. This is all I need. This is sufficient just to know You, Jesus"? You know, when our brothers and sisters were being ripped apart by wild beasts in the Colosseum and burned at the stake, this is all they had, right here. Everything else was gone but a personal relationship with Him, and it was sufficient. Everything not of Him will perish on the Day of Judgment. Help us, Lord, to honor You with lives of obedience and with hearts of thanksgiving, in Jesus' name, and with that thanksgiving we receive this bread and we receive this cup as our treasure, our life. In Jesus' name we receive it. Amen. Let's take together. For Your body and Your blood we are thankful. Take a moment now and just worship Him and thank Him for what He has done in your life.

Hallelujah! Lord, we do thank You and rejoice in Your goodness. We ask for the refreshing of the first love. We ask, in this generation, for the washing of our feet with the water of Your Word, as we are polluted and vexed on a daily basis, that we would shod ourselves with the sandals of this gospel of peace, that we would proclaim so freely the good work that's been done in us to all that we encounter. Oh, Lord, we delight in You! Let's sing it together and just thank Him. "I worship . . . " Separated to You, Lord. Let all men be liars. The only name wherewith we can be saved. Just sing it again. Worship Him tonight. Worship Him by obeying. Purpose to walk in the truth.

Hallelujah! Lord, we just separate our hearts to You and our lives, and we ask that You would empower us tomorrow to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth--Father, those that would proclaim Your goodness from the housetops. Let our lives be poured out for You as we're separate unto You, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Before you go, turn to somebody and say, "Spiritual-mindedness is life." Amen. Go in peace; God's love go with you.

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