Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #219 Walking in Freedom: Living from the Inside Out

Transcript

#219 Walking in Freedom: Living from the Inside Out · The OneCry Podcast

0:00
Music.
0:17
Be a man without Christ again. Welcome to the One Cry Podcast,
0:24
a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
0:27
The goal, accelerating the movement of God through sharing revival truth, stories, and reports.
0:37
Hey, welcome to the One Cry Podcast. Man, we are honored to have a few moments of your time.
0:43
I'm Kyle Reno with my partner in crime, Bill Elif over there,
0:48
and humbled to see you again and be a part of your lives in these moments.
0:52
And really, I hope you remember the heart behind One Cry is to help as many
0:56
people as possible as those that are trying to personally and in our churches
1:00
position ourselves for the next great move of God to see revival and awakening.
1:06
And it matters. And God's doing stuff right now, Bill, isn't he?
1:10
Yeah. Oh, man. All over the country. It is what we've been praying for for 50 years.
1:16
And the stories of that are just remarkable.
1:23
You know, we're going to have a little deal here with Tanya Pruitt with the Unite Us movement.
1:32
And they have seen over 100,000 students come into stadiums and basketball arenas
1:41
to pursue Christ, and thousands and thousands saved and baptized.
1:46
And that's just one mark of this.
1:50
It's happening not only on college campuses, but it's happening in churches
1:57
everywhere. Every church I know is seeing people come to Christ and baptized in a new way.
2:04
That's awesome. That's exciting. No, so cool. So cool.
2:07
And what I know today, one of the topics that you're going to share and help
2:11
us start to think through is specifically just overcoming sin,
2:15
you know, and the breakthrough in your personal holiness.
2:18
And so, but it made me think about a funny story. I know I'm a Bama guy. I know.
2:25
I know. Somebody just turned us off right now. Speaking of overcoming sin, but go ahead.
2:32
I saw an interview with Nick Saban recently, greatest football coach in history.
2:38
But he had an interview, and somebody was asking him about, hey,
2:42
who's your favorite players?
2:44
You know, maybe the best players. We started talking about Derrick Henry, which is hysterical.
2:48
He said, man, listen, we got him. He reported early, so he was there for spring training.
2:53
So he's an 18-year-old kid. And he says, but it's just this mammoth running
2:57
back, just, you know, freak of nature and his physical stature.
3:02
You know, and he said, but he doesn't know anything.
3:05
He said, like, when I say he doesn't know one thing, he doesn't know how to pass block.
3:09
He says, we're trying. And he's just failing over and over and over and over
3:13
again. He said an offensive coordinator.
3:15
He said when Nick Saban says this, he goes, man, I started feeling bad for the
3:19
guy because offensive coordinator, he's chewing him out left and right.
3:22
And he said, I went over to him and said, when Nick Saban feels bad for you,
3:27
you know you've got to shoot out.
3:29
He said, I went over and I was going to pat him on the back,
3:32
say he's going to be all right.
3:33
And he said, Derek Henry looked down at me and he said, Coach,
3:37
y'all going to have to be patient with me.
3:39
Y'all going to have to be patient. He goes, all I ever knew was toss sweep right and toss sweep left.
3:46
He said, I've never done any of these other things. And then he talked about
3:51
how he needed somebody to teach him how to teach him how to,
3:55
because he could only do so much in his natural ability. You know, he needed more.
4:00
And I thought about, man, isn't that true in the Christian life?
4:04
You need somebody to teach you how to actually win.
4:07
So, man, take a moment and teach us how to win in our fight against sin.
4:11
And the cool thing about it is Derek Henry learned how to do it.
4:14
He got it. And when he got it, he was unstoppable, you know.
4:20
And I think, you know, if you think about what's the thing that just dogs your
4:26
step and ruins your life.
4:28
I was in a restaurant yesterday, and I was talking to the waitress,
4:34
and I asked her how I could pray for her.
4:36
And she started pouring out her life. And here was this middle-aged woman, really,
4:42
and sin had just eaten her up and chewed her up and spit her out,
4:49
you know, and her life was just ravaged by sin. And then I got up this morning.
4:54
And I was reading in the scriptures and it says righteousness exalts a nation,
5:00
but sin in my translation said sin brings disgrace to any people.
5:07
It's just disgraceful. It just messes your life up.
5:11
You know, what is it that ruins families and destroys relationships and fuels
5:17
anger and revenge and makes people unforgiving, bitter, mean?
5:22
And, you know, it's just sin in all its forms.
5:25
It's missing the mark. It's walking away from God.
5:29
So when a person comes to Christ, and we're seeing a lot of people come to Christ
5:34
right now across our nation,
5:37
but they need to understand that even though you come to Christ and Christ has
5:42
changed you on the inside, that doesn't mean that you're not going to be tempted
5:47
anymore and not have a struggle with sin.
5:50
You have to learn how to deal with sin and temptation as it comes.
5:59
And that's what we're going to talk about this morning.
6:03
And I want to read a passage of scripture that a lot of people don't understand.
6:08
I think there's a simple reason why they don't understand it.
6:12
But let me just read. It's found in Romans 6.
6:15
And it says this, What shall I say then?
6:19
Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? In other words,
6:23
grace is stronger than sin.
6:25
But that doesn't mean just keep sinning so you can get more grace.
6:28
May it never be. How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
6:32
Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized, now think of the word
6:37
baptized as immersed. That's what the word means.
6:41
It means to dip or to plunge, to place under. All of us who have been immersed
6:47
into Christ Jesus have been immersed into his death.
6:52
Therefore, Paul says, we've been buried with him through this immersion,
6:58
this baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead to the glory of the Father,
7:04
so we too might walk in newness of life.
7:08
If we become united with him in the likeness of his death, certainly we shall
7:13
also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
7:15
Now, here's the verse I want you to see, verse 6. Knowing this,
7:20
that our old self was crucified,
7:25
past tense, was crucified with him in order that our body of sin might be done
7:35
away with so that we would no longer be a slave to sin.
7:41
Anybody listening today want to say, man, I don't want to be a slave to sin.
7:46
I feel like I just imprisoned to it so that we would no longer be slaves to
7:52
sin, for he who has died is freed.
7:56
He's liberated from sin.
7:59
Now, I want you to think of sin in these chapters, chapters 5,
8:05
6, and 7, really, of Romans, right?
8:09
As a root, not as particular sins, lust, anger, whatever it is.
8:14
I want you to think of sin as a ruling principle.
8:20
Because his whole argument in these chapters is that once sin as a king just
8:29
dominated your life and you couldn't do anything about it.
8:32
Now, grace has come and grace dominates your life.
8:38
And grace is stronger than sin.
8:42
Grace can help you overcome sin in your life. Now, how does that work?
8:47
Well, I want to give you four truths, okay?
8:50
And if you have a pencil, write these down.
8:55
I think they'll help you. And then go back and study them in Romans 6 and 7. He says this.
9:01
First of all, number one, truth number one, if you're a Christian,
9:05
you are a new person and you will never be the same again.
9:12
And that's what he says in this passage. You're a new person and you'll never be the same again.
9:17
Now, I found a chart, a little piece of paper somewhere.
9:26
And if you're watching this by video, I don't know if you can see this,
9:30
But it's three circles, and it represents our lives, that all of us have three parts to us.
9:39
I look kind of silly on the side of this thing. But anyway, if you're listening
9:46
by audio, you're going to want to tune in and just watch the video of this.
9:50
Anyway, we all have a body, right? We all have a physical body.
9:55
Secondly, and think of a concentric circle, a smaller circle.
9:59
We all have a soul, and your soul is your mind and emotions and will.
10:06
It's the part of you that thinks and feels and decides.
10:12
Just remember that. Your soul is the part of you that thinks about things and
10:19
that feels things and that decides things and makes decisions.
10:23
But there's another part.
10:25
Think of another concentric circle,
10:28
a smaller circle inside of those other two, and that's your spirit.
10:33
Everybody has a spirit. Now, this is a part of you that was created by God to
10:39
commune with him, right?
10:43
And you were made with a spirit that was designed to be the holy of holies,
10:50
the inner part where you commune with God.
10:53
But the problem is, if I could illustrate it like this, outside these three
10:59
circles, is that all of us in our life,
11:04
when we're born, we're born without Christ in our life, right?
11:09
He's not in our life. And so we're missing this essential part.
11:15
And the reason we're missing that is because of sin. And sin has really separated us from Christ.
11:25
When you came to Christ, what happens is this miraculous transformation that God did.
11:30
And you opened your life up to him.
11:33
You said yes to him. And he saved you as all by his grace and his activity.
11:39
But one of the things that happened was his spirit came to live inside of you.
11:47
And this part of you in your spirit was dead. But now it is resurrected.
11:56
It's brought to life. It's regenerated. And you have Christ living inside of you.
12:03
He goes on to talk about this further in chapter 8.
12:08
I won't take time to read it right now. You can read it later.
12:12
So Christ lives inside of you, and you have Christ, right?
12:17
So once, let's give an illustration. Let's say you're in traffic and somebody
12:24
pulls in front of you and almost causes you to wreck.
12:30
And you see that with your eyes and you feel it and you turn inside to your
12:38
soul and your mind says, that guy's a real jerk.
12:43
And your emotions think, I'm really mad. and your will says,
12:48
I'm going to yell at him or run him off the road, right?
12:51
That's a wrong response. But you turn inside to your spirit.
12:55
If you're a lost person, you don't know Christ, and you say, what should I do?
12:59
Well, there's nothing because your spirit is dead. You don't have Christ.
13:04
You don't have the engine in the car.
13:07
And so there's nothing there to help you do the right thing.
13:12
Once you come to Christ and Christ comes to live inside of you and your spirit
13:19
and the spirit of Christ are joined together and your spirit comes to life and you have life in Christ.
13:26
Guess what? The same knucklehead pulls in front of you in the road.
13:31
And you turn inside and your mind thinks, man, that was wrong.
13:36
And your emotions think, well, I hate that guy. And your will says,
13:41
man, I'm going to retaliate.
13:42
But then you turn to Christ within and say, Christ, what should I do?
13:48
Christ says, well, I want you to forgive him just like I've forgiven you.
13:52
You say, well, I can't do that. I don't have the power. And then the Lord says,
13:56
yeah, but I live inside of you.
13:58
My Holy Spirit has taken up residence inside of you.
14:02
And you have the ability that you've never had.
14:07
And this is what the miracle of salvation is, because you are new.
14:13
Christ lives inside of you. Here's how Ezekiel 36, 25 says this.
14:20
I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you.
14:26
I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
14:30
I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes,
14:39
and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Isn't that beautiful?
14:45
Now, if I could hold up two pictures of three circles,
14:50
one without Christ, and another three-circle picture, body, soul,
14:55
and spirit, but you have Christ, You see, those two are different.
15:01
One's the old you, the old man, the old self, and one's the new self. And here's the deal.
15:08
If you have become new in Christ, you will never be that old man again.
15:13
That's why it says the old man, past tense, has died.
15:18
It's over with. You can never be a man without Christ again because you have
15:26
Christ and you have his spirit.
15:29
One man said it like this, a Christian...
15:32
Is not simply a person who gets forgiveness, who gets to go to heaven,
15:37
who gets the Holy Spirit.
15:39
Mark this, a Christian is a person who has become someone he was not before.
15:47
A Christian, in terms of his deepest identity, is a saint, a born child of God,
15:54
a divine masterpiece, a child of light.
15:57
And not only positionally true in his mind, in the mind of God,
16:03
but not true in actuality on earth,
16:06
not only judicially a matter of God's moral bookkeeping, but actually he's a new person.
16:14
Becoming a Christian is not just getting something, no matter how wonderful
16:17
that something may be. It's becoming someone.
16:22
I once led a lawyer to Christ, wonderful guy, Peter Van Dyke,
16:29
and we became great friends.
16:31
And he said to me one day, he said, Bill, I still face temptation.
16:36
I still have struggles, but a part of me has been fundamentally changed.
16:42
And that's true. That inner core of him has been fundamentally changed.
16:47
So the truth of the matter is, if you're a Christian, if you've come to Christ
16:51
recently or 40 years ago, you're a new person, and you'll never be that old
16:57
person without Christ again. Now, here's a second truth.
17:01
Although the core of you is changed, Christ is in you.
17:06
Part of you has not been totally or instantly changed. Right?
17:14
Although the core of you is changed, you have Christ in you.
17:18
Part of you, and that part of you is your soul, right?
17:24
Now listen to this. Part of you has not been instantly changed and totally changed.
17:30
So you have your body, that outer circle.
17:34
Your body's decaying. It's going to keep decaying until you die,
17:37
and then one day you'll receive a new body in heaven.
17:42
But you have your soul, which is your mind. And when you come to Christ,
17:46
your mind is still unrenewed.
17:49
You have all these wrong thoughts and wrong ideas and wrong tapes and wrong CDs in your mind.
18:02
And your emotions are still untamed.
18:05
Right? You get angry at times. You get stressed at times. Why?
18:09
Your emotions have not been brought under control yet, and your will is still, in some ways, unbroken.
18:19
Now, you've surrendered your will enough to say, yes to Christ, I need you.
18:24
But then when the guy runs in front of you with his car,
18:29
or your husband yells at you, your wife yells at you, your kids do something
18:34
crazy, We have a tendency to want to take over and be in charge,
18:38
be in control with our will.
18:42
So we have to go through a process, and this process is this spiritual renewal.
18:48
Big word for it is sanctification, where more and more our mind is renewed by
18:57
taking the old lies out and putting the new truth of God's word in.
19:02
Our emotions become tamed by more and more bringing our emotions under the lordship
19:10
of Christ and the leadership of his spirit, and our will becomes broken.
19:16
And like a horse that is wild and wants to go where it wants to.
19:22
And gradually over time, that trainer breaks his will so that his will becomes
19:30
more and more submissive to the master.
19:33
So our wills have got to be broken.
19:38
And sometimes that takes time, and sometimes it takes some deep work by the Lord on our lives.
19:46
I had a friend named Ron Dunn, a great preacher and pastor.
19:50
And Ron Dunn said he and his wife Kay went to Scotland one time, and they were driving.
19:56
Of course, he said, you know, they drive on the wrong side of the road.
19:59
And he said, so I was on the left side of the road and I was doing okay until I came to a stoplight.
20:06
And he said, we stopped, and Kay and I were talking, and he said,
20:09
I turned, and I just automatically went to the right-hand side of the road.
20:14
And I was going down the road, and I looked up, and I said to Kay,
20:18
look at that idiot on the wrong side of the road.
20:21
And Kay said to me, wrong idiot, move over.
20:26
And Ron said, you know, I didn't want to go on the wrong side of the road.
20:30
And I had driven so often that it was just my natural bent to go right there.
20:38
And that's the way we are as Christians.
20:40
Although we've changed on the inside, that will never change.
20:45
That's what makes us ready to go
20:46
to heaven at any moment, is that change spirit, that new man that we are.
20:54
But our mind, emotions, and will have to be gradually changed.
21:00
But now here's the important part I want you to see, and it's the relationship to sin.
21:07
So you're a new person, and you'll never be the same again.
21:12
Second, there's a part of you that's not instantly changed.
21:16
Number three, because you're a new person, though, sin has lost its authority to control you.
21:28
Sin has lost its authority to control you.
21:34
Now, think about this. Think about that little picture, body, soul, and spirit.
21:40
Before you were a Christian, your spirit was dead.
21:44
There was no life in there, no power, nothing to help you, right?
21:49
And so sin just ran rampant in your life, right?
21:55
There was no moral force, no moral power.
21:58
That could liberate you from that.
22:02
But now Christ has come to live inside of you.
22:05
And that's why he says this in verse six, knowing this, our old self,
22:10
our old person without Christ was crucified with Christ in order that our body
22:18
of sin, in other words, our struggle with this ruler might be done away with.
22:25
Now, that word in the Greek, kategorio, is a word that means rendered powerless.
22:32
It might be rendered powerless so that we no longer would be slaves to sin.
22:41
In other words, what God has done by placing his spirit inside of you,
22:46
coming to live in you, is he has rendered powerless old king's sin that used to dominate your life.
22:56
That means to make inoperative, to deprive of its strength or its force or its
23:02
influence, to make of no effect.
23:04
Once you had nothing inside, you were dead, and your body and soul was all-powerful,
23:11
and sin as a tyrant, as a force, was ruling and reigning over your life.
23:16
Nothing you could do about it.
23:18
Now you have been fundamentally changed. Now listen to this,
23:23
if you're a Christian now,
23:26
Now, you can sin. You can choose to do that.
23:33
You will sin because you've lived over on that side so long.
23:37
You just naturally go there sometimes.
23:40
But here's the truth. You don't have to sin anymore.
23:44
And let me say that one more time. You have a power within you that has rendered sin inoperative.
23:51
Inoperative, and you do not have to yield to sin any more because greater is
23:58
he that's in you, the power that's in you.
24:02
Now you say, well, how does that work? We'll see that in just a second.
24:06
My son, my oldest son, is too long a story to tell on this podcast,
24:12
but when he was born, He had a birth injury, and the nerves were severed from
24:19
his spine to his right thigh,
24:22
to his right quadriceps muscle.
24:24
And so we began to notice very early we would hold his leg up,
24:29
and it would just fall over. He couldn't hold it up.
24:32
So we went through a series of tests, and the doctor told us,
24:36
well, the nerves are severed.
24:40
There's nothing we can do about that.
24:42
And so get ready. He's probably not going to be able to walk,
24:46
probably be in a wheelchair most of his life.
24:48
And a little nurse came by and told my wife, she said, you know, don't give up hope.
24:55
And she said, I would exercise that leg every day so the muscles wouldn't atrophy,
25:04
so they wouldn't shrivel up.
25:06
So my wife, of course, is an unbelievable mother. and every night she would
25:12
hold that leg up and then it would flop back over. She'd hold it up, it would flop back over.
25:18
One night, she held that leg up.
25:22
And it quivered for a moment and stayed there.
25:25
And, you know, she didn't believe her eyes.
25:30
She didn't even tell me for a couple of days because she didn't know if it was
25:33
true. But she came to me and said, I think something's happening in his leg.
25:38
So we went and got it checked, and we discovered that somehow,
25:43
only God knows, God had re-innervated that nerve.
25:49
We don't know if it had been stretched real severely and just kind of grew back
25:53
or God just performed a miracle.
25:56
But now, if you see him, he's a 40-something-year-old pastor and church planter in Seattle.
26:07
And a big old guy, bigger than me, can take me down in an instant if he wanted to.
26:14
And a strong, strong man.
26:18
What happened? And you see, he can still, before he had no power to lift his
26:26
leg, we'd hold it up and just flop back over.
26:29
But when the energy came in to
26:32
the inner part of that leg, to the nerve of that leg, he can drop it over.
26:37
He will drop it over, but he doesn't have to drop it over. Why? He has power.
26:43
And I just want to encourage you. You can sin.
26:47
You will sin, but you don't have to sin anymore because of the power of Christ in you.
26:54
You say, okay, Bill, one more thing. How does that really work?
26:59
How do we really activate the power of Christ in us? And here's the key to that.
27:05
This is the fourth truth.
27:07
You must learn to live from the inside out. You must learn to live from the inside out.
27:19
For instance, when that guy pulled in front of you in traffic,
27:23
your body saw it and your body just reflects. You wanted to do something about it to get retaliation.
27:30
Your mind, when you were without Christ, thought the wrong things,
27:36
felt the wrong things, and chose to do the wrong things. But now you have Christ.
27:41
So you can turn to the Christ within you and say, Christ, what should I do? And he can tell you.
27:50
And by his power, he can enable you to do what he wants you to do.
27:57
And that's why it says in verse 12 of chapter 6 of Romans, this beautiful passage.
28:04
Therefore, don't let sin as a king, as a ruling force, don't let it reign in
28:13
your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.
28:17
And don't go on presenting the members of your body to sin, your eyes,
28:23
your ears, your mouth, your mind.
28:26
Don't just present that to sin as weapons of unrighteousness,
28:31
but keep presenting the members of your body to God as members of righteousness,
28:38
as weapons of righteousness to be used.
28:42
For sin shall not be master over you. You're no longer under the law of sin.
28:48
You're under the law of grace. Wow.
28:53
What liberty, right? What unbelievable liberty.
28:58
And Kyle, we felt strongly that we wanted to just.
29:04
Although it's kind of long for a podcast, we wanted to just take a minute to
29:09
introduce everybody to this unbelievably liberating truth that you don't have
29:15
sin anymore because of the grace of God and the power of God's spirit inside of you.
29:21
But you've got to learn how to start living by listing the spirit,
29:26
walking in his presence, being with him, listening to him, and then following
29:31
the promptings of his spirit and the illumination of his word.
29:40
You know, which I think is your identity in Christ becoming your reality in life.
29:47
And so what overcoming sin is, is just coming to live what is true.
29:54
Because of Christ's righteousness, now you're empowered to live rightly.
29:59
And so, man, I'd love to, Bill, if it's all right with you, I'd love to help
30:02
our listeners pray for that for a moment.
30:04
Yeah. So Lord, take us to some new places.
30:07
So just take a second, just right there where you are with the Lord,
30:11
driving down the road on a walk or just listening at a computer.
30:17
And just say, Lord, turn the light on.
30:21
Show me those places of sin, areas that I struggle, that I've just given way to. Ask Him.
30:31
Ask Him to show you the things that you've had some subtle agreement with,
30:37
that you just, it's just who I am and what I do.
30:42
And come now and repent of that.
30:48
Turn and say, Lord, I'm no longer going to believe that I have to give way to
30:55
these areas. I don't have to cooperate with that sin struggle.
31:02
And take a moment and just ask the Lord to now empower you that let that righteousness,
31:10
that power of the Spirit be displayed through overcoming.
31:18
Turning away from.
31:21
So, Lord, I know so many times in my life and being able to get a front row seat to so many others,
31:29
Lord, I ask in the name of Jesus for a freedom moment for me to listen to God,
31:35
where they would learn to fight from the victory that has been secured in you, Jesus Christ.
31:42
And so I pray that that would change and that they would rightly believe not
31:47
in themselves, not in their own power, but rightly believe in the work you've already accomplished.
31:53
It's the spirit of the living God set people free today in a way that they would
31:58
live from that freedom the rest of their lives.
32:01
And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.
32:05
Such great truth, man, that takes, needs much more time to process.
32:11
I'd encourage all of us, man, one, why don't you sit down and share this with
32:16
somebody and talk about it because there's not a person on planet earth that's not struggling. I am.
32:21
Bill is. There's areas that God's making us aware of.
32:25
And what we have to do is appropriate that that victory in our lives. And I need help.
32:30
You know, I need help with that in my life. So sit down with somebody.
32:35
And, you know, Kyle, I've had so many people that Satan has kept them under
32:42
his thumb because they just didn't know.
32:46
They didn't think. Many people, and one of his little lies is,
32:51
you'll never overcome this.
32:53
There's no way you can overcome this.
32:55
And that's just not true. It may be hard because they've driven in that lane for a long time.
33:02
And so naturally, they just tend to go in that lane.
33:06
But once they realize who they are and begin to appropriate that by the power
33:12
of the Spirit, They can overcome anything.
33:14
We can be righteous. We are righteous on the inside.
33:18
And letting Christ's righteousness live through us is the great key. Amen.
33:25
Well, listen, share this with somebody. To all our listeners, thank you for your time.
33:29
Let somebody else know about these truths and process it with other people.
33:34
And it is a part of seeing revival come to your life, your church,
33:40
our nation, that people are rightly repenting and walking in righteousness.
33:46
Music.