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What Exactly Is Carnality According to Paul? · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get into something today that's actually a continuation of what I've been talking about the last couple of times out of Romans chapter six and seven.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning I want to look at something that's in chapter eight that flows from that.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a it's this thing that let me say it this way this whole idea that we get of walking in the spirit and not the flesh.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was this was Paul's revelation.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: This was something that Paul saw, something Paul came up with, and Paul began to describe.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where we get this in the church.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we get that terminology of not of walking in the spirit and not walking in the flesh.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and Paul was the one, the one we're reading here.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was the one that wrote almost all the scriptures that we refer to about that.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: So in the church, we would use that terminology, and what I found out later on was that we really didn't get what Paul was talking about.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So as we look at this in its context, we can see very clearly what Paul meant and what he was so excited about when he would talk about walking in the spirit instead of walking in the flesh.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: In the churches that I was in in my early Christianity, we just thought, whenever we saw the phrase, the the terminology walking in the flesh, that to us just meant walking in sin.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I remember a Bible study that I was in in a Sunday school class, actually, and you know, somebody asked what it means to walk in the flesh, and most people just said it means sin.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It means to walk in sin.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so the opposite of that must mean in that mindset that to walk in the spirit must mean to walk without sin.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we're endeavoring to walk in the spirit because as Christians we want to walk without sin.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we're battling against walking in the flesh.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we got from that whole idea.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: When Paul would talk about being carnal minded, same thing, talking about walking in the flesh, it means the exact same thing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: But when Paul would mention being carnal-minded, what we thought of was being mindful of sinful things.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Pornography or, you know, something, something sinful, carnal, carnal-minded.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And as we look at this, Paul actually was talking about something that's completely different.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, while it would include that, you could say, but but Paul was not talking about just walking either in sin or out of sin.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: He was talking about something that he discovered in this walk.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: When he met Jesus, he saw how this whole thing about in Christ and the kingdom of God works as opposed to what he was doing before.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because remember, Paul or Saul of Tarsus before his conversion, who persecuted Christians, was, by all accounts of people that would have known him, a very good man, a passionate man, zealous for the things of God, trying his best to live for God, to do the will of God, to live right for God, to live a sinless life as best he could, concerning the law of, you know, he taught blameless, he even called himself, concerning that.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then of course he says, but the things that meant something to me then, the things that I thought were important, the things that I thought were so good, the things that I thought really mattered, he says, now, because of the excellency of knowing Jesus, I count that all just dung.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's nothing to me.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's, it's, it's crap.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's so nothing compared to this other thing that I that I now have.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when he when he's when he's talking about walking in the spirit rather than walking in the flesh, look at what he's talking about all that time.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's always referring to trusting in the flesh to deal with sin and the weakness of humanity.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he explains in very different so many ways at different times in here how he tried that.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he's so good.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Romans, in the book of Romans, it's a masterpiece because he does so well at explaining what it means to walk in the flesh and walk in the spirit.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was nothing like what I used to think it was.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, remember as we look at this, that Paul was crazy about this.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was so sold on this new and living way, and he called that walking in the spirit, trusting in the spirit, faith in God through Jesus.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: He called that the kingdom of God.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: He found out.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: He came up with this revelation and he talked about it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: He said, this is walking in the spirit, whereas before we were walking in the flesh.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you know, when we looked at chapter 6, he said this very powerful thing.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, What we were doing before is he says, is we were submitting ourselves as a servant, presenting ourselves as a slave to sin, therefore we obeyed it because we saw ourselves as a slave, we presented ourselves as a slave, we had the mindset of a slave, and we were always trying to overcome.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't trying to sin, we were trying to overcome, but he called that being carnal.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when he talks about the grace of God, when he talks about just resting in the finished work of Jesus, when he talks about trusting Jesus and Jesus alone, in fact, he says, it is Christ who has become my wisdom, my righteousness, my holiness, and my redemption from sin.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: He puts it all on Jesus.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: He says, that's called walking in the Spirit, trusting completely in Him and having no trust or confidence in our flesh.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And where people struggle is trying to do this thing in the flesh, which simply means by your willpower, by your ability, by your knowledge, by your strength, that's being carnally minded.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he explains it very well, I believe, right here in Romans chapter 8, and looking at verse 5.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I got my little Bible here.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: I left my big Bible at another meeting the other night.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Because those who live according to the flesh are those who set their minds on the things of the flesh.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there again, in my the circles I used to be in, what they what they would say is those who live in the flesh are those who set their minds on sin.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we were trying to do was always trying to keep people from sinning, or quote, being in the flesh.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: But what Paul is saying, when you look at 6, 7, and 8 of Romans, he says, those who set their minds on the things of the flesh are those who are who are who are looking at their flesh, and because they're looking at their flesh, they're presenting themselves as a slave of sin, as under sin trying to overcome, as in bondage trying to get free, as in death trying to attain life, as in doubt trying to get faith, and by that always acknowledging that they're always trying to get the blessing of God, and thereby acknowledging that they're not blessed, but they're trying to get blessed.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we get all these teachings about how to get.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: How to get favor from God.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: What does that say right there?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: When we say how to get favor from God, what we're saying is you don't have it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But if you'll do this, this is how to get it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: When the Bible shows us that that favor is given to us freely by God, that's why we have Jesus and He's everything to us.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: That now we are sons of God.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now we are highly favored, blessed and highly favored by God.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So why would Christians fall for the stuff that says how to get favor from God?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're carnal, because we're acting in carnality and we think we're not favored.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we think we're not favored?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're look because we're carnal minded.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: We look at our situation and it doesn't look like you've got favor.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, that's carnal-minded.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're putting your attention on the things of the flesh rather than the things of the spirit.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things of the spirit?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're blessed and highly favored.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: You're complete in Him.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your old man is crucified with Him.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your holiness.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're not trying to be holy.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, you don't have to, it's not about you trying to live holy.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your holiness.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like I said before, somebody says, but how does that apply?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: How does it actually work in our life?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said it in chapter 6.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You can render, you can submit yourself as a slave to sin, or you can submit yourself as a slave to righteousness.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, where you once could not help but sin, now you cannot help but be godly.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: You just love.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was a woman the other night, a Sunday night in a service, and uh she came up to me after the after the meeting.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Brother Rick, said my struggle, my struggle for for so long has been with cigarettes.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I am trying to quit.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, That's been the hardest thing.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And said, I said, that's just that's what I'm struggling with right now.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt so bad for her.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I told her something that most ministers would not tell her.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Don't worry about it.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I wanted her to quit because she wanted to quit.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I said, don't worry about it.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because I saw what she was doing.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: She was trying so hard to get rid of this thing, and it was not working.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than me tell her to keep doing that and let her get more frustrated and fail more, I had to tell her something different.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, don't worry about it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I said, smoke your cigarettes and enjoy God.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let God love you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, just enjoy God, let God love you.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can enjoy God in spite of the fact that you've got a habit that you don't like, if you can let God love you in spite of the fact that you think you're not perfect, your heart will get so full.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I told her, I said, and you will see that pretty soon you just don't have to have it if you don't want it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're a slave of righteousness, see, she was presenting herself as a slave to that.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's why she struggled.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a slave, you struggle because it's over you.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: But if you if you can if you present yourself, as Paul said, as a slave to righteousness, in other words, it's more of it's about him, and because he's the Lord over my life, then I just can't help it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean I'm trying to make him Lord.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's another one.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: But when you present yourself as a slave to righteousness, you can't help it.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowing yourself to this is what calls this is walking in the spirit, being free in God in spite of you.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: When it's about you, that's carnal.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: When it's about Jesus, that's spiritual.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just let it be about him.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you think you're not holy because you do this stuff?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let Jesus be your holiness.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, what another verse says, He has become our Sabbath, our rest.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all hearing this?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is a big, big key that people can get.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: It changes everything.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's addressing that in chapter 6.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What then?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Shall we sin because grace abounds?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's the big question.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, certainly not.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: How can we?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: How can we when you've died to it?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Don't you know that if you present yourself as a slave to sin, you are that one slave?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you present yourself as under, you will always live as if you're under.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is how holiness works.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he says in chapter 6, you know, I could just preach that again if I was allowed.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is I could preach that whole chapter again and just enjoy it just as much.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, as we once presented ourselves as a slave to sin, now we are slaves of righteousness.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, where we used to do things and we couldn't help it no matter how much we hated it.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now we do things that we just can't help it because we've got a whole different nature.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're living in fullness.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, I'm a witness of these things.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was a witness.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: He would talk about it.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: He would just let he would say it over and over again.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: He said, This is what walking in the Spirit is.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that I was being spiritual before.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but I was carnal.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was sold under sin.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's Romans chapter 7.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: But now we're in the Spirit, he says.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this has got to be a revelation this morning.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Paul wrote so much about it.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: He told us so much about it, but let me tell you something.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: In my life, I read this Bible for a long time.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I read Paul's words for a long, long time.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have read this Bible, especially the New Testament, over and over and over over these nearly 40 years of knowing the Lord.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And for at least 20 of those years, I would read these words and I still did not get.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: I still did not learn from Paul what he was saying.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't get it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I learned it the way anybody learns it, the way Paul learned it.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I learned it from God.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I learned it through as my walk with God, as I've as I began to see the difference, and as God began really revealing more and more things to me, and I talk about how I began to wake up and say, Oh my goodness, what I've been trying to do, I've already got.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Where I've been trying to get to, I'm already there through Jesus.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did the whole thing.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to do this.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus did the whole thing for me, and it's all because of him, and it made me begin to disappear.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul would talk about that too, and he would say, It's no longer I that live, but it's Christ that lives in me.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've been crucified with Christ, but I'm alive, but yet it's not I.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's Christ that's living.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the life that I live, I live by the faith of the Son of God.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: This Christ stuff starts happening.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And all the habits that I struggled to quit went away when it became about Jesus.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And all the stress and all the frustration and the anger and the hate that I begged God to take from me.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so much of it just I couldn't get rid of.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I was presenting myself as a slave to it.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I noticed as I as I as a change started happening, as I started trusting in Jesus, started letting him be my fullness and letting him be all of this in spite of my weakness, in spite of my failures, in spite of my flaws, in spite of the sin that I still saw operating, I chose to trust not in this flesh, to not put my mind on the things of my flesh, but I did what Paul said, put my mind on the things of the Spirit, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, and just go ahead and say, Lord, I tried this for 20 years.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to be everything.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I need you to be all my righteousness.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried this holiness thing, the way the church has given it to me.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've just not strong enough.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be my holiness, or I just can't have it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's called turning from the flesh to the spirit.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For those, verse 5 again, who live according to the flesh, set their mind on the things of the flesh.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: But those who live according to the spirit set their mind on the things of the spirit.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul was talking about.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I didn't have it until I knew Jesus.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And once I met Jesus, I realized a whole other thing, that this was the real deal, that this was the thing that supplied everything I was trying to get before.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I was carnal, trying my best to live for God.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 6, because to be carnally minded, describing how he was before.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: So then those that are in the flesh cannot please God.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: For the carnal mind is against the law of God.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You see, before I saw the fullness in Christ, the way I'm talking about it now, I had this idea that it was me.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: That it was since it was my shortcomings, then it was up to me to try to be more pleasing for God.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was up to me to try hard to be more Christ-like.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Since I was saved, but I still had sin and weakness and flaws.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had the idea, and a lot of it was because of what things that were fed to me, honestly.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: It fed my carnality, and I saw those flaws, and I had the idea that what God wanted from me was to get rid of those flaws.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: I had the idea that God was waiting for me to get it right so he could bless me.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: That God was waiting for me to get it right so I could have favor.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: That God was waiting for me to get it right so then I could be pleasing to him.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it says right there, so then those that are in the flesh cannot please God.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I thought the I thought the definition of flesh was being, was, was, was having failures and flaws and shortcomings and sin.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought, I'm just not pleasing God.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like Paul, sincere.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was a real born-again Christian with a real conversion, with a real relationship.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to be a good Christian.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be pleasing to God.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I wanted his approval.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted his complete blessing.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted his love.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted him.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to work hard so that one day I would hear, well done, good and faithful servant.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: They would dangle that in front of us too, wouldn't they?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I wasn't quite pleasing simply because my mind was on the flesh.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw I saw things about me, just like we did in the Garden of Eden when we first became carnal.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: When we first became carnal, eating of that tree of knowledge of good and evil, that's when we became carnally minded, and we saw our flaws and immediately tried to cover it up and make it better.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And man has been doing it ever since, carnal-minded, not just trying to do bad things, carnally minded trying to be good, trying to be godly, trying to attain life, trying to attain whatever.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: With great intentions, great motivations.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: But like Paul said in Romans chapter 7, he said, but the thing that I do, I don't want to do.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that I want to do, I just don't do it.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't find the power to do it.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you're in the flesh, you can't please God.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because being in the flesh does not receive the grace and the abundance of God.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Being in the flesh will make you apologize to God.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Being in the flesh will make you feel bad about you.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel bad about you, I promise you're gonna feel bad about a lot of other people, too.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is where the whole love thing comes in, why it's a struggle.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna try to love, you're gonna apologize when you fall short of it, and you're gonna beg God to help you with it.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know of I know of men of God, very sincere, God loving men of God, who tried to please God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In the flesh, who tried to conquer certain habits and sins, hidden things that they hated, and tried everything to get rid of.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: They did every principle, every teaching.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: They got knocked on the floor, they got their head squeezed, they got their stomach punched, they fasted, they prayed, they begged God to help them and take it away and couldn't find victory.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I know of some that actually have killed themselves.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Suicide.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because they just could not please God.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Could not win.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the flesh, no matter how pure your intentions, you can't win.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you could, Jesus didn't need to come.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: You would have just done it.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: We would have just figured this out.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: So then those in the flesh, you can't please God.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the flesh, you're not receiving the fullness of God.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're still trying to do it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that important?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why does it not please God?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus said, it is your father's good pleasure, or it pleases God to give you.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Give you.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Give you.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Not make you buy it, not make you earn it, but give you the kingdom.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6, so without faith, it's impossible to please God.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's faith in what we're talking about.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: This finished work of God, the sacrifice of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the whole thing, this whole thing.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: When he becomes the focus, when it's him, him, him, plus nothing else, that's when you get into the Spirit.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you start living in the Spirit.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's something good too.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, so if you're in the flesh, you can't please God.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh, well, that's kind of I don't I don't like the sound of that.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: But look at the next verse.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the good news but you're not in the flesh.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: You are in the spirit, if so be that Christ dwells in you.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know what that says?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: That you're not trying to get in the spirit.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've already got it.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's already here.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You already have that life.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, if we read what Paul, Paul would write these wonderful revelations, doing his best to try to explain how this whole thing with Jesus' work and what all it really does, he says, Paul found this stuff out.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: He found it out on his own by walking with God.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then he would explain it in his letters to people.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, here's what's happened.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know this as a Pharisee, he would never taught this stuff.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: He found it out from walking with God.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and in his experiences, he saw the change of letting it all be about Jesus and counting everything else done for the excellency of just knowing him.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've laid down everything else.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and what what we see now is he says, you know what?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: God has translated us out of the kingdom of darkness, out of the bondage of darkness, and into the kingdom of his son.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: We're there.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: He says, My goodness, it's so free, it's so easy.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: As a Pharisee, if somebody would have presented him this, he would have said, It's up to us to try to get there.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've got good news for us this morning.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not up to you to try to get there.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus brought you there.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when the Bible says, so put on the new man, he says, put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: See, here's what carnal mind does.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: That always makes it, it always makes us the hero.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: It always puts it on us.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody said, Well, it does say to put it on, so we've got to do this, Rick.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but look at look at that word, that word put on.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Look it up.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: It simply means it says to sink back into, like in a like in a chair.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just sink back into.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because the new man's here.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: You've been made a new creation in Christ Jesus.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what this is what this is is all talking about here is that in Christ we have our fullness.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when you see that, you don't present yourself as someone who's partial anymore.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's because of our, when I say us, I mean the bulk of Christianity, where we used to struggle, was thinking that we're halfway there and we're trying to get over.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, the idea that we have to overcome.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to overcome sin.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to overcome the devil.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to overcome the world, got to overcome the flesh.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they get teachings.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Now here's how you do it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: They'll go to the book of Revelation and say, They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they would make a teaching out of that and say, so if you want to overcome, here's what you're going to have to do.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: The blood of the Lamb, of course, then the word of your testimony, and they make some teaching on that.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: But notice the Bible says they overcame its past tense.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: They did it by that blood.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the word of that covenant.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: The word of that covenant.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so we, in fact, to 1 John, he says, he says, I write unto you because you have overcome him.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And greater is he that's in you than he that's in the world.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know that you're already the head and not the tail above and not beneath, then you're going to try to become the head and not the tail.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's carnal-minded, that's presenting yourself as a slave to sin, you're saying, I'm not there yet.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Something is still over me.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something besides Jesus.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because when Jesus is the only thing over you, you're a slave of righteousness.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say Jesus being the only thing over you, I don't mean it there again, it's not carnal.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you don't make mistakes or do other things.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It simply means that you're trusting in the one who has perfect everything for you who is so imperfect you can't do it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the whole good news about this thing?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: That what we couldn't do, God did by sending the Son?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: The whole idea of beating the devil.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritual warfare.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: We used to hear people talking about we've got to go up to the high places because we're wrestling spiritual wickedness in high places.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we're down here, and the devils are all up there, and they're hovering and covering, and they're ruling and reigning, and they've got dominance all over this thing.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, read your Bible.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, I saw him fall like lightning.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, the accuser has been cast out.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Bible says he destroyed him who had the power of death.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: That is the devil.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: But why do people try to beat the devil?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know the truth, so they're carnal.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: They feel like the devil's still over.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they feel like the devil's still over?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because they still do things that aren't right.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And because they judge themselves carnally instead of righteously by the blood of Jesus, judging themselves carnally, they feel like they still have to overcome that devil.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do when you get see, this gives rise to all the teachings.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: There was, I was uh in a pastor's home a couple of months ago, and I was just going through a Christian magazine.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's advertisements on every other page, you know, and almost every single one, it was funny, was somebody selling either uh a video series or a book on discover the hidden keys to the secrets of the priestly prayer from the book of Hosea or something, you know.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it was then discover the mystery, discover the power of the mystery in 2 Chronicles, and and all the, it was all, you know, the keys to this, the key, the mystery.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's always these people coming up with more mysteries and these keys to victory and these these keys to power and the and and all these things.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're finding in the in the scriptures all these hidden things that we just haven't discovered yet.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, 2,000 years after Jesus died, we're finally discovering these hidden keys that are in there.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why we haven't had the victory, and why for 2,000 years Christians have struggled because we just haven't seen this hidden key in the book of Hezekiah or whatever, you know.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what's all that doing?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's presenting ourselves as a slave, still trying to find our way out of the escape room.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Crucifying the flesh was another one, right?
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about that.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you think why do you think you've got to crucify the flesh?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because you see some flesh in action.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: And because you see it with your carnal eyes, you judge yourself carnally, and you say, I'm not complete, I must not be righteous, I must not be holy, so I'm gonna have to try to get to become that.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we try to crucify the flesh.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: We try to kill the old man.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul talked about that.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: He covered that one too, didn't he?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: You've been crucified with Christ.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: But but but why don't I act like it?
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're because you're you're looking at it carnally and presenting yourself as an uncrucified person trying to get crucified.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he says, present yourselves as those who have already been buried, risen, ascended, and alive from the dead.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens to you, everything starts changing when you present yourself as alive from the dead.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Am I making any sense to you or am I just talking out there over your head?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: How to get rid of sin?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one way.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Trust Jesus and let it go.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Watch it go, just watch it happen.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul found out.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I found out, and so many others.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing, see, we get all these teachings on warfare.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And here's if you haven't heard this one, you will.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's running around out there somewhere.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: This thing about going into the courts of God.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll go into the courts because you know what happens is if you're not getting things aren't going right for you, what you need to do is you've got to go to the courts of God, and and they and there's this, and the devil's there because he's the accuser who accuses, who accuses us all the time.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: But but but but that was a past tense thing.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said the accuser had been cast down.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and and so he's always accusing, and and sometimes he's right, and so then you've got to go to the courts and and God is the judge, and you've got to repent, and and then once you repent, then then you're giving God the right to answer you.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: And all this complicated stuff.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're presenting themselves as under trying to get over.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll say, they'll they'll they'll say, and and what you find out is is because you can't find any other reason.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll find out what happened was your great-great-grandpappy did something and it's and it's brought a curse down to you.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and here's what they can't, they come up with here's they come up with such goofy things because they're trying to figure out some mystery, some key of getting over.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so you got your great-great-granddad, and he did some kind of a thing, and it's passed on down to you, and now you're carrying this curse, and the way you get rid of it, they say, is then you you repent of what your great-great-granddad did.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, come on.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're doing this, and they're very sincere.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know why?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Bless our hearts.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're just trying to win here, trying to get blessed, trying to get favor, trying to get prayers answered.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: But they can't get it because they're presenting themselves as cursed now.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: God, my goodness.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to figure it out how to do this, and they end up presenting themselves cursed because of what great-great-granddad did.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: That carnal mind, it always leads to that.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: The simplicity, he Paul would say that too, wouldn't he?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple of things, he said it to the Corinthians, he said it to the Galatians.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm I fear that you've removed from the simplicity that's in this.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just Jesus.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: When it's not just Jesus, it gets complicated.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: You've got a thousand things that you've got to do now.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to find some hidden mystery that you start to think the reason you haven't got it's because there's something in here that you that you haven't seen, and then somebody will find some hidden key, some hidden mystery somewhere, and sell a book, and it becomes a move.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to please God, trying to overcome.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've got good news.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said, but you know what?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in the flesh, you can't please God, but you're it you're in the spirit, not in the flesh.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome home.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Would y'all stand up?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: I got good news.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the spirit now.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're in the life of God now, you're in the kingdom of God now.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I could never break through the veil, trying to get to the holy of holies of God, was because I was there the whole time and didn't realize it.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had already broken that veil that I was trying to break.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Carnal mindedness uses those terminologies.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: We hear them everywhere.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: People used to say, because of my passion as a young minister, they say, if anybody's gonna break through, it's gonna be him, you know.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, then I realize I've tried 20 years to break through and haven't ever been able to do it.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, if I did, I wouldn't stay long.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because my carnality wouldn't let me.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's no breakthrough.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said thieves break through.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thieves break through.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm the door, it's open.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear things like God's fixing to take us there.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: God's working on a people.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: God's taking us into the top of the mountain.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: God's taking us into the holy place.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: God's taking us into the third day.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: God's we're fixing to cross over into that promised land.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see what we're doing?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're presenting ourselves somewhere that we're not.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're home.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the promised land.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And those who see it, eat of it.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Those who see it, enjoy it.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: As for me, I've been delivered from the power of this world.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: It will always be Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: People say, but Rick, come on.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't got it all together.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: You still do this, that, and the other.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I know, that's so cool.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm going to glory, then I'll just glory, like Paul said, in my weaknesses, because even in my weaknesses, it magnifies this glory and this grace and power of Christ.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even in my weaknesses, I'm still blessed.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still joyful.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: I still have faith.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: I still have favor.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I love you and I thank you for every destiny that's in this place today.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you for the revelation of the Spirit and an impartation of something here in the seeing of these things that makes an awareness of something that puts a new spring in the step and a smile on the face and a glory upon the head.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: An awareness of life always, and always being the head and not the tail, above and not beneath, on the mountaintop and not climbing the holy hill.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the holy of holies, and not trying to break through.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Already made wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption of all sin.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are complete in Jesus.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to be spiritually minded is to remember that, to acknowledge that and live in that completion.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul said in Romans 6 what that will do is it will bring fruit unto holiness.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: The changes you may have tried to get and begged God to let you see, it just starts to happen.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And just like fruit popping out, you'll get surprised.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: God bless you.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hope this was a blessing to you.