Latest / Rick Manis Ministries Podcast / Slaves of Righteousness

Transcript

Slaves of Righteousness · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about the truth that that that makes you free.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to read something from Jeremiah 18, an Old Testament passage of Scripture, and deal with this area of error or confusion that a lot of Christians have.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if we clear up that confusion, which we should be able to do really, really easy from the Word of God, then it has a power.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: It has a power that Linda was talking about right there at the end.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: I just love that ministry as it was going forth there after that song.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing the truth makes freedom.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It changes everything.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It makes the reality of this beautiful word that talks about absolute life, eternal life, the glory of his presence, righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost, all these things, the power of an endless life.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Think of that.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Raised into life with Jesus.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It makes it absolute reality every day.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: It really hit me actually when we were singing that song, that birthday song.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that line that says, May you find Jesus near every day of the year.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I was looking at Stacy Strumming's guitar, and I just thought, that is exactly my word, my prayer, my prophecy every day of this year.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: In all the things that you navigate, and any issues you have to deal with, and times when it looks like, how am I going to get through this and all that, may you find Jesus near every single day of the year.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Living and walking in the light.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah chapter 18.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now verse 1.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying, Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause you to hear my words.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was, making something at the wheel.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, and then he goes on and and and and he talks about a really a destroying, a breaking.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so then we hear the teaching about how the potter, when he's making this vessel, when he finds that it's imperfect, then he he breaks it and he makes it new again.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think that this word tells us today?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'll tell you what most people that I that I know would say.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I've heard all my life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: God is the potter, we're the clay.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And God is making us into what he wants us to be.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the song I We Are the Potter, You Are the Clay, you know, mold me and make me, and you know, and there's this cry, this prayer is that God would continue to mold us and make us.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And as he sees these flaws in us, then he remakes us again.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he keeps making us, he keeps making us better and better, and we're in this process.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is what people get out of this.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and and actually I lived with that mindset for quite a while.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, I had a lot of room to get better, and I wanted to.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I would really pray that type of prayer, Lord, mold me and make me.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Make me what you want me to be.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I would get excited when people said, This is what God's doing.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's making you into what he really wants you to be.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd get excited because that's what I wanted to be.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But that whole thing is a big lie.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is not making you into what he wants you to be.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, this is why we have, you know, this is what gets you looking at these things.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: I look at this, but then I go to the New Testament and Paul says things like, I've been crucified with Christ.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, if any man's in Christ, he is.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: He is a new creation.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the old things are passed away.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: The old broken marred pottery is passed away.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, all things are become new.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then he talks about these things, how he presents you holy, blameless, perfect in his sight.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if that be true, then why is he molding and making you into what he wants you to be?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: The truth is you already are what he wants you to be, as he is, 1 John 4, 17.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So are we in this world.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you have all that.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So then what's this scripture talking about?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, just real quickly to explain it, it touches on a little bit of what I've been was talking about the last couple of weeks.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But but he says, this is the house of Israel.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: What happened to the house of Israel?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: The house was made new.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: The place of God, the people of God.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul said, He's not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he's a Jew who is one inwardly.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's the new creation, the spiritual rebirth.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: The old temple was destroyed because a new one was coming.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: The right one.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: The old one was marred.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: What did it say in the book of Hebrews?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: It says, with the old covenant finding fault with the old, he made a new one.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a picture, and that was a prophetic promise in Jeremiah that he saw fault with it, and so he was going to remake.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to make a new vessel out of that clay.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Isaiah 64 does talk about us as individuals when it says that you are the potter and we are the clay.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you created us.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's true because, I mean, obviously, he was the one who made us individually.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the passages that talk about him breaking and making and molding and making and having this process of making you into the kind of vessel.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: See, we get the picture of God, God looks at you now and he still finds fault with it, so he keeps keeps working and working, and he's working to bring you to a place of perfection.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what that is, is is the carnal mindset of what perfection is.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, God's idea of perfection is not man's idea of perfection.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because man's idea of perfection is an absence of flaws, and if you if you don't understand the completion of the new creation and identity in Christ, you're going to continue to be on a journey to try to get rid of flaws, and you can't do it.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a myth, it's a fantasy.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, we were created vulnerable with weakness, with need, and our only sufficiency and our only perfection could be found in the God who loved us and was with us.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Never, ever in ourselves.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there again, I mention it all the time, but going after that knowledge of good and evil was our attempt to perfect ourselves.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we look at the new covenant and we and we see we see where he, as he is, so are we.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: He made us a new creation.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our old man was crucified.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, and he presents us wholly, blameless, and perfect in his sight, because perfection in the kingdom is not the absence of flaws.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is the presence of God.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Perfection is the presence of love in the midst of flaws.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Please remember that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's that whole lesson about being naked and not ashamed.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so our perfection or our completion fulfillment was only found in our relationship with God.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we've lost it when we tried to do it ourselves.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you always have a sense of incompletion when you're still taken up on yourself, andor you still look like a project.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You still think you're a project.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, we're not a project.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is important.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is not theory to me.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is life-changing.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: In in uh you know, Galatians 2.20, it's it's a it's a verse that we know, but it's so powerful we have to look at it.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: This was this was a turnaround for me.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is what really jettisoned me and got me to where I began to move out of that place of where I was trying to get it, where I was trying to talk myself into it, and to where it became a reality, it became a consciousness, and of course we're ever growing in it, but it became a consciousness that just happened to me.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 20, Paul said, I have been crucified with Christ.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's no longer I that live.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a big point there.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he's not trying to make you into what he wants you to be because you don't, you're not even there anyway.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: See, that mindset, old mindset says that he's taken the old you and he's trying to make the old you uh into something better.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's trying to improve the old you.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or people also think that Jesus came to make our lives better.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: He did not come to make your life better.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: He came to give you a life.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big difference.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: When people think that they're that he just came to make their life better, that's why they're still bound to externals, still bound to external-mindedness.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, well, when's he going to make my life better?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: He came to make it better.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But he didn't come to make your old life better.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: He came to do away with that old life and give you new life, real life, eternal life, which is in the inside.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said eternal life abides in you, and that doesn't just make the old one better, it pushes all that aside and gives you this whole new existence where righteousness dwells.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: According to Hebrew says, the power of an endless life.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, it's no longer I that live.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love what Linda was saying right there.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just, I mean, it was just prophetic flowing out of her about truth, truth, truth, it's the truth, the truth.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just seeing the truth is all there is to this.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take 40,000 more sermons before we get this.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is no one glimpse of glory.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: One twinkling of an eye here, one revelation of the word hitting your eye and making it sparkle.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: The light of God hitting your eye, and you're changed in a moment.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll show you how some of these things have happened to me.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's no longer I that live, but it's Christ that lives in me.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the life that I now live in this flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do not set aside the grace of God because of righteousness came through the law or works, then Christ died in vain.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: I tell the story of how there I was in the potter being molded and made mindset.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: There I was in need of improvement.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: There I was crying out because I hated my marred pottery.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted it to be better.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be what God wanted me to be.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying very hard, and my my pain for this, my passion for this, is what led me to lock myself up in a hotel room because I said, I'm gonna, I wanted this, I wanted the the Jacob and God experience at Jabok.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I am gonna have this out with God, and I'm not letting him go until he blesses me.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I fasted for days in that hotel, praying and pouring my heart out to God.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know you you you've heard this, but but in the course of that, I'm pacing back and forth and praying in the spirit, and I I look over at the bed and I see an image of myself in my imagination, my mind's eye, or revelation, or whatever I saw or vision, if you want to call it, but it was it was I it was like I could see myself sitting up against the headboard of that bed, and and it looked like me, but I also instinctively knew that it wasn't me, that that was what I was praying against.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was what I would have called at the time my flesh, my old man, my carnal nature, the one that had been giving me all this trouble that I just I kept trying to put down, I kept trying to beat.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so I saw that sitting against the headboard of the bed, sitting up on the bed against the headboard, and and so and and knowing what that was, I continued to pray, and I was praying against it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted it dead, I wanted it gone.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted no more of that in me.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want it having the any more dominion in my life, I didn't want it to manifest itself in my life anymore.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm praying, I'm praying, and I look over it again, and I see its arms outstretched like it's in a crucified position.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I prayed and I prayed, and I saw the head of it drop down to one on onto one shoulder.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard these words of the Spirit speak to me and said, You have been crucified with Christ.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But you live.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, it was the beginning of something for me because I the the the the lesson I saw from that was was this.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, that's not me.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a part of me.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to have the flesh and spirit, man, the old and new nature, to be a complete person because I'm standing right here.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: All I all I want is the will of God.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: All my heart is totally for God and righteousness and all the things of God and holiness and all these things.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, and I'm standing here whole and complete, and I don't need that other guy to be a whole person.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard those words, you're you've been crucified with Christ, and I realized that that was not me.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: That this insufficient trying hard to become something that God wanted was not me.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was the struggle against something that had been done away with.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, You were crucified with Christ.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, now you live.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I'm alive.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked out of there with this truth, and it was, it began to work.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like everything was just, you know, never had a carnal thought after that, but it began to work in me, and I and I had this consciousness, this awareness that I was a son of God, I was a new creation, and I was complete in him, and that was just something else.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was just something else.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as I as as the days and and time would go on, that became the reality that I am not that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: I am a child of God.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when these realities that I began to just speak so loud and clear, as he is, so am I.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because as I stood there separated from that carnal, that that that that carnal man, I stood there complete in him.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Every motive was godly, every thought was truth.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: With this realization that I was not a mixture of good and bad thoughts, I was a new creation that knew the truth.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the Bible says that that you have the mind of Christ and you know all things.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I stood there with nothing but godly intentions and thoughts when I saw who I was.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And because that guy was crucified, I was not a Christian under construction.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was not being molded and broken and remade, and we would, you know, we'd preach those sermons, and oh, you know, how you know how the potter does, you know, he just he's got to take it and he's just gotta crush that thing, and we're like, oh, crush me, Jesus.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then he'll crush it and then he'll make it, and then he'll put it through the fire.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, burn me, Lord.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Put me through, and you're miserable and you're depressed, and you're just crawling along the desert floor, and you're coming into church and you think you're doing something good.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm being molded and made, I'm being broken, I'm being crushed, I'm in the fire, brother, I'm in the fire.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But someday I can handle it because the preacher said, someday I'm gonna come out.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: See, we have those Old Testament pictures of unrenewed men, men that were not crucified with Christ, huh?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Men that cried out for godliness and holiness.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: David would cry out, one thing have I desired.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know that cry.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when I saw who I was, there was no reason to cry it anymore because it began to be truth.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all seeing that?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it had just from that day began to grow as a reality in me.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And just and it was fun watching it happen because it got more and more exciting.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it started having fruit.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Things started happening.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Go with me to Romans chapter 6.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Things started changing automatically.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's called fruit, fruitfulness, multiplication.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the fruit of the Spirit.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Not the manufacturing, not the trying to get it, because it was the truth, knowing that I was complete, knowing that I am a son, now I'm not going to be.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he's just taking me higher.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Higher than what?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is he taking you higher, or does your B-I-B-L-E say that he took you higher?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Does it say that he raised you up with him?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Does it say that someday, after a long process of Christianity, that he's going to raise you up into the and to be with him in heavenly places?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: It says he did.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you know, right here it talks about being baptized with him and his death.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians, Ephesians uh 2 is where, or Ephesians 2 is where he says, you know, that he we were buried with him.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: He says we we died with him, we were buried with him, we arose with him, and we were raised with him, and we ascended with him.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we were made to sit, we were made to sit together with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in Christ Jesus, you're in that place.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there again, just like the crucifixion thing, when it's reality, when it's reality, you just things happen.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're just there.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: You wake up and you're in heaven.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're in absolute righteousness, nothing wrong.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it overwhelms, it overtakes any old remembrance of you being an incomplete sinner.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now we have a conscious, I mean, we we we have a brain.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: We know that we have flaws.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: We know that we that we still do something, and all that.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's the cool thing about it, because we have a nature that overrides all that.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Be of good cheer.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've overcome all that.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've overcome the world.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the cool thing.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul could say, you know, I'll glory in my weaknesses because the power of God is perfected in that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of, you know, that whole thing in 2 Corinthians 12, when he said, you know, he had this particular thing, he did just like I've had done so many years, begged the Lord over and over again to just take it away.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what I was doing in that hotel room.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Take it away.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Finish this work.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get on with it.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I think I can handle faster.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I I besought the Lord again and again to take it from me.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, My grace is sufficient.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about me making you flawless in your actions.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: My grace is sufficient for you.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he got it.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you read that beautiful chapter there, and he says, Oh, now I get it.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll just glory in my weakness because even when I'm weak, the power of Christ is made strong.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: The glory of Christ is perfected in me.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not about me.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the new life in him.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Romans 6 addresses, and this is where we'll finish up, Romans 6 addresses the activity.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, this is where Paul, in fact, he starts out saying, you know, well, should we just sin since grace abounds?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Since we're under grace?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean we should just sin?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if great, if where sin abounds, then grace abounds, he answers a dumb question that people ask.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: If where sin abounds, grace much more abounds, then should we just sin more to make more grace abound?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, God forbid, how can you?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: How can you, when you have been dead, to sin?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: How can it happen?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: How can you live uncrucified when you've been crucified with Christ?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he talks about this whole thing, chapter 5, 6, and 7.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about this whole thing.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, basically, he's saying, because if you're trying, if you're sin conscious and you're trying to get rid of it, it will just hold you captive because he says, what you're doing is you're seeing yourself as under it, a slave to it.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and that's why you're just going to keep obeying it.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's why you're always in a process.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're never complete in him.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're always in a process.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're always trying to get there.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're always trying to get it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're always being molded and mated.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 4.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, either this is pretty poetry or Jesus did something powerful here that he didn't have to do anymore.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: There again, that addresses this.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that's usually a flawed idea about God doing, especially when it's when it's when it pertains to doing something to make us something, to empower us with something, or to make us more like him, or whatever.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because what it says is that the mindset is that the work's not finished.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: After Jesus ascended, he sat down.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why some Christians are frustrated because they're like trying to get him to do something else.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he's sitting down.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want God to move.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: But he's sitting down.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: We want God to pour out, but he's sitting down.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And why is it?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you see the truth, you realize there is nothing more to pour out.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: He poured his whole self out.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: He poured out his spirit on the earth.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing else past perfection and completion.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: He made us complete in him, perfect and entire, Peter says, lacking nothing.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's why he's sitting down.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to get him to move.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: If we'll shout praises louder, he'll move.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I know in church we have movements and we have manifestations and things, but those happen when the focus is on the reality of God in the now and faith becomes alive and real.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can see this in your everyday walk, then you can just let Jesus sit in that seat and you sit right there with him.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: That whole thing about him moving has a mentality that he's up in the chair and you're still down here.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all hearing anything?
• 28:24
  unknown: That's good.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's it.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: You get this.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: So what does it mean?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: What happens is things happen.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: You start to look like it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It does change you.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: It changes you because you've got a new life, a new reality, a new eternal existence.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: He'll say, Well, Rick, how can you stand people that blatantly do this?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, I can't help it.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm not a slave to that hate and anger and criticism.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a slave of righteousness.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've rendered myself unto God.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've presented myself as alive from the dead.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love, I was telling the other night, you know, in a in in in Chicago, I said, I'd say, you know, where I used to have to try to remember to forgive people or try to make myself forgive or pray that God would help me forgive people.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even forgive anymore.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't even conscious of it because they're just forgiven.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as they do it, it's just forgiven.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you become a slave of righteousness.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can't help it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: It says it right here.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, We were buried with him through baptism into death, that just like Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should also walk in this newness of life.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: For if we've been united together, say together, in the likeness of that death.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's another one we used to hear.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to crucify the old man.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, how dumb were we?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Almost as if Jesus never came.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus didn't do it.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't die on the cross, he didn't crucify the old man.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to do it.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: If we've been united together in the likeness of his death, then certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing this, say, knowing.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: There it is, knowing something.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is all it is.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not becoming something, it's knowing what is.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, so that the body of sin, that was that thing I saw sitting on that bed, that the body of sin might be done away with.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: So we would no longer be a slave of it.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because as long as it existed in my reality, it got the best of me.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: This whole thing is good, but for time I'm gonna skip.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 10.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: For the death that he died, he died for sin once for all.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the life that he lives, he lives unto God, talking about Jesus.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Likewise, you also, watch this.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Reckon yourselves.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Say I reckon.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I reckon myself to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we read this, here's what people do.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: They think it's putting it on them to try to kill them, try to kill the sin in their life or to kill themselves to sin.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, just reckon it.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's done.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Look at a reality, look at Jesus, look at his death, his burial, his resurrection, his ascension, and see you in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in the death, in the burial, in the resurrection, in the ascension.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: If any man be in that, and you are.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: You are new, a new creation.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I say as a man thinks in his heart, so is he?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Something happens when you know you're new and you're not fighting an old.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you think that you're fighting an old, you're gonna look like you're fighting an old.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you think that you're new, you're gonna look like you're new.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna look different.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: You will act like a peculiar person.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not only will you be good, you'll be good.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not only will you be kind, you'll be kind, but you'll be go, you'll go all beyond that.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go back to, you're gonna go all into heavenly places where you're sitting with the Father.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: You'll love the unlovely, you'll love the lovable, you'll love the enemies, you'll love, you just, you'll I can't help it.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: Rick, how do you love those liberal left-wingers?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I get I come and have great conversations, have great, we just love each other.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: I can't help it.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, don't you tell them how the cow eats the cabbage?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every time it comes up, tell them exactly how the cow eats the cabbage.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Then what are you about?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: They say, what do you preach about?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're ready to fight sometimes, you know.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: What do you preach about?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: The love of God.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wanna fight about it?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know that's how the cow eats the cabbage.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, don't you got it?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you take a stand?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I take a stand for something bigger than all that stuff.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Take a stand.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: My kingdom's not even of this world, guys.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you stand?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I stand right here.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, stuck in the middle with God, right here.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get the middle with you.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because as he lives, he lives unto God.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So likewise, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, then it goes on.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says, look at verse 12.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And don't present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: There again, that's the mindset that thinks you're an unrighteous trying to get righteous.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thinks you're an old man trying to become a new man.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: So don't present yourself as as as present your members as instruments of unrighteousness.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you see what I'm saying, I'm telling you, it's just knowing the truth, like we've been hearing since we got here today.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, let the spirit of wisdom and revelation happen this morning.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let everybody just see this so that it's boom, reality.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Boom, there it is.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: But present yourselves to God right now, today.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Present yourselves to God as someone who's alive from the dead.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when you know you're alive from the dead?
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: There ain't nothing to fear anymore.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't afraid of nothing.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not even death itself.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get to where you might even fly with Stacy someday.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't afraid of nothing.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And present your members as instruments of righteousness.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: See what the so instead of the mindset that says, oh, I'm just this and I'm trying to get better and all that.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just think, man, I'm just better.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just better.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are y'all seeing this?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's truth.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you know the truth, then you don't you don't have those thoughts anymore.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: They start to go away to where you're you have your that your your your your your body, your actions, your thoughts, they're all instruments of unrighteousness, but you're trying to get better.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to get righteous, trying to get it right.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just present yourself today as alive to God and your members, your body, your thoughts, your heart, your motive, your actions, that they are instruments of righteousness.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the love's always just flowing.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the peace is always just flowing.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: So the power is just always there and it's available.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: Always.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because sin will not have dominion over you.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not a new creation.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: An old creation, it's always got the advantage.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: An old mindset will never set itself free.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're not under the law, but under grace.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just got to finish this.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, watch this, verse 15.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: So what then?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Shall we sin?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're not under the law, but under grace?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly not.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 16.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, then you are that one's slaves to whom you obey.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: There again, that's what you do when you say, I'm just trying to get that.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're presenting yourselves as under something, trying to get out from under it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why you can't make the progress that you want.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to see the new.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the truth.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let the veil be ripped open and just see the truth.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, look at it, he says.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everything has become new.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're not a bunch of dirty dogs trying to get clean here.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: We're not a bunch of sinners trying to get trying to become not sinners.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're not a bunch of people that are someday going to be able to call ourselves sons of God.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even, we're not even a woman in preparation, making her robes white so she'll be ready for the Lord.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: So she'll be worthy of Mary and Jesus.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's another one.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: See, that all those things come from the old man mindset of being down here trying to get up there.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, Paul got the ribbon.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, just present yourself as alive right now.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just present yourself as righteous right now.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just present everything as righteousness.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: He says, he says, because if you don't, then if you present yourselves as under the sin, he says, you present yourselves slaves to obey it, then you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin that leads to death, or of obedience that leads to righteousness.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: But God bet that though you were slaves of sin, we were, we're not, but we were.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yet you obeyed from the heart.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: You believed that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became a slave of righteousness.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can't help it anymore.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because, well, we're all just sinners.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, nobody can love like God does.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, God doesn't expect us to forgive everybody.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: God knows that we're just like those twelve in the boat, you know.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: We all get scared.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: But from what fruit did you have then in the things that you're now ashamed of?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, excuse me.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: So now pr so now present your members as slaves of excuse me, let me read that whole thing.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness needed leading to more lawlessness, so now, somebody say now present your members as slaves of righteousness unto holiness.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all stand up?