Third chapter, please.
Philippians, the third chapter.
My message this afternoon, no confidence in the
flesh.
No confidence in the flesh.
If you've got any confidence in the flesh
left in you, we're going to kill it
this afternoon.
By the power of his word and spirit.
Philippians, the third chapter, verses one through four.
For finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.
Write the same things to you.
To me indeed is not grievous, but few
it is saved.
Beware of dogs.
Beware of evil workers.
Beware of the concision.
Now, the dogs mentioned here were those of
the circumcision that were trying to say that
you have to be circumcised before you can
be saved.
You have faith, but you have to be
circumcised as well.
Verse three, for we are the circumcision which
worship God in the spirit and rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have what?
No confidence in the flesh.
We're different kind of people, he said.
We're not like the circumcision of the flesh.
We have no confidence in the flesh whatsoever.
Heavenly Father, we suffer and hurt because of
our ignorance of your ways and your word.
And we pray that you turn the light
on this afternoon.
Some things that we go through that we
don't understand, that if we could simply understand,
if you'd just give us the understanding we
were able to lay hold of it through
the spirit of the living God, we could
live in peace, we could live with joy.
Lord, we would not bear so many burdens
of guilt and fear and condemnation that we
place on ourselves that God never intended us
to bear.
And so we live in misery and many
times we're tormented by these things that we
don't understand.
So I pray, Holy Ghost, that you teach
us, teach me in the process of sharing
what you put on my heart.
Lord, we don't know it all, but we're
learning.
We're learning how to walk in the light.
And when the light comes, the joy follows.
And the peace of God that passes all
understanding, so that we're not lived in torment
for fear has torment.
You'd never meant to torment us.
You meant to God that we would walk
through life with peace and joy in the
Holy Ghost and the righteousness of Christ.
So help me, Lord, to convey this word
that brings peace and rest to our souls.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Paul, the apostle, said he had no flesh,
no confidence in flesh.
He said, I don't trust it.
I've got nothing to do with my flesh.
He didn't trust his flesh because he knew
God didn't trust it, that God doesn't deal
with flesh anymore.
You see, flesh is not this human body
in itself.
It's the nature that's in this body.
I inherited a nature, and you inherited a
nature from Adam that's prone to sin, full
of every evil possible possibility, conniving and striving
and lying and stealing, all of these things.
You bring a baby into the world, you
bring a child into the world, and it
won't take you more than a year or
two to get to the terrible twos, and
you'll see what flesh is.
I've gone through four kids and eleven grandkids,
and I know what flesh is.
In fact, let's go to Galatians and see
what it really is.
Galatians, the fifth chapter.
Turn left to Galatians, the fifth chapter, starting
at verse 19.
Now, the works of the flesh are manifest,
are revealed, which are these, adultery, fornication, uncleanness,
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revilings, and
such thing, such like, of which I tell
you, as I've also told you in the
time past, that they which do such things
shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
Now, folks, that's quite a list.
And do you know that every bit of
that is in you and me and our
flesh?
You say, oh, no, no, no, no, no,
no, I don't murder.
Oh, yeah, but you hate, and the Bible
calls that murder.
You say, I don't commit adultery.
Did you ever look the second time?
Oh, you're going to tell me, you say,
well, I've conquered my flesh.
Oh, we'll see that you haven't even started.
You see, the law in the Old Testament
was given to expose the weakness of our
flesh.
God gave a revelation of his high holiness,
his utter holiness.
He made demands on the flesh that he
knew the flesh could not fulfill, because the
flesh, in its pride, would try to get
to heaven on its own merits, and then
Christ would have died in vain.
What's the use of Christ going to the
cross if we can figure this out ourselves
and do it on our own power and
strength?
And so he had to show us what
he knew, that there had to be an
old covenant that demanded absolute, total, perfect holiness.
And God said, if you fail at one
point in this, the flesh fails at one
point to fulfill all this law of mine,
you fail the whole thing.
In other words, you failed the test, and
your flesh has not achieved what you thought
it could achieve.
It's an impossible task, because the flesh failed
at every point of the law.
It failed.
And oh, how it tried to be accepted
by God.
It wanted to be that vehicle of righteousness
that could be accepted before God to bring
us.
And so it dressed itself up in spirituality.
Well, there's nothing that stinks more in the
sight of God than flesh dressed up in
spirituality, dressed up in spiritual drag.
That's all it is.
God knew all along that the flesh was
weak and powerless.
He never trusted the flesh to keep his
law.
He had to prove to us how hopeless
it was, and that flesh will always be
flesh.
Flesh is never going to change.
Flesh has a character of its own.
That character has been described in Galatians 5,
and it will not change as long as
you're in the body.
As long as you live on this earth,
your flesh is not going to change its
character.
I'm going to show you something.
You say, boy, I can't bother.
Well, you'll see it from the Scripture here
as we go by.
At the cross, God, once and for all,
did away with all dealings of the flesh.
This is where the new covenant, the new
arrangement came in, where God says, I am
not going to deal with your flesh.
Your flesh was given the opportunity, and it
failed.
You cannot, by your own willpower, your own
strength, you cannot do it by your own
strivings.
That has been tried, and it's been a
failure, and at the cross, God says, I
recognize only one man now.
Not the flesh man, the old man, but
the new man, which is Christ Jesus.
I'm only going to recognize one man.
And the only way I'll ever recognize you,
you can't come to me by trying to
make me promises.
You can't come to me and say, try
me one more time, because I've tried you
hundreds of times, and you've failed already.
This one time more thing doesn't work.
He said, there's only one man who is
perfect and who has fulfilled the law, and
that's my son.
He said, I'm not going to deal with
you anymore.
I'm not going to deal with your flesh.
As far as I'm concerned, your flesh is
dead.
It's dead.
The flesh, the Bible said, was crucified with
Christ.
Crucified.
Now, listen closely, because if you get this
and ask the Holy Spirit to help you,
you're going to discover that most of the
misery you and I go through our guilt
and our fear and our condemnation is a
result of misunderstanding flesh versus the new man,
the old man versus the new man.
The Lord says, I'm going to gather up
in Christ everyone who believes.
I'm going to gather up, and that will
be one man.
That's his body.
I'm going to recognize only one man.
I see you now only as in Christ.
I recognize.
I deal only with one man.
I don't deal with the ups and downs
and the fluctuations of the flesh anymore.
I don't do that.
I've never done that.
He said, I won't deal with you that
way, because you'll never be satisfied.
You'll never be secure.
Every time you feel good or think you've
achieved something, you'll feel that you're in relationship
with me.
But every time your flesh fails you, you'll
be condemned.
You'll hide from me, and you'll feel filthy
and dirty, and just like Adam and Eve,
you'll run and hide from me.
And you'll not understand my nature.
So Jesus took this self-man, this flesh
man, to the cross and crucified him, knowing
this, that our old man of the flesh
is crucified with him.
He's saying, you labor and strive as you
want.
You make promises in the flesh.
You try to do better.
You try to keep my love commandments in
your self-man.
It's all going to be in vain, because
even if your flesh succeeds in improving your
nature, even if you can come to a
high moral condition through the efforts of the
flesh, I will not receive it, because in
my eyes it's dead, it's over.
Deal with you with your flesh.
By the deeds of the works of the
law of the flesh, there shall no man
be justified.
Through the flesh, from the cross on, no
man can be made right before God through
efforts of his human flesh.
Now, Paul spoke about his own useless struggle
by the flesh to please God.
Oh, how this Pharisee called Saul wanted to
please God.
He was jealous for the law, circumcised under
the law.
He was given to zeal.
He was given to the righteousness which is
by the flesh, by the keeping of the
law.
He said, I've tried all of that.
I expended all my strength.
I abused myself.
I did everything to try to please God
in my own strength, and God would have
nothing with it.
He'd have nothing to do with it.
He said, I was blameless according to the
law, and God would have nothing to do
with it.
He turned it down.
It was all in vain.
All of that work, all those promises I
made, and all of that striving, and all
of the keeping of those various 635 rules
and regulations of the Pharisees, I failed.
The very fact that he said he was
perfectly keeping the law, just in that very
statement, he missed the law.
Missed the point because the Bible said no
man has completely fulfilled the law.
But he mentioned the moral commandments, the ten
commandments, which we should all be able to
fulfill through the grace of God.
But in Galatians, Paul says in 524, And
they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh
with affections and lusts.
All that you read in Galatians 5, all
of those, that whole list of things that
describe our human flesh.
And folks, everything that I read is potentially
in you and me.
Everything.
Including murder, adultery, fornication.
Potentially it's there in our flesh.
The seeds of it are there.
And now Paul comes along and says, All
they that are in Christ have crucified the
flesh with all that list, all the affections
and all the lusts.
Folks, I want to tell you something.
We cannot crucify our own flesh.
That would mean that that was within our
power to accomplish.
That we could set out to do something
about flesh.
That we could kill this habit and with
a little willpower kill this habit and just
keep at it until we work them one
by one.
I don't know how you do it.
You lay down and you get a hammer
over here and you nail this hand down.
How do you nail the other hand down?
You only have one left.
You can't crucify yourself.
And yet it says, They that are Christ's
have crucified the flesh.
The Bible says, Our old man, or the
flesh, is crucified with Christ.
We enter into His victory.
We claim His victory as ours.
Christ crucified the flesh so I can say
that I am in Christ and I have
crucified the flesh because I am in Christ.
My flesh is crucified because I am in
Him.
I didn't do it myself.
I did good works of my own.
He made the sacrifice.
And when I enter with faith in His
finished work at the cross, then I can
say all those lusts have been crucified.
Now, here's the problem.
You say, well, that doesn't square with my
experience, Pastor Dave.
I read, yes, that my flesh and its
lusts have been crucified with Christ.
I hear you say my flesh is dead
in the eyes of God.
Then why is my flesh still acting up?
Why do I still battle with lusts and
evil deeds and thoughts?
Why depression?
Why such temper tantrums?
Where do I get that?
If that's not flesh, what is it?
If my flesh is dead, why does the
Bible say the flesh is lusting against the
Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and
these two are contrary, the one to the
other, so that we can't do the things
that we'd like to do?
Now, that sounds like a war, doesn't it?
You say that lust in me is fighting,
and the word here used in the Greek
is to seek control and superimpose will upon
another.
So the flesh is trying to conquer the
Spirit of God in us, which is the
Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ
in us is endeavoring to superimpose the will
of God upon the flesh.
There's a war.
You say, well, that's some paradox you just
brought us to.
You say it's crucified, it's dead, and yet
I don't feel like it's dead, and if
the Bible says that I'm to make no
provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust,
that means that the flesh is still there,
and if I make provision for it, it's
going to overpower me.
Are you getting it?
Do you live it?
Do you understand it?
You quoted those scriptures.
You said, I am absolutely dead in Christ.
The flesh is dead.
It's gone, and you go home and lose
your temper with your wife before you get
home.
You come to Times Square Church, and you
hear these wonderful promises, the flesh lusts against
the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh,
and I'm in the Spirit tonight, and the
Spirit of God has conquered that flesh, because
on my job, there's a guy that's just
come on the job, and he's down four
desks from me, and Sunday night, I got
the victory over looking at that man, because
I know he's not a Christian, and I've
got victory over that man.
Now, that's not some woman I know.
That's a made-up woman in my mind,
trying to illustrate something, and there's something in
the heart that rejoices you up in the
morning and says, I have victory in Jesus.
I've been singing it all the way, and
today, God helping me, I won't even look
that way.
I will never have a vain imagination about
having a date with him, because I know
he's not saved.
And you go out there saying, I'm going
home tonight with victory, because the flesh is
dead.
Crucified.
And you last 15 minutes, sister, because suddenly
you are looking there, and you're trying to
figure out how you could accidentally meet him.
By accident.
Uh-huh.
And something inside begins to stir.
Some sensuality and thoughts of passion and other
things that suddenly, and by noon you're condemned,
and you go home that night.
You say, God, what was that all about?
Where is the victory?
What happened?
I thought it was beyond that.
I thought I had more grace than that.
I thought I had more power over sin
than that.
Where did those terrible thoughts come from?
Where did that vain imagination come from?
Let me give you the key to understanding
this seeming paradox.
God declares flesh dead in his own eyes.
Dead as far as his new covenant dealings
with his people.
He reckons it dead.
Now, there's still indwelling sin in us.
Sin still indwells this physical body.
But you see, it's not dead in our
eyes yet.
It's dead and crucified in God's eyes.
And God's problem is, he has got to
have us see through his eyes.
Not what we see through our eyes.
Not what we live by feelings alone, but
what God has declared.
Until you see what God sees.
Until you see it from God's eyes.
Until you reckon it dead.
The Bible said your flesh dead.
Until you reckon it as he reckons it
dead.
And he gave us an allegory, which means
an illustrated sermon.
He gives in Galatians the fourth chapter.
You don't turn there, but he gave the
allegory of Abraham and his two sons.
Now, God said, I'm going to give you
a son, but it's going to be a
son by faith.
You're going to believe me for this.
And he said, it's going to be on
my time and my agenda.
And it's going to come by faith.
Abraham, you believe me for this child and
you're going to have a child.
That's the faith child.
This was going to be Isaac.
God had Isaac planned from the foundation of
the world.
He represents, Isaac represents walking with God by
faith alone.
Pleasing God by faith alone.
Being in the presence of God and pleasing
God and doing everything according to the mind
of God.
Represents the new covenant.
Everything by faith in Christ Jesus and his
finished work.
But you see, Abraham got impatient.
And at the urging of his wife, Sarah,
he goes into his maid, Agar, and has
a child by the name Ishmael.
And the Bible calls Ishmael the child of
the flesh.
The scripture says, he that was born of
the bond woman or the slave woman, Agar,
was born after the flesh.
It was born after the scheming and conniving
and planning of human flesh.
In other words, not going to wait God's
way, I can do this myself.
I can achieve this.
God, I want you to accept my plan.
God comes along and he said, cast out
the bond woman and her son.
For the son of the slave woman shall
not be heir with the son of the
free woman.
And at that point, he declares Ishmael dead.
As far as any covenant dealings with Abraham
from now on, he says, I'm telling you,
cast Ishmael out.
That's of the flesh.
That's of human achievement.
I'm not going to deal with you that
way anymore.
And he was pointing to the new covenant.
He was pointing to the time that Christ
would come.
And that's what the inheritance was all about.
This was the lineage of Christ, the son
of the living God.
This happens to represent every child that would
believe in Christ from the cross on.
God says, in my eyes, he's dead.
Cast him out and cast the womb of
that whole system out.
Everything born of it, out.
And at that moment, it's legally dead.
From that time on, Ishmael cannot rob Isaac
of his inheritance.
He cannot interfere with his father legally.
He can't do anything about it.
But the Bible says that he's still persecuted.
He was still alive.
But in the eyes of God, he's dead.
He's legally dead.
In other words, he can't do anything about
anything.
He can persecute.
He can lie.
He can come to Isaac and say, this
is not right.
He can accuse him.
He can persecute him.
But in the eyes of God, Ishmael, the
flesh, is what?
Dead.
Now, Isaac, if he's going to have peace
of mind, if he's going to enjoy his
inheritance, he's going to accept that.
He's going to come out of his tent
in the morning and there's Ishmael.
Ishmael says, you're a liar.
You're a cheat.
You're no good.
That inheritance belongs to me.
And one of these days, your father doesn't
love you any half.
This should be a double deal.
I should get half of it.
And if he listens to those lies, he's
going to have doubts and fears and unbelief.
Because he's not accepted the legal view.
He's not accepted God's view of the death
of Ishmael.
Ishmael is still there.
But in the eyes of God, he's cast
out.
He's dead.
It's a legal issue.
And if Isaac wants peace of mind, he's
going to come out and say, I don't
care what you say, flesh.
I don't care how you accuse me.
I don't care how many thoughts you try
to inject into my mind.
I don't care how you try to interfere
with my father Abraham and my relationship.
You're dead.
Get out.
I have nothing to do with you.
Nothing.
Is anybody getting the picture?
When your flesh comes to you with lies
and evil thoughts, you say, I am a
covenant child.
I am under the blood.
I've come by faith.
I wasn't born a flesh child.
I am born a spirit child.
I'm in the spirit.
I don't live in the flesh.
You have no rights here anymore.
You have no rights with me.
You can't interfere with my relationship to my
heavenly father.
And the only way you can do that,
if you don't believe what God said.
I told you, I learned some things about,
I was sitting in my office this week.
I was just on this place about the
flesh trying to please God.
Because Abraham said, oh God, that you would
accept Ishmael.
God, if you just accept my labors.
God, if you just accept my promises.
God, if you just give me one more
chance.
Have you ever said that?
You thought you could make it and you
fell.
Oh, did you fall?
And sometimes, now God needs nobody to sin,
but God sometimes allows his people to fall
to see how weak their flesh is.
He allows it.
Yes, he does.
He'll allow it.
He'll just step aside and let your flesh
take over and bang, down you go.
And I was just thinking about that.
And Lord said, turn left.
Look over there.
I said, Holy Spirit, whisper in my heart.
And there was a little insect.
I've got a big bow window there.
What do you call it?
Well, at least there are four big panes
there.
And a bow window.
And there was an insect.
It wasn't a fly, but it was like
a centipede with wings on it.
And that thing was crawling right up the
glass.
And it would fall down.
And I kept writing, and it didn't pay
much attention.
I just kept looking.
That thing kept crawling.
About the tenth time that thing started crawling
up again, I said, I'm going to watch
this.
And I watched it.
It got up to the top of the
windowsill, and there was no other place to
go, so it would take off the wings.
But it was so weak from climbing so
often, it would fall right back down.
I kept on with my message, and God
was speaking to me.
And I got so intrigued, I said, I'm
going to watch this thing.
And it must have been 50 times.
I blew on it.
It would go down and come back up.
I'd put my hand there and crawl around
my hand.
And that thing would go up.
You see, even if you reach the top,
there's nothing there to feed your soul.
There's nothing there because you achieved it yourself.
And you think you've arrived, and you haven't
arrived.
And you fail so miserably when you reach
what you thought was the top.
Down you go again.
And each time you lose more and more
strength.
And you become more and more emaciated spiritually
and physically and mentally.
I said, I'll tell you what I'm going
to do.
I'm going to get some food.
And I got some crackers and sprayed the
whole thing full across.
I said, I know what I'll do.
It's looking for food.
I'm going to feed it.
You know, that's like the Heavenly Father.
You know, you try, and the Lord says,
no, just come and eat of me.
Come and take of my covenant promises.
I give it to you here.
Come by faith.
That bug crawled right over every crumb.
Never tasted a crumb.
First it was a cracker I thought was
too big, and I broke it up in
little pieces.
And I thought, and that's what the Lord
does.
First he gives you the whole book, and
then he gives you the crumbs, and you
still don't want the crumbs.
And so back and forth.
When I left, four hours later, that bug's
still crying.
It goes up, hits the top, tries to
fly.
Wings fail.
Down it goes.
Back up again.
Try me one more time, Lord.
Try me one more time.
I'm going to find that bug tonight when
I go home.
It's going to lay in there dead.
It's going to be dead.
Of exhaustion.
That's where God wants you and me.
Dead.
With exhaustion.
On the flesh.
You say, a bug can't teach you.
God said, Jake, if you're warm, I'm going
to teach you.
He called him a worm.
He said, I'm going to make you a
sharp threshing instrument, having sharp teeth.
Cast out the born woman.
Hallelujah.
He that was born after the flesh persecuted
him that was born after the spirit.
This is the problem.
Just as God reckons our flesh dead in
his eyes, we too must take up his
position and reckon ourselves dead in the flesh.
Ready to go a little deeper?
This lady I was talking about that comes,
this fictitious woman that comes home that night
and falls on her knees.
Said, God, what happened?
And she's condemned.
She feels unclean.
She feels guilty because thoughts of lust have
been in her heart.
There's been some conniving going on because she's
conniving how to bump into him accidentally.
Just a whole lot of things going on.
What would it be like to be married
to a man like that?
What would it be?
Maybe I could get him saved.
And all of these conniving thoughts, all of
these things.
She's going home now and saying, that wasn't
God.
That wasn't the spirit.
That was flesh.
And I'm supposed to have victory over the
flesh.
And she's condemned by it.
And you know what I'm saying?
You know what the Holy Spirit says?
Well, what did you expect from your flesh?
That was flesh being flesh.
What did you expect?
Some good to come out of it?
Folks, I've never shocked at my flesh.
Never.
Some of you say, oh, no.
I can't go that far with you, Pastor.
You left me just now.
Haven't you been shocked sometimes when you felt
the holiest and thought you were the holiest?
At temper tantrums?
At thoughts that you thought?
Even marriage problems?
What would it be like to be out
of this mess?
And you're thinking thoughts of escape.
Folks, do I have to name it before
you claim it?
I had one of those experiences in a
situation, a business dealing.
And it has to do with the men
who are trying to build a 50-story
tower above us here.
I was in the office, in our conference
room, and I prayed, you know, before and
all that.
My intentions were good.
And I'm sitting there, and suddenly I'm talking
to these men, and suddenly the Holy Spirit
is saying, there's a little bit of conniving
going on here, David.
You're not being straight.
I didn't want to be straight with these
guys.
The Lord said, this is not straight.
It wasn't that I was lying.
It wasn't telling the whole truth.
And I'm going on and on and on,
and I'm trying in the flesh to get
these men out of here.
I threatened to bring 5,000 of you
and picket the place.
I said, I'm going to call a press
conference, and I'm going to make this a
racial issue if I have to.
Can you imagine that, after preaching no race
problems in our church?
And finally, I got so angry, I jumped
up and said, I don't want to talk
to him.
Meeting's over.
Everybody go.
They're looking around, and our attorneys went in
the office, and they said, what was that?
I said, I lost it.
You know, when I'm in a situation like
that, I go home, and I sit down
on the floor, and I say, God, I
must have the blackest heart in New York.
Really.
I've said that.
I must have the blackest heart in New
York, capable of those kind of thoughts, and
speaking those kind of words out of lips
that preach a righteous message.
How can that be?
Because, Lord, I didn't want that to come
out of my heart.
Where did that come from?
I remember one time, I was so absolutely
discouraged because of this impassionate thing, and I
got to thinking, God, you must be very
disappointed in me.
And I am so discouraged, but I'm not
going to get up off my, I'm not
leaving.
I was sitting right in the living room.
I'm not getting up until you tell me
what happened.
Because I know you've got to be absolutely
disappointed with me and grieve with me, and
it just, I feel so black inside and
defeated.
And here's what I heard lovingly from the
Lord, just as clear as I've ever heard.
He said, David, your problem is that you
accepted something spiritual from your flesh.
Your flesh is always going to be flesh.
Why are you shocked?
When I have so described the works of
the flesh, He said, I'm not angry with
you.
I'm not judging you for what the flesh
did.
Your flesh was doing what it always does.
It's trying to usurp the authority of the
Holy Spirit in you.
And He said, you're repenting for the wrong
reason.
You're repenting over a dead issue.
In my eyes, this is a dead issue,
the flesh.
You should be repenting for trusting in your
flesh, that anything good can come out of
it so you could come back into the
spirit realm where I want you.
Then I'll show you something.
He said, was I not there?
Did I not convict you?
Did I not speak to you during that
time?
Did I forsake you?
And here's what the Lord said.
He wants you to feel dirty.
He wants you to feel filthy.
The flesh wants you to bring that because
the devil doesn't have to do it himself.
He's in cahoots with the flesh.
He works through flesh.
God said, I've allowed this to happen to
you, David.
I'll never cause you to sin.
But I allowed you to see how helpless
you are in your flesh.
But I'm telling you, there's no guilt.
There's no condemnation.
I didn't make you feel unclean and unholy.
That's your flesh persecuting you.
I'm dealing with you by an eternal covenant.
Not by your feelings.
But by an eternal covenant.
Not by fleeting accusations.
Because dead flesh has no voice in my
court.
As long as you're in your human body,
your flesh is going to persecute you.
Attempt to make life miserable.
And make you run with fear and guilt
and bondage.
Because when you're in the flesh, the motions,
the passions of sins, do work in your
members to bring forth the fruit unto death.
As long as we are giving in to
the flesh, the fear of flesh, we are
not to trust the flesh, but we're not
to fear the flesh.
Now, if you get that established in your
mind, then we'll go on to understanding the
victory of the cross.
You can't understand the new covenant and the
victory of the cross until you totally, in
your mind, come to the position and the
viewpoint of God.
My flesh is dead.
My flesh is always going to be something
of this world.
It is of filth.
It has nothing to do with the eternal
purposes of God.
God, in His eyes, it's dead.
God doesn't have anything to do with our
flesh anymore.
But at the cross, He crucified all the
power and the ability of that to rob
us of our eternal standing with the Father,
to rob us of eternal salvation, our covenant,
eternal life with Jesus Christ.
The flesh in me serves the law of
sin, Paul says.
There's still flesh very much alive, but with
the mind, I serve the law of God.
I walk in the Spirit so that I'll
not so fulfill the lust of the flesh.
I walk in the Spirit.
Now, folks, living and walking in the Spirit
sounds so complicated.
Let's move on to this now.
But I'm saying you can't see this until
you are ready to say, I am finished
with my flesh.
I'm not going to be afraid of it.
I'm not going to be surprised.
I'm not going to be shocked.
My flesh will always be flesh.
Don't try to sanctify your flesh.
It's dead.
And I have acknowledged my flesh is dead
before God.
It can act up.
It can lie all at once.
But in the eyes of God, as far
as bringing fear or interfering with my relationship
with the Lord, I refuse to accept Ishmael's
lies.
Ishmael is legally dead.
Now, to make him practically dead is coming
now to this issue.
And listen very closely.
It's called living and walking in the Spirit.
The Bible said walk in the Spirit.
You shall not fulfill the lust of the
flesh.
That those thoughts, evil thoughts, those things put
in your mind cannot conceive.
Because lust, when it conceives, brings forth sin.
It won't move from this realm of temptation.
This injection of these thoughts will not move
to a realm of being able to be
conceived and bring forth sin which is unto
death.
And he said if you're under the law,
he said, you've got all the motions of
sin.
There's no interruption of sin everywhere you look
if you're in the flesh.
Sin is going to erupt.
Because you're going to keep trying and it's
going to keep erupting on you.
And he said there's only one way.
You're going to walk in the Spirit.
Now that sounds so complicated.
Folks, there's so many books written on it.
So many people misunderstand what it means to
live and walk in the Spirit.
And I want to show you how simply
I see it.
Here's how I see it.
Here's the point we've reached now.
We have renounced all confidence in the flesh.
We expect no good thing from it.
We no longer fear it.
We're not trying to suppress it.
We're not shocked by how evil-minded it
is.
We have reckoned ourselves dead to its power
or affected our relationship to the Heavenly Father.
And then we learn that the victory over
all the flesh and its works is to
live and walk in the Spirit.
That it's by the Spirit the deeds of
the flesh are mortified and crucified.
And here's how I see it happen.
We've come to that point.
Just as God sees my flesh dead by
proclamation, He sees me in Christ the moment
I repent by proclamation.
He speaks it into being as soon as
He spoke the world into being.
His everlasting Word.
He says, if any man be in Christ
Jesus, he's a new creature.
All things pass and all things become new.
That has to be with the workings of
the flesh.
There's a whole new process at work now.
Let me try to make it as simple
as I can.
Now, follow me before I close this message
because I want no confusion in your mind.
But you are not in the flesh, but
in the Spirit.
Romans 8 and 9.
You are not in the flesh.
You've reckoned it dead.
You've seen it as God sees it.
You've reckoned it dead.
But now you're in the Spirit.
If so, be the Spirit of God dwell
in you.
Now, if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he's none of His.
If you don't have the Spirit of Christ
in you, if you've come to Jesus, confessed
your sins, you have made Him Lord of
your life by faith, you are in Christ.
Do you believe that?
Do you understand that what I've just read
to you is that God Himself identifies the
Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Christ?
Read it again.
But ye are not in the flesh, but
in the what?
Spirit.
If so, be what?
The Spirit of God dwell in you.
But if any man have not the Spirit
of who?
Christ.
All right.
There's the Holy Spirit, God the Spirit, Christ
the Spirit.
There is one Spirit, one Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of Christ is the Holy Spirit.
Distinct, yes, but still one.
The Godness of the Holy Ghost.
In the moment by faith you are in
Christ, you are placed in the Holy Ghost.
You are in the Spirit.
You don't need some big theology book.
You don't have to sit and try to
figure this out.
Folks, I've got books that thick trying to
figure out how to live and walk in
the Spirit.
By faith and confessing of my sins, I
was placed by proclamation at the voice of
Almighty God.
I am in Christ.
I've confessed my sins.
I believe I am in the Spirit.
I'm in the Spirit.
Glory be to God.
I'm in the Spirit.
God says, no, I put you to walk
in it.
Believe it.
Simply believe it.
Folks, it all comes down to faith.
It all boils down to whether you're going
to believe what God says about you or
not.
Do you believe what He said, that He's
crucified your flesh at the cross?
Then why are you afraid of it?
If you believe that, why can't you believe
then that you are in Christ, that you're
in Christ, that you're in the Spirit of
the living God?
It's not a complicated issue, folks.
By faith, the Scripture said God cuts off
and circumcises our dead flesh, and He raises
up into Christ, into the Holy Spirit.
Colossians 2.
Folks, time is slipping by here so fast,
but I want you to go to Colossians
2, and I'm going to close.
Verse 10, you're complete in Him.
Folks, when you're in Jesus, you've got it
all.
It's that simple.
Which is the head of all principality and
power, in whom also you're circumcised with a
circumcision made without hands, and putting off the
body of the sins of the flesh by
the circumcision of Christ.
Buried with Him in baptism, wherein you yourself
are risen with Him through the faith of
the operation of God, who has raised Him
from the dead.
You're risen with Him how?
How are you risen?
Through faith, by what?
By the operation of God.
And that word operation is energy of God.
It's through the energy of God that He
circumcises your flesh.
I tell you, it's a very practical thing.
If you would just believe that you are
in the Spirit, and allow Him, seek Him,
seek His face, the Holy Spirit, convict me.
Holy Spirit, speak to me.
He is that inner voice.
He will not condemn you.
And you seek Him with all your heart,
with all your strength and all your mind.
Yes, that's all a part of it.
But you don't let your flesh drive you
to the point where He says you're not
praying enough, you're not seeking God enough, and
all of this has happened to you because
you have failed God at some point.
You're not digging in, and He will try
to drive you to some kind of a
legal working out of your situation that you're
in.
And God says, no, I want you to
simply lay back and trust Me right now.
There are some people who call that passivity.
No, faith is not passivity.
Faith is the energy of God.
I believe with all of my heart, and
folks, you can't enter the New Covenant promises,
you can't live in victory until you say,
I believe what you said, Father.
In Christ, I am in the Spirit, I'm
going to walk that way without fear, without
condemnation, without guilt.
And when those things come on me, and
I hear all of these things, the enemy
will try to inject these thoughts, he will
put these things, don't go around condemning yourself.
Just tell the flesh, right to its face,
you're just being what you'll always be, and
you can't hurt me, you can't change me.
And call on the Holy Spirit, and He'll
be right there.
He will be there by His power.
It's an operation of God through faith.
It's an operation of God.
It's the energy of God at work in
our hearts.
And I have proven Him over the years
to be faithful.
When I go to Him now, and I
feel like my flesh has gotten a victory
at some point throughout the day, I go,
Lord, I don't condemn myself anymore.
I don't give in to the guilt and
fear.
I say, Lord, that was my flesh, and
You know it's my flesh, You know my
heart.
You know that I believe in the covering
of the blood.
I believe that I am in the Spirit.
And I come to You, Jesus, now for
Your embrace.
I come for Your forgiveness.
I come for Your love.
And as I do that, He embraces me,
and the peace of God floods my soul.
Look at me, please.
I didn't mean to preach that long.
I usually only preach 45 minutes.
We heard a powerful message this morning about
the power of tender hands.
Those are God's hands, too, the tenderness of
God to us.
And many of you, I came to this
pulpit to unburden my heart at the expense
of you saying, well, there must be something
wrong with our pastor, that he should confess
that he still has to battle in the
mind onslaughts of the enemy from all directions.
Because I wanted you to understand that as
long as you're in this body, until Jesus
comes, there's going to be a battle for
your mind.
The Spirit and the flesh are going to
be at struggle all the time.
And it says, let the mind of Christ
be in you.
Yes, it means let the mind of Christ
do His work.
Let the Holy Spirit, the mind of Christ
is the mind of the Holy Spirit.
Let Him do His work of superimposing His
will over the enemy, over every lust and
everything in your life.
He superimposes His will.
But that's not your work and mine.
Our work is just to love Him and
trust Him, stay in the Word of God.
That's not passivity.
No, no, no.
If you think faith is easy, you've already
been tested in that.
He calls it a trial.
He talks about it as being fire.
No, no, no, no.
It's not just passivity.
You're not going to come out of it.
I feel for many of you that went
through what I've gone through for many years,
I wish somebody would have how I longed
that I wouldn't have had to go through
all those years of self-condemnation, feeling unclean,
feeling unloved by God or that God was
mad at me.
I finally wrote a book on it called
God's Not Mad at Me.
I call it God's Not Mad at You,
but I was really talking about me.
He's not mad at you.
Don't let the devil use the flesh to
rob you of your relationship, that loving relationship
with the Lord.
Father, I come against that lying spirit of
flesh.
They would try to say, oh, you had
an adulterous thought, you're wicked, you're vile.
Oh, God, that is flesh of the worst
kind, lying and trying to rob us.
That's Ishmael.
Thank you, Jesus, that we'll stand by faith
as Isaac did in the promise.
We are children of promise.
You said, I'll keep you from falling.
I'll present you faultless before the throne of
His presence.
I believe that, Lord.
You'll present us faultless.
If you've been going through a battle in
the mind, you've been really struggling with some
of the things that I've been talking about.
I'm going to ask God, I want to
pray a prayer of deliverance.
I believe in this with all my heart,
that if you will agree with me, and
you really want to just quit fighting, you
want to resign to the power and the
ability of the Holy Spirit.
Don't you get tired of sin confessed, sin
confessed, sin confessed, and condemnation and guilt and
fear?
God never intended you to live that way.
God may have delivered you from a terrible
sin, yet once in a while you'll feel
that old fleshly lust, and the devil in
that flesh will come and say, we're still,
but you haven't changed.
That's Ishmael.
Walk away from him.
Don't let him anchor that thought in your
mind.
Call on the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, He says, greater is he
that's in us than he that's in the
world.
But don't look at yourself as unclean.
Don't look at yourself as dirty.
I'm still under the blood.
Yes, I've thought, I've had this thought injected
into my mind.
I've gone through this, yes, but that's flesh
being flesh.
I'm a child of God.
I'm under the blood, and I'm safe, and
I'm secure in Him.
Hallelujah.
If you want me to pray for you,
walk down here, and those in the annex,
go to the exits or go to the
lobby.
They'll show you how to get into this
building.
Come on right down to the altar here.
We'll pray together, and let's believe the Lord.
If you're not right with God, if you're
backslidden, come on down.
We're going to pray with you right now.
Let's believe God for total victory here.
God sets you free.
Let me read you something before I pray
for you.
Listen to it, please.
Hebrews 8, 10.
This is the promise of the new covenant.
For this is the covenant that I will
make with the house of Israel after those
days, saith the Lord.
I will put my laws into their mind,
and I'll write them in their hearts, and
I'll be to them God, and they shall
be to me a people.
You know, he says, you're going to have
my law written in your mind.
It's going to be imprinted there, but who's
going to put it there?
God says, I will put in your mind.
Now, that requires simply from you and I
believing what he said to be true.
I will put into your mind my laws
so that you'll obey me.
The law will suddenly appear in your mind.
It will be written there.
And when anything contrary to that law, when
the flesh comes to speak or move or
do anything or try to get you to
do anything, that's contrary to that law of
God, you don't have to run to your
Bible even.
You'll know it.
He'll write it.
You will have studied your Bible, and you
would have heard it be said.
I'm going to write it in your mind,
and you can compare every thought.
You can compare everything to that law.
That law will be the standard.
Nothing will get by that law.
He said, I'm going to write it in
your mind.
You're going to walk.
You talk about walking in the Spirit.
That's walking in the Spirit because you have
believed God to literally write it right here.
Anything the flesh suggests contrary to that law,
there'll be conviction, there'll be knowledge, there'll be
wisdom.
You will know.
There'll be an inner knowing.
That's how simple it is.
There'll be an inner knowing.
I find that true in my life now.
He wants that to be you.
First of all, we're going to come against
a lying spirit.
That's of the flesh.
Father, I come now in Jesus' name against
every lying spirit, that spirit that accuses, that
spirit that calls us unworthy, filthy, unclean.
Lord, our flesh is always filthy and unclean.
But you have taken us now, Lord, out
of the flesh by confidence in the Spirit,
that the Spirit of God lifts us out
of the flesh.
And we agree with what you said.
It's dead.
It's crucified.
And now I can come by faith into
this new man.
I am a new creature in Christ Jesus.
So that even though Ishmael is still alive,
even though he can approach me and accuse
me, he can't hurt me.
He can't hurt me anymore.
Because you said he's dead.
Lord Jesus, don't let us fear the flesh
anymore.
God, take away the fear of the flesh.
Lord, put the fear of God.
You said you'd put your fear into our
hearts.
You'd write your law in our minds so
that we would obey you out of love.
There would be an obedience because the law
has been implanted and engraven in our very
hearts and our minds.
So that we're serving you out of the
heart.
Not out of fear of judgment or being
spanked or sent to hell.
But because, Lord, you have in your love
written your law in our hearts.
Thank you, Jesus, for your love to us.
Your mercy and your grace.
Forgive us, Lord, for expecting any good thing
from our flesh.
And we come to you now.
And I want everyone who came forward to
lift up your hands to the Lord.
And I want you to pray this right
now.
Lord Jesus, I have failed you in my
flesh.
And by grace and by faith, I claim
my spirit to be crucified with Christ.
Dead in the eyes of God.
And dead in my eyes.
By faith now, I ask you, Holy Spirit,
to write your law in my mind and
in my heart.
That I obey and walk in the Spirit
to a law written in my heart.
And give me the power and the willingness
and the love and the thankfulness to obey.
Thank you for loving me, Jesus.
Thank you for not condemning me.
I love you, Lord.
Cleanse me.
Sanctify me.
And give me a new heart by faith
alone.
Now give him thanks.
Lord, I give you thanks.
I give you praise.
I had hoped to make it simpler.
But I'm going to pray now that the
Lord, if there's any confusion in your mind
about what we're preaching, he will remove it
and then help us to, in the days
ahead, to understand it much clearer.
God's trying, he tried to do it this
morning, he's trying to do it, he did
it this afternoon, attempting with everything in his
power to bring us out of endless condemnation,
endless guilt.
If you have to walk around feeling less
holy than somebody next to you, less clean,
less worthy, folks, that's still flesh.
You're still trying to do something by your
flesh.
Don't compare yourself with anybody else.
You're a loved individual.
God loves you just the way you are.
He loves you.
He'll change you.
You're so unique.
Boy, some of you are really unique.
Like me, where God has to do so
much, work so much harder on me, I
think, than anyone else.
But that's the uniqueness of his love to
us.
Holy Lord, I give you thanks.
I truly give you thanks.
That I know you love us.
You're trying to build a church in New
York City so full of grace and the
love of God that we hate sin more
than anybody else because of your love.
Because we are walking by promise and faith
and not by feelings.
And Lord, we're not weakened anymore by our
feelings.
We're not living and walking in the flesh
that fails us constantly.
But we have the constancy of the covenant
and the promises of God.
So I'll be a God to you.
And you'll be my son.
You'll be my daughter.
But isn't that wonderful that God says, I'm
going to be God to you?
Let him be God to you.