You must stop trying to fix the surface symptoms of your life and instead dig up the root lies that the enemy has planted. When you feel condemned, remember that God's truth is greater than your feelings, so choose to rest in His grace today. You are invited to renew your mind from condemnation to justification.
Welcome to The Real Church Podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Now join us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
A mentor of mine, not that I personally know him, but I know him through a lot of his books and stuff, but a mentor of mine says, believing leads to right living. Wrong believing leads to wrong living. As a matter of fact, your life, the outflow of your life, of every aspect of your life right now is a product of your deep core rooted beliefs. So in order to change the product of your life, we need to change the beliefs or the wrong beliefs because sometimes there's some lies that we believe that manifest in many different ways, many different forms. And we're gonna be talking about shifting a major belief or a major mindset that tries to affect every 1 of us in many aspects of our life.
We'll we'll get into that, but let's pray Father, I just thank you for who you are. Lord, I thank you that you love us. Lord, I thank you that today, we're gonna grow in our understanding of who you are. Lord God, we we wanna grow in our belief, not unbelief, but in our belief in your truth, because you are truth, father. You you are truth, and you affirm us as sons and daughters, and rebuke the lies and accusations of the enemy against us.
So Lord, we thank you for that. And I pray that every lie and accusation is rebuked today in such a way that people, every person under the sound of my voice, whether you're listening on podcast later or you're listening right now on on this Sunday mornings, that you walk away from here knowing who use who God says that you are in truth and affirmed as a son and daughter, and and all the lies and accusations that have been holding you back from living out everything that God's called us to do, I pray that those leave in Jesus' name. Amen. So we're talking about shifting a mindset today. Once again, this certain mindset plagues us and many times affect affects every aspect of our lives.
This mindset represents the fundamental tactic of the devil against your life. It is the "root of the problem". It is the deepest root. If you're a gardener or you have plants in your garden, you look at the plants and you look at the leaves and the leaves are beginning to look like they're sick, like they're beginning to wilt, it would be foolish to try and just fix the leaves. Because usually, the problem is found at the root.
You go to the root of the problem. We hear that in many aspects of our lives, and it's true. For our lives, the outbursts of anger, the depression, the continuing anxiety, the reclusiveness, the isolation, the doubt, the chronic sicknesses and diseases, the marital and relational problems problems, the tendency to sabotage our own success because of subconsciously thinking we don't deserve what that we should succeed. We don't deserve to succeed. All of these are just "sickly leaves".
They're not the root of the problem themselves. All of this is caused by something much deeper, a tactic of the enemy. And to resolve it, we must understand the root. Personal story. For 16 years of my life, I was plagued by outbursts of anger, and I hid it really well.
So, you know, a lot of people didn't see it until I got married. Then it's hard to hide things when you get married. Like, your wife sees everything. Right? And I got married, and I just had these outbursts of anger.
And I noticed I I didn't like it. I hated the outbursts of anger, actually. I I tried everything I could to stop the outbursts of anger, but I couldn't. No matter what, they would always come back. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get get rid of them.
And it would always happen when somebody would call me a liar. If someone called me a liar or someone insinuated that I was lying or or just I mean, even come close to to making me think that they were thinking that I was lying, I would I would do whatever it took to show that I wasn't, and then it when it didn't work, I would get so angry, and then it would just come out in some way, some form. I just I dealt with that, and I didn't know how to fix it. I was praying 1 day, and I was like, god, I can't I give up. I can't fix this anger issue anymore.
I need your help. See, that's that's where grace comes in. Right? When we stop trying and give it to him. Right?
*Grace* is getting what you don't deserve. Anyway, so I don't know. Couple weeks later, the Holy Spirit showed me the root of the problem. I was praying or thinking or driving. It just hit me 1 day.
I remembered, I had a memory of when I was 8 years old. *Holy Spirit* just kinda dug it up. When I was 8 years old, my brother was 3 years old. We were driving home. My my mom was driving, not me.
But driving home from school, my mom's an amazing person. Okay? So this is not a shot at her. But I was 8 years old. My my little brother had a toy, and he lost the toy in the car.
As a father, I don't understand how you lose a toy in a car. Just the car is just this big, you know, it's it's not huge. How do you lose a toy? Anyway, my little brother lost a toy in the car and he started crying and and, you know, David, David John's they call me David John back then. David John stole my toy, you know, and so we get home, we park, and mom gets out and said, David, what'd do with Luke's toy?
Mama, I didn't do anything with the toy. I didn't touch the toy and I really didn't. Yes, you did. You're lying. No.
No, mama. I'm not lying. I I I didn't touch the you're lying. No. No.
I'm not lying. You're lying. I'm not lying, mama. I'm you're lying, and it wounded me. Something about as small as a little toy affected me as a kid.
She accused me of lying, and that accusation stuck. So then after that, every time somebody would try to call me a liar, it would cause something to rise up in me. That wasn't me, but it somehow, I believe the accusation or something like that, and it caused this anger, and it manifested this anger outburst in my life. The anger outburst was just a sickly leaf of the root of the problem that the Holy Spirit dealt with. And what did I do?
Well, father, I I forgive my mom for saying that. Holy Spirit, what do you say about me? Well, I know that that you are truth, and you're in me. Therefore, I'm not a liar. I'm a truth teller.
That's what your word says about me. That's who I am in you. Thank you for that. I know that you sees me as 1 who is a truth teller and not a liar. I praise the lord.
So now so that was healed. I saw what he said about me instead of what the accuser said about me. Not my mother, but the enemy through my mother. Okay? My mother's amazing amazing woman.
And I was healed in an instant. Now, you can call me a liar all you want. Don't matter because I know what my father says about me. Because I'm secure in my identity and how he sees me, the lies and accusations don't affect me. Make sense?
Okay. Now, so we must unearth, dig up root, the the deepest root of really almost every 1 of our issues in life. It's the strategy of the devil so that you know how to stand against him and move forward with who god has called you to be, who he says that you are. See, a lot of times we think problems in our life that stress is the root. We think, well, I I all of this is happening just because I'm so stressed out, and I get it.
Stress happens. But why? The message a couple Sundays ago, I said, Philippians-4 says, do not be anxious about anything. What is anxiety? It's stress.
Do not be anxious about anything. How can you not be anxious about anything? The Bible says right before it in the sentence, it says, the Lord is near. So stress is a result of not seeing that the lord is near. So you take in your eyes.
We're taking our eyes in those moments off the fact that god is with us and God is near to us, and putting our eyes on us being in control, or that in some way, some shape, some form in that area of our life, we're separated from him. And so we're stressing because we have we are carrying the burden that he's supposed to be carrying because he said my yoke is easy and my burden is light. We don't have to be anxious or stressed in any aspect of our life as a child of god. Now I know that's hard to believe in this stressed out American society, but we either believe his word or we believe what we feel. Amen?
Stress is actually just another sickly leaf. It's not the deepest root. Because if you can see that the Lord is near, you wouldn't have stress in that area. Make sense? A lot of people say fear is the deepest root or is a root, the root issue.
I just don't think so. Because 1 John-4, we've said it over and over. There is no fear in *love*, and God is perfect love casts out fear. The 1 who fears has not been perfected in love because fear has to do with punishment. *1 John-4*.
So then fear, just like stress, is a product of not seeing god's love with you in that area. It's a product of us being in control or feeling like we have to protect ourself financially or or physically or whatever area of our life. Any fear is a lack of understanding of god with us, god's love with us. It's a feeling of separation from god or not understanding his goodness in that area. Right?
So, if that's the case, then, fear is just another sickly leaf a higher root because fear fear fear and stress, doctors will tell you that that they cause all kinds of physical issues, heart attacks, and you know, chronic illnesses, and and because of fear and stress, you can lose your job because you're making all these choices that are not you. And so they're they're they help cause things but there's a deeper cause that causes both fear and stress. That causes a lot, most, maybe even all of the issues of our lives Hard to believe, right? Now, I'm gonna tell you and some of you would be like, no, that's not it. Then, I'm gonna prove it to you.
Alright? So I submit to you that *condemnation* is the deepest root. It's the root out of which stress and fear come. It's the root out of which every aspect of our life that doesn't look like Jesus comes from. And before I tell you why, let's just know that Romans-8:1, pull up that up on the screen.
Therefore, there is sometimes. Uh-uh. Therefore, there is in the future. Therefore, there is now **no condemnation** for those who are in Christ Jesus. It's interesting in that verse, there is no qualification for no condemnation other than being in Jesus.
Some Bibles put a qualification in there. The NIV, the ESV doesn't. Actually, the New King James Version and the King James Version do. They say, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for those who walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh. But if you look in the original text, which the New Testament was written in Greek, that phrase is not that clause.
Those who walk according to to the spirit and not according to the flesh, is not in there. So what happened was the translators couldn't fathom. They couldn't understand how there could be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There had to be some kind of a qualification. There had to be something.
Wait. Wait. There is just now no condemnation? All it is is being in Christ Jesus? There's no act on our part for no condemnation?
So, they wrote in the qualification for those who walk according to spirit and not according to flesh but there is no qualification. You're either forgiven or you're not. Your sins are either washed from you or it's not or they're not in Christ. It's either grace or it's not. Make sense?
Look it up. Look it up for yourselves. So what does this mean? What is there none of? We must understand what we are free from completely.
We must understand what condemnation is so that we can reject it when it comes, and by rejecting it, reject all of the symptoms that come from the root of condemnation. So let's go to the definition of condemnation. Condemnation equals censure. What is censure? Censure is a **"formal criticism"** for your fault.
There is therefore now no formal criticism for your faults in Christ Jesus. Blame. *Condemnation* is blame. Therefore, there is now no blame for your wrongdoing **in Christ Jesus**. Why?
Because Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, and him being crucified on the cross, he was formally criticized for your fault in your place. He was blamed for your sin in your place. How could you then take the blame? That would be saying what he did is not good enough. The religious person says, wait, hold on.
No, no, no. There is no holding on. This is the gospel of grace. *Jesus* is grace. You either receive all of it or none of it.
*Condemnation*, the act of judicially condemning, the state of being condemned. *Jesus* was judicially condemned. He went through the state of being condemned so that we don't have to. Number 4, condemnation. A reason for condemning, Webster says.
Therefore, there is now no reason for condemning you. Because Jesus took all of the reasons for condemning you on himself. Now, to really understand this even more because I just think that we have to understand definitions because words matter. Christ is the word. In the beginning was the word.
His word is truth. So then what does condemn mean? Because that makes it even deeper. 1 definition or the first definition is to declare, to be reprehensible, wrong, or evil. Usually, after weighing evidence and without reservation.
A policy widely condemned as as racist. But anyway, the first part is a lot of times, we see the evidence of our own lives, of our own mistakes, and we're conditioned and trained to condemn ourselves. And we'll talk about why in a little bit. But therefore, there is now none of this for you in Christ Jesus. Second definition, condemn to pronounce guilty, convict.
Therefore, there is now no pronunciation of guilt for you who are in Christ Jesus. I'm gonna nail this home, guys, Because this is the gospel. I'm just going to continue here for for a while. To convict I'm looking at time because if I say, I've I've I've shared this before and I just I'm just going to share it briefly but the Holy Spirit, therefore, there's now no conviction of sin in Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit doesn't convict you of sin.
The Holy Spirit convicts you of righteousness. Find in scripture where it says the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin. It's wrong. There there was a wrong teaching. The Bible says the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement and and convicts the world of sin because they do not believe in you.
If you don't believe in Jesus, then the Holy Spirit, you'll see his goodness in church today and be convicted of sin. If you don't believe. But if you believe in Jesus, that verse says, of righteousness, for I go to the father where you, he's talking about the disciples. Where where you will see me no longer. So, if you follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit, what he does is he convicts you not of sin but of righteousness, of who you are in him, of your "right standing with him", of the fact that you're forgiven, that you're loved, that you're his son, that you're his daughter, that's what he convicts you of.
Conviction means, you're shown to be guilty. Therefore, there is now no being shown to be guilty of sin in Christ Jesus because Jesus took all of your guilt. Jesus was convicted of sin so you could be convicted of innocence. Research it. Don't go by what you've always thought and always been taught.
Go by what the Bible teaches. Look it up in scripture. The Holy *Spirit* convicts the world of sin, convicts his disciples of righteousness, and convicts Satan of his upcoming judgment. That's amazing. Search it out.
Prove me wrong. You can't. Because it's in scripture To sentence, to doom, and condemn as a prisoner to die. That's what condemn is. What's the next verse?
Or the next next thing. Condemn. To a judge unfit for use, or a judge means to declare. A lot of times, this is where we get stuck. We declare ourselves unfit for use because we're so so taught to condemn ourselves by the enemy in this world.
But Jesus therefore, there's now no declaration that you are unfit for use. You are declared as fit for use, as as good to be used because god has made you for good works and for a good purpose. He's he's purposed you for use for his kingdom. Don't don't count yourself out any longer. Are you guys with me?
Yeah. Okay. Is there another 1? I think that's the last 1. I think that's the last 1.
Okay. So, why is condemnation the deepest root? Here's why. Because without condemnation, like without the the the being guilty of sin or feeling that you're guilty of sin without that, you freely run into your father's lap. But as soon as you sense that you're guilty, as soon as you sense that you're unforgiven, as soon as you sense that you're unfit for use, as soon as you sense that you're no good, or as soon as you sense that you've done wrong and it's there's no coming back from this.
There's a all of those things are condemnation, and what they do is they separate you from the father. Remember, no anxiety because the lord is near. Anxiety is a result of being separated from the father in that area. Fear is a result of being separated from love in that area. And why are you separated?
Because you're believing a lie and not the truth. The Bible says my people perish for lack of knowledge, for lack of knowing the truth and believing a lie. And right living comes from right believing. And any area of your life that there are there is fear and stress and condemnation and and all of the the results of life that do not flow from Jesus and his goodness. It's the result of believing a lie.
So, we have been conditioned by a wise serpent to condemn ourselves and I want to teach you to identify the tactic of the enemy so that you can contradict him with truth and overcome him in the practical aspects of your life. So, let's do that. And if you have theological issues with what I'm saying, Email me. Let's get together and let's talk. Let's go through scripture, okay?
Alright. *Ephesians-6:10*. You ready? Says, finally, be strong in the lord and in his mighty power. We're not to be strong in ourselves and in our mighty power because as soon as we're strong in ourselves and our mighty power, condemnation comes in because we're trying to do it ourselves, and we realize that we can't do it ourselves.
So now we feel guilty. Right? Who are we to be strong in? The Lord. We're not to be strong in the Lord and then in our mighty power.
We're we're everything is him, not us. Everything is Jesus and not us. When we the more that we understand that, the more that we live that out in our lives, in every aspect of our lives. You have to understand. We have to understand that we're not the center of the universe.
*Jesus* is. And when we put him at the center of every aspect of our life, we experience him at in in the center of every aspect of our life. Amen? Okay. Verse 11.
*Ephesians-6:11*. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. He is scheming against you. The Bible's the it doesn't say it doesn't say in in this verse, it doesn't say to fight him. It says to take your stand against him.
All we have to do is stand in his word. Stand in in in what he says, what he says. Take your stand against who? The devil's schemes. Right?
The Bible says, submit to god, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You know, I've talked about that up here before. Something only flees from what they're scared of. See, Satan Satan doesn't think that he can dethrone God from heaven. He knows he can't do that.
But he does think that he can dethrone God from your heart, from your head, from what you believe. He doesn't think you believe what you really believe. So you do whatever it takes to try to dethrone what you say you believe from there. Take your stand in his word. And by standing in his word, you are submitting to God, to his word.
And in doing that, you're letting God and his goodness, grace, and mercy flow through your life in every aspect. Satan has to flee from god. And when you're submitting to him, you're letting god flow through every aspect of your life. So, he has to flee from you. Ain't that amazing?
Okay. Watch this. How do we do that? Let's go to and and the full armor of God, I would say read that. It's important.
But I just wanna I I wanna wanna stand on 1 1 part today or I wanna teach about 1 part. In verse 16, it says, in addition to all of this, which it it talks about the helmet of salvation, it talks about the belt of truth, all kinds of stuff, and there's a lot of stuff there. But in verse 16, it says, in addition to all this, take up the shield of faith. Everybody say shield of faith. Shield Which with which you can extinguish some of the "flaming arrows" of the evil 1.
If you if you if you didn't notice, I like doing that. A lot of times, we may say that we believe this, but we live as if we're scared about the next arrow that would come. That it's just gonna hit, penetrate, and burn our life to the ground. Right? But if we take up the shield of faith, we can extinguish all of the flaming arrows of the evil 1.
Every single attack of the evil 1 will be extinguished by taking up the shield of faith. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Nothing. Period. We stand in his word.
Now let's let's unpack this because we'll understand why condemnation is the deepest root. The evil 1. Who is the evil 1? Satan. What does his name mean?
What does Satan's name mean? Adversary? It means adversary. What else does it mean? It means to resist.
It means to attack, and it means to accuse. Revelations chapter 12 verse 10 calls him the "accuser of the brethren". If he's your adversary and he's gonna resist you, the greatest form of defense is a strong offense. Right? So if he's resisting you, how's he gonna resist you?
By attacking you. And how's he gonna attack you? By accusing you. And what are those accusations? *Jesus* calls him the father of lies.
Those accusations are lies. So with lies and accusations, those are the flaming arrows. What are the flaming arrows? Lies and accusation. How do you take up the shield of faith against that?
Well, what is faith? Where does faith come from? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Or another version says the word of Christ or the word about Christ. *Jesus said, I am the way, the truth*, and the life.
So, by hearing the *truth* and believing the truth. Now, what does Jesus do to us as sons? He's always affirming us as sons and daughters. So taking up the shield of faith then, the flaming arrows of lies and accusations are coming at us, and we're taking up the shield of truth and affirmation. We refute lies and accusation by his truth and affirmation of us as sons and daughters.
Isn't that amazing? What are lies and accusations? What's an accusation? It's condemnation. His number 1 tactic, the deepest root of every attack in your life is condemnation because he wants you to separate yourself by believing a lie, separate yourself from your father in heaven so then he can rip you to pieces.
So he wants you to believe the lie that the Holy Spirit convicts you of all your nastiness and just reminds you of of all of your sin. He wants you to believe that. So then your focus is on your sin instead of on Jesus. Let me show you. Here's the here's here's some some instances of the flaming arrows, the lies of accusation against you.
They're blatant, and they're hidden. Like, even those that have been walking as Christians for 40 years and 30 years still, like, I still have to go back to his truth and affirmation when accusation comes at me in all kinds of ways. I'll show you some some examples. The blatant ones, god doesn't love you. You haven't done enough.
You're still an addict. You're still a drug addict. You're still a whatever you used to struggle with. You're still an adulterer. You're still whatever.
You you you shouldn't go to church today. They're gonna look at you and look down on you. It's an accusation. You shouldn't do this today. You how could you even read the Bible?
You know you're not gonna get anything out of it. You're terrible at your job. You should just quit. You're never gonna get that promotion. Unfit for use.
That's condemnation. Right? All of it. It's causing you to believe a lie instead of truth of who he says that you are. It it even gets as as hidden as this.
You're growing in Jesus now. Been serving. You've you've been doing so. You've been reading your Bible and and man, you you you started reading and now you're reading your Bible every day. The the accuser of the brethren will come at you and say, hey, You're reading your Bible every day for 15 minutes, but that's not 30 minutes and that's not enough.
You're not a good Christian It sounds sounds simple, don't it? In that moment wait. Wait. No. No.
No. I know who I am. I know who God says that I am. Thank you, Jesus, that you've given me a desire to read my word and to get in in. This is amazing.
And, father, would you give me a desire to get in more? I mean, man, I I can do this only by your grace and your mercy because what the accusation does is it causes you to try to do it by your own strength, causes you to try harder by your power but when you try harder by your power, you're always gonna mess up because life ain't about you. It's about him. So when we take it back to him and our focus is him and we live by him and in him and through him, we will never fall. But as soon as we listen in this instance or that instance to a lie, that's when the fall comes, that's when the stress comes, and that's when we need to go back into his word and what he says about us, or get around other believers who's always going to remind us of the truth of who he says that we are.
It's the importance of the body of Christ. Because we've been so conditioned to listen to the condemnation. Now we need to renew our minds to listen to what he says and who he says that we are. Isn't that good? Let's keep going.
We're almost done. And I'm not 1 of those preachers that says we're almost done and keeps preaching for 20 minutes. Although my wife thinks that I am. So but pastor, my conscience is getting me for what I just did, or for what I just didn't do, or for what I should've done. But pastor, like, did you see that?
My conscience is condemning me right now. Let me teach you real quick. Let's go through it. Let's let's learn this together. Hebrews.
Watch this. This is amazing. But, pastor because we all deal with a guilty conscience. Because we all, from time to time, listen to the enemy. And we all need to be affirmed if we do.
Right? Okay. *Hebrews-10:22*. Watch this. Let us draw near to god with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.
We just talked about the full assurance that faith brings. That's his goodness. That's his grace. It's amazing. Having our hearts sprinkled sprinkled by what?
His blood. It's his blood that cleanses us and washes us clean. Having our hearts sprinkled from a guilty *conscience* and having our our bodies washed by pure water. NIV, ESV, I think, says guilty conscience. New King James version, King James version, and some other version says an evil conscience.
A guilty *conscience* is an evil conscience. It's the same thing. A guilty conscience is an evil conscience. Let that sink in for a second. Why?
Because a guilty conscience is **sin conscious**. A guilty conscience is conscience of evil, of your choosing not God. But a conscience that has been washed by his blood is conscious of Jesus and of his goodness and of his grace and how he sees you. So we have a choice. We can be sin conscious, constantly looking at what we're doing wrong and trying to better ourselves, or we can be Christ conscious and constantly be looking at what he's done for us and what he's doing in us and reproduce what you focus on, you reproduce in your life.
If you're sin conscious, you're reproducing sin in your life. But if you're Christ conscious, you're reproducing Christ in your life. Sin consciousness says, oh, no. I messed up. Don't call dad.
*Jesus* consciousness says, oh, no. I messed up. We better call dad. This is grace. Now, last but not least, Well, first John.
In 1 John-3:19, it says, this is how we know that we belong to the truth, and we "set our hearts at rest" in his presence. If our heart condemns us or if our conscience condemns us. Right? We know that god is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before god.
So if our hearts condemn us, we know that he's greater his word, what he says, is greater than what we feel in the moment, greater than our guilty conscience. And he already knew that we were gonna do what we did in that moment to make our conscience condemn us, and he forgave us. He died for us anyway and forgave us of all our sin anyway so we can set our hearts at rest in his presence based on his blood that he shed for us in the 2000 years ago. Ain't that good? He knows all things.
He knew that even. That's grace, and that's amazing. So we can rest in him. We can set our hearts at rest. *Romans-6*.
Actually, no. No. Romans-3:20 says, therefore, no 1 will be declared righteous in god's sight by the works of the law rather through the law, we become conscious of sin. The law is amazing but what is the law? It's doing things for god.
What is grace? God doing things for you. So, through trying to do things for god or trying to follow his law, trying to follow what was written without his help in us, we become conscious of our inability to do it and we fall. *Romans-6:14* says, sin shall no longer be your master because you're not under law but under grace. So we're sin is not our master anymore because it it's no longer our trying to be good enough, but it's focusing on the fact that he was good enough, and he did it for us.
But not only that, he's doing it in and through us. So we're shifting our mind to say thank you Jesus for what you've done. Thank you for how you see me, and we're renewing our mind from condemnation to justification. From condemnation to I am justified just as if I've never done it right now so that I can walk forward in what you've called me to. It is a mindset a mindset shift.
It is a complete belief shift. There's so many strong, mighty men of God who are stuck in a place because of condemnation and don't even know it. There's so many people who are baby, baby Christians that just gave their life to Jesus, but are stuck in a place because of condemnation and don't even know it. And they think it's this, and they think it's that, and they think it's this, but the root is a lie that Satan has said that we believed that has separate us from God in that 1 little area because we have a wrong belief in this area, and it causes stress, fear, anxiety, lack, all kinds of different things in this 1 area of our life. But when we see what God says about us and we begin to believe what God says about us, faith is the making substance of what he says in our daily life in that area.
So we trust him, and we walk forward, and we're like, wow, I'm your son, and you wanted to bless me there. And I was holding myself back, sabotaging myself because I believed a lie and didn't take up the shield of faith, and the enemy's arrow got through in that area and burned a little bit. God loves you. He loves you that much. I know it's hard to believe.
I'm going to close by reading the scripture, a prayer, and I just encourage you guys to go back to this, what I'm about to read, and and meditate on it means to just kinda, like, sit there and think about it. Let God, what do you wanna show me in this? There's so many little things. There's so many times that I've read this, and and every time I read it, I just more things pop out. I'm like, woah.
That's amazing because his word is alive. It's living and active, and it shows us what he says about us. But in Ephesians-1, I'm just gonna read this, and this is this is a closing prayer and Imma invite Daniel to come up and close this out. Daniel, there you are. Yeah.
If you go ahead and get your mic and get up here and get ready because because I'm I'm I'm done after I read this but this is Paul's just take it as Paul talking to you, writing about you. So when it says us, say me because I mean, sometimes I like to make this thing personal. It's us as a body. It's us corporately as the body of Christ, but then also, it it's personal too. Praise be god of our praise be to the god and father of our lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us or blessed me, blessed you, and the heavenly realms with every "spiritual blessing" in Christ.
I'm still trying to believe that. That's crazy. That's some amazing goodness of god. For he chose us, he chose me, he chose you. In him before the creation of the world to be holy, blameless in his sight.
In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship, A son of god through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and his will. He it gives him pleasure to call you a son and his daughter. We we we come to god as like filthy rotten feeling like this but god's like, no, come to me as my son. I'm pleased to call you that. To the praise of his glorious grace which he has freely given us in the 1 he loves.
In him, we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of god's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure which he purposed in Christ to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment to bring unity to things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him, we are also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in a conformity with the purpose of his will. In order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of his glory, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, when you believed, you were marked in him with the seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.
And then this is my prayer for you, Ephesians-3:14. For this reason, I kneel before the father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives his name. I pray that out of his glorious riches, he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses our knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the "fullness of god". Now, to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work work within us.
That's crazy. God's power at work in us. To him be the glory in the church, in real church, and in Christ Jesus, and in all of his church, throughout all generations forever and ever, amen. Amen. Oops.
Look guys, I'm just growing in my understanding of how much he loves me. If you listen to any preaching that makes less of Jesus, it makes more of the person's efforts, quit listening to that preacher. If it magnifies Jesus, it's worth listening to. God bless you.
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