We are in a series that is being kind of broken up.
Pastor Igor is in a series that gets broken up,
and I'm in a series that is kind of being broken up
because of not always here.
And like this year, since we don't have summer fest,
it was the first summer in, I don't know, 15 years or whatever.
We got to go on a summer vacation.
And I told Mary on the way back, I said,
I think I like the fall better.
Not near so hot.
But because of some of these different things,
the series has been broken up.
We've been in a series on our identity in Christ.
Who are we? Who am I?
What am I?
Knowing who and what we are
lays the foundation for the course of our life.
I mean, even in the physical,
if a person doesn't have their focus,
their compass dialed in, it's like they just wander.
And never really accomplish much of anything.
They do this and they do that.
They just wander because they don't know.
They're not focused in. They're not dialed in.
Once we know who we are,
especially as Christians, who we are in Christ,
and of course everything flows out of that as a Christian,
that's called having a scriptural world view.
For all of you who don't listen to the podcast,
you're going, what does that mean?
You got to go back and listen to the podcast.
Everything flows from the foundation of Scripture
and who we are in Christ.
Whether you're a plumber, electrician,
you're a stay-at-home mom, it makes no difference.
Everything flows out of that.
And once we understand who we are,
now our purpose, our identity ties into our destination,
where we're going, our rights, our authority,
our privileges, our security in God.
Everything starts making sense and starts getting revealed.
Until that point, we struggle.
It literally, if you go to Hebrews,
let's go there just for a second.
Can you jump off the PowerPoint and go to Hebrews?
Let me find it and then I can tell you where to go.
Hebrews chapter 6 verse 13.
I was reading this week and this just popped off to me.
6-13, I'll start back in chapter.
I'll just give a brief running start on this.
End of chapter 5, he's talking about people
who should already be maturing in Christ,
they should be teaching, they should understand things,
but they're still babies, they're still on milk.
Part of that is not knowing who you are.
So you're not pursuing anything.
Chapter 6, the beginning of it, he says,
so let's get past the elementary stuff,
the baby stage stuff, and let's move on into maturing.
Let's move on into maturity.
He ends that thought in verse 2
with talking about understanding eternal judgment.
That is one of the baby things we need to understand as Christians.
It's an elementary principle that from my perspective,
and that might be skewed a little bit
because I don't see everything,
but from my perspective the church has really dropped the ball on that.
Because when you bring up the concept
of there is an eternal hell,
there's a place where people who are not believers,
who are not living for God, are going to spend eternity.
It brings up all kind of controversy in the church.
Why don't know if God would really do that?
And God is a loving God.
And he understands, see, we don't even understand
the basic scriptural concept
of there is an eternal judgment coming.
That's an elementary thing the writer to the Hebrew says.
So he jumps off on that for a few verses
talking about judgment and so forth.
Then verse 9, chapter 6, he says,
I'm confident you're not going to face that judgment.
I'm confident, better things for you.
Keep walking it out, keep your hope sure.
And then in verse 13, we're going to start reading.
I'm in the NIV.
If you could bring up the NIV,
it makes it a little easier to understand.
When God made his promise to Abraham
since there was no one greater for him to swear by,
he swore by himself.
So, you know, if you go to court or something,
they'll have you put your hand on the Bible
and swear that you're going to tell the truth.
Because the Bible is considered a higher authority
greater than you.
Well, there is no greater authority than God.
So he gave his word on the basis of who he is
to Abraham, and he said, verse 14,
I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.
And so after waiting patiently,
Abraham received what was promised.
Let's read on. I'll come back to that statement.
Men swear by someone greater than themselves.
He talks about the oath, you know,
to confirm and try to end the argument.
So God did this on two things,
his eternal existence and his unchanging nature,
verse 17 and 18.
Two unchangeable things he gave his word on,
so it's impossible for him to lie
because he'd have to cease to exist if he lied.
And because of the foundational security
in what he said, middle of verse 18,
we who have fled to take hold of the hope
offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
So back up to verse number 15, 14.
He's speaking to Abraham and he says,
I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.
He just told Abraham part of his identity.
Who is Abraham?
Well, now in reverse, he's the father of...
he's the father of faith.
He's the father of the nations.
He's of the faith nations.
Abraham is the father.
But when God was talking to Abraham,
he's saying, this is who you are.
You are the one who will be blessed to have many descendants.
When he had no descendants, no children at all yet.
God said, this is who you are.
Abraham struggled with that picture
and got him in trouble with Hagar.
If he had stuck with the picture, the statement,
God said, I am the one who's blessed
and will receive many descendants.
If he had just stuck with that,
we wouldn't have the mess in the world we have
now with the Arab nations.
That came from Hagar.
So God was saying, this is who you are, Abraham.
Abraham struggled with it.
When you struggle with things, there's problems.
Identity, okay?
Then he takes it and applies it to us.
Verse 18, God did this with Abraham
and now he's going to apply it to us
so that by two unchangeable things
in which it is impossible for God to lie,
we, not Abraham, we who have fled
to take hold of the hope offered to us
may be greatly encouraged.
Well, what my question is, is who are you
and what hope has been offered to you?
Because Abraham knew. God told him.
You know what? God's telling us, too.
This is who you are.
Here is my promise to you.
Do we know what that is?
Because that ties back into Ephesians 1,
the first half of the chapter,
where he's saying, I have a pre-planned destination,
a pre-panned life for you.
Do you know what yours is?
Because without us knowing who we are in Christ,
we will never know what he wants for us.
Without knowing what he wants for us,
it's hard to lay hold to the hope.
We can't get a joyful, confident expectation
about anything.
And what happens if we don't have that?
Verse 19, this hope acts as an anchor
for the soul, firm and secure.
It even enters into the sanctuary behind the curtain,
which is that's entering into the holy places of God,
the presence of God, the nearness of God.
If we don't know who we are, two things get lost.
We have no anchor for our soul.
Mind will emotions.
That's what the word soul means.
Mind will emotions, reasoning, intellect, that world.
If I don't know who I am, when things start hitting me,
my mind starts going, oh, what's going on?
I can't understand what's happening.
Where is God?
Is God supposed...
And my emotions will stir up.
I don't like this.
I'm afraid.
There's no anchor to hold me solid.
Because I don't know who I am
and what I'm supposed to be solid to.
And what has God promised to me?
Well, maybe we made the wrong decision last year.
Maybe we should have done this.
Maybe we should have done that.
I don't know.
It's not turning out well.
And we just float all over the place in our mind
and our emotions, which affects our will.
We are not anchored down
because we don't know who we are.
It acts as an anchor.
And when we don't have that anchor,
not only does it affect our soul,
which is more this physical realm we work in,
but it affects how intimate we get with God.
The inner sanctuary.
We have got to know this is who I am in Christ,
which are the general things we're talking about now.
And then he will take that up a level
because in Scripture,
for instance, Abraham was blessed to be the one
with many descendants.
We know the story.
Jesus came through Abraham's lineage
and the whole thing.
We know that.
But he never said to any of us,
Pastor Igor is going to be a pastor.
That's not in the Scripture.
Well, who is Pastor Igor?
You ask him.
He said, well, he'd start with the basics.
I'm a child of God.
I'm saved.
I'm the general things.
But then when you go to Ephesians 1,
that first part of it,
where he's talking about the preplanned life
he wants all of us to walk in,
all of us have a different life to walk in.
Pastor Igor would say,
Ephesians 1, that first part of it,
I'm a pastor.
That's who I am.
That anchors you down
to a certain course in life.
And if you'll stay anchored to what you know
who you are in Christ.
A lot of things that are temptations
to wander off the path,
you don't ever entertain them.
Because it's not who I am.
It's not what I'm supposed to be doing.
So it anchors down your soul.
Well, when you're anchored down in your soul,
you're not questioning,
I don't know if we should make that decision.
I don't know if we should even be doing it.
Maybe we shouldn't even be living in Minnesota.
There's other parts of the nation
that are a whole lot nicer to live in.
I don't know what we're doing.
So then when you go to God,
we just go with a bunch of questions.
Well, I don't know God.
Tell me what you want me to do.
Where are we supposed to go?
And it stays so much in the realm of,
I don't know,
that intimacy.
Pastor Eager calls it the secret place.
Those times we get intimate with God
and he starts sharing with us.
And this is what you're going to do next.
And this is how it's going to go.
And this, because we're anchored into,
yep, this is what you told me,
and I'm going that direction, period.
He will then be able to, in the intimate times,
start bringing those together for us.
If we're not anchored in,
it affects our ability to even get into His presence.
Because we'll walk into church not expecting revelation.
We'll walk into church with a thousand questions,
a little bit of bad attitude and disgruntle
because I don't understand why my life's going like this.
And it's hard to get anything from God that way.
So, let's go back to what we're talking about here.
Your homework.
Who am I?
What is my identity?
That was the question we were supposed to be asking
in this last couple, three weeks.
In your prayer times, during the day,
God, who am I?
What is my identity in you?
Who am I to you?
How do you see me?
I need to see your perspective of me.
I need you to talk to me.
Who am I?
What is my identity?
Show me my identity.
Show me who I'm supposed to be.
I won't ask for a raise of hands who did that.
Because I came back from vacation
and I don't want to be discouraged right away.
But if you haven't done that,
you need to do that because it comes out of...
Ephesians 1, the last half of the chapter.
First half of the chapter, Paul's saying,
this is a fact.
God, before the foundation of the world,
pre-planned your time on this earth.
He has a destination he wants to get you to.
He's laid out how this thing is supposed to go.
That's why it's called pre-destination.
Here's where you're supposed to go in Christ.
Here's what you're supposed to accomplish.
This is what your life is supposed to do on earth.
That's the first half of chapter 1.
The second half of chapter 1 says,
that's why I'm praying for you people.
If you don't get wisdom and revelation
on what I just said to you,
that pre-planned here is how you're supposed to walk life out.
If you don't get wisdom and revelation on that,
you're going to be floundering all your life.
So he took the last half of chapter 1
and said, I am praying for you
to get the wisdom, to get the revelation
that you see what you're here for.
Okay?
That's as far as we got.
So I don't know if it's because I've been out of the loop
or whatever.
But before service, Pastor Igor asked me,
well, Mary asked me at home,
she said, what do you got for the service?
I said, I got nothing.
And I don't like that.
I do not like that.
I like to walk into a service
at least having and knowing what direction the wind's blowing.
I may not know all the details,
but we're kind of going that way.
So before service, Pastor Igor asked me,
he said, what do you got for the service?
I got nothing.
He says, I don't either.
I thought, oh, great.
So as I was coming in while you were doing praise and worship
and stuff after I had greeted most everybody,
as I'm coming in, I stopped at the back there
and I stood there for quite a while saying, God,
this is disconcerting to me.
I don't like this.
I want to know, what are we doing?
Where are we going?
What's the emphasis for today?
Or we'll just shoot off into some direction
that may not be you at all.
And interestingly enough,
stood there for five minutes, didn't get nothing.
I thought, oh, I'm going to go in and sit down
and let's see what happens.
And as I'm walking up that wall,
he said this to me.
This is a pick them up and put them down day.
This is how the bulk of human life is lived.
That's when knowing who you are
becomes extremely important.
So let me explain that to you a little bit.
Most of our 24 hours,
we do not live in the manifest presence of God.
To where it's just men, our hair are standing on end,
and we can feel the presence of God just heavy on us.
And how many of you live in that
most of the 24 hours of your day you're awake?
We don't. That's what's real.
That's why those times when we get alone with God
and get intimate with Him,
and or those services where we're together
and the Spirit of God just slams us,
are so precious.
And we're humans, we're fallen nature.
If we lived in that continually,
it would become whole home to us after a while.
Oh, whatever.
Whole home.
It's like when we moved to Colorado.
Man, the first three, four years,
the mountains were like,
oh man, they're beautiful.
The sun's rising, there's snow on them,
they're orange, then they turn away.
And once we were there 15 years,
what mountains?
Oh yeah, that's right, there's mountains there.
I've seen that before.
That's human nature.
It becomes whole home.
Most of our 24-hour day,
we are not under the heavy presence of God.
What do we do?
We do what He already told us to do.
Pick them up, put them down, walk this thing out.
I had an opportunity to save some money
while we were on vacation.
To do it would have been stealing.
And it worked out that
I had to go back
and give them the money that was owed to them.
Because I was past the point already.
And it's like, just ignore it, it goes away.
I mean, nobody knows. I'm in.
You know what?
The heavy presence of God never showed up.
The heavy conviction of the Spirit.
The, oh, my hair is standing on.
I can just feel God in a tangible way.
Nothing, nothing.
Just nothing.
But I went back and gave them the money.
You know why?
Because He already told me
how to handle those kind of situations.
He doesn't need to come on me with power
to convince me I already know.
Just pick them up, put them down,
go back and do what you're supposed to do.
That's how we live
the greatest bulk of every day of our life.
We've heard from them.
We know what He's asked of us.
He's not going to come back
with His great presence
and encourage us to do something
we already know.
Just pick them up and put them down.
Be faithful. Do what He's asked you to do.
That's where His last statement here.
That's when knowing who you are
becomes extremely important.
Am I honest or am I a thief?
Am I blessed or am I cursed?
Am I healed or am I sick?
You know, when you get that time
during the day and it's like,
I had one of those while we were gone.
A lot of things happened while we were gone.
But I had one of those while we were gone
and God gave me a dream
and showed me what was happening.
But it was a physical thing
that tried to get on me.
And I told Mary, I said,
I don't understand this.
This makes no sense to me.
What's happening?
Is that in the other?
Well, see, right then I needed to know who I was.
If I didn't know who I was,
now you get into questioning.
Well, maybe I should go to the doctor,
but we're on vacation and that's going to mess it in.
And you start...
There's no anchor for the soul.
And it starts shooting all over.
The mind, the emotions.
I knew I'm not only a child of God,
I'm a son of God who has been saved.
All the promises are mine.
This thing cannot rest here, cannot stay here.
I got the sneaking hunch it's demonic.
It's an attack,
which means I need to know
I have the authority to speak to it,
command it to stop.
See, who I am played huge into that moment.
I'm blessed, I'm in communion with God,
I'm in favor with God.
I did not feel any great presence from God.
Why would I?
I already know everything I need to know to deal with this.
So, Mary and I dealt with it.
And interestingly enough, within an hour or two
it just totally cleared up, just was gone.
And she kept saying, is it gone?
I said, yep, totally gone.
You don't feel a thing.
Don't feel a thing, it's just totally gone.
Well, that night he gave me a dream.
And yeah, it was a demonic attack
and that's what was happening.
And it was a real simple, quick dream
and he just, here's what happened to you.
Boom.
That whole day I was dealing with this.
Did I feel like the Holy Spirit
walked into the room and just saturated?
Oh, see, now I know I have my answer.
Can you feel the presence of God in this camper?
Oh man, now God showed up.
So now I know I've felt nothing.
You know why?
Because we walk by faith, not by sight.
You don't have to feel anything.
He doesn't have to show up
and get you all inspired again
to believe.
He told us, here's what I've given you,
here's what I've promised you,
here's what is yours, believe it.
And this is how you respond to it.
Watch what you say and what you do say,
make very pointed and speak to it
and command it to disappear and
I know all that.
That's because I have some inkling
of what my identity is in Christ.
Without that, I'd have ended up in the emergency room.
Just that simple.
Who we are in Christ
steers the course of our life
and don't confuse that with the times
he comes to commune with you
and instruct you and comfort you
and encourage you.
And we get those services where the presence
of God is just heavy.
Or you get those times where you're
in your prayer time
or you're in your devotion time
and man, the Holy Spirit just shows up
and it just gets heavy
and the presence of God is there.
Don't confuse those two.
You don't need the heaviness of the Holy Spirit
to walk in complete victory
if you already know who you are.
And I don't know why that's being emphasized.
Maybe it's one of these things that some of you
have become confused on
and you're condemning yourself
because I can go a whole week
and it just feels like I never feel
the presence of God at all. Do you have to?
I mean, I love it.
Don't get me wrong. I love it.
But what about those days you feel nothing?
You're just going to quit those days?
Well, I don't feel anything today
so I don't even know if I'm saved.
Or you save by feelings or you save by faith?
Because some days we just pick them up
and we put them down according
to what he already told us.
We don't need new revelation.
We already got the revelation.
Now live it. Walk it out.
So in the first message we looked
at what man was created to be.
We were created to rule and reign
over everything that moves on this earth.
Primarily at that point
the biggest obstacle was Satan
and a third of the angels
who were living on earth.
So God created Adam and Eve
to deal with that.
They dropped the ball.
There was problems in humanity
until Jesus came, the second Adam,
and gave back to us
all the authority
to deal with Satan and demons
and fallen angels.
So he put us back where it started.
Now rule it.
You've got authority.
I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.
I give you authority to trample on scorpions
and serpents and over all the power
of the enemy, physical, spiritual.
And nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Notice it says I give you power, authority
to trample on.
If you have someone taught you this
or you learned it growing up,
I heard it growing up until God said
get that out of your vocabulary.
And I've gotten it out now.
It took a bit, but I've gotten it out.
But if you've still got this in your vocabulary,
please get this out of your vocabulary.
Well, the enemy's been after us all day.
The enemy is attacking us.
I don't know.
I don't know what to do with the enemy.
You've already been told what to do with the enemy.
I give you authority to trample on
all the power of the enemy.
Do what you've been given authority to do.
You say, but the enemy's been chasing me.
Why are you running?
Who are you?
I'm a sprinter today.
I'm trying to get away from the devil.
Well, stop running.
You're going to get tired running
because God's not empowering you to run.
But if you turn around and say,
wait a second, you come here.
I rule over you.
You come here.
You stand right here.
We're going to have a talk here right now.
God will empower that.
So remove that from your vocabulary, please.
I'm a devil slayer.
The devil hates to see me get out of bed in the morning.
Start putting some of that stuff in your vocabulary.
Throw your feet over the edge of the bed
and say, devil, I'm up.
Demons, I'm awake.
Hello.
Make them run.
Well, what does Scripture say?
Submit yourself to God.
Resist them.
And they will flee.
It's not them chasing us.
It's us chasing them.
But we got to know who we are.
That was our original design.
That was message one.
Message number two.
What happened when we sinned?
Well, we lost everything.
God lost his plan with us.
We lost everything with God.
We lost it all.
Number three, we went through
the second half of Ephesians one.
The first half is on podcasts.
If you want to know our stance on predestination,
pre-planned life, that whole thing,
it's on the podcast early in the sessions.
They're labeled so you can go back and get that.
We didn't go back over that.
But we went over Paul's prayer
of our need for wisdom and revelation
to know what our life is supposed to be.
Because that was Paul's point.
You have a life laid out by God.
I am praying you see it.
You understand it so you can live in it.
So the next thing in line would be,
well, who am I?
How do I fit into this thing?
So that's where we're going to pick up today.
Ephesians chapter two.
But God.
So the first four verses we went over
so I'll briefly go back over them.
Paul does a magnificent job in chapter two
of in a very concise, nutshell summary,
laying out the identity of everybody in this place.
The identity of everybody on earth
if we will receive what Jesus gave for us.
He does an excellent job.
We won't go through it all the day.
We're just going to get as far as we can.
He absolutely answers this argument
which has hit all of us
when we're trying to receive something
or get something from God.
He absolutely lays this argument on its back
and crucifies it.
The thought of, well, why would God do something for you?
Well, I'm believing for health.
Well, why would God heal you?
That thought all it has to do is run through our mind
and if we don't have a good, solid answer for that,
He crippled us.
We're believing to get movement financially
and the thought goes through our mind,
well, why would God help you financially?
Why would God help you with your marriage?
Who are you that God would protect you?
You know, anything in that vein,
we've all had that question asked.
Maybe many times.
If we don't have a solid,
the reason God will do it for me is because who I am.
Oh, pride. Nope.
A new creation in Christ. That's who I am.
You got time? Let me tell you who I am.
This is why God's going to do it for me.
If we don't have that answer,
we're paralyzed.
We'll start questioning ourselves.
Yeah, well, I would God do that for me.
And now all kinds of thoughts start coming in like,
yeah, I did this wrong and I did that wrong
and oh man, I haven't gotten that done yet.
And we start getting on the side of,
yeah, He probably won't do it for me because,
look at me.
So as we go through these verses,
Paul nails that really hard by the Holy Spirit.
Keep asking yourself, who am I in these verses?
How am I being described?
Who am I? How am I being described in this?
Verse number one, we'll briefly go through the first four
because that's where we ended.
And you, He made alive.
So who am I in that verse?
Alive. I am the person He made alive
when at one time I was dead
because of my trespasses and sins.
I am not dead anymore.
I am alive.
That's who I am.
Dealing with the
the trespasses and sins,
I'm reading amplified so it's a little more wordy,
trespasses and sins in which at one time
you walked habitually.
Okay, so I used to live in sin
habitually.
That means now
who am I? I am not the person
who lives in sin habitually.
Because remember, He's talking past tense.
You, He made alive.
You were dead in trespasses and sins,
but you're alive now.
When you were dead in trespasses and sins,
you walked in sin habitually.
That means people who are alive
can't live in sin habitually.
Like a lifestyle.
Can't do it. I'm not that person.
I'm not going to do it.
And sometimes it's as simple as a choice of
I'm going to go back in line,
I'm going to pay them the extra money
that they didn't get from me the first time through
because I'm not a thief.
Not who I am.
Just no angel singing,
no great movement in my spirit.
Just, wait a second.
I'm alive in Christ.
I am not going to live like I'm dead.
I'm going to go back and pay the money.
You were following the course
in fashion of this world.
See, that's how this world
who's not in Christ lives.
You were under the sway and tendency
of this present age.
Folks, I say it again.
1 John chapter 2 verse 12 through 14,
I believe it is.
If it's big in the world,
take a step or two back
because it's probably not of God.
That's right there.
Just look it up.
If it's big in the world,
that's my taking those verses
and OK, show me.
Go to 1 John chapter 2
if you would please on the screen.
We will jump in at...
Oh, I was wrong.
It's verse 15 through 17.
Do not love the world
or anything in the world.
If anyone loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him.
For everything in the world
and he lists the three big ones,
craving to sinful man,
the lust of the eyes,
the boasting of what he has,
lust of the flesh,
lust of the eyes, pride of life,
comes not from the Father,
but from the world.
The world and its desires pass away,
but the man who does the will of God
lives forever.
I will stay alive.
Remember Ephesians 2.
I'm alive now.
The man who does the will of God
lives.
Stay alive.
How do you do that?
Do not love the world
or anything in the world
because everything in the world
has been touched by sin.
So we have to watch
what's going on in the world around us.
And if the unsaved world
thinks it's great,
you better back up
and take another really good look at it
and ask God what he thinks of it.
Because it's probably not of the Father.
It's okay, I'll let the cat out of the bag.
That verse is one of the reasons
that verse 15 through 17
is one of the reasons
I am not big into fashion.
Shocker, shocker, huh?
I'm not big into fashion.
You know why?
Because it is an extremely
worldly thing.
And it's built around pride,
fame and money.
They change fashions
every so many years.
So you can go in and get all these new clothes
when you haven't worn out the old ones.
They're in perfect shape.
But you have to stay in style.
Why?
Because what will all my unsaved friends think?
That should be a clue right there.
Back up, take a look at this.
If the unsaved think this is very important,
according to 1 John 2,
you better be careful.
It may not be God.
I know I'm getting where we live now
and that gets uncomfortable.
It's trying to make you think a little bit.
Go back to Ephesians.
It's verse number two I'm looking at
if you could... oh, there it is, thank you.
In which at one time you walked in this sin habitually
following the course and the fashion of this world.
You were under the sway and the tendency
of this present age.
Are we listening to what this world is saying
or are we listening to what God is saying?
When we were dead in sin,
we listened to what this world was saying.
But now we're alive.
Something should change here.
Following the prince and the power of the air.
Oh, are you telling me that the direction
the world goes is demonic?
No, I'm not telling you that.
Paul told you that.
You were following the course and fashion
of this world under the sway
of the tendency of this present age.
I could list so many things
that are coming out of that
that we face on an everyday basis.
But the fashion of this world,
the tendency of this age we're living in
is following the prince
and the power of the air.
So who's designing it?
Satan.
Still with me?
You were obedient to and under the control
of the demon spirit that still constantly
works in the sons of disobedience.
The careless, the rebellious, and the unbelieving
who go against the purposes of God.
Is it possible to get demons through disobedience?
You were obedient to
and under the control of the demon spirit
that still is working in people
who live in disobedience.
Can we pick up demons by disobeying?
I believe we can.
And when you're dead,
you just follow what's popular in the world.
And just load them up.
Load what up? The spirits.
Just load them up.
You're in disobedience.
You're doing what's popular in the world.
And who's orchestrating that?
The prince and the power of the air.
That's what he's saying.
This is what we used to be
when we were dead.
But now that we're alive,
we don't live like that anymore.
And he's going to make those points.
So who am I in those verses?
Well, I'm the person who does not
walk in sin habitually.
I'm the person who does not follow
the sway and the tendency of this world.
Well, you just like to be different.
No, I'd like to be more godly.
We were out of gathering.
It was a small group, but we were out of gathering
on vacation, a bunch of Christians
listening to music that it's like,
what are you doing?
You can't listen to that
and be alive and it doesn't affect you?
It's talking about everything
that is ungodly.
And we're bopping our head
and singing along.
Thank you, Jesus.
It's like you got two kinds of water
coming out of your mouth.
One says God and the other says devil.
Which one are you?
See, when you're alive,
you back away from the sway
of what's popular
that is being orchestrated by the devil.
Because you don't want to pick up demons.
You say, well, I didn't feel the Lord tell me anything.
He probably already had.
And he was expecting you to pick them up
and put them down.
Because you already knew.
Verse three.
Among these, as well as
you lived, once lived
and conducted yourselves in the passions of our flesh,
our behavior governed by the corrupt
and sensual nature, old nature,
we live in according to what we want.
Obeying the impulses of the flesh,
that's what we want.
What is best for me,
most comfortable for me makes me happy.
And the thoughts of our mind
or the cravings, the dictates
of our senses and our dark imaginings
would go with the fallen nature.
We were then by nature
children of God's wrath
and heirs of his indignation
like the rest of mankind.
That's who we used to be.
Who are we now?
We don't conduct ourselves
according to what our flesh wants
or our old nature wants
and we don't let our mind go down that direction
because we are no longer
children of God
inheriting God's wrath.
Everything has to flip
once you're alive.
But this is who we were.
This is how we lived.
Verse 4,
but God.
God stepped in, but God.
And this is how we'd still be living,
but God got involved.
God who is so rich in his mercy
because of and in order
to satisfy the great and wonderful
and intense love with which
he loved us.
Right out of the gates,
Paul was saying, God got involved
in our life and it had nothing to do
with us.
It had to do because he loved
us.
We didn't earn it. We weren't good enough
for it.
He loved us.
Verse 5,
even when we were
dead,
slain
by our own shortcomings
and trespasses.
There was a period of time
it was in the late 80s, early 90s.
People were throwing,
church people, God
serving people, were throwing
fits over whether you could
die spiritually or not.
Don't talk to me
about this spiritual death thing.
It's heresy.
I haven't heard a lot about it
recently, but this
verse just keys my memory on it.
Even when we were
dead
because of our sins,
there's people
millions of them
living in Minnesota
who are spiritually
dead.
They're physically alive.
They're still doing their job
and paying their mortgage and
they're still physically alive.
But they
are dead. We were dead.
There is such a thing as
spiritually being separated
from the life of God
having no communion, no intimacy,
no exchange.
He's there, we're here
total separated, that's called
spiritual death.
You don't physically die
but you're spiritually disconnected.
He says we were that.
He made us alive.
Okay, born again.
He brought that spirit from
death, gave it new birth,
made us alive.
Again, who am I?
I'm alive. I'm alive.
I'm alive.
And you're going to find in Christ.
It shows up a lot here.
In Christ, I am alive.
What does that mean?
He made us alive
together in fellowship
and in union
with Christ.
So to be alive
means to have
fellowship with Christ
and to be in union,
be in connection, be walking it out
with Christ.
That's what it means to be alive.
So who am I?
I'm somebody who
if I don't have fellowship with Christ
right now I'm going to have to go after it
because when you're alive
there's two points he brings up.
He made us alive together
in fellowship
and in union.
What's the difference between fellowship and union?
Fellowship is us
exchanging thoughts, ideas, feelings
just being
together.
Union is
we're hooked and going
in the same direction.
We're united.
Who am I?
I'm someone
who has fellowship with God
and I'm someone who's going
in the same direction Jesus is going.
That's why Peter says
and the people who are
perishing look at you and they think it's odd
why don't you do what they're doing?
Well
because I'm alive in Christ.
I have fellowship
with Him. That's where I get my revelation.
That's where I get my understanding. He shows me out of the word
what I need to know and I have
decided to be united
or in union with Him. I'm going in the same direction
He's going.
So if it's going the wrong direction
I'm not going with.
That's who you are.
That covers intimacy
and sanctification
right there.
Who are you?
You're someone who's intimate with Christ.
Why? Because you're alive.
Well, I don't know if I'm that intimate.
Well, work on it. It'll get better.
I don't know if I do everything God wants me to do.
Well, work on it. Ask Him to help you.
It'll get better.
That's who we are.
We are people who fellowship that word
I believe that's
Koinonia, which is the
the intimate exchange
kind of relationship.
You are the people
who have an intimate exchange
with Christ
and you're walking in unity
union with Him.
Yeah, I better not bring... I had a good example
across my mind. I thought I better not bring that up
because you never know who's watching.
So let's move on.
He gave us
the very life of Christ
Himself
the same new life
with which He quickened
or brought Him back to life
for it's by grace, His favor
and mercy
that we do not deserve
that you're saved.
So in other words,
being saved
gives us the very
life of Christ
the life that raised
Jesus from the dead.
So who am I? Who are you?
Just in that verse, who are you?
I'm a person
who has fellowship with Jesus.
I am in unity with Jesus
and the very life
that raised Jesus from the dead
right here.
That's who I am.
That's who He recreated
us to be.
And He'll mention that a little later
but I'll just throw it in now. That's who He
made us to be. You say
but I don't feel like I'm any of these things.
That's okay.
You're still breathing.
You're still here.
God, help me.
Jesus, help me.
Holy Spirit, help me to have fellowship
here. Help me to get
to a new level of exchange
with my God.
Lord, help me to get
in unity with you.
I'm alive now.
I want this life to grow
and produce in me.
It's okay. We don't have to...
This isn't an all or nothing. This is a life
growing experience.
So if you're feeling like, well, I don't
feel like I'm there at all.
That's okay.
Let's go there.
That's what's available
because from God's side
that's who He sees who we are.
Well, you know, half of them are alive.
The other half, I don't see
them that way.
Once we're in Christ,
God sees us all alive,
capable of fellowship and unity
with Him. Why?
Because
second line from the bottom, left
side, you are
saved.
You are saved.
Delivered from judgment
and made partakers of Christ
salvation.
That is the definition of sanctification
or holiness
to be separated
from something
and set apart
to something.
When we're saved,
we're made alive,
we're brought back from the dead,
we are being separated
from the kingdom of darkness
and translated into the kingdom
of His dear Son
taken from and put
into.
That should show up in our life
and how we live.
Amen.
That's God's design.
If
this switch is not
showing up,
I question our salvation.
Because
when you are saved, you're
delivered from one
and given the other.
Someone
who gets saved,
born again, claims to have
this new life,
but nothing.
I mean, you track them for five years.
Nothing changes
in how they live, how they think,
how they're approaching life.
Nothing changes in their relationship
between them and God. It's not growing.
It's just...
I question they got saved.
Because something that is alive
grows.
If it's not growing, I question
if it's alive.
And he started
with by saying
he made you alive. Let's hit a couple more
and we're done for this morning.
Verse 6
And he raised us up together with him
and made us sit down together
giving us joint seating
with him in the heavenly sphere
by virtue
of our being in Christ Jesus.
Now, have you seen a pattern here?
In Christ. In Christ.
In Christ. The only way we get
this stuff is we have to be in Christ.
The Messiah. The anointed one
as it says there in the verse.
So he raised us up together
with him.
Made us sit together
seated with him in the heavenly sphere.
See, now this is one of those things
that when Jesus came
and restored and fixed
he not only fixed
and restored what Adam and Eve
intentionally were supposed to live in
but he took it way beyond.
Adam and Eve were never
given those two promises
as far as I understand.
They were never raised
up together with him
and we will talk about that a bit
and they were not given
the authority of joint seating
in the heavenly world.
Not just the earthly ruling and reigning
but joint seating
in the heavenly world.
They were not given that.
So raised up together
with Christ.
What was Jesus raised up from?
Talk to me.
Death.
The grave?
So death.
Hell and the grave.
You ever stop and think about that?
Isn't death and the grave the same thing?
Why did they break it out?
No, they're not the same thing.
Jesus
took on our sins for us
which caused him to be separated
from the father, spiritual death.
Jesus died
spiritually.
It's a saying. Jesus died spiritually.
He was separated from God.
He went to hell
and he was raised up
from death, from the separation
from God.
From hell,
he came back out of hell.
We find that numerous places in New Testament.
And the grave. That's his body.
Okay?
So he was raised up.
What else was he raised up?
What else happened
when he was raised up?
Oh, you scholars, jump in here.
Look at that.
When he was raised up,
he was given a
new body.
What else did he get?
Ours is coming.
What else happened
when he was raised up?
He took a position.
What was that position?
Position of power.
Scripture explains that as he was
seated
at the right hand of the Father.
Okay, so there's a number
of things that when he was
raised up
happened.
We have been raised
up together
with him.
So spiritual
death has been affected.
Hell
and being there, going there,
has been affected.
The grave or death in the body
has been affected.
Our rulership position
has been affected.
And we could keep on listening
to be raised up together
with Christ.
And he raised us up together
with him.
So everything
of the kingdom of darkness
that Jesus went to pay for.
Sickness, disease,
death,
poverty.
Poverty is not financial.
Poverty is life.
You can have all the money in the world
and be a poor man.
Poverty covers
every area of life
that we're supposed to be succeeding in
and we're supposed to be making progress in.
You can't just do the American...
the American tendency of
oh, they got lots of money.
They're really doing well in life.
Money is not
the determining factor of how
well someone is doing.
You know where that comes from?
Lucifer
and it's a design.
It's a sway of the world's
system.
And we have Christians chasing it
like it were betrothed
from God.
If I can just
earn more money!
How about
be alive
and get in unity with Christ?
Oh, I might be poor then.
Well, that's not
scriptural, so now you're
showing me that that's not true.
You don't know that.
But let's say it was.
Paul said,
I know how to have lots.
I know how to be abased.
Have very little.
But this thing I do know.
I'm going to pursue
getting to know him
and consider everything else
rubbish.
In comparison
to knowing him.
There is how God thinks.
But the tendency
the sway of the world
goes a whole different direction.
And it sneaks in,
gets into our thinking.
We start living our life by it.
Planning our life by it.
And what profit of a man
if he gains the whole world?
What good is it going to do
Elon Musk to be a multi-trillionaire
if this SpaceX thing goes the way
it's supposed to go and they're predicting?
It's going to be a multi-trillionaire.
What good is it going to do the man
if he ends up in hell?
Zipple.
The few measly years
he lives on this earth.
You know, there does come a point.
You can't spend it all.
So I have more.
I mean, you just can't.
You can't spend it all.
You can buy islands, you can buy nations,
you can buy...
And it's still a big pile there.
You can't spend it all.
Why do you need more?
But the tendency
the sway of the world system is
I will be happy and successful
the more and the more
and the more I can get.
This is demonic.
This is not God.
Well, does God want us poor?
Well, you don't know your word.
No, God wants us
obedient and in union with him
so he can bless us.
And with blessing
comes all kinds of things
including finances.
But we get sucked in on this
he was raised up
above all of this
worldly stuff.
We have been raised
up together with him.
So who am I?
And you can say the same thing.
Who am I in this?
I'm the one who's now alive.
I've been raised
above everything
the demonic realm or Satan can throw at me.
Because see, I've been raised
up together with him.
Well, is Jesus above anything
and everything that Satan can throw at him?
John says, as he is
so are we in this world.
There's Paul's way of saying it.
We've been raised up above it all.
So who am I?
I'm above this stuff.
Well, what if this stuff is trying to happen in my life?
We should push back.
Uh-uh. No, no, no, no.
I'm above this.
That's who I am.
In Christ.
Not I, but in Christ.
That's who I am.
And anything
that Jesus died to overcome
and was raised up above
we are there with him.
And number two, we are made to sit together
giving us joint seating
with him
in the heavenly sphere.
One of the things that was given
to him is
he's above all power, all rule,
all authority.
Chapter one, verse 21 through 23
Paul said, you got to understand this.
Go back to
chapter
one on the screen if you would please
and then we'll close off with this.
Okay, verse 17.
I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father
may give you the Spirit.
That's the Holy Spirit, capital S
of wisdom and revelation.
So you may know him better
and I pray verse 18.
The eyes of your heart
open up. Your inside
sees this
of what he's called you to
the riches
of his glorious inheritance
in us.
The saints.
Verse 19.
And his incomparable great
power to us.
That's what he's praying. We get it.
We see it.
The power, verse 20,
which he exerted in Christ when he raised
him from the dead, seeded him
at the right hand in heavenly realms
above all rule,
all authority, all power
and all dominion and every
title that can be
given. Not only in the world
we're living in, but in
eternity.
That's who we are.
That's what
Paul's saying. You gotta
see it. You've gotta
get it. If you don't
see this, you're gonna live
short. Chapter 2
verse number 6. We've been given
joint seeding with him.
He described his
position in chapter 1, verse
21 through 23. That's us now.
That's us. That's me.
That's you.
We are
seeded in
heavenly realms
far above
all rule
and all
authority.
See, that's
that. Yeah, I don't have
time. All power,
all dominion
and every title that
can be given. Anything
that has a name
that tries to
come against us or that tries to stop us
or influence, we should rule
over it.
Anything that has a name.
Well, I have a spinal
problem. It's called blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, get the doctor to write that
down, take it home, put it on
your fridge and say, you will kneel.
I have authority
over you. You got a name.
I am seeded
in heavenly realms. I have dominion
over you. I am alive.
You will not rule me.
You will not reign over me.
I am in
Christ, which means I'm
above you. Get off
of me.
If we
don't know that or believe
that, we end up
kneeling to that name.
Oh, you know, the doctor
said, I've got blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Well, give it away.
I mean,
you've got it, but get rid
of it.
Well, he said, I'll have it
for life. You don't
know who you are, do you?
You have no clue.
The same way
that stuff would not get on
Jesus,
it shouldn't be getting on us.
Because
we've been raised up with him.
Given the same
authority, given the same
seeding, we just
don't know our rights.
We don't know
our authority. We don't
know the privileges
of being in Christ.
We
don't know who we are.
Well, I know
a lot of Christians who
struggle with this area of their life.
Yeah, they don't know who they are.
And
it's always good to learn
this stuff before the fire starts
burning. You know, I have a saying,
it's better to put the fire suit on before
you're in the fire.
It's better to know
who we are before
it lights up around
us.
So we can deal with it
and squelch it
versus it lights up around us
and we go, what am I going to do with this? This is going to destroy
everything. Well, have you ever heard
that God can do it? I've never heard that.
And now we first have to
figure out how to get a hold
of the fire department. Tell them who we are
and where we live
before they come.
Your house is going to be burned down.
You're wasting precious time. What's the fire
is burning? You better put it out.
You're wasting precious time. Well, I don't know
how to do it. That's
on us.
We don't know who we are.
We don't know the rights
of the authorities we have.
It's good to learn them
early. So when the fire starts
burning, we don't have
to do a crammed
course. Hopefully
learn what we need to learn.
How to turn the fire hose on.
How to hook it up to the fire engine.
How to, you know,
how to get two, three people on there.
So when we pull that lever, it's not going.
This
is all stuff you learn before
you go fight fires, right?
Christians
need to learn who we are
before the fire starts. The attack
comes before the fire starts burning.
That's what we're trying to do
now in a very
simple, succinct form
of
who am I?
Once we
know who we are,
I can guarantee you this,
we'll quit living the way we're
living. Right now
if we don't know who we are, the way you're living right now,
once you know who you are, that's all
going to change.
All going to change. For the better,
but it's all going to change.
It's that way because we're
still conditioned
to the
world system and the way the world calls
it, what the world says.
But see, I'm alive. I'm alive in
Christ.
He calls it way different
than the world calls it.
I have to know who I am in him
because what he calls, I call.
What he says, I say.
What he expects, I expect.
Give me that fire hose. I'll shut this
thing down right now. How
dare that dirty devil
try to start a fire in my backyard?
I'm going to shut this fire down, then I'm
going devil hunting.
We're not doing this.
How can you do that? Who do you think
you are? Ah, there is
the question.
Once we know that, it changes
everything. So Lord,
as you called it,
this is a pick them up and put them down
morning. We need to, my people
perish for lack of knowledge. Lord,
we're trying by your spirit to see
Paul's prayer over us.
That we gain the revelation.
We gain the wisdom.
We gain the understanding
to see this
magnificent creation
God has made us
all into.
We live way
short of what you've
given to us because we don't know
we're supposed to be living different.
We think this is who we are.
And God's saying that ain't who you are.
Help us see
this.
It's going to take divine revelation.
It's going to take divine
influence by your spirit
to open our eyes
of our heart, of our minds
to be able to wrap
ourselves around this and say
that's who I am.
And everything in my
life will conform
to that because that's
who I am. I'm asking
again, like we asked in the last
message, I'm asking again for all
of us and I believe we're in agreement.
Open our eyes
to see who we are.
Help me
understand this
more and more to
greater and greater depths in
Jesus' name. Amen.
Amen. Be blessed.
Have an awesome Sunday.