Identification Truths Plus 2012

Lesson 16, and we have been working our way down through question 7, 8. I think we ended up finishing up with question 9, which is, can the law secure obedience to God? Can it? No. How come? enslaves us. It's interesting that if you paraphrase Galatians 3.23, it says, we, in parentheses, Jewish Old Testament saints, contrasted with Gentile believers, were kept under the law. The law was our tutor to lead us to Christ, to be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we, Hebrew believers, are no longer under a tutor.

So many Christians quote that verse that it applies to them, and it never did. It never did. Unless, of course, you were raised a Jew and lived before 60 A.D. You and I were not kept under the Mosaic Law to lead us to Christ. Now, turn to Galatians 5, 4, in your Bibles, hopefully you brought Bibles.

Mike, even the thing I was amazed, because I had some friends who brought that verse up, you know, besides just being introduced, even if you say that it was to teach you about Christ, they always forget 25, which is, but now that faith has come, we're no longer under a tutor. So even if you brought this, they never go to verse 25, which says we're not under the Tudor anymore. Even if you were a court under the law, now you're not. And then they always leave that verse out because they're quoting it to me. But this is, I said, well, just read 25. Even if you read 25, you're not under it anymore.

So Galatians 5.4, somebody read it.

Christ, you who seek to be justified by the law, you've fallen from grace." That's kind of a condemnatory verse if you are sneaking into the law cupboard. I mean, you have been severed from Christ? Why would a Jewish believer, a Hebrew believer, be disconnected from the law? Now, if you don't answer this question after all of this time. Say the question again. Why is a Jewish believer separated, a Hebrew believer, separated from the law? Because they can't keep all of the commandments. You have to go sit in the back of the class. You're wrong. Why? What's the name of the class?

What does identification mean? I know, but they don't believe in that. I don't care what they believe in. That's not the question. That was the question. No, the question is why would a Jewish believer be severed from the law? And the reason is because he died. That's the only reason. It isn't because he had a change of mind where he decided Or anything like that. It's that he died. He was included in the death of Christ on the cross. And when you're included in the death of Christ on the cross, it's a permanent thing. And you know what? It really doesn't matter. Even though they don't believe in Christ? What's that mean? They do. Oh, they have to believe in Christ. See, I did say Hebrew believer, didn't I? No. Yes, I did. Yes, you did. Okay.

Do you have jobs for my ears? They're in the back of the class, would you? I need hearing jobs. Go get her some coffee. OK, I'm sorry, I misconstrued everything you said. Slide down to verse 18 and read verse 18. Where? In Colossians 5. But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. All right. Now, the first...

Is this a conditional verse or a positional verse? Positional. What do you think? It's conditional. You say position, he says condition. How many think it's positional? One, two, three. How many think it's conditional? One. The rest of you are chickens. It's conditional. Why is it conditional? Because it's the lead thing.

Being led by the spirit is a condition that you're in. You can be positioned in Christ and not being led by the Spirit at all. But your position is something that God gave to you under grace, puts you in Christ, doesn't mean you're living that way. Right? So, it's interesting. If you are led by the Spirit, if that's the condition in your life, then you are not functioning under a law system. How cool is that? Isn't that great? That's cool. So people think, well I want to be led by the spirit because it's going to be a warm fuzzy kind of all powerful really cool Christian existence. Well no, the cool thing is you're not under the law.

And then the second part is the verse that we've been talking about for weeks now is Romans 6.14. Sin shall not have dominion over you and the reason is because you're not under law, you're under grace. If you're walking in the Spirit, living in grace, sin is not an issue in your life. That's a pretty bold statement, isn't it? But that's a true statement. If you're walking in the Spirit, living in grace, sin is not an issue in your life. And walking in the Spirit means depending on grace. Believing. Not trying to do stuff like, oh I better get in the spirit. That's right. Very little asking, more thanking.

And my favorite question is, if you're walking in the spirit, what's going on behind your eyeballs? Back in here. What's happening? What are you doing? Looking to Christ. He is the object of your existence. Now you can be mowing the grass, driving your car. He's still the focus of what you're about.

I woke up this morning at 3 o'clock and started worrying about something. And that's what hit me. Wait a minute. This isn't who you are. You know, you belong to the Lord Jesus. He's the object of your life, not whatever the heck I'm worrying about. It's freedom. Total freedom. It's freedom for me. It's freedom from the lost system, the entire system. I'm free to live in a grace system.

That's amazing what you did. But you can be overpowered by whatever bothers you. Not if you're walking in the Spirit. Well, I mean, I'm trying to walk in the Spirit all the time, but sometimes through the crap comes out of my brain. She's true. Don't put that on tape. It's almost like you're free from yourself, huh? Hallelujah. That's it.

That's a great statement, because we found the enemy within the camp, who is it? I'm my biggest problem, me and my sin nature. The great thing is that the word of God teaches me and tells me I don't have to respond, I am free. And if I live by faith, trusting God, in a grace environment, assuming I've learned about grace, I'm free.

You know, it's almost like when the sin nature shows up and comes after you, it's almost you develop an attitude, why bother with me? I'm done with you. You don't have to answer the door. I don't. I don't have to pay attention. I don't have to go there. I don't even have to reject it. It's just like a clanging cymbal out there somewhere that can just stay away because I recognize who I am and where I am.

You know, I read a story and I'm sure all of you have about someone who was put in prison for something he did, you know, and then he found, by the grace of the Lord, and then he discovered he was free. Yeah. And it was amazing how it transformed his life. Yeah. Despite being, you know, confined, he still was free. Yeah.

I have a buddy named Earl Gavaza. who now lives in Georgia, he moves about every five years, but he's 90 years old now. When I first met him, it was years ago, he called me, and he was living in Utah. And we got to talking, he was ordering some books from me, and he said, well, I teach twice a week in a prison in Utah. I said, oh, that's kind of cool.

He said, yeah, it's a prison for men who are pedophiles. And that's the only people that are in this prison, because they don't dare put them in with other prisoners. He said, there are a few men in this prison that are free and that's why. They learned who they were in Christ and even though they were incarcerated, they're free. And what are they free from? Not so much the prison, they're free from themselves. They're free from themselves.

The men that are convicted of pedophilia are the most, what's the word I'm looking for? They're disgusting from our standpoint. Their families totally reject them. They are isolated because the society will not accept a pedophile like Jerry Sandusky. You know what it's like being in prison. But if Jerry Sandusky were to learn this, even though he's incarcerated, he'd be free because freedom is here. And that's why they can't put him on them were molested, which created a new realm. Yeah, good point. Okay, moving on to question 10. I want you to read Romans chapter 6, 20 and 21.

Well, when you were slaves of sin you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? Okay, so what's the answer to the question, what fruit did you have at that time? What's the answer to that question?

Zip. Zip. They were slaves. Yeah, you had no... you were slaves to sin, But the question is, it says, what fruit had you at that time? My question is, what fruit did they have at that time? Or you? Nothing, because they were sinful. So you were free from righteousness, but you were totally fruitless. Because fruit has to ripen, right? No, you didn't have any fruit at all at that point. Right. Because you weren't Christ.

Because you have to mature to get... I wrote down what a pair of words to describe the life of one who is going on daily towards eternity. The only thing he can brag about is shame. And believers, especially guys like me, people like me that came to Christ a little later in life, we have a lot that we are shamed about. You guys that got saved in the first grade, man, I'd like to add to that. One of the things that I, because I grew up in a legal system and I didn't understand grace, there's a lot of stuff that I did because I was walking in the flesh. I didn't even have the tools and the understanding from scripture based on what I've been taught.

That's a good point. So when you say that, I'd say, well, okay, yeah. I take it back, you're right. But in the flesh, I was doing some pretty rocky woods. grew up as a believer in a legal environment, you were just as nasty as the guy sitting across from me who wasn't a believer. You just didn't tell anybody. No, I was good at hiding. I was pretty shiny on the outside.

What is the purpose of the law? Make you behave according to their rules and regulations. No, that's not it. What is it? Makes things increase. Makes things increase. We've been using this quite a bit with our grandkids. Oh, nice. I mean, like they understand. No, no. It's perfect. It's just what you said in your Sunday school. The glass can sit there all day long, but the minute I say, And we've been cracking up because we see this with the kids. Everything's fine until we say, just don't do that. The minute we say that, it's like, lights off, got to do it. And it's exactly what the scripture says.

Can I take that a little further? And I don't know where I'm going with this. All right, let's say, Courtney, put diaglossances. don't take the glass and the little kid takes the glass and so the purpose of that is to not have the kid sin. But the purpose would be to say, I mean, wouldn't God's kind of purpose be to say, to go to him and say, I can't, I want to, I want to touch that glass.

I really do, Dad, Grandpa. I think a lot has to do with how old the kid is. Because, you know, I understood that principle when John was little. And kids, little children live under a law system with their parents. They just do. They don't have a, the parents are the schoolmaster. But there comes a time, probably before they're 10, when there's at least one incident in their life where they think, I can't stop doing whatever it is. Or they recognize, every time you say no dad, that's when I want to do it.

Then you get a chance to explain the principle. Which, not so much explaining the principle, but explaining that turning from the principle to Christ is the secret to freedom. And as John grew up, we spent a lot of time talking about that. Well, you know, you get into middle school and high school and get to be a teenager and the hormones are running. I mean, there's no better time to talk about freedom from sin. No better time. And the thing is, does a 16-year-old have to come to the point where he thinks, wow, maybe God can free me from this rage that's going on inside my head, you know? Yeah, you can. So who was the answer to the question, Tim? None?

When I was free in regard to righteousness, I was fruitless. And so the answer is, what fruit did I have at that time? The answer is, I didn't have any. that was righteous. I had plenty of fruit that was unrighteous, but it described the life of one who was going on towards eternity. The fruit that he had, according to Paul, was shame. That's all he had was shame.

So, how were we made free, question 11, how were we made free from sin and put into this service to God. I'll ask it again. How were we made free from sin and conversely put into service to God? How did that happen? We accepted Christ and so it changed us, transformed us. Okay, so we believed in Christ, we became a Christian We gave up ourselves.

Work of the cross. It's none of it. It's just the cross. It's the work of the cross. Our identification with Christ in his death unto sin made us positionally free from the power of sin. In other words, we didn't do it. That's right. It was done to us. Simple as I can make it.

When a person believes in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is freed from any penalty and guilt from past, present and future sins. Penalty and guilt, past, present and future. When the believer comes to realize his identification with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Lord's death, burial and resurrection, it serves to positionally free him from the power of sin. See that? That's what identification and grace is designed to do is to free you from the power of sin. There's no discussion in the word of God that the power of sin is going anywhere. We don't have to do it. I've got to quit doing that. The minute you say I've got to quit doing that, you're toast.

We now and would ever forever be under the domination of the motive which is the strongest of all. What's the strongest motive there is? Love. I would have thought love, but now I don't. I think it's something else. Say it again, the question again. We are now and would ever be under the domination of that motive which is the strongest of all. To be alive. I wrote down love, but after I've studied grace, I'm wondering if grace isn't a greater motive. But they go together.

Our service to God would no longer be one of seeking to fulfill certain enactments by Him as we would under a law system, but a glad willingness, such as Christ expressed towards His Father in the prophetic words of Psalm 40, Verse 8, I delight to do thy will, O my God. There has to be, I don't want to say it that way, there is a change that goes on in a believer's heart as he grows, where he just can't help himself in terms of doing the will of God, whatever God has called him to do. And it may be, as one of those hungry hearts said, maybe God has called you to be a flower along the pathway for passer-bys just to see and admire the glory of God. If that's what He's called you to do, that's enough. That's enough. You don't have to do any more. How would you even know that? I think you would know.

Because if your focus is on the Lord Jesus Christ, quote, walking in the Spirit, desiring to be just what He would call you to be, maybe a mom, maybe a dad, You know, maybe an influence on somebody down the street. Maybe somebody you work with. Maybe... See, it isn't what you do, it's what you are that matters. That's what I was going to say. It's a life, not an occupation. That's right.

And Bob Eccle loves to say, it's a life, it's not a choice. And people go crazy when he says that. And he needs to explain what he means every time he does say that. But he's right in the sense that the life that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't need my help to be manifested. However, in order for that life to be manifested, I must exercise my will to allow the Spirit of God to control me. So he can say, it's a life. It is a life.

And it has only one of two reactions on people. They either hate you, or they're really excited about what you are. There's an influence you have, the life of the Spirit of Christ in you, that has an effect on people around you. And it's not because you preach.

I'm on a walk yesterday morning, and of course yesterday's the Sabbath, and all the Jewish people in our neighborhood are all decked out in their black hats and stuff, and they're walking to the synagogue. So I walk by this one guy and I say good morning to him. And he said, his name is Hillel. I said, hello, good morning, how are you? And he went, oh, he said, I'm sorry, I didn't recognize I was praying out loud. He wanted to make sure I knew that. Isn't that interesting? You know, you talked about love.

Some of you may have read this true story of during World War II, the Japanese had this Christian with about 40 other guys in a small space and they tried breaking they could not break him and so they finally brought in a leprous man and let him in there and everybody just backed off from the guy and he went and took the man with his tears in my eyes and took him over to his own little pad on the floor and laid him down and ministered to him that is yes true love sure yeah because of Christ yeah that's exactly right There's another great story from World War II for people of Catholic Greece. The Nazis were beating this guy to death because he was sneaking Jews out of the ghetto and stuff like that. The guy that was beating him up said to him, don't you realize that I have the power of life and death over you? And he said, what you don't understand is that I'm already dead. That's pretty, oh man.

With the Psalm 48, I'd like to do thy will, O my God. Again, Jesus didn't have a checklist of doing things. It was just who He was or is. But we've got to translate that to us, because who are we? We are in Him. of him. We know who he is. That's who we are.

It just functions out of us. It's not an effort. That's why I keep saying it's a life. It's not like we try to do anything. It's just who we are. It's like you said, the flower. The flower doesn't try to be It's just who the flower is along the road there.

I think that just gives us so much more freedom and liberty, knowing that it's not trying to do something. It's just living Christ out in our lives, and that through the Holy Spirit. It makes so much sense, and all the burden and guilt is off. I'm sure you've heard this saying a thousand times in your Christian life. It's all about the being, it's not about the doing. It's who you are.

It's an intimacy with Christ. It's that transforming process that goes on because God has already done everything, positionally, that conforms you and transforms you into Christ. If you're conformed to the image of Christ, how do you think you're going to behave? Just like Him. It's not tough to figure out. It gives you such freedom. Total freedom. And freedom for what? It's not freedom to not do or be apathetic. What's the freedom for? It gives you freedom from all the baggage. Not only from, but freedom to do what? To walk in the spirit. You know?

That verse in Galatians that the spirit lusts against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit. They are contrary to one another. Okay, so far what have we talked about? Where are you in that equation? You're not there, are you? Where are you? You, the person. It's the Spirit of God against the flesh. The Spirit. So which one are you? The Spirit. So they're fighting one another. They have aggressive desires against each other. And the consequence is that I'm not able to do what I want to do. What do I want to do? What do I want to do?

Be with God. Walk in the Spirit. Walk in the Spirit. Okay, I have a question. Let me take that a little further. Alright, let's say the Bible says, um, help widows. Okay, so you read the Bible and you say it helps widows, so you say, I want to walk in the Spirit, I want to be a God, so I'm gonna, and I have the opportunity to, and I'm gonna go pick some widows and go help them.

So let's say you kind of decide to do it, it's not like, You wake up and it's like, oh gosh, I get this opportunity, someone call me and I'm going to go visit or whatever. The way I personally operate in situations like that is that I never worry about it until they show up in my life. I'm not taking care of a widow now, but that doesn't mean one isn't going to show up today and I'm going to be helping her.

Whatever the circumstances are, the Lord will call you and he'll suit you out and he'll bring the opportunity in your life. So for the people let's say who are doing that, It's maybe just kind of a... yeah, it's a good thing, but maybe it's not your thing. You can only tell if you know them and know the circumstances. There are people that work and serve the Lord in circumstances, and you can tell that God has called them to do it, and the guy standing next to him is just looking for merit badges, self-aggrandizement, and he's not near as effective, nor will he stick it out. Okay, and I guess I'm just kind of thinking of What God might think of that, you know? Well, you know... Is it just kind of a, well, okay... That's what the beam of judgment's for. Yeah, okay. And sometimes you know, sometimes you don't, but God uses all things to conform you to Christ. One time you mentioned that Jesus didn't like try to make a list and think, I wonder what God wants me to do today. He knew. How did he know? It's who presents the opportunity. How did the Lord Jesus know what the Father wanted? He already knew him.

Those of you who are married, when you got up this morning, did you kind of know what your spouse maybe was thinking and what she'd like to do today? No. She really needs to sit in the back. Moving to another example. They would agree with this. At some point this morning, one of you said to the other, what are we doing today? What's going on today? Do we have any commitments today? They already knew, you're coming here. You kind of know that, and so you know. Just why? It wasn't like, should we go to Halley Hills today? I don't know, let's talk about it. Let's go shopping.

It goes back to, and that's why I spend a lot of time with John 17, the union that the Father and the Son had was from eternity past and it's a union that there are three together, the Spirit, the Father and the Son. But the beautiful part about that is, what does John 17 say? They want the same union for us.

That's why I go back to the knowing Him and identifying. You read the Bible to know who He is, so you know who you are. It's a light, again, I keep going back to it, it's a light. If they had that union, if it were placed into Him, And so, as we know who we are in Him, it just happens. Well, there's a verse that says that we have the mind of Christ. Yeah, some of those. It's in my verses for next week. We've got to hurry.

What does it mean in verse 23, the end is eternal life? The wages of sin is death. I'm sorry? The wages of sin is death. But what's the rest of it? Read the rest of it. I've got to get there. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Okay, so what does... Because of the cross we have eternal life if we believe. Now think about this. If I ask you what eternal life is, you're going to give me an answer that includes some sort of a commodity. It's in John 17, it's to know Him. That's exactly right.

John 17.3 says, and this is life eternal. This is what it is. This is the definition of eternal life. That they should know Thee, the only true God, and Him whom Thou hast sent, even Jesus Christ. Eternal life isn't a commodity, it's a person. It's knowing the person of Christ. That's what eternal life is.

Boy, does that change your mind about stuff. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. Yeah, because what? You can't know God unless you know Christ, because the Father is a spirit. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the Logos of God. He's the one through which the Lord said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You've seen him, if you've seen me. So, there is a consciousness that every day we are brought nearer to the full realization of that blessed eternal life, which we already possess. but the full enjoyment of which is the end of the path of God's saints. We prayed for that family that, quote unquote, they lost his wife.

Where did she go? Is she in the back room? Now, guess where she is? She is enjoying the fullness of the life that she already had. And you don't get that fullness until you check out. How cool is that? We could say that the end is an endless intimacy with the father and the son in their life. That's pretty cool, isn't it? That's where we're headed. And we already have it.

In verse 23, we had to work in order to get paid. What was the work and what was the payment? say? The verse 23. What does it say? The wages of sin is death. Okay, so the question is, what was the work? The work is sin. And you got paid, didn't you? What was the payment?

I heard Bruce say to die. To die in sin. So don't you find it interesting, if you live in a sin environment, you've got to work your butt off. And you work and work and work and what do you get? You get death. That doesn't sound like a good deal to me. Think about that. You have to work at sin. You have to work at it. But it comes so naturally. It's so enjoyable.

For sin which we once served is a terrible paymaster because the wages that we earn is death. So what a hideous employer sin is, what a horrid service, what hellish wages. That sin is the chosen master of all but Christ's little flock, of sin's flock it is written, death shall be their shepherd, death is the wages of sin, men speak of it lightly, but it is indeed the king of terrors for the natural man. Death is the king of terrors. And they work as hard as they can every day to get that payment. Don't they?

So why am I doing yard work? I mean, you know, we work. We have to work to get paid. We're talking about working at sin. See, we seem to think that we sort of fall into sin and it's kind of... It just happened. It's work. Now, the next half, the other side, turn the coin over. Do we have to work for the gift of eternal life? Oh, nice. No. We accept it. We just accept it. It's grace. It's bestowed on us by God's grace only.

You don't have to work for it. You can't work for it. As a matter of fact, if you try to work for it, you miss it. I have a question. Oh, do we have enough time? Yeah, go ahead. There's this guy on the radio, Raul Ruiz, and he was going home with a shotgun to kill his wife and two children. He's a pastor now. When he walked in the house, it just so happened that on TV, was some sort of... Chuck Smith. Chuck Smith. Was it Chuck Smith from? Costa Mesa, California. Calvary Chapel.

So all of a sudden, I guess, the Holy Spirit came on him and he was saved, didn't kill his wife and kids, nothing. I guess from that story I'm wondering, he wasn't looking for God. He wasn't looking to receive God. Does God save people sometimes without even like them wanting it or accepting it? He did that to me. I wasn't looking. I mean I was looking for something but it wasn't him. And he did it to that guy. Didn't kill his wife.

I knew a guy when I was first a believer at Cherry Hills Country Club. There used to be a men's Bible study out there. This guy came in one Friday and in the middle of the Bible study he announced to the group that the day before he'd gone out in his barn, stuck a pistol in his mouth and he couldn't pull the trigger. And my buddy sitting next to me said, who do you think stopped the trigger?

One of you. When the Holy Spirit calls you, it's not about what you are doing, it's about what he's doing. Like when Christ shows up to call his disciples, this is pre-New Testament, but he calls his disciples, they're mending nets, they're collecting taxes. Sitting around under a tree. Yeah, they're not doing things that looks like, well that person, this person. I've been waiting for you, Lord. Amen.

So I think that's right, when God calls a man, most of them aren't as dramatic as that. It's like the guy that put the seed of salvation in me five years before I became a believer at a funeral. And it just kept gnawing on me for five years. So when the gospel was presented to me, oh yeah, that sounds like what that guy was saying five years ago.

So it's God's time for you. Eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord, what a bestowment of grace is this? He bore our sins, He pardoned our guilt, they're gone, we're welcomed into the heavenlies, we have life granted to a lost soul that's dead in sins, we have eternal life, life in Christ Jesus our Lord Himself, sharing His life who is well beloved of the Father, and sharing the love wherewith God has loved Christ. life, eternal life in Christ Jesus is God's grace gift.

So, what you do is you compare the wages against the free gift and that's the essence of Christianity right there. Do I keep working or do I receive the gift? And when you become a believer does the equation change? No, it stays the same. You don't have to work at being a Christian. Many Christians that I know would tell you that you're wrong there. I know. Well, that's because they haven't been in my class. So, I don't want to say this.

To understand, maybe put it this way, if you and I, by God's grace, are in Christ, we're in Him, we're identified with Him, now fast forward to the end of the millennial kingdom to when everything is blipped out and God recreates the heavens and the earth. And now we go into eternity.

I think that, this is my opinion, for all eternity past, present, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have existed in a union in which they have unobstructed full knowledge of each other and they have the love of each other dynamically moving back and forth all the time and they are perfectly satisfied with each other. They are God. They created all of these creatures from angelic beings to human beings but there is only one family of creatures that get plugged into what they are for all eternity. You know who they are?

Us. It's us. It's us. We have everything that Christ is except for deity. And the great thing about that is this relationship that goes on in a continuum between the Father, Son, and the Spirit. We're in that. The Jews aren't in there. They're perfectly satisfied with what they have, but they're not plugged into that mind of Christ sort of intimacy.

And one of the reasons that we had to be identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection was to qualify us to be there. As an example, on Wednesday night we're studying resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. This body that we have isn't suitable for the rest of us. The rest of us is a spirit that's in Christ and a soul that's suited out. But the body we have isn't suitable for what we are. That's why we get a resurrected glorified body that fits who we are.

Is that the first bill? So I think it's important to understand that what God has done through beginning with just our salvation and then all the rest that's included in the salvation package He has suited us out and made us equipped, as Colossians says, to be the inheritance of the saints in light. You will be fully orbed, body, soul and spirit, to contain and to be in and to enjoy and reciprocate with the God of the universe for all eternity. That's pretty cool. That's way beyond what Amazon had promised you.

And so what do we do? We walk around thinking that, well I've got to figure out what God wants me to do today. I better do something more so that God will think that I'm really trying hard and I'm more acceptable to him than I was yesterday. Now wait a minute. I can have that mindset or I can have an understanding or an education about who I am in Christ and increasingly understanding what all that entails. There's nothing left for me to do but to believe. and to abide.

And if he says, give me your members, no problem. Give me everything that you are, okay, I belong to you anyway, why not? This is not an effort thing. When you get to Romans 12, he says, by the mercy of God, present your body of living sacrifice. At that point you say, I'm glad you told me what to do, because I didn't know what to do with this body. It's yours? Yeah, no problem, it's yours. Take it. Whatever you want. See? Because who am I? Who are you? Who are you? You're a bride. You're a member of the bride. You're a son of the Most High God. And because you are a son, you're entitled to the entire inheritance that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

All of it. Now, so here we are on the earth, digging in Monique's garden. Here comes an assault from the flesh. What do you do with it? You pay no heed to it. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. J.B. Stoney, one of my favorite writers, he said the best way to deal with the flesh is don't take any mind of it at all. Pretty cool. And the reason he could say that is because you don't have to. Okay?

So, that's... A trip through Romans 6 took a while. Romans 6 is critical for us to understand because it is the mechanics by which God separated me from everything that's not of Him and united me to everything that is of Him. So my position is really important. First 10 verses lay out my position. 11 through 23 lay out my response to my position. And we have not even, Romans doesn't even talk about heaven yet. Everything that's going on is still on the planet. What is in store for us is way beyond what Romans has to teach us.

But once you understand and get kind of clear in your mind and your heart what identification truths are, Then when you go on and read Corinthians and Galatians and especially Ephesians, Colossians and Philippians, the vistas open up to you in terms of the grace that's there.

Because you now recognize, and I'm not reading it from a saved sinner's standpoint, I'm not a saved sinner anymore, I'm a resurrected person in Christ Jesus. And this is my inheritance that I'm talking about, I'm reading about. It's who I am. And all, you know, The next one is, and you're completing him? Wow.

We're totally dead to all that. What is our relationship to the world? Are we just blocked? We have not. We have no relationship to the world. We don't participate in the election and things like that. Isn't that interesting? Monique wants the answer to that really.

Here's the thing. The Lord Jesus was not of this plan, right? That's correct. But he functioned for 33 plus years here and seemed to do fine. He had access to Caesar, rendered as Caesar. That's right. You rendered as Caesar what's Caesar's and you rendered what's God's. So the adults really look. But it's their world and you understand that you're just a, like Peter said, you're a sojourner. That's true. You're a tourist. That's what you are.

And you're here to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, not to change the society. Romans 13. Yeah, you're here to manifest the glory of Christ. You're not here to change the environment. But don't you do the best you can in the little corner of the world you are if there's things you can. Why don't you just put me back under the law?

I guess I wanted to. I abide in Christ and for whatever he would have me do. To manifest His glory and to be of service to Him is what I do. It doesn't matter to me where it is or what it is. Let's compare it like this. What is the difference if I say, do the best that I can? Or I say, I submit and He does all that He can. Which one of those sounds better? That's right. Look at it in that perspective. If I'm abiding, it's going to exceed anything that I can do.

Sure, I keep in mind a guy like Matt Malloy. Matt Molloy is a godly man. He understands identification. He's a believer, but he's a general in the Air Force. What does he do? He manifests the glory of God wherever he is, whatever he's doing. He happens to be a general. He's right in the thick of it. Okay. God has his people everywhere. Do you think that tax collector that Jesus... Do you think he quit being a tax collector? Probably not. But he did it right. Probably not. I mean, some people that he called, he says, you know, don't do this anymore, do this. And Paul did the same thing.

I mean, if you're if you're running a brothel in Ephesus, obviously, we're not going to keep doing that. But we live in a society. So, I mean, we do have to partake. And otherwise, we don't stop at red lines. No, no. What are you here to do? You're here to manifest the life of the Lord Jesus. Does he stop at red lights? I have no clue. Sure he does. The next time you get a speeding ticket, say, now listen, I'm a believer.

It's kind of under order, right? Yeah, God has His order. Ephesians 5, He has husbands in certain roles, wives in certain roles. He has order here. Right, so that's allowed. But it isn't allowed in terms of that it's going to structure my life in a way that is more pleasing to Him. I already am totally pleasing to him. I'm here to do his will. Let's pray and then I'll hand out next week's questions. Father, we thank you for who we are in your dear son, but mostly we just thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that we have eternal life because we do know him and we do know you. We thank you and we pray in his precious name. Amen.