Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
Dress For Success: Putting On A Spiritual Mindset
What if trading your old mindset for a new one could unlock a life of spiritual abundance and purpose? Join us as we explore the concept of "Dress for Success" through a spiritual lens, focusing on the profound transformation of the mind and spirit. We reflect on Ephesians 4 and Romans 12:2, where we're called to reject destructive habits and embrace new ways of thinking rooted in holiness. Through the inspiring story of Bartimaeus from Mark 10, we see how letting go of past limitations can lead us to a renewed identity in Christ, opening us up to the riches of God's kingdom.
We're going to get right into the Word tonight and let's just say together a quick confession, say I believe I receive grace to do the Word of God. I believe I have joy in seeing it work in my life. All right, I think that's a good enough confession and I want to read right in, of course, our topic tonight. The message is titled Dress for Success and it's about how to put on a spiritual mindset. You know, we have garments in our life, in our mindset really. Sometimes we wear these mindsets and they color the way other people see us. They color the way the reception that we have in the spirit realm. They color really everything about our life, for good or for bad. And so there are certain garments in our mindset that we need to get rid of. We need to burn those out of our closet. And then we, there are certain garments that we definitely do need to have and we need to be aware and wear those. So, uh, you know the Bible talks a lot about that subject. So we're going to just touch on some of those scriptures tonight, but we're going to start in Ephesians 4, uh, starting in verse 17,.
Speaker 1:You know Paul is talking to the Ephesian church and he said this. I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk In the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart. So the Gentiles in that time had a mindset, and still people today who live apart from God, there's a mindset they don't even, there's a blindness in their heart. They can't even see the light of the gospel, they can't even see God's love, they can't even feel they're alienated from that. And so, because they're past feeling, they've given themselves over to lewdness. So sexual immorality to work, all uncleanness with greediness. But Paul says you haven't learned Christ like that, if indeed you've heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off. Okay, so my ears are open. What am I not supposed to? What am I supposed to put off? Um, all of that former conduct? So there is a behavior pattern that was natural to me when I lived in the things of the world, but now that I've been transformed into a new kingdom, I'm in a completely different world and I need a new wardrobe. I don't want to wear the old stuff because that's growing corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.
Speaker 1:Lusts are deceitful, things that I just wanna do that were old and natural to me back then. Those seem like they're gonna bring me joy. But those of you know there's a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death. And those lusts are deceitful because as soon as you think you have that thing you wanted, it wasn't enough, and then you want the next thing, and then that wasn't enough. And then meanwhile your life is torching and it's going up in flames over here because the wages of sin is death and I'm trying to get more and more sin to fill all these lusts. Right, and it's so, so it's destructive, it's deceitful. Don't wear that.
Speaker 1:Paul says be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. We want that new mindset that comes with our new kingdom. It's a new wardrobe, it's way better. We are not working in the coal mine anymore, being a slave to sin. We are now in the palace where God has us and we don't have to wear our coal mining clothes in the palace where God has us ruling and reigning in his kingdom. Amen, what a blessing we can have new clothes. And Romans 12, too, puts it like this Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Don't be like silly putty, squished into the shape that the world wants you to, squished into that thought pattern and that mindset that is all around us all the time. Stop watching the news, stop being conformed to that, stop watching all those sitcoms and shows on Netflix that have a certain mindset that they are trying to conform you to. But be transformed. Renew your mind. Renew your mind. See what the word has to say about your life and how it can be. So.
Speaker 1:I have a great example of this, straight out of the word, out of Mark 10. There was a man named Bartimaeus who was a beggar. And why did he have to beg? Because he was blind and he was unable to provide for himself. And so they came.
Speaker 1:In Mark 10, let's read about it, verse 46, they came to Jericho, that's Jesus and his disciples. And Jesus went out of Jericho and his disciples and a great multitude. As he went out blind, bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging, and when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me, have chesed on me, have covenant kindness to me. Look, I'm a Jew, I'm supposed to have a covenant with God and yet I'm blind. Have mercy on me, show me the reality of my covenant. So that got Jesus's attention, didn't it? It stopped Jesus in his tracks. He stood still verse 49, and commanded him to be called. And so they called the blind man, saying to him be of good cheer, rise, he is calling you. And what does it say in verse 50, throwing aside his garment, he had to put off something that was old so he could take up the healing that Jesus had for him. So he arose, he came to Jesus, and Jesus answered him and said what do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, rabboni, that I might receive my sight. And then Jesus said to him go your way. Your faith has made you well. And immediately, immediately, he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road. His entire life changed, and it started with him throwing away a garment, and I want to tell you a little something about that garment.
Speaker 1:Those of you who have been in church a while might know this, but in the Jewish culture then there was a provision for the poor. If you were truly indigent and unable to work. The entire Jewish population was supposed to tithe every third year. They were supposed to set aside an entire 10% of their income, over and above what they were already paying in the tithe to the temple, and that tithe every three years was to be only given to the indigent and the poor, and the religious structure had decided how to allocate this money that they were going to somehow approve some people. Yes, you are truly indigent. We will give you a special coat so that when you sit by the road begging, everybody knows they can give their special alms to you. And this is like your license to beg. This is your license. This is really a gravy train for you, whereas you wouldn't have been able to care for yourself before. Wow, now you will be able to receive these funds that people have already set aside for alms and you can get them.
Speaker 1:So notice that in verse 50, that what Bartimaeus actually does is he takes that garment that was worth so much money. This is entire, his entire livelihood and every hope he has, and he literally cast it aside so that he could run faster and get to Jesus. And uh, and he did that before he, even technically, was healed. And yet in that one act of faith I know that that is the act of faith that secured his healing from the Lord and uh, and so I just want to encourage you today there's a mindset of a beggar, there's a mindset of poverty and lack. There's a mindset of I can't mindset of poverty and lack. There's a mindset of I can't, I can't, I can't, I'm not good enough. There's a there's that mindset. And Jesus said I have come, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, to and and to preach recovery of sight to the blind, recovery of sight to the blind, recovery of sight to the blind. And you know, many of us. Maybe we weren't blind on the outside, but we were blind at one time to the things of God. We didn't know that the word was so true, we didn't know God was so good, we didn't know how powerful he was in working in our lives. And now we can see, amen. And so we've got to throw away those old ways of doing things and let God heal us, let God give us a whole new mindset, and we can do that just by throwing off some old things. Amen, all right.
Speaker 1:Then in Matthew 22, there's another guy. He did not have a garment of any kind. That was the right kind. I guess he was wearing some clothes, but they weren't the right clothes.
Speaker 1:So in Matthew 22, jesus is telling the parable about the man who threw a wedding for his son and it was a fine, fabulous wedding. And he sent the father, commissioned people to go into the highways and byways and compel all the guests to come in. Anybody could come to this wedding, and but when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment and he said to him friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And the friend was speechless. And the king said to the servants bind him hand and foot and take him away and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, for many are called and few but few are chosen. Notice how the king here, who stands for God, he called this man friend. I do not know the. I don't claim to know the whole import of this parable, but it definitely gives us pause and it gives us it's really kind of a wake up call.
Speaker 1:The king calls this man a friend. That's a covenant term Friend. How did you come in here without your wedding garment? How did you come in? He had his invitation but he didn't have his garment. He wasn't prepared for this feast, and so we don't wanna definitely be underdressed in the presence of God. We wanna have all of the robes of righteousness that Jesus has bought and paid for for us to wear, and we wanna put those on and wear those. We wanna wear those, since he provided them for us. We do not have to wear our old rags, amen. And we get those. We get those robes of righteousness as soon as we're saved.
Speaker 1:But it is a choice every day to put on that behavior, put on that mindset, put on the holiness that goes with those garments. And indeed this is our nature. Now we don't have that sin nature anymore. Jesus completely obliterated that when he ripped us out of the kingdom by our choice. He ripped us out of the kingdom of darkness and he translated us into the kingdom of his son, his dear son, and he made us accepted in the beloved, and so we are his kids and we should not, uh, we do not have to be ashamed to put on the finest garments in the palace, amen and uh. And so we want to be sure and put on those garments. And so what are the? I just have three other uh, just points here when we talk about putting on and putting off.
Speaker 1:And so my first one is going to be put on love, and for that we're going to go to Colossians three, verse 12. Therefore, as the elect of God, everybody say that's me, I am the elect, I'm chosen, I'm holy and beloved. That's also you. You're holy and beloved. God calls you that because the Holy Spirit makes you that, because the blood of Jesus cleansed you from that sin, and so you are holy. And it tells you put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, not weakness. Meekness, that means just extreme obedience to the whim of the spirit, to whatever the spirit wants. We're going to do that, we're going to obey immediately.
Speaker 1:Meekness, long suffering or patience, bearing with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so also you must do. But above all these things, everybody say, above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. Love, love and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, so that love is more important than all of the. Humility is important, kindness is important, long suffering and patience is important, but love is the most important because, really, when you break down all of the other sins, if you just go back, for example, to the book of Exodus, to the 10 commandments, you can read those 10 commandments the Lord is one.
Speaker 1:Don't have any idols, don't have any, don't lie, don't murder, don't covet, don't steal. Those are all things that break the law of love. You'll love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and soul, mind and strength. That's the first thing we do. We love him and we love our neighbor as ourselves. So if we'll put on love like a garment, it's something we can wear, it's a mindset that we can wear, and if we'll do that, then we won't break any of the other. We won't want to, won't even, and um, if we'll do that, then we won't break any of the other, can? We won't want to, won't even, and and you know what? When we? Because when we sin, what is? What is sin really, when you boil it all down.
Speaker 1:Sin is either dishonoring God, the Holy Lord, uh, or and or and or. It is dehumanizing people that he made and loves. And because you know what is stealing, well, I'm gonna take what's yours and I take it. So I've dehumanized you, I'm going to, I'm gonna lie to you because I don't value you as a person. I think you're dumb and I'm gonna make up any old thing and tell you and pat you on the head Covetousness, you don't matter to me, your money matters to me. So that's dehumanizing and that is what God hates.
Speaker 1:It causes God's wrath to be stirred up and you might say and you know, and a lot of atheists do say this and really argue with Christians all day long Well, why, if you say God is love, how can he be so mad? How come he's so angry? Well, how can he not be? I mean, are you a parent? If not, maybe you know of a good parent. But just put on that mindset for a minute of a parent. And let's say you have an innocent, sweet little child and someone came into your house and abused that child, dehumanized that child. Would you welcome that abuser into your home and sit them down and serve them a steak dinner? Would you take that abuser out and laugh with them and take him for coffee, would you? Uh, what? How would you treat that abuser and what message would that send to your child if you did not value them enough to have wrath toward that abuser? And so God is like that. He doesn't want to see his children abused. He does not like that behavior.
Speaker 1:But the thing is that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. At any moment we could sin. Jesus wiped away our sin. He gave us a new nature. But we still sometimes walk in that old mindset. That's why these scriptures are so important. We've got to take that mindset away. We've got to and as we grow in the Lord, that is something that we learn to do more and more. We learn to choose the garment that we need at that moment, the garment of the word, the washing of the water. The word purifies our heart and um and so, uh, yes, god, god is mad at sin. He doesn't like it. It incurs his judgment and his wrath, because he's also just and he will punish the evildoer. But praise God, uh, we can cry out blood of Jesus and we can receive mercy from him. Uh, he made a way to his throne room and it is through that blood of Jesus. It was through accepting what Jesus has done for us, his payment for our sin, amen.
Speaker 1:But we need to put that on. If you back up in Colossians, right there it says some stuff we have to put off Before we can put on love. We've got to put off this other stuff. If you back it to verse really, it's really about that mindset all over again In verse really two set your mind on things above Colossians 3, two, not on the things of the earth. So get your mindset right.
Speaker 1:You died, that old man died, and now your life is hidden with Christ and God, and so you're going to put to death your members which are on the earth, the things that your body still wants to do out of habit fornication, so the sexual impurity, uncleanness, passion, evil, desire and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of things. The wrath of God is coming on the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked, when you live like that. But we're not doing that. We're putting that off. We're putting off anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language. Look at that. God gives us such an awesome blueprint of how exactly to walk this out. What is the Christian life supposed to look like, and are we perfect every day right now? No, you know.
Speaker 1:You know when it says anger and wrath, I know that that is so easy. I mean, when you're stuck in traffic you can become angry, and then wrath is like anger on steroids, like when you boil over with a with an outburst. You know, anger on steroids, like when you boil over with a with an outburst. You know, and uh, and so I, I definitely relate to that. Um, but it's a mindset.
Speaker 1:If we're in the mindset of love, if we have put in that mindset, then we are set up to have tender mercy, patience set up to bear with one another. But if we're in the mindset of everybody's out to get me, that person hates me already. I'm just waiting for them to mess up. So then I can bam, you know, and then I'm already mad. I'm half mad at them and they just looked at me wrong, and now I'm going to go off on them. See how that's a mindset. And we can put that off and we can put on love. We can put it off and we can put it on. We can put it off and put it on, and it doesn't have to be hard, does not have to be hard. We just got to practice it more and more, amen, all right.
Speaker 1:So put on love, put on joy, put on joy Psalm 30, 11,. On joy, put on joy Psalm 30, 11. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing. You have put off my sackcloth, my burlap mourning clothes, where I might sit in a corner and pour ashes over my head and cry no, that sackcloth, I don't have to wear that anymore, because you clothe me with gladness instead. All of the mourning and suffering in my life. I'm not focusing on that, I'm focusing on the joy of my salvation, amen.
Speaker 1:And in Isaiah 61, this is a great verse that Jesus then later quotes in Luke 4, where he says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. And then, if you fast forward to verse 3, it says he's anointed to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment everybody say garment, garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified when we have joy in the middle of something that is bad, in the middle of when everyone else is looking at our lives and saying that person should be mourning, that person should be sad, their life isn't all together yet, and yet we choose the garment of joy, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, when we choose that that glorifies the Lord, that glorifies the Lord more than anything else in this world, to see a believer, even under persecution, who can joyfully glorify the Lord. So we put on that garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, amen. And then and then, finally, we can actually put on Jesus himself.
Speaker 1:So turn with me, if you would, to Romans 13. Romans 13. And it says and do this, knowing the time that now it is high time to wake out of sleep. So wake up the church. Waking up the. It is high time to wake out of sleep, so wake up to church. Waking up to church. High time, for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand.
Speaker 1:Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness, like some clothes we don't want anymore, like the greasy shirt. We cast it off. That's a work of darkness. I do not dig out of my son's gym clothes from last week, out of his hamper and wear them to church. I don't do that because I love y'all and I don't want y'all to have to experience that. But we cast off the works of darkness, those old clothes. They're rotten, they're corrupt. Take those away, burn them. But let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, in other words, wild parties, and not in lewdness and lust.
Speaker 1:There it is sexual immorality again, and not in strife and envy. Why am I saying these things? Because they seem obvious to some people, especially if you were raised in a certain generation. These things are obvious, but I'm telling you that my dad, years ago, the Lord, told him teach what you take for granted. Your children don't know what you know. There is a dearth of the word and when I started thinking about my generation, my generation does not know that sexual immorality is bad.
Speaker 1:My generation was taught that we can have a loving and supportive relationship outside of any covenant of marriage, that we can live with anybody, any series of somebody's, and as long as we're happy and they're happy and they respect us, whatever that means, then it's all okay, and that is what my generation largely believes and is taught. Many of us now in my generation have now avoided marriage altogether. Maybe we have children. So the next generation of children largely they're not in a two-parent household. That the parents are married, that is a rare thing anymore. And so I feel like we need to teach what we take for granted to lovingly show. This is God's way and it's so awesome and it's so much better to have the covenant fire of passion under the loving control of a covenant of marriage.
Speaker 1:So we don't wanna walk as the Gentiles do in lewdness and lust, also in strife and envy, trying to get ahead and claw other people down. But we put on. So we put off those things. We put on the Lord, jesus Christ. And here is the powerful part we make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. For the flesh to fulfill its lusts Make no provision.
Speaker 1:So I want to tell you a story about a lady named Megan Basham, who is a fabulous author. She's brilliant. I got through her whole book and I was so impressed. And then at the end she tells a story about how, about the fourth time, where she as a college student. She ended up in jail for like the fourth time and her little, like her little formal dress was ripped and you know, but she still had her makeup on and she was kind of disheveled. But man, it was time number four.
Speaker 1:And why was she in such a soup? Well, she was a drug addict and she might've been a high class one, but she was rating her, started out rating her grandma's medicine cabinet and had her little favorite concoction and then learned how to kind of live on that and until she had burned all the relationships and bridges she had in her friends and family and she was about to lose everything. And even though she was raised in church, about to lose everything. And even though she was raised in church, even though her family had spared no expense in getting her treatment in Christian facilities, in live-in facilities, in counseling and endless interventions for her, for her young life, to try to get her to stop this sin. But when she got a hold of Romans 13, 14, put on the Lord, jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust, make no provision, in other words, stop it. No one in all of her counseling, no one in any of those treatment programs ever just said you can stop it. The word gives you the license, the word itself gives you the power so that you can just stop it. And so she did. She realized, if God's word says it, there's grace for me to do it and I will stop it. And she turned around her entire life and she married a minister of of Lord. She's a wonderful mom and great author, um all because she just stopped it.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we, we give ourselves lots of excuses to sin. Uh, because we can't, we can't, we can't stop where there's an addiction, there's a chemical dependency, blah, blah, blah. She just stopped it and the Word said she could. And so I just wanna encourage y'all that God's Word is quick and powerful, it's alive and it's powerful and it can go into your situation and it can take you off of the side of the road begging and it can heal you of the reason why you had to beg to begin with. It can take you out of an addiction, out of an addiction, out of a pattern of sin that has beset you over and over again, and it can set you on a course of freedom, just to stop it. God's word is that powerful and his spirit is there to back it up every single time. So I wanna encourage you tonight with that, and then I'll just close with this about clothes.
Speaker 1:About clothes, you know, we talked earlier, earlier, a minute ago, about, uh, the man who came to the wedding feast and he didn't have the right clothes. And I want to remind you that the next wedding feast of the groom and we are the bride, so it of course we will be dressed. Jesus is presenting to us, to himself. In Ephesians 4, it describes this. Ephesians 5, it describes this that he's presenting us to himself a glorious church, so resplendent us to himself, a glorious church, so resplendent, shining, radiant church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. He is presenting us to himself in that condition, without spot or wrinkle. He's taken away the stain of sin and he's working on us and uh, and so that's the wedding that we're going to, and we, that's the role that we have as the bride of Christ, and so we're getting the church ready.
Speaker 1:That years ago the Lord asked me what are you doing to dress the bride? And uh, and so that's something that we can do to each other to extol each other to holiness, to, to help each other when we fall. Uh, to help each other when we fall, to help us access the blood of Jesus. That is the launderer's soap. Malachi 3 says it's like a launderer's soap that washes every sin, and so let's just continually apply that and just stay clean before the Lord. He's so good to us, he's so merciful and it's so easy to live the word of God. This is our nature now. This is our nature, not the old way. This is our nature and this is where our joy and fulfillment comes from. Amen. So I hope I have encouraged you tonight.