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
The Word Of Righteousness
The difference between spiritual milk and meat is profound. While milk represents the blessings we receive through faith, meat encompasses the responsibilities and accountability that come with maturity. When believers remain fixated solely on blessings without developing skill in "the word of righteousness," they become vulnerable to deception and easily swayed by false teaching. Spiritual maturity isn't optional for believers who want to thrive in these deceptive times. Drawing from Hebrews 5, this message explores how many Christians have regressed to spiritual infancy, becoming "dull of hearing" and unable to digest the stronger meat of God's Word.
Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I'm glad to be part of a regional center where there's governmental authority and I don't pull back from that. I thank you that we have authority in this land and we can loose and we can bind, we can agree and things begin to change. Things are changing in my life. Milestones are being erected in my life. I'm seeing wonderful things happen in Jesus' name, amen. If they haven't happened yet, they're about to Praise God.
Speaker 1:Let's look at Hebrews, chapter 5 tonight. Hebrews, the fifth chapter, verse 12. Well, we'll back up to verse 11. Paul is talking about the ministry of high priest and how Jesus and Mechizedek go together, and verse 11, of whom, talking about Jesus, the high priest, of whom we have many things to say and they're hard to be uttered, seeing that you are dull of hearing. You're dull of hearing. He's talking to the Hebrew church and he couldn't go as far as he wanted to go.
Speaker 1:The whole theme of the book of Hebrews is Jesus is better. Jesus is better than the angels. Jesus is better than Moses. Jesus is better than Aaron the high priest, and he was really wanting to expound on that and he couldn't go any further because they were dull or hard of hearing. Verse 12, he tells them why, for the time you ought to be teachers. You have need that one. Teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God and are become. Everybody say become, let's say become five times Become, become, become, become, become. See.
Speaker 1:They went down, they retracted, they had become. They'd gotten to a point and now they'd drawn back. They had become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat. Little Hannah is on milk because she's an infant. But the other day Mommy thought, well, she needs some steak. So she got her some steak and she started gnawing on that steak. It won't be long before she's on meat. It won't be a whole lot of meat, it won't be like a chicken fried steak, just a little bit, you know. But they were eating meat and now they needed milk, they needed a passing. What's wrong with you? You withdrew, you shrunk, you became dull of hearing. You need.
Speaker 1:You have become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat, for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. They've regressed to being a babe. Isn't that amazing? I mean now, in human, human terms, I did not. You know, we keep growing. Kids grow, they don't, but they do. They have some, they. They get to a point sometime then they come back, you see that, but doesn't last very long. But in their case, you know, they got Paul's trying to teach them something about the high priest and he couldn't go any further because they'd regress. But he said verse 14, strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who, by reason of use, have their senses, their five senses, exercised to discern both good and evil.
Speaker 1:So tonight I wanted to share a message entitled the word of righteousness. The word of righteousness and the word of righteousness is me. The word of righteousness belongs to people who are a full age, who want to grow up and not be babies. Ephesians four says we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, the slight of man and the cunning craftiness. You know, if you don't grow up in the things of God, you're going to get deceived in these days and you're going to get picked off by the devil. He's going to get you.
Speaker 1:I think about the probably millions of people that were so weak that when their church went woke they stuck with it. I can't imagine. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean, the first time my pastor gets up and tells me I need to worry about my skin color, I'm out the door. It's just ridiculous. But that's the state of some people that they don't have. They're unskillful in the word of righteousness. When we say Jesus my redeemer that's one of my favorite songs they sang tonight I mean I just, I just love that song because I just I thank God, I'm redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. He paid a price for me, amen. I'm not worthy of myself, I'm worthy because of the blood. I have what I have, because of the blood. I have access to the throne of God, because of the blood. But say the word of righteousness, say we need to be skillful in using the word of righteousness.
Speaker 1:So Paul is talking to the church of the Hebrews. He wanted to share more deeply, couldn't? They'd regressed from using meat to milk and they ought to be teaching. And now they have to be taught. What does it mean be teaching? Well, you know, really, when you grow in the things of God, it doesn't mean that you're going to get behind a pulpit and teach a class, but it means that you can share truth with people that don't know as much as you do. I mean I thank God for the discipleship I've received one-on-one when I was growing in things of the Lord. I mean it wasn't so much that. I mean I got a lot at church. Brother Osteen fed me a lot but I mean I hung around people that knew more than I did and they would get me you know and expound more in more detail and help me teach me one-on-one man. I mean it's so valuable.
Speaker 1:People that come to church on Sunday night are in that category. You're able to get your arm around somebody that doesn't know much. You've still got a bunch of milk around their mouth and maybe they've been sucking on a Patsy and maybe they're drinking out of the bottle. But you can share a little bit with them and kind of get them to grow up a little bit. Word of righteousness skillful, strong meat is needed by those that are mature. See, once you get mature you can't feed on the milk. What's the milk exactly? Well, the milk is all the blessings. It's all the blessings. I preach on the blessings. I believe we're blessed, but yet on the flip side of that meat is really the responsibility. Scripture Meat is the stuff that we need to be held accountable on. How do we live? How you know we were talking about that this morning about, you know, the inward anointing.
Speaker 1:We have to grow in the inward anointing. We were talking about understanding the anointing. We started with the inward anointing and then we're going to go next week to the anointing upon the outward anointing for service. But the inward anointing is what basis? That's the basis upon which everything is built. If you don't have an inward anointing, then it doesn't matter how many giftings you have.
Speaker 1:I've known people that had a gift. They had a prophetic gift, they had a healing gift, but their inward anointing they ignored and they wind up in shipwreck or they wind up going to heaven early. The devil picks them off because they're personally not where they ought to be in their inward anointing. They're not full of the word and they're not full of the Holy Ghost, and yet they have an anointing upon them to do certain things. No, the inward anointing supports your ministry. Are you with me now? But it ought to impact how you live in the church. And so we preached out of Romans, chapter 12, where it says we ought to not be fakes. We ought to love people with fervent love. We ought to maintain the glow. You know, if you get full of the Holy Ghost and you get full of the Word, then you ought to live like it when you're in church and you ought to be easy to get along with. You ought to be cooperative. You ought to be able to. You know, people ought to be able to tell you hey, I need you to do this or that or the other. Would you do this a little different next time, without getting all huffy and telling yourself well, you say, just don't get offended. So that's, that's what happens. You know, when you start growing up in the things of God, you need the word of righteousness, you need the strong meat that you can be held accountable to.
Speaker 1:I remember, you know, I started singing. I'd always wanted to sing, you know when I, but I just didn't have the guts before I got saved. I just, you know, I'd sing to Willie Nelson at the Deer Leash. You know, get a beer and I'd have my feet around the campfire. And you know, I'm lost as a goose. You know, looking up at the stars out in West Texas. You see those stars and you start thinking, man, I'm so small, look at those stars. God made those. Wonder why I'm here.
Speaker 1:I started thinking that I was about half drunk, you know, at the time drinking Lone Star, and take another sip and look up. You know God will deal with you just about any place you are, bar stool or at a deer camp. But I'd sing along. I had a whole bunch of you know, I had a van and I had I had Radio Shack speakers that I had in my, in the back of my van, and no, and I'd put those eight track. You know the eight track tapes. They kept going and you didn't have to change them. They just kept going on and on and you get so drunk you'd forget to change them. And so Willie would keep singing, all you know. Two hours Willie would have all of his songs memorized.
Speaker 1:They said, man, you can sing. And I'd always wanted to sing. And nuns taught me you know how to sing. And I sang in grade school and they, in fact the nun said, you know, told my mother he needs voice lessons. He's really got a beautiful voice, he just needs. And oh man, that was horrible.
Speaker 1:Mrs Branstetter, I dream of Jeannie with the light brand there's no music. That was, there was no music. She had a. She had a music book from the 1890s. It was not relevant to the music I listened to and I didn't want to sing it. And we had this. Uh, we had this and I'm in the, I'm in, I'm in puberty.
Speaker 1:So in the middle of my voice lessons my voice changed from soprano and now you know, I've got a deep voice and I can't sing soprano anymore. And she made me sing at my recital and she wouldn't let me change keys and it was all the songs out of what was the songs Sound of Music? I can't stand any of those songs today. It makes me mad every time I hear one. And I was so embarrassed to stand in front of these people and I couldn't hit any of the notes. I sounded horrible and so it kind of ruined me for singing and I never did sing again until I was drunk at the deer lease and I was too drunk to care and I would sing and everybody would say, hey, man, you can really sing, wow.
Speaker 1:And so when I got back in church I still wasn't saved yet, but I went back to church and I got back in church I still wasn't saved yet. But I went back to church and Gladys and I started going to Catholic church again and started, you know, and I almost volunteered to be, you know, in the singing part, but I just didn't have the guts to do it, I just couldn't do it. So I became a lector. But anyway, later on and when I got saved, you know, god wouldn't let me alone about singing. So I remember I bought, I bought a track of, uh, only the redeemed.
Speaker 1:Kenneth Copeland used to sell soundtracks and it would on one side it'd be him singing the song so you could learn it, on the other side, just the instrumental and it costs $8 for one song and eight track. So I plugged it in and said what's that? Gladys said what's that? I said, oh, it's a soundtrack. Well, what is it? Well, it's Copeland singing only the redeemed on this side, but on the other side it's just a soundtrack so I can sing along with it. Oh, really, just one song. How much was that? $8. She didn't believe in my singing.
Speaker 1:So I learned that song and I finally got you know where I sang it at the nursing home. The first time I ever sang in public was at the nursing home. I had a boom box. I plugged it into my boom box, I had a microphone and all the little old ladies and little old men in my aunt's nursing home in Conroe, I mean they enjoyed it. I was so nervous singing in front of the old people. So somebody told Dodie that I sang. I don't know who told her.
Speaker 1:So I was lined up to sing at Lakewood on a Sunday night and, oh my, I was so nervous. I thought, oh man, my knees were having fellowship one with another. I'm talking about now one-on-one discipleship. I haven't lost my place. And somehow I made it through that song. I mean, I couldn't remember the words until right before it was time to sing the next sentence. You know, it was just, oh, it was just, you know. And I managed to get through the song and everybody enjoyed it, you know. And so Jim Scalise anybody remember Jim Brother? Jim's in heaven now. Jim Scalise was a friend of mine in heaven now. Jim Scalise was a friend of mine. Hey brother, that was really good. I enjoyed that song. It's all I said.
Speaker 1:Oh no, no, no, don't be false humility. And I say he grabbed me. He said now, now, listen, I'm giving you a compliment, you can't say that that no good. Now that's not right. That's, that's false humility. See, thank, thank God. He let me understand that when people tell you that they enjoyed something you did, you can just say thank you and give the glory to God. You don't have to be, you know, denying it. No, it wasn't any good, you know. That's just one example of somebody telling me the truth, not putting up with my flesh. You need that. We need a whole bunch of teachers. We need a lot of people that can tell people the truth and help them grow. That's how you grow. Are you with me now? All right, so strong meat, the meat of the word, will hold you accountable and it's the word of righteousness, because of the blood of Jesus and what it's done for you.
Speaker 1:Let's look at 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. And let's go over some of these. There's Revelation in verse 14. First I'll just read through all of them. We'll go back and look at them individually Verse 14, 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 14, paul writing to the Corinthian church.
Speaker 1:Remember the Corinthian church? They had gifts, but they were carnal or they were babies. They're really interchangeable. A baby is flesh driven. A baby is going to cry when it's hungry, it's going to cry when it needs a diaper change. They're going to let you know when they're unhappy, and that's babies. Babies are flesh-driven, body-ruled. Carnal means body-ruled, and the church was carnal, and yet they had gifts of the Spirit, they had the anointing upon them. See, they're a great example. He'll give an anointing upon people even when they're not really mature, but that doesn't mean they. They need to mature, they need to grow up, they need the strong meat.
Speaker 1:So, in verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. Talking about Adam and everybody, everybody was dead, everybody was spiritual dead. Christ died for all and we're all, we're dead. That he died for and that he died for all. That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him, which died for them and rose again. Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh? Yea, though, we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now, henceforth, know we Him no more. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away and, behold, all things are become new and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit.
Speaker 1:In other words, what does that mean? That God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead or in Christ's place. Be you reconciled to God. See, god was reconciled to you. Now you be reconciled to God, for he has made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. So let's break it down verse by verse in this revelation of righteousness. So in verse 14, for the love of Christ constrains us Motivation, the motivation of preaching.
Speaker 1:This is love, the love of Christ. Jesus died to make us mature. He died to make us righteous. When we don't know that, when we walk in the flesh, when we walk like babies and we're always demanding our way, we're out of God's will. That's not God's plan. God's plan is for us to grow up into him. And is my motive? Judgment Is my motive? Looking down my nose and trying to lord it over something? No, it's love. I love you enough to tell you the truth Motivation Everybody shout motivation, it's the love of Christ. It's the same with the gifts.
Speaker 1:You know, if you've got a gift and you have that gift of the Spirit which is an outward anointing, and you function in that gift, let's just say that gift is that you have a lot of people healed in your ministry. Some people just have. I knew a guy at Lakewood that was a prayer partner. It just seemed like everybody he laid hands on got healed. But he wasn't a preacher. He tried to preach, he wasn't a preacher. I'm sorry you don't have a gift for that, you don't. He was not in the fivefold ministry. You know, because all the fivefold ministry gifts are first either a preacher and or a teacher. That comes with the anointing. If you don't have that, then you're not in the fivefold. But you may have A gift where, you know, not every believer can lay hands on the sick and they'll recover Every believer. You don't have to have a healing ministry but on the flip side there are people that have a healing ministry. Gladys has healing in her hands and she's had a tremendous amount of success laying hands on the sick and that gift is coming back in Jesus' name. It waned a couple of years but it's coming back. The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. But if you have that gift and you want to be seen and you want to make merchandise of it and your motivation is not the love of God, then you know it's not good. Or maybe you've got the gift of prophecy. You like to prophesy.
Speaker 1:I had a guy that used to come to this church and want to get up and prophesy and I let him do it a couple of three times. And number one, his life wasn't lined up properly, he was not living right. And number two, he did it for the wrong reasons. He did it to be seen. He always had something to tell me, always trying to tell me something. Oh, god showed me that. You know he's always one-upping me. Well, when are you going to let me prophesy? Well, now you've just added on to it I'm not going to let you now because you're still trying to prophesy.
Speaker 1:Just to be known, I said you got to get your motive right, man. Really, I don't see a gift on you for prophecy. I don't see it, pastor. You mean? Well, I don't do that anymore. I've delegated that. But back in the day when I had to be the guy that had to tell people the truth. You know it's not easy to tell people. But why do I do it? I do it because I love him and I want him to change. And I love you enough not to expose you to people that got wrong motives because there's no anointing on that. All right, everybody say motivation, all right.
Speaker 1:And then in the second part of that he said because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead. He died for all identification. He died, see, we were dead. So he identified with our death and became dead, spiritually dead. He went to hell for our sins. See, I deserve to go to hell. If Jesus paid for my sins, he couldn't pay for them any other way except to suffer what I should suffer.
Speaker 1:And you got preachers that will fight you over that. They'll say that's blasphemy. You're saying Jesus went to hell. That's wrong, that's well. You don't even have a revelation of redemption because you're wrong as you can be. I'll never follow somebody like that. And you've got you've got a whole denominations that say that, and so I have to just choose. Okay, well, they can believe what they want to. I'm going to keep preaching what I know to be the truth. Jesus was our true. He identified on identification.
Speaker 1:The next, the next verse is substitution. Let's get the substitution I'll make this point for 15 and that he died for all. That they which live should not henceforth live under themselves, but unto him, which died for them and rose again. So substitution he was our substitute, so we can be his substitute. Substitution he was our substitute, so we can be his substitute. He's in heaven. We're his substitute on earth. So on these two golden hooks of identity, of substitution and identification, hangs all of our salvation. It's hung on those two golden hooks of substitution and identification.
Speaker 1:When you get that down in your spirit, then it then you understand that it's not about you. It's about what he did for you. I mean, you know he's, you know it's not about us being perfect. It's about us learning and admitting when we're wrong and getting it under that blood and getting on down the road. It's not about feeling guilty for six months and going on a fast and trying to, oh, get God to smile on you and all this garbage, this religious junk that people go through because they don't have a revelation of redemption. They don't have, they're not skillful in the word of righteousness. This is the word of righteousness right here and it's designed for those who need strong meat. I'm preaching some strong meat tonight and if you get it down in your heart, you can help people that don't have that. You can teach them what you know about it.
Speaker 1:Everybody say identification and substitution, and then in the second part of that verse 15, he said that henceforth, that we should not henceforth live unto ourselves but unto him. We don't live for ourselves, we live unto him. Paul said it's no longer I that liveth, but Christ that liveth in me, for the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. So that one is consecration. You're consecrated to live for him. You don't live for yourself, you live for the kingdom. You live for Christ, your savior, your, your, your healer, your redeemer. You live for him. So what have we had so far? We've had motivation, identification, substitution. We had so far we've had motivation, identification, substitution, consecration, praise God, get anything out of this. Now, see, we live for him. That's who we live for. We're living for him and him alone.
Speaker 1:All right, verse 16. Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh? Now, that's kind of cloudy. What does he mean? I know no man after the flesh. Yea, though, we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now, henceforth, know we him no more. I don't know him as the man that walked on the Sea of Galilee See now, paul wasn't there during that time.
Speaker 1:Paul grew up at the feet of Gamaliel. He's a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He's a very learned man. Gamaliel, he's a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He's a very learned man. He knew the law and he knew about Christ and didn't agree that Christ was the Messiah and actually persecuted those who believed that Christ was the Messiah. So he was very familiar with Christ in the flesh, as he lived on the earth. He was very familiar with him and he said because of this revelation, I no longer relate to people after the flesh, I don't even relate to Christ after the flesh. I received a revelation of Christ, and he did.
Speaker 1:In Ephesians, chapter 3, I believe it is Ephesians 3, 3, hold your place and run over to Ephesians. See, he was not an eyewitness to the crucifixion like Peter and the 12, but yet he's an apostle. And in Ephesians 3, 3, how that, by revelation. He made known unto me the mystery, as I wrote before in few words, verse five, which in other ages was not made known under the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the spirit, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ, by the gospel. In other words, god was for everybody, not just the Jews. He's for the Gentile. He got that revelation and he talks about that in in a second Corinthians, chapter 12,.
Speaker 1:How he went to heaven he doesn't know in the body or out of the body, he couldn't tell. He said it's not even lawful for me to tell you everything that I experienced. But he received the revelation of the righteousness by faith, directly from Jesus in heaven, and that's what he preached. Are you with me now? Everybody say revelation. See, paul received it by revelation, the revelation of righteousness. See the difference between head faith and heart faith. You know you can. You can relate to everybody, like a buddy and a pal, a Facebook friend. You can relate to people in the flesh or you can relate to people in Christ. And if you'll look at everybody in Christ, especially your brothers and sisters in this church, then it won't be that hard to love them. If you're going to relate to them as to how you know you find fault and all of that. Well, it gets back to what I was preaching this morning.
Speaker 1:That's not love, that's, that's human love. Human love is is selfish. Really, it's devilish. Human love is devilish. I mean, you don't love me, nobody's going to. You know, if you don't love me, you're going to leave me Nobody. You know they people, men kill their wives so nobody else can have them. Or vice versa, some woman will get a whole bunch of life insurance and kill her husband and collect all the money. Call them black widows. That's what the black widow spider does kills her husband, and so, uh no, that's devilish. That's the human kind of love. Human love is capable of any kind of wrongdoing. But the love of God, see, when we see people as they are in Christ, then we're motivated by that love. When we see that they need a little help or a little teaching, we need to put our arm around them and say well, I know you said that, but let me just share with you a different way to look at that.
Speaker 1:I had a one time early on. I mean, I was at a never I wasn't a Lakewood meeting, it was a different meeting but they were raising money at the offering time who will give a thousand? And they had people stand up, you know who will give, you know who will give 10,000? And it just offended me. I just didn't like the way they were raising money at this meeting me. I just didn't like the way they were raising money at this meeting, you know, and uh, and I was just all of them. I'm a baby Christian, I don't know any. I mean, I hadn't been around long enough, but I just got all offended and and uh, you know, I had another guy that I really respected, that I knew in full gospel business man, and he, he put his arm around me.
Speaker 1:Well, let me tell you, give me a little, let me give you a different perspective. You know you're looking at it this way and it did look a little bit, uh, you know, different, but this is not a church service. And so he began to just minister to me and let me know that this you know you're ministering to a whole bunch of this was a full gospel business man's meeting, is what it was, and so you've got a lot of people there. They're not very mature in the things of God. They're not. They're not motivated by giving. You know, like, like we are in this church, you give because you God loves a cheerful giver. Well, they're motivated by competition. It's like a. It's like you would see what would happen at an auction who will give me a thousand, who will give me two, who will give me three? So it's yeah, it's kind of he said, but it's not a sin what they're doing. It's not. It wouldn't be appropriate if you went to church and the pastor got up and did that, because he's there to teach you why you should give. Here they don't have time to teach you why you should give. They've got a need and this is how they're meeting. So he helped me. Are you with me? I quit being offended by it. Are you with me now?
Speaker 1:So, head faith versus heart faith, and then verse 17,. Therefore, say, what's it there for Everything we just got through reading about motivation, identification, substitution, consecration, revelation. What's it there for? Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. The word creature means species of being that never before existed. Jimmy was teaching on spirit, soul and body this morning in foundation faith, foundation spirit, soul and body is one of the greatest revelations I ever heard.
Speaker 1:When I came in the word of faith, I mean to hear that it changed my life because the nuns taught me that I was a soul and a body. That's all they said. Soul, your soul, your soul's going to hell if you miss mass on Sunday. They drew a circle on the blackboard. You lie, that's a venial sin. They put a little dot in my soul, little dot, that's a venial sin. You need to get that. You need to confess that in confession and it's going to leave a stain and that stain has got to be burned off in purgatory. You're going to spend three or 400 years in purgatory for the fire to burn that stain of sin off of your soul. That's what they taught me. I'm a little boy. I'm drinking it all in. I'm five, six, seven, eight years old. You know kids will leave everything. They're told and they said oh, but if you miss mass on Sunday and they shaded the whole circle with the chalk and now that's a mortal sin, and if you die with the mortal sin on your soul before you've confessed to Father O'Malley, you're going to hell forever for missing mass. Yeah, they took the Ten Commandments and converted it over to going to mass. Well, you shouldn't keep hold of.
Speaker 1:The Lord's Day has nothing to do with going to mass. The Lord's Day is on Saturday. It's about the day of rest. It has nothing to do with going to mass or going to church on Sunday. I mean the early church. The reason we have Sunday church is because it's a tradition that they started, probably because the Jews were tied up on Saturday, really, and they're still going to temple, they're still going to synagogue in the early church. So they had to go to church on Sunday and of course the Sunday is the first day, of course the Sunday is the first day of the week and the and the first day of the week you know is is a, you know, but really the day of rest was the Sabbath, which was Friday night to Saturday night. That was the Sabbath. That's Sunday's, not really the day of rest. Saturday, friday night, saturday night's the day of bread, anyway, getting off in that. But so, uh, we have. We have all these rules, these religious rules.
Speaker 1:Once you're saved, you are a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new, and so that's transformation. Everybody shout transformation, a new species of being that never before existed. Spirit, soul and body. You're not just a soul. Your soul is your mind, will and intellect. Your spirit is the part of you that's going to live forever. It's the part that's born again. It's the new creature. My old man died, the old man that sat in those eight classes for eight years in parochial school, and the old man that was drunk on the deer leash, drinking beer and singing to Willie and Waylon and all the other country stars of the song of the day. That guy died and now there's a new creature, a new species of being that never before existed. Amen, transformation.
Speaker 1:In Galatians 3.27, it says I've been baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit. That new man was baptized as soon as I got saved, without me knowing it. The Holy Ghost baptized me into the body of Christ, into Christ, and I became one with him. Man, you can't get better than that and you need to know that. You need to know that when your soul is giving you trouble, your mind, your will, your intellect, your thought, life, you get condemned, you get shamed. In your mind, the devil accuses you. He's the accuser of the brethren. He'll find a way to accuse you, to make you feel guilty, to make you feel shame. But you need the word of righteousness where you can cast that down and say, no, no, I've owned, I've admitted my sin. God has already forgiven me of that. I'm a new creature.
Speaker 1:Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new. Now that word that are become new, the tense of are, become that verb. The tense suggests continuing state or condition. In other words, it didn't just happen when I got saved and I became new then. It's a continual thing that happens all the time, 24-7. When I'm asleep I'm being made new.
Speaker 1:Old things are passing away and all things are becoming new on a constant basis. Hold your place there and go over to Titus. Get anything out of this I'm talking about. The word of righteousness is meat. It's strong meat. It belongs to you who are of full age, and if you want to grow up in the things of God, you've got to become skillful in using it against the accuser, not only for yourself but for other people that get tripped up, that you're going to come across, some people you're going to have to help them to get over what they've done. They've made a mess of their life and they're under great shame. They're just crushed. Titus, chapter 3. I'll find it. Come on pages. Help me Verse 5.
Speaker 1:Not by works of righteousness, which we have done. Not by praying the rosary. You know we're big on rosary in the Catholic church. I never could get with the rosary. I sat through lots of rosaries but I just got so bored. Hail Mary full of grace. Lord is with thee. Amen, amen, amen, amen, god, I just couldn't stand it. All this work praying to Mary. I just couldn't. I mean, you know, even as a child, I just couldn't. I couldn't. I mean, you know, even as a child, I just couldn't. I couldn't understand why Mary was involved. I mean Mary is not Jesus, mary is just the mother and she's really just. Yeah, she gave birth to the Christ child. But I mean Jesus had to correct her once she was out of order, once Her and the rest of the family. All right. Not by works of righteousness, which you have done.
Speaker 1:Lent's here. Let's give up. I'm going to give up. One time I gave up chocolate for Lent. Boy, that was terrible. I didn't think I'd make it. I think I cheated several times, had to go to confession just because I ate a Snickers, because I had a chocolate ice cream cone Give up chocolate for Lent. See what am I doing? I'm trying to earn God's favor. Ice cream cone give up chocolate for Lent. Say what am I doing? I'm trying to earn God's favor. I'm trying to earn, you know. I'm trying to, trying to trying to be right, trying to shave off some of the time I've. I'm being sentenced to purgatory, which they've, by the way.
Speaker 1:The church no longer believes in purgatory. I just think about all those nickels that people you know, the little candles they have, you know, and you put the nickel in there, or the quarter, or whatever. You and you're going to pray, pray for uncle Harry, because you know he's in purgatory for at least 1500 years because he's a rascal, you know, and yes, he was a Catholic, but he was a rascal and he did a lot of bad stuff, and so he's going to be, he's going to be burning in purgatory for a long, long time. So we're going to pray for him and we're going to give a quarter and light a candle for him and get rid of 10 or 15 years at a time. Really, I mean, you think I'm joking, but that was what I grew up with.
Speaker 1:No, not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. And how did he save us? Save us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he has shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Glory to God. I mean, he shed that on us. You know shedding of blood and the shedding of this renewing of the Holy Ghost, the shedding, it's connected to the blood. We're saved. We don't have to earn it, we don't have to do anything for it, we just have to receive it.
Speaker 1:Transformation, praise God, continuing state or condition. It happens all the time, it happens continually. We're different today than we were yesterday. We're different right now than we were five minutes ago. But can we believe it and can we live like it? See, that's the challenge. But if you don't know it, if you're not taught it, then you won't have faith to abide in it. And you know you, just you know you well. You know it sounds like you're getting a license for sin. No, you don't need a license to sin. You can sin anytime you want to. And if you want to sin, then you need to get saved. No, nobody that's saved wants to sin. But you might fall into sin, you might get tempted and you might fail, and that's when you need the word of righteousness, so that you don't just sit there and depreciate yourself for weeks and months at a time, going around trying to earn God's favor back and all of that kind of baloney. Amen, all right.
Speaker 1:So we've had motivation, identification, substitution, consecration, revelation, transformation, and here we got number seven, verse 18. You getting anything out of this? I'm almost done. Oh, I got to get off of Titus. Go back to 2 Corinthians 5. Everybody, say the word of righteousness. I'm increasing in skill. Say it. I'm increasing in skill with the word of righteousness. So we've been reconciled and so we've been made new creatures.
Speaker 1:Now, verse 18, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. So God had to look away from sin. He could never look at sinful flesh. That's why in the Old Testament he had to have animals and they had to have lots of incense and smoke out of the censers. With the incense and all of that. He could not look at sinful flesh. He had to look away. And so he had to look at the sacrifice, and the blood of bulls and goats would cover their uncleanness, cover their sin, but it could not take it away. Uncleanness cover their sin, but it could not take it away. But now, because of the blood of Christ, which has totally washed our sins away, now God can look at us and he can be reconciled.
Speaker 1:He has already been reconciled to every man, woman and child on the planet today. Today, every Hindu, every Muslim, every atheist, every child sinner you know, molester, every, every horrible person you can think of, god has already been reconciled through the blood. He's already kindly affection toward them and is willing for them to be saved. God is not willing that any should perish. Any should perish, not Hitler, not Mussolini, not anybody that we hate. God is off the table. God has been reconciled to them. What's the problem? They haven't been reconciled to him. They haven't turned their eyes. They're still pursuing the devil, they're pursuing their Lord. But once they turn and they get reconciled to God by faith in Christ, that's what needs to happen. That's our job. We're what ambassadors we're representing God to those people.
Speaker 1:You saw that this morning with Lee, given those pictures of those Muslim people that got saved, and you saw the before and after. You saw the lady that had the dream of the man in white that invited her into paradise and everybody there had white robes, but she didn't have one on. And she took note of that. And the next time, after she gave Jesus her heart and got saved, she had another dream and this time she had that white robe on. Don't you love? I mean, jesus loves these people. He loves them. He's reconciled to them and now they've reconciled to him. Glory to God.
Speaker 1:Everybody say reconciliation. Yeah, it's already happened through the blood of Christ. There's nothing. All they have to do is receive it. All they have to do is hear about it. And Jesus has given them. The man in white is appearing to them in their dreams and, like I said this morning, I read a book by Pastor Stockstill that's written, I think, in the seventies. I read it in the eighties and he was talking about this phenomenon of the Muslim people that he had dealt with, that had the man in white appearing to them in their dreams.
Speaker 1:God, I mean Jesus. Listen, things are about to wrap up. Jesus is helping the church get its job done. They can't be saved by a dream. They've got to accept Jesus. Somebody's got to preach to them the good news. There's got to be a laborer. They don't get saved just because of that dream. But that opens them up. They start thinking what is that? Who is that? Who is that that's so kind to me? Who is that that came up on the horse and got me up on the horse and rode me up into the top of the mountain? Glory to God.
Speaker 1:Everybody say reconciliation, as all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ. So that's reconciliation and has given unto us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Thou, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you in Christ's stead. Be you reconciled to God. So that's evangelization, which we talked about this morning. We're evangelizing, we're telling, we're God's ambassadors, we're telling people about Jesus, we're evangelizing them and they are coming around. And then we need to live like we've been reconciled. We need to live that life in front of them. People are watching you that you don't even know. You're a witness just in your lifestyle, lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Evangelism is so important. How you businessmen conduct your business affairs is speaking to people. That's why integrity, being men and women of our word to show up, to work on time and to be the one that strives for excellence on the job, instead of having the attitude that a lot of people do in the world nowadays. We're just giving the minimum amount. They want to get paid for doing nothing. They want to work from home and get paid and have another job on the side. All this COVID stuff has just about destroyed our country and the work ethic no Christians ought to be. We ought to be number one in that area.
Speaker 1:And the last one verse 21,. For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin. That we might be made the might. See. The might is on us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. See, legally we are, but do we live like it?
Speaker 1:So the last one of these is perfection, maturity. This is the kind of word that will make you live a mature Christian life and be a mature Christian. You're an ambassador. You know your responsibility You're acting at. Your life is all about performing your responsibility. So these nine there's nine things here Motivation, identification, substitution, consecration, revelation, transformation, reconciliation, evangelization, perfection. And nine is the number of fulfillment, the number of completion. This is how you're complete in him, who is the head of all principality and powers. When you walk in the word of righteousness, come on, lift your hands and receive. Praise, god, the meat, the meat of the word. Did you get anything out of this? Well, you're going to have to chew on it a while, but I believe it'll help you. Glory to God. Thank you, lord, hallelujah, thank you Jesus.