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
Victory Over Habitual Sin
The struggle against recurring sin patterns affects every believer, but the solution isn't found in willpower or rigid self-discipline. This enlightening message reveals a revolutionary spiritual principle that transforms our approach to overcoming habitual sin. Freedom begins with understanding our three-part nature: spirit, soul, and body. Though our spirit has been made new in Christ and desires righteousness, our physical body still has natural inclinations toward sin. Between these stands our mind, making daily decisions about which influence will prevail. The goal isn't trying harder not to sin, but rather developing a spirit-dominated life where sin loses its appeal.
So, father, in the name of Jesus, we come to you today. We ask you to make the word come alive in us. We pray, lord, that we would hear with our spiritual ears, not just words off of a page, but Holy Spirit. Breathe on those words and show us how to apply them in our lives so that they have the maximum power. In the name of Jesus, I thank you for every person listening that we not only have victory over sin in our own lives but, lord, we can help shepherd others around us. In Jesus name, amen, amen, all right, well, I I wanted to speak on the subject tonight called victory over habitual sin. Um, and I have to admit I was inspired by Pastor Mack Hammond, who is a preacher that I heard recently at the Supernatural Leadership Conference in Alexandria, louisiana. James and I got to attend there last week and was such a blessing and after over 50 years of ministry he was just really.
Speaker 1:And then we all can look in our society right now and just see that even believers, even longtime Christians, even ministry leaders we are seeing a falling away of ministry leaders, just like dominoes in some cases. Very sad to see that. And because of habitual sin. Very sad to see that and because of habitual sin and, and so that is a topic that we don't touch a whole lot in the word of faith movement. We like to focus, because we don't and I won't tonight focus on the don't don't don'ts, because we like to focus on the spiritual benefits of just being close to the Lord and just walking in such love with him and on righteousness consciousness. We were conscious so much of what Jesus already did, and I'm here to tell you, if you didn't know this already.
Speaker 1:I want you to know, that if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord, you are not judged for your sin. He has already judged every sin you have ever committed and ever will sin. He has already judged every sin you have ever committed and ever will commit. He has already judged that sin and he has wiped it out with his blood. And God, that's good news tonight, isn't it? God does not hold your sin against you, but here's what happens the devil is the accuser of the brethren. And guess who does hold that sin against you? The devil does, and though he has no voice before the father, he has no place to lobby against us in the throne room of heaven, because the blood of Jesus has been applied there. God doesn't even hear him, but you know who does hear him. You hear him and your own spirit hears the voice of that accuser and you still retain a memory of that sin. And so what happens is sin can make a spiral, a downward spiral, in our spiritual life. Not because of anything that God is holding against us, not because he is judging you, but when we sin, bad stuff starts to happen in our lives because actually we are judging ourselves.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to dig into that a little bit and I want to just also cover really quick, just so we're all on the same page here, and my dad hits this topic very, very faithfully here in the church. But that concept of the spirit, soul and body so you are not a sinner anymore. If you've given your life to the Lord, you are not a sinner, but you still have a body that desires to sin and your body is not the real you, your spirit that's connected to God. Now that spirit is the real you. So you are not a sinner, you don't desire to sin, but you're connected in the flesh to this body right here. That does try to drag you down, and so we talked about that. My dad's recently covered that. We had a wonderful entire class on that in our Faith Foundations class on Sunday by Brother Jimmy Smith. It was fabulous. You'll be able to get the media soon on that. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1:But our goal, you know, and who's in the middle? Our mind? We have our body that wants to sin. We have our spirit that is so connected to God and wants to be holy, but then we have our mind in the middle, kind of deciding which way it's going to go. And our goal in our lives is to be spirit dominated, to so strongly identify with that love of God every day that we're so connected with him, that we're so conformed to his image that that part of ourself, our spirit, is the part that wins out every time and that we start living more and more a spirit dominated life and not a flesh dominator, body dominated or habitual sinning life.
Speaker 1:And so, just as an example, I asked our class on Sunday hey, what are some examples of some wins lately that you've seen in your own life? When, when you're, when, maybe in the old, olden times, when you were spiritually younger and newer and you hadn't grown in your faith, maybe your body used to win and used to, you know, used to fall into anger or fall into something, but now you can. You've noticed a growth pattern where your spirit is starting to dominate. Who has a story of victory on that? So I said in our class, and we had one wonderful believer that said she has noticed that she has more peace, that she used to have a lot of anxiety and her spirit is starting to dominate in that area. And I thought, you know I can be kind of high strung, I know that's shocking for y'all, but I have a personal example of a time when my spirit finally dominated. And this does not sound really super, you know, just listen, it sounds kind of petty, but I have.
Speaker 1:I live on a very narrow street and my neighbors across the street, from where my driveway dumps out on this little street, they have a bunch of trash cans. They have probably every single week. They were like rolling out their four giant trash cans and do they bring them in after the trash man comes? No, they don't. They leave them all laying around everywhere. And so I'm, you know, driving around the corner and I see those trash cans and I know I'm going to have to eek past them and oh, I'm just so my inner so I'm raging inside, just ridiculous, and that's on me. And so I, you know, this is a habit, and sometimes they'll leave them out all week and they never even bring them in.
Speaker 1:So I am like, oh, I wish those people what's wrong with those people? And one time the Holy Spirit recently just was like, why don't you pray for them? So I thought, well, I'm not gonna complain, that's good, holy Spirit, thank you for that, I am not gonna complain, I'm gonna pray for them. And I did. And so I just blessed them, I prayed for them. Oh, by the way, god, will you please, will you please cause them to bring in their cans? And I'm kidding you not, I am kidding you not. Five minutes later I heard that sound of the empty trash can rolling up the driveway y'all. Oh man, I was saying yes, lord, but it was just a funny little thing God did for me to say, hey, god answers prayer.
Speaker 1:But more than that, claire, get out of your flesh, calm your triggers, girl, and just, you know, rest in peace and you know, enjoy the peace of the Lord during the day. I'm not resting in peace anytime soon, but anyway, that was just a time when, finally, my spirit rose up in that dumb area and, just you know, my spirit won. Hallelujah. See, I'm growing in the Lord, you're growing in the Lord. I got a lot of other areas, but let's get straight into the word today, and I'm going to read to you out of Galatians 5.
Speaker 1:Spoiler alert here is the answer to the whole lesson. If you want to have victory over habitual sin, verse 16 says I say, then walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Walk in the spirit. I'm going to say it again Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh, your body, lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. These two are contrary to one another, so that you don't do the things you wish, but if you're led by the spirit, you're not under the law. So, uh, the system that we live on in.
Speaker 1:God does not want a you to have religion. He wants you to have a wonderful, loving, vibrant relationship with him. He does not want you to be burdened every day with a Ooh, um, I shouldn't do this, this, these are all the things I should not do. No, no, no, not, not, not. And if we're focused on all of those, not no things, then we're not, we're not exuberantly loving, passionately serving God, and that is the answer to all of this. That's how we stir up the gift of God, that's how we walk in the spirit, by, by just loving on him. So, so, anyway. But when we're not doing that, because we heard about it in church but we didn't do it yet, or we haven't done it in a few days and we let ourselves slip, and so now all of a sudden we're kind of a little bit, we're just kind of lapsing back into some old habits, and here's how we'll know that we lapsed in verse 19.
Speaker 1:It says now, the works of the flesh. Everybody say the works of the flesh. These are indicative that we are, oops, we are not walking in spirit today, we have not stirred up that gift today. And it lists them here Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery. That word sorcery just I gotta tell you it literally is the Greek word pharmakeia. Pharmakeia, because when people did have witchcraft and sorcery in those times, often they used drugs. But it's also used today for pharmaceutical drugs. And when I looked up pharmakeia in the Greek, it says magic, sorcery, witchcraft, the use or administering of drugs, poisoning, sorcery or magical arts. So I just wanted to drop that there, right there. So we are not supposed to be depending on any kind of medications or drugs, be they a prescription or otherwise. So that's a work of the flesh to depend on those things.
Speaker 1:Hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries I'll, I'll. I'm going to break those out in the message in a second, but here's the part I want to get to. Uh, this is a scary statement right here. Those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Well, that'll mess with your doctrine. They will not inherit If we do these bad things. Will we really not make it in heaven because we envied somebody, because we wished our hair was as thick and long as theirs, because we whatever? Oh, because we had an outburst of wrath in the, in traffic, you know, are we going to not make heaven? No, no, no, let me settle that right now.
Speaker 1:Those who habitually practice, those who not just do it once, but habitually practice those things, it's not that it keeps them out of heaven because, like I said, you've already been, your sin is already judged. It's under the blood. It's not against you, but there it begins a process and a lifestyle that takes you out away, farther and farther away from God. And so here's how. We'll talk about how that happens in just a minute. But let's read it in the message just so it's a little bit more relatable. It's obvious.
Speaker 1:Here is the same verses, but in the message Bible it says it's obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time Repetitive, loveless and cheap sex. A stinking accumulate, that's. You can kind of read it line by line but a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage, frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness, trying to just get all the happiness out of life. But you're really frenzied on the inside. Trinket gods, magic show religions that's what it calls heresy. Magic show religion. Got to have all the feelings, got to have all the bells and whistles. Sometimes God just wants a relationship with just you.
Speaker 1:Okay, paranoid, lowliness, cutthroat competition, all-consuming, yet never satisfied wants, ouch, a brutal temper, an impotence to love or be loved. Then I'm going to skip some things, but I liked this one. A vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival, uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions. So addictions fall under a work of the flesh and that means that's actually good news for you. Tonight, just like when we read Deuteronomy 28 and we can read all the curses of the law and we can say, oh, we can read it and we can be all oh, we're so bad, we're sinners, oh, we're going to. No, no, I read this right here and I say, praise God, I've been delivered out of these works of the flesh. I don't have to let them dominate my life. I can walk in the spirit and I can sidestep all of these behaviors. But these are behaviors that are just a little red flag along the way to tell me get back in the spirit, get back in the spirit. I'm going to add to this list of work of the flesh because one of them is wrath. You know wrath, outbursts of wrath, and so I'm going to have a little word here about triggers.
Speaker 1:How many of y'all have you have triggers, emotional triggers? They come, they can come on us through just living our lives. We've had trauma, maybe we've been through some things and sometimes our brains. It kind of tweaked the way our brain responds to certain things, especially if those triggers were formed during childhood. So we have a little part on the inside of our, in the center of our brain, it's a little almond shaped part called the amygdala, and it is where our fear and emotional responses just completely hit. So if we have a trigger emotional trigger sometimes, let's say, if we in childhood maybe we were, we felt abandoned, maybe we felt, and so, so then maybe that time when your, when your spouse, comes home from work, or they didn't, they didn't fulfill a little commitment, instead of just taking it in stride like normal people would. No, we've got this trigger, we've got this. Our amygdala is so hypersensitive and it turns something so tiny and it mushroom clouds it out into this big emotional response.
Speaker 1:How many of y'all relate? And we flash and we snap, and now the entire world is on fire and we're just we've and. And so you know what? Whose fault is it that that we have? I mean, it's not about faults, it's about God wants to come in and heal that. And so let's say, someone steps on your trigger, someone hits your button, and so there's like this tendency that we have. Now we have, we have overreacted to something and now we we have it's a work of the flesh to overreact. There might be a reason, the trigger might be a reason for us to overreact, but it's still a work of the flesh, and so let's stop blaming other people for stepping on our triggers, for pushing our buttons. It's not their fault. We chose to overreact. So how can we be healed from that?
Speaker 1:Just again, the more we walk in the spirit, the more we stir up that gift, that love gift of the Lord, the more and my dad hits this so good at church. He's so faithful about it. That's why he hits this, because we all have triggers and they're big sometimes. But as we pray, as we stay in the spirit, those triggers will shrink back up, they'll cover back over God will. He'll round out those corners for our lives and our triggers will not be so out there, amen. We can even get healed of them. Hallelujah, god is rewiring us. So. So those are works of the flesh, and, and every time we participate in a work of the flesh now, we're less and less sensitive to the spirit. So walking in the spirit becomes a little bit harder, a little bit harder, a little bit harder, and we're stepping away from God. And now, um, we start to develop, um, bad things start to happen. We're, we're a little bit out of the will of God, and uh.
Speaker 1:And then turn with me to first John three. This is the spiral of sin. First John three, three, verse 21,. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God. Everybody say I want confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do the things that are well pleasing in his sight. So awesome as we, when we're walking in the spirit, we are pleasing God, we're doing the will of God for our lives, we're close to him and we have such confidence with him that we will just ask him anything and we know in our heart doesn't condemn us, we don't have the accuser of the brethren sitting and yelling in our ear. So we have such confidence before God.
Speaker 1:And then, if you turn over one page to 1 John 5, 14, it says now, this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything here, it is again anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of him. How about that for confidence? How about that for security in the Lord that no matter what you ask from God, you know your heavenly father is pouring it out on you. You are so secure in him, you are so confident in him, and that is the way we want to live every day.
Speaker 1:But but we've interrupted our confidence when we have done a work of the flesh, turn to Hebrews and just continuing along that spiral. So now we're not sure if our prayers are going to get answered. That's affecting our faith. So probably now our prayers might not be getting answered or we might be asking for the wrong thing because we're not as in communion with God anymore, we're not in tune with what he's wanting for our lives. So we might ask amiss, we ask the wrong things. So we're in this spiral of sin, right, and so Hebrews 10, let's find it 35,. Therefore, do not cast your way your confidence, which has great reward. Okay, so we need to have that confidence. How do we lose that confidence If we go up to verse 26,.
Speaker 1:This is scary. Hebrews 10, 26,. If we sin willfully. If we sin willfully now, it's not just a trigger, it's not something we just oops, we just walked into. But now we have maybe fallen into a pattern where, well, we're just going to do this a few more times. God's already forgiven me. I am the righteous. We might even think, oh, I'm the righteousness of God, I don't have to worry about sin, I'm going to do this anyway. I'm the righteousness of God, I don't have to worry about sin, I'm going to do this anyway. I'm going to just keep on sinning.
Speaker 1:And every time we do that now we're in danger because we have calloused our hearts. Our hearts grow just a little bit rougher, a little bit harder, a little bit tougher, and that sensitivity that we had from the Holy Spirit, who is the same Holy Spirit that's trying to guide our lives, that's trying to show us the right path, that's trying to give us all the best in our lives. But we're not listening to him. Now we don't even hear him. We hear our self-desires a little bit more. Those desires are a little bit louder because we're feeding the wrong thing. So now, willful sin after we have. But if we do that and if we continue on a pattern of doing that and I do believe it takes a long time because, you know, with the blood of Jesus man, we are saved to the uttermost. We are, we are saved to the uttermost.
Speaker 1:But this these passages are. You can't rip them out of your Bible. They're here and they're a warning to us. It says if we have received the knowledge of the truth and we're still willfully sinning, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. And so, in other words, we're starting to, we're falling into judgment. Now we're judging ourselves.
Speaker 1:Verse 31, it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. So we just, we're falling away, falling away, falling away. But God doesn't want that for us. He wants us to have confidence in him. And so we need to stop that spiral before it starts. We just, it's better to just go ahead every day and say and determine God, I'm going to walk in the spirit and I will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I am going to walk in the spirit. And and so the answer so much to the sin problem is not trying not to, but trying to do something positive, trying to love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength, trying to pray and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And not be drunk with wine, where is an excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, and my dad spoke on that just on Sunday, uh, but that filled. It's so important because it keeps us so far away, out of the spiral and it affects our prayer life. You can see, it affects with the way our answer to prayer come, comes to pass. It affects, uh, the way we act toward others. Um, so then if we go back, I'm going to get to the very end of the spiral of sin.
Speaker 1:If you want to turn back to first John, where you just were, I'm sorry, I did not tell you to keep your finger there. Y'all forgive me. First John, it's just a few pages back toward toward the end. So it says this is the confidence you know if we have, uh, it he hears us whatever we ask. We have it in verse 16.
Speaker 1:If anyone sees his brother sending a sin which does not lead to death does not lead to death I, every time I read that, I'm like that puts the fear of God in me. If we see our brother sending a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask and he will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. In other words, we can have plenteous redemption, we can have forgiveness for all of those If we could do. 1 John 1, 9,. If any man confesses sin, then God is faithful and just to forgive it and cleanse it completely away, so we can do that. But there is a sin leading to death. That's what the word says. There is that sin. I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is a sin, but there is a sin not leading to death.
Speaker 1:Most of our sin is something that we can just easily deal with While it's small. While it's little, we can just nip it. I know as a parent, when we have a toddler, who's willful and who who step? You know, oh, don't, don't step over that line. You need to stay close to mommy, stay, don't step over that line. What is the first thing that toddler does? He scoots up to that line and he might put his fat little toe over it. And what does he do? And um, and so isn't it better, when it's just something small like that, to discipline that child and make sure that he understands there's a loving boundary, when, the, when, the, when it's small, when the infraction is small and not great? And so that's the way our loving father does to us. He finds a way to reach us when our infractions are small and the consequences are small, and that way we can always stay close to him.
Speaker 1:But that sin leading to death has always been a challenge for me, because I do so trust in the righteousness of God, I do so trust in the blood of Jesus. I do so trust in the righteousness of God, I do so trust in the blood of Jesus. But I believe it has to do with the spirit of antichrist. I believe when we let this spiral of sin go, go, go, go, go, go, go go for years, and especially if we have walked a very close walk with the things of God, when we have been associated with the spiritual gifts, when we have even flowed, maybe in a ministry gift, but we've let ourselves get away Sometimes, I believe we can, we can open ourselves up to deception. God's so merciful, but there is that deception that can come on people, and I hate deception. We hate a lie, we hate the devil.
Speaker 1:But that spirit of antichrist is, it is a seducer and it it sounds really good. And so that's why we need to stay so close to the spirit, so that we're not falling into that cycle and that we're not ever susceptible to that spirit of antichrist that would drag us away. But God says hey, everybody, he told the father. Jesus told the father, all that you've given me I've. I've kept every one of them, I've kept every, and so I'm just. I know that I've asked for me in my house. We're going to stay in the loving arms of Jesus and we're not ever turning away. Amen.
Speaker 1:But it starts with just, these are little, we can walk, we can see our lifestyle and kind of and kind of see the signs of it. Now here are the. Let's go for the happy side, back to Galatians 5. What are the signs that we're doing it right? What are the signs that our spirit is fruitful and and that and that we're living out of the works of the spirit? This is what our children's ministry is learning right now.
Speaker 1:Uh, but the fruit of the spirit. Notice that the works of the flesh works are plural. There are lots of work to the flesh, but there's one whole fat fruit of the spirit that kind of comes as a set, and that fruit of the spirit is all of these things Love, joy, peace, long suffering or patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And there's no law against any of that faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, and there's no law against any of that. So those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires, and if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let's so. In other words, we're um, our lifestyle is going to show that what our spirit, our spiritual state is with me and Jesus, that relationship that I have with him, is going to show in the way I live and um and so that's God's, that's God's plan.
Speaker 1:So, um now, just because it's fun, but, um, I want to read the the fruit of the spirit in the message Bible, because and I almost didn't read it I only like some of the phrases. I just thought, since this is kind of a Bible study, you and I together that I thought I would show you that sometimes different versions of the Bible are. You know, the entire spirit of the word is God breathed and it is His holy written love letter to us and it's holy and it's unchangeable. But these translations were written by men, they were translated from the original, and the Message Bible was actually a very recent translation. So I actually found a couple of things in this passage right here in the Message Bible, that are contradictory to other things in the Word, and I'm so as just a transparent person, I'm going to point them out to you when we read them. But there are some other phrases that I think are neat. To put it in perspective, here we go, galatians 5.22 in the Message Bible.
Speaker 1:What happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives. Much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard. Our children's ministry teachers, miss Liz and Miss Allison, dressed like little orchard girls the other day. They had their little straw hats on and their overalls and they were like, ooh, we're gonna work in the orchard. It was adorable, but we really do. Our lives are like an orchard and there are, there are fruits popping out, all right. So we know that love is the first fruit of the spirit.
Speaker 1:In the message Bible it says affection for others. Agape is so much better than just affection for others. So I'm going to. I'm going to ixnay on the message on that. Agape love is complete, unconditional love that you have, the same love that Jesus poured out upon you by dying on the cross, by giving himself for you, asking nothing in return, gave you everything. That agape love is a fruit of the spirit and that way you can walk in that to others. It's powerful, it's awesome. So you want to translate that affection for others? I think that's wimpy, but, um, but it gets better. Uh, joy.
Speaker 1:They translated exuberance about life. I like that. How about let's have some exuberance about life? This is the fruit of the spirit. Serenity now, I believe that was peace, but they translated it serenity. I'll take that. I'll take that. I would like to have a serene, calm feeling about things and not have a bunch of anxiety. Amen. We develop a willingness to stick with things. That must be patience, a sense of compassion in the heart. Okay, that must be kindness. I think that's good Kindness, compassion in the heart. Here's what I don't like.
Speaker 1:How many of y'all have your message Bible open Instead of saying goodness, which good old goodness? That's a fruit of the spirit to be a good person that God recognizes as a good person made in his image. But here's the way the message said it a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. I did not. I did not think that that was good. So you can't trust every translation of the Bible. That's my lesson here.
Speaker 1:Does basic holiness permeate all things and people? No, the word says that the heart of man is desperately wicked, that all the people around us, if they are not saved, if they are not born again, they desperately need salvation and they're on the wrong track, that the world around us is not basically good but is destined for judgment. And then, someday, god will reconcile all of it to himself. But, dear Lord, holiness, does not permeate this world system. The spirit of the age does, and that is unholy so. But we can be good, amen, all right.
Speaker 1:And then we find ourselves in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life. Not needing to force our way in life. That's gentleness. We don't need to force our way in life. Gentleness is a fruit of the spirit. We don't have to force things. God will open doors for you. Your gift makes room for you. A fruit of the spirit is having just gentleness and then able to marshal and direct our energies wisely. That's self-control. We can direct our energies where God leads us. I like those things, so some of them I like, and I thought I'd share them with you. But there, there you go. Those are fruits of the spirit. Uh, that and. But it's one fruit, it's one giant fruit that's working in our lives as a whole, and we can have that if we, if we walk in the spirit.
Speaker 1:I just want to close with the fact that um John 15, five says Jesus said this I'm the vine and you are the branches. And, um, he who abides in me, and I and him, bears much fruit. Everybody say much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me, though verse seven if you abide in me and Jesus and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. Are you seeing a sub heading in this message tonight? God wants to answer your prayers, he wants to meet your requests, he wants to answer the desires of your heart. And then it's beyond that. It says verse eight by this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so you will be my disciples. So fruit is answered, prayer, fruit is love, joy, peace and all of these other fruits of the spirit. This brings glory to God, this brings us this, this brings us into communion with him, and this makes our father proud.
Speaker 1:As a parent, have your kids ever done anything that you're proud of? Have they ever? You know, you have the creative life of God in you and, and I can't tell you recently, my son stood up on the stage on just on Sunday and he played a guitar that he made out of, uh, exotic hardwoods that he bought at a lumber store and uh, and then every day a little Amazon package would arrive with little metal parts in it and little connectors and little electric guitar parts that I don't know what they do, but he put them all together, he shaped that thing, he sanded it and sanded it again and finished it and he played that and it sounded great. On Sunday I was so proud of him. But in the same way that I'm proud that my son made something beautiful, made a guitar, made an instrument of worship to the Lord, how much more your heavenly father, when you build something, when you do something for the kingdom of God, when you, even if it's just something, on your job.
Speaker 1:I talked to one of our friends here in the church on Sunday who was building an entire platform of software for a whole industry and she hit a hard spot. She thought she was stuck. She thought her investors were going to be upset with her. So she went to another company and she a friend there and helped advise her. And they said, wow, what you've built here is amazing. This one part of it over here, all by itself. If you just develop this one part, no one in the industry has this and it can be marketed and sold and it can. She was flabbergasted, she was amazed, but God used her to create something very helpful for her industry and for her investors.
Speaker 1:God will use you. What is God using you? You are a builder, you are growing something, you are producing something and it's making God proud. And so just rest in that, just commune with him, walk in the flesh, I'm sorry walk in the spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh, and that is your victory over that habitual sin. It's awesome to walk with God, it's awesome to walk with him. So I just want to encourage you with that tonight. I hope that blessed you. I hope that's something that's relatable for you, that you can do in your life.