Welcome to the Cross Power Church podcast.
You're listening to a service from our church in Campbell, TX.
We pray this message strengthens your faith and points you to the
cross. Now let's join the service.
Have your Bibles this morning, kids.
You can be dismissed to the back.
We got three classes back there. Just get with with someone and
they will lead you in the right direction.
And we're going to try to get through this this morning fast.
I got a lot to cover. Hey, man, let's stay in the
reading of the word titled this message this morning From a
slave to a son. Can I say that again?
From a slave to a son. You know, we listened today and
slavery was a terrible thing, but yet today we're still in
slavery. We're still slaves, many people,
slaves to the world, slaves to career, slaves to relationships.
I want to kind of teach today a little bit and preach to about
how to how to not be a slave, but how how to go from a slave
to a son. You know, there's many in the
people. There's the many people in the
body of Christ are still slaves because they're they're slaves
to their former life. They haven't been born again.
They haven't sold out to the things of the world.
So it it feels like a little bit of bondage, a little bit of
slavery that goes on in our spirit realm.
Will y'all preach with me today? Galatians chapter 3 and verse 26
it says for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ
Jesus. Somebody ought to say man, for
as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
And in verse 28, he says there is neither Jew nor Greek.
I like to throw in Baptist or Pentecostal right there,
Presbyterian, Catholics or Lutherans.
There's neither. We could add that right there.
If you, if there's any place that could be added today that
it was the same thing he was saying, Jew or Greek, there's
neither slave nor free. He goes a little deeper, says
there's neither male nor female. Those of you don't like women
preachers, there's neither male nor female, for we're all one in
Christ, man, If we could just grasp that, if we could just
grasp that we're one in one in Christ, we could come out of so
much slavery and bondage of of relationships, of denominational
things that we're bound to, of things that we have been taught.
That's incorrect. That's not in the word of God.
Or maybe it's there that's been twisted.
We could just come from a slave to a son, he said.
There's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female
for you are all one in Christ and if you are Christ, then
you're Abraham's seed boy. That opens up a huge door and
heirs. That means we're going to
inherit something according to the promise over 7000 of them in
this book and in verse four, he says, now I say that the heir,
that's us, right? If we put on Christ.
This really got me when I read this the air.
The one that's going to receive this promise is us.
But as long as he is a child, he does not differ from a slave.
See, there's some things when I'm a child in the Kingdom, when
I'm a child in Christ, I'm still a slave because there's some
things that I have not learned. Well, we'll preach this today
and we refuse to leave them because when we first come to
Christ, we automatically think we know something that that
other people already have learned and known.
But yet he, the apostle Paul said you're a baby.
He said you need the milk of the word.
You can't live on what I chew on every day.
Hello, he says, some of you need some milk, you need a bottle and
I have to stick a pacifier in your mouth.
You're not ready for the things that you're going to have to
chew and digest and grind on a little bit, right?
So he says that a heir, even though you're receiving the
promise many, you're still a child.
And a child does not differ from a slave.
That's powerful, though he is master of all.
That means there's something. We can master all things, but
not if we're still a child. That's why he says he's under
guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father.
Hello, I've never seen so many Christians that I've been
walking with the Lord since 17 to 55, a long time.
And he's taught me a lot of stuff.
A lot of things I had to learn the hard way.
But it amazes me how new converts automatically know more
than we do today. I'm just going to be honest with
you. They've read the scripture a few
times. They know more.
They're not willing to learn anything, not willing to know
more about their Lord because they think they know everything.
I'm just going to preach it. Verse 3 says, Even so, we, when
we were children were in bondage under the elements of the world.
If you're in bondage, just one of the elements of the world,
you're still a babe in Christ. But when the fullness of time
had come, I heard a great theologian teaching on that the
other day, and he thoroughly confused me.
The fullness of time was when God decided to send forth truth
into the world had come. God sent forth His Son, born of
a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the
law, that we might receive adoption as sons.
Verse 6. And because you are sons of God,
God has sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts.
Aren't you glad crying out, ABBA Father, ABBA, Father, therefore
you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir
of God through Christ Jesus. What a promise.
Father, we thank you for your word today.
We think it's truth in life. We pray that your word would
change us today, that it would fall upon good ground, Father,
that you just embedded in our hearts and our minds that we're
no longer slaves to this world. We're no longer slaves to
religion, but we are. We are sons and heirs and join
heirs through Christ Jesus. This morning I pray for the
anointing to preach the gospel once again.
It's in your son's name we do this.
Amen. He said he sent forth his son
and we can cry out. ABBA Father, I was on a
conversation several years ago with a guy and he said, you
know, my boys are 30 now and he'd give them a lot of stuff in
the rodeo business and trucks and trailers and horses.
And he asked me, he said, your kids are still little.
But he said, when do we come to the point that that we're
father? He said, I want to be father for
a little while because every time I hear daddy, I know it
means it's going to cost me a lot.
Daddy, you have those that call that say, hey, what are you
doing? Yeah, I just, I know it's a what
in the voice I need. Sometimes it's the only time
they call, right? Hey, what are you doing?
My daughter-in-law does that. She admitted it the other day,
Hey, when I say hey, that's what this is talking about here, he
says that we're now sons so we can say ABBA.
ABBA is the closest form of saying daddy.
It moves us from father to it means father in the Hebrew,
Greek, but it's a closeness. It's a, it's daddy father.
See, we're an heir, one who inherits something or who is
entitled to a future inheritance.
That's us through Christ Jesus. If we, if we have claimed him as
our Lord and savior, we are now an heir and a joint heir with
Christ Jesus. We have a lot of promise, but
we're no longer a slave, but a son.
And if you're a son, then an heir of God.
But see a slave, when we look at what a slave was and where
slavery started in Egypt, it was slave labor.
It was hard, hard work. Out of Egypt, the law begin to
attach right to the children of Israel, and the law was a task
master and we couldn't keep it. Many couldn't keep it.
It was harsh punishment even to death when certain laws were
broken. If you don't have anything to
thank the Lord about today, thinking that we're not under
the law, but we're under grace, Amen.
It couldn't be kept, but he came to redeem those.
Verse 5 says that was under the law that we might inherit
something God sent forth his son that we can cry ABA Father in
our time of need, but see in this world today.
And yes, within the body of Christ there's mass confusion
because many say that when Christ came, the law was null
and void. But under the law there were 600
and some odd commandments and there was 10 directly to those
that believe in God and we couldn't keep them.
Hello, we couldn't keep them. But here's what Jesus said about
the law. Let's go to Matthew chapter 5.
I think a lot of people, I hear this all the time.
Well, I don't have to live this way.
I don't have to do this because we're not under the law, we're
under grace. Anybody ever heard that?
That's not what Jesus said we are.
That is a true statement, but that is a prime example of the
word of God being twisted. We are not under the law.
We are under the dispensation of grace on planet earth because
Jesus Christ came and he was the ultimate blood sacrifice, right?
But that does not annul us from the law because Apostle Paul
said had it not been for the law, I wouldn't know how to
live. Amen.
And we'll see what Jesus said about it in in Matthew chapter
5. He said, And because you are
sons, because we are sons, God has sent forth his spirit of his
Son into your hearts. Crying ABBA Father.
We cry ABBA father in Matthew 5 here and in verse 17, it says,
do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.
I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
That's a powerful statement of the six hundreds of Jesus said I
came that you can do it. For surely, I say to you, till
heaven and earth pass away. He was very serious about this.
Not one jot or title will by no means pass from the law till
it's fulfilled. Whoever, therefore breaks one of
the least of these commandments, and teaches men to do so, shall
be called the least in the Kingdom of heaven.
But whoever does and teaches them shall be called great in
the Kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you that unless
your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and
the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of
heaven. Jesus was pretty serious about
the law. He said, I did not come to annul
the law, but see under the law all these things were to be
kept. You could be put to death.
But he said I didn't come to abolish or destroy it.
I came to fulfill the law so that not one jot or title could
be taken out, but see to full to fulfill and obey the
commandments of God. Anybody having trouble obeying
the commandments of God? I'm going to teach you today a
way to do it as a slave to Egypt, as a slave to the law.
And now the children is were walking around in the desert for
40 years, right? Because they were slaves 3 times
over. They were a slave to Egypt
because their mind kept going back to Egypt where their belly
was fed, they had to work, but all needs were met.
Kind of like the modern day American.
Amen. We tend to not worry about the
things of God until we see a shutdown or till we see
something that cost us a little bit and then all of a sudden we
get worried about it, right? We get to praying about it.
We get to seeking God because we're a slave to Egypt.
The children of Israel wandering around the desert, knowing God
had a promise, knowing God had a destination that they were to
arrive at, but yet they even said it many times.
We wish we could have just stayed in Egypt even though we
were under heavy bondage. Hello.
I've heard Christians say that. Well, I'm just going to go back
over here and go to doing the things I used to do with the
world because it was a lot easier than trying to get those
things off of me. It was a lot easier than than
hoping that God would drop down out of heaven and do something
for me. It was easier for a lot of
people, and they've never tasted the goodness of God, so they
don't know how to step into the realm of those things because
they're a slave to Egypt. And then we become a slave to
the law. The things that the Bible says
we're supposed to do, like the Apostle Paul, and the things we
want to do, we do not, right? We find ourselves doing those
things. But see, there was one way to
get to God, and it was to talk to God.
The only way was a sacrifice of a blood sacrifice, and it had to
be made for an atonement of sin. It had to be laid on the altar.
We couldn't just walk in here this morning and worship God
under the law. There were some things.
Go to Hebrews Chapter 9 and you can go home and read about this.
I'm going to read a little bit one through 15 just to tell you
how thankful you ought to be today for grace.
It says Then indeed even the first covenant had ordinance of
divine service and the earthly sanctuary for the Tabernacle was
prepared. The first part in which was the
lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the
sanctuary, and behind the second veil as part of the Tabernacle.
And Hebrews 9, which is called the holiest of all, which had
the golden censor, the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on the
sides with gold. The ark represented what the
presence of God also in the Ark of the Covenant was what it was
Aaron's staff, and it was also the tablets of the 10
commandments. It wasn't just a blessing thing.
It would kill you if you handled it wrong.
And which were the golden pot that had manna Aaron's rod
butted in the tablets of the covenant, and above it were the
cherubims of glory over showing the mercy seat of these things,
which we cannot now speak in detail.
But he says now when these things had been thus prepared,
the priest always went into the first part of the Tabernacle,
performing the services only the priest, but into the second
part, the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood,
which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed
in ignorance. The Holy Spirit indicating this,
that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.
While the first Tabernacle was still standing, the priest would
go in to speak with God, and they'd tie a rope around their
foot. And if they weren't found holy
and living right, they would drop dead.
And they had the rope around their foot where they could drag
them out. And and all these things go home
and read about it was symbolic for the present time in which
both gifts and sacrifices were offered, which cannot make him
perform the service perfect in regard to consciousness
concerned only with foods and drinks and various washings and
fleshly ordinances impose impose until the time of reformation.
Let's stay with me in verse 11. I love this right here it says
but Christ came, but Christ came.
Now you can talk to Him anytime. Christ came as a high priest of
good things to come with the greater, more perfect
Tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation,
not with the blood of goats or cares, but with His own blood.
He entered the most Holy place. Say it with me once and for all,
having it tame eternal redemption.
For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer
sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the impurity of
the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through
eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse
your conscience from dead works to serve a living God?
A lot of Christians need to be reminded your works are not
dead, they're alive in Christ Jesus.
And for this reason he is the mediator of the new covenant by
means of death for the redemption of the transgression
under the first covenant that those who are called may receive
the promise of an eternal inheritance.
See, the first covenant was slavery, could not do it.
But the second covenant was freedom.
I'm so thankful for that today. But see that the difference in
the two. See, people would offer these
things, but yet there was not much change.
They would go out, they would break the commandments, they
would come in, offer, do these things.
But I want you to write this down if you're taking notes
today. Deliverance gets you out of
Egypt, but discipleship gets the Egypt out of you.
See, deliverance will only get you out of the place.
I'm not there anymore, but yet many people come out of that
place, but there's still a slave to it because the mind has not
been yet been renewed. The apostle Paul says I have to
renew the mind daily. I have to take every thought
that comes into this brain. Go try that tomorrow instead of
worrying about all the other mess that you got to do.
Take every thought captive and bring it under the authority and
the submission of the Word of God.
And then he says be ready to punish the disobedience.
Be ready to punish. I was only I was going to a job
one time of the contract and I needed it very badly.
And the man I was talking to on the phone, every word, he was
cussing God, every word. I had equipment on the trailer.
I didn't know how I was going to pay for it.
I was, I've been out of work for a while.
All I know is I heard the voice of God that says, do not be
unequally yoked with this person.
They're cussing me and you think they're going to bless you.
They're cussing me and you think they're going to pay you.
And I called, I said, I can't work here.
I said we're, we're unequally yoked.
Go chew on that. Maybe it changed his life.
I've heard that voice and I've obeyed that voice.
I've also heard that voice. I said, but I need it.
I'm going owe me $20,000 later, never getting paid.
I learned to listen to that voice more.
Hey man, we tend to not do that. We have to take the thoughts
captive. We had to bring them because
see, deliverance get you out of Egypt, but discipleship will get
the Egypt out of you. The children of Israel, they
were always wanting to go back. I see a Christian testimonies
today and sometimes they act as if they miss that life.
They act as if they want to go back to that.
They act as if that life is is robbing of something and God is
not replacing it. That's because they've only been
delivered. They hadn't been discipled to
get the Egypt out of us. A man the day and age that we
live in, we got to get the Egypt out of us.
The children of Israel always wanted to go back.
We'd rather died over there where we had our needs met.
Christians are like that too. As long as our needs met with
this happy little smiley Christian.
But you let the bank account get a little bit low, you let
something go wrong, somebody offend us and we're no longer
the smiley little Christian that will keep you from going
forward. Can I say that again that will
keep you from not not a lot of people's interested in going
forward in the spirit realm. They only come to God so he can
bless them in the flesh. Hello, Why?
Because they still got Egypt in them.
They hadn't been delivered from Egypt.
I won't delivered from Egypt. It's so true today.
To go forward as a child of God, you have to be delivered
deliverance get you out of Egypt.
I like that don't you? But discipleship, being Christ
like get you out. Gets the Egypt out of you.
Discipleship leads to sonship. Sonship leads to airship.
I was working hard one day had a you.
You want a job? You want to challenge your flesh
today? Go work a couple 1314 year olds
that people in the churches sent you and they want you to work
their little baby. I don't do that no more because
me and that parent don't think alike.
A lot of times when I was growing up, you got paid, you
did the work or else a boot would come your way.
Nowadays you can't even say get to work.
You're pushing them. Amen.
But I was working someone day. We man.
Well, they did good that day. They don't even go here.
No more time has passed. They're grown.
But we're sitting on there and it was hot and we'd done a day's
work, but I'd worked in about 12 hours of Chase knows I used to
not feed them real good. His mother would always call me
when he was much smaller. Did you feed that baby?
I said baby's OK. Look at it.
He's bigger than me. But when I was young, I didn't
like to eat lunch. And he would find something
somewhere. We would eat something.
But I'm sitting there with these 1314 year olds and we were
sitting there. I said, look at that.
What we just did. We built that.
We did. I was proud of what we did.
They did good, you know, And they're sitting there and it's
hot. And I said, man, don't it feel
good to get out of the house and get something done.
And I said, don't it help your manhood a little bit?
One of them said, no, not really.
It just makes me tired. I said it don't feel different
to accomplish something today that you've never done.
Don't it, boy, I'm trying to line up, you know, pretty soon
you just say I ain't sure I can help them.
There's no motivation. It's no different in the body of
Christ. Some people can sit back at the
end of the day and know that they've done nothing for Christ
and it not really bother, not really matter, but it matters to
God. In Ephesians 4 and 11 and 13, he
says until we all come to the unity of the faith and the
knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man.
I don't think the apostle Paul would put that in there if we
couldn't be that to the measure of the stature of the fullness
of Christ. But see, the problem is passing,
passing from sonship, from slavery to sonship.
Hebrews says that there's a great verse in Hebrews that says
that we can approach how many know where that is?
That we can approach the throne of grace.
Thank God because of Jesus, there's now a throne of grace
and he says that we can approach it with boldness in our time of
need. I've noticed there's two ways
that many approach the throne of grace with boldness.
We approach it many with many ways.
It's approached many times. And I think if we could get
this, if we could get that, we're not a slave anymore, but
we're a son of God. But see, the first way is to
approach the throne of grace. If you're in slavery, you can't
approach it with boldness, right?
If you're living in the world, if you're living in things that
the Holy Spirit has tugged at your heart about stopping doing
in your life, whatever it is, you know, we brush it off.
We're not that important. Like I said, we're like the boys
on the tailgate. We just long as it didn't cost
us nothing that day, didn't have to make us tired.
We didn't have to get out of bed, We didn't have to sweat.
We didn't have to show up for work that day.
Spiritually, it's OK with a lot of people.
But see, all the time we're doing that, the enemy's tearing
us apart. Because when we, when we fall
short of the glory of God, when we just walk away from God, when
we miss church on a regular basis, when we don't pray on a
regular basis, when we don't read the word of God on a
regular basis. You can't approach the throne of
grace with boldness because it's in your mind, right, that I
haven't spent time with God. Why would God do anything for
me? I hadn't even been living for
him. I hadn't been doing these
things. So we're approaching this throne
at this time as a beggar. I don't like approaching the
throne as a beggar. It has helped me get over a lot
of things in my life because I don't like to have to come and
beg. God forgive me, I'm not worthy.
But see, the Bible says that's a slave.
But when I'm a son, it says that I can approach the throne of
grace with boldness. God will meet you as a beggar,
but he will also allow you to leave that place of begging and
get up as a millionaire. Amen.
He'll allow you to leave that place that you're just an old
beggar begging for. Always forgiveness to get up to
a place that says, I'm redeemed by the grace of God today.
I'm going to walk in his, in his commandments, and I'm going to
live for God. And at the end of the day, I'm
going to sit on the tailgate and I'm going to look at something
that I've done spiritually for God and say, and God is building
something within me that the enemy cannot tear down.
I'm not condemned as I preached a few weeks ago, because I'm now
in Christ Jesus. I'm not a slave.
Amen to the world because I've become a disciple.
And you can't become a disciple of Christ, which is Christ like.
And a Christian is what Christ like without coming out from
under the slavery. I'm not a slave, but I'm a son.
If I'm a son, I'm an heir. That makes me a candidate.
To do what? To receive the promise.
So today what happens is the grace and the law.
Grace is what unmerited favor. It is God withholding that from
you and I, which we deserve. That is grace.
I'm forgiven if I repent. That is so true.
But what happens if I keep on doing it?
Does grace cover it? You know, who knows the answer
to that? You and I don't.
He said he's faithful and just to forgive us of all of our sins
if we repent. When Jesus said repent, when the
apostle Paul said repent, it meant to turn and go the other
way. It didn't say to come back
tomorrow, right? So the forgiveness that I have,
I have to accept it. I have to believe it.
So grace is unmerited favor. But if I keep doing it over and
over again, I'm not judging you. You ask God the question is that
OK, Does grace have me? I can tell you this, if you're
living that way, you're a gambler and it's a high stakes
because it's eternity that you're gambling with because God
only knows that question. God only knows if you truly
repented. But see, our actions can show
that we truly repented if we do not return to it again, right?
It means we're done with it. We've come out from under that
slavery, but you're gambling with a soul for eternity and one
day you could lose. But see the law, There's a lot
of people that live by that. I've quit all the old vices.
Really. That's good.
What are you doing for God? I have this gift.
I had that gift. I have this.
You know, some people want to tell you all the gifts they got.
What are you doing with it? Are you producing fruit with the
gift God give you? If not, it's just a gift that
doesn't produce who? It's getting quiet.
I've quit this and I've quit that and many find justification
under what they quit. Hello.
Why did you quit it? Why did God deliver you from it?
So you can go tell your story, so you can go help somebody
that's struggling, not tell them that I'm not doing anymore.
You say, brother, I've been there.
I'm facing what you're facing. But by the grace of God, one day
I walked out of that old pit of slavery and whom the sunset free
was free indeed. I've walked out of that.
Don't mean that I couldn't be under it again very quickly, but
I've walked out of it. But many people find
justification in what they've quit.
I look at the things that I've quit as I could be right back in
them at any moment if I don't seek God in my life.
But just as Hebrews says, what the law could not do, Christ did
in his fullness by coming, by coming for us.
See, many Christians, they never receive things because they're
like the boys on the tailgate. I think many Christians never
receive things because we don't lay down the habits and the sins
that so easily beset us. Hello.
When God's dealing with us about something in our life, it's for
a reason. And I know most of us here,
we've overcome a lot of those things, but they're still things
that can keep us from being the fullness of Christ.
He said it was the sin that so easily besets us, and there's
even sin the Bible speaks of that doesn't lead to death, but
yet it can separate us from the blessings of God.
But so many times I think we don't receive the fullness of
Christ. Ephesians 4 and and 17 and six
goes on talking about fivefold ministries, about apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in the church.
God longs to give each and every one of those those gifts.
But it's easier to sit on the tailgate and say God didn't give
me that. I've never read where God
wouldn't give it. He said when he ascended on
high, he give gifts to men. So if he give it, I got to
receive it. And I can't just receive it and
look at it. I got to open it.
Hey, man, I got to see what's in it.
And most time when God gives you a gift, there's a little
instruction in there about what you're going to have to do to
operate in this gift. Hey, man.
And the gift will change your life.
The gift will change your life. But it's easier to sit well like
that. It's easier to sit on the
tailgate. It's easier to not get up.
It's easier to not do anything. But many don't receive the gifts
because they returned to bondage.
As I read in Galatians 4 it's we're in this week beggarly
elements to whom? Let's go.
Let's go back to that. I want to read it again.
Galatians 4. We're in the week beggarly
elements. Where'd we stop at a while ago
8. I think it's five.
I'm looking 4 to redeem those under the law, Galatians four
and five, that we might receive adoption of sons as sons.
Because you are sons. God has sent forth the Spirit
into our hearts, crying ABBA, Father, therefore you're no
longer a slave, but a son, And if a son, then an heir of God in
Christ Jesus. But then indeed, when you did
not know God, you serve those which by nature are not gods.
Anybody ever been there, anybody ever had a God in their life,
but it wasn't a God at all. But now after you have known
God, they he explains the difference here.
But now I know God. Now I know better, right?
I know God. But now after you have known God
and and look how deep the look how deep Paul says here, he
says, or rather now you are even known by God.
How is it that you turn again to the weak, beggarly elements to
which you desire again to be in bondage?
Anybody ever been there? You observed days and months and
seasons and years. I'm afraid for you lest I have
labored in vain, Apostle Paul said.
I haven't preached all this stuff to you.
You ought to know better. You known by God.
God loves you. You ought to know better.
But why do you want to go back to Egypt?
Many go back to Egypt because they ain't been discipled.
Many today ain't been discipled because they're unwilling to
learn, because they think it's salvation.
They know the whole Bible. Somebody say, man, I remember
the day I was a beggar. How about you?
But I came up a millionaire. You remember the day.
Maybe you went down sick, but you come up well, you went down
addicted, but you're free. Discipleship will teach you how
to never go back to Egypt, come out of slavery into sonship.
Romans 6, let's read. I'm giving you the word this
morning. Reading a lot of scripture here,
but Romans 6, Romans 6, go home and read the whole chapter.
But I'm going to read here in verse 15 and I'm going to start
in verse 15 from slaves of sin, the slaves of God, what the
title of my of it says here, but it's a different type of
slavery. It's a freedom.
Apostle Paul says what then? Shall we sin because we are not
under the law, but under grace? Certainly not.
Do you not know that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey,
you're that one slaves whom you obey, whether a sin leading to
death or of obedience leading to righteousness.
Could God be think that though you were slaves of sin, yet you
obeyed from the heart? How do you remember the day you
obeyed from the heart and got it out of your mind?
I'll never forget a rodeo. One time this big old, tough,
stout bulldog came to God and came to the Lord, came to know
Jesus. And we was waiting for this big,
old powerful testimony. There was a lot of people there.
I thought, man, this guy was a heathen for the world.
I want to hear him preach. And he got up there and he
looked around. There's a lot of people there
that day. Coy put him front and center and
they, he said, he said, you know, it's, it's really easy to
serve God and to become a Christian.
He said all I did was take him out of here and put him in here
and he walked and sat down. I thought that's powerful.
That's what a lot of people need to do.
Take him out of your head. Quit talking yourself into not
obeying. Many people talk their self into
not obeying and you can get on YouTube and find a teaching of
why you shouldn't obey the Bible today.
But he says here of obedience leading to righteous but God be
think that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed
from the heart. I challenge you today.
Obey from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were
delivered. I love that people need
delivered from their doctrine today.
And having been set free from sin, you become a slave to
righteousness. Hold on, pastor, you said we're
not slaves, we're a son. We're slaves to righteousness.
I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.
For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness
and of lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present
your members of slaves of righteousness for holiness.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to
righteousness. Didn't think about it much.
What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now
ashamed? Was there any fruit in that?
For the end of those things is death.
But now, having been set free from sin, having become slaves
of God, you have your fruit of holiness and the end everlasting
life. In verse 23, one of the most
educating scriptures in the Bible that we just can't get.
It's like 2 + 2 is 4, but we can't get the scripture.
Many people can't get the scripture it says for the wages
of sin is death, but the gift of God is what eternal life.
See the only way this happens. I believe it's the hardest thing
that I've ever done. Anybody ever had to lay down
habits because you felt God telling you that'll kill you,
that'll, that'll, that'll ultimately kill you or that
habit or, or you knew you was just drinking what you want to
drink, getting in a vehicle and driving it.
Maybe he's going to kill somebody else and you heard the
voice of God saying don't do that.
You don't need to do this. Or maybe it was when somebody
makes you mad, you just free flow with the tongue and you
hurt people and and these things or you get mad and all the I'm
going to meddle a little bit now, but this will change your
life. See the only way you become not
a slave to those things and there's people battling them for
years and we look at the how we get our eyes on the thing.
We get our eyes on all the things in our life that aren't
lining up with the word of God. And they're a bunch.
But you know what I got to do every day I've learned it's the
hardest thing I've ever done. I'll never I'll never forget
when God called me in the ministry full time at one place.
I didn't want to hear one place I wanted to preach, but not in
one place. I had new pastors, I had friends
and and now today it's still it's just like eras are being
fired man five times this week. See what the Satan is not just
attacking the church, he's attacking the the leadership,
he's attacking the pastors and their wife 55 divorces in the
body of Christ as pastors. I've heard of this week this
week because see if he can get me to fall.
He can get you to question shouldn't be that way because
I'm going to fall if I get out from on the grace of God and and
every day you're going to fall. There's habits you don't like.
There's things you don't like in your life.
You're going to go back to in the flesh, but the only way that
I found to be a son and not a slave you as we stand our feet
today I want you to hear me if you've heard anything I say
today is your eyes are closed and your heads are bad.
If there's any way that we're going to be not become a slave
to Egypt, if we can deliver ourself, you know, I know people
that's delivered their self through of things just by
thinking on it with with positive talks.
That's a great thing. It can be delivered.
But see, the Egypt will still be in you.
But I'm going to tell you, get your eyes off of whatever it is.
Think about the things today that God's told you.
It's got to go. It needs to go.
The reason God wants us to go is to make room for something
better that he's going to give you.
He wants it to be better. Amen.
Because see as salvation sticks with us as it as it doesn't just
just leave us. We can all we can go back and we
can repent and we can change that salvation's there.
But see, the Helper, the third member of the Godhead, the Holy
Spirit, He tells you it's wrong. And when you walk out and you go
to do in the whatever it is or your mind wandering, I'm not
just talking about the fleshly sins, I'm talking about just not
obeying God can become a sin in your life.
But see, when you do that, the Holy Spirit, he begins to
withdraw. And then we have to go back to
this place of repentance. And then we have to work our
step, get back to where we're hearing from God and where we're
knowing what God wants us to do. But I'm fixing to give it to you
the only way. That I have found not to go back
to Egypt, not to go back to Egypt.
And it's the hardest thing. We, we put things on the altar
many times. The thing that we think is
keeping us from serving God. The thing that we think is
pulling us down. But I challenge you.
The hardest thing that you will ever do, I have found in my
life, is to put me on the altar, to lay down my life.
That's the hardest thing. And then you will not be a
slave, but you will be a son. It's here that I become free to
worship. It's here that I become free to
praise and free to lift up holy hands.
It's there on the altar. Would you tell him I'm going to
put myself on the altar? I'm going to forget about the
vices and the habits today, and I'm going to put myself on the
altar today. Just as Abraham offered up
Isaac. He didn't pull no punches.
He said this is what you require, God.
This is what I'm going to give so that I can come from a flood,
a slave to a son, from a son to an heir.
How many would come today and say, I want to put myself on the
altar? I put some things on the altar,
pastor. But today I want to lay down my
life. I want to hear the voice of God.
I want to respond when I hear him call.
I'm tired of the battle. I'm tired of the struggle.
I want to lay down once and for all my life.
To put me on the altar is the hardest thing because see, when
you put yourself on the altar, your will dies, Your will
changes by the Holy Spirit. I've never seen a time that
God's children aren't willing to put their self on the altar.
We put our wants on the altar, but what about our self?
Thanks for listening to the Cross Power Church podcast.
May you know that true hope, peace, and salvation can only be
found in Jesus. If you're near Campbell, TX, we
would love for you to join us in person.
You can find service times at crosspowerchurch.com.