You've tuned into a mega church. We are people hungry to
encounter God through worship and His Word being witnesses to
the world around us. We pray this teaching blesses
you and trust God will reveal Himself to you in a new way
today. And if you need prayer for
healing or breakthrough? Want to find out more about
Omega? Head to our website or Facebook
page through the links below. So now we will go into we
continue our study with the book of Galatians chapter 5, verse 13
onwards. You my brothers, were called to
be free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful
nature. Do you remember?
It is the same kind of a verse that he used in verse one.
What did he say there? It is for freedom that Christ
has set us free. Stand firm.
So he starts saying for freedom you have been set free.
So stand firm. That is verse one number one.
Now in verse 13 he says were called to be free.
Everybody say called to be free, you are called to be free.
But what does freedom mean to you?
Can we do whatever we like? Just because I am free, I can do
whatever I like. Can you do that?
I will tell you a story about two villages.
This is a fictional story. Basically.
What to drive home the point, I am just not trying to create any
aura around the story. There are two villages and they
had a wooden bridge and people who travel from this village to
that village and vice versa. And they had very good.
It was meeting their needs. Basically it was servicing both
the villages. But one day the government says
to the two villages, we want to set you free.
You are free. You don't have to pay taxes, you
can have your own government. We are not obligated to have any
rules. You know you are free.
So both the villagers celebrated it.
They are dancing and singing and they said oh, we are free, we
are free. Then very soon they started
misusing the freedom they had. What they did was they were
carrying heavy loads across the bridge because they want to sell
more stuff on that side and that village.
People also were trying to bring more heavier vehicles or loads.
And the wooden bridge, you know, has only certain limitation.
And some people were trying to, you know, do all kinds of
mischief. Freedom is, I will tell you what
they were doing. Farmers drove heavier carts
across the bridge to save time. Then merchants push their way
through to get to market. First I want to be first, you
know, into the market. So they are coming rushing.
They were just trying to use their freedom.
Before there was some kind of a restraint that somebody would
look at you and say, hey, be careful, you cannot drive like
that. But now nobody is there to ask.
So they are just rushing. Children played on it, shaking
the rails. That was it past time for the
children go push, pull. And some people thought I am
free to use the wood, go chop the bridge railings and things
like that, take it home for a firewood.
So what happens now after some time?
After some time the bridge was about to break.
The very purpose of the bridge was to make them give them
freedom. So they got freedom and now they
are using their freedom in a wrong way.
So now the bridge is going to collapse.
So elderly gentleman by name Elias, he gathered the people
around and he said to them, guys, one morning an elderly
Carpenter named Elias gathered all the villages.
He pointed to the splintered beams.
This bridge was strong enough for all of us, he said.
Until each of us used our freedom only for ourselves,
Freedom for only. Its like Mega make America great
again. You know, you say to yourself
Ramana is great again or somebody will say Rao will say
make Rao great again. You know stupid, very stupid
slogan and people are running after it and every country wants
to say the same thing. Brazil may say I want to make
Brazil look great again. You know that kind of a thing.
India will say make India great again.
No, no, no, it is globally. We are one human race.
You cannot be putting yourself above others.
Your interest above others is sinful.
That's what I am. I want us to understand
sometimes politics are good, but we have to distinguish bad
politics when you see it, that's the job of a Christian.
OK, now that I did not think of saying it before, you know I
didn't plan to say it. So now this man, he realized it
and using freedom selfishly, they are nearly destroyed.
Everything they connected them, so they build the bridge
together. Now both the various said now
let's make it strong again. So they brought wood and made it
strong. And this time they agreed.
We will use our freedom to serve one another, not to serve
myself. We will serve one another and
they rebuild the bridge and the bridge stood stronger than ever.
Now this story is very, very useful story because so many
times we are very self-centered selfish people.
I have something on slides on the drive I forgot to mention.
Can you please retrieve it for me?
Thank you. So there was 13 you, my brothers
were called to be free. But then what does he say?
But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature.
Do not indulge to do whatever sinful nature is demanding.
That is a picture. I put it there to explain how
should a Christian be? What is special about that?
That photograph there, you know, it's just few trees in the open
land where this breeze, the breeze is very strong for
decades, 10/20, thirty, 4050 years, the wind is blowing and
blowing and blowing and the tree has been rooted so strong.
But the branches are not really cannot do much about it.
So branches were yielding to the wind and they are all blown in
One Direction. They are all blowing in One
Direction. Have you seen some trees like
that? Hey, that's good.
Down South, that is right. This is from New Zealand,
southern most part of New Zealand.
You have got a tree like this. There is one more.
Can you can we see the next one? That one?
How do you like the tree? It is completely, the wind has
done its damage in such a way, but the tree is very strong
still. All the leaves are intact,
branches are intact, but it is completely bent by the wind.
You know the sin also the wind of sin keeps blowing on every
Christian. But the question is where are
your roots? Are your roots strong enough to
withstand the wind? But the difference between a
Christian and a tree is the Christian will stand straight
after all the winds. He because his roots are in
Christ strong, he will stand straight, not bend like the
tree. Here are we together.
How are you handling the issue of sin and temptation?
This is very very important because in us we have got 2
natures. Those who do not know Jesus have
only one nature, sinful nature, but those who are saved by Jesus
Christ. You believe in Jesus, you have
imparted this spiritual life and you have become a living person
because a life of Christ has come to live in you.
The Holy Spirit comes to live in you.
So now you have two natures. 1 is demanding holiness and other
old nature is continuing to say do not worry just enjoy your
life use your freedom. So Paul says don't use your
freedom to indulge in sinful nature.
Now the word indulge in NIV is different words in different
translations. I think it is used as an
occasion. The word don't give occasion to
sin is King James and there is another word called opportunity
in few modern translation. Don't give opportunity for sin
to take root in your life. Why?
Because it is going to ruin your completely, is going to ruin you
completely. So he says the world actually is
a military world. You know, right now I'll give
you an example, modern example. You know, I want to keep it
modern. So the US is wanting to attack
Iran. How can they do it?
They need some base. So what they are trying to do is
they want to use the base from UAE, Oman, Qatar, you know all
those kind of countries. They say can we use your air
base? Can we keep off flights, land
there and take off? They said no, we don't allow you
to use our airspace or our airports to attack Iran.
Are we understanding here? So what is it demanding?
I want you to give me a base. Why he was attacked, Iran, When
you give base to Satan, by obeying sin, you are giving him
that base. And he will attack you more
strongly. He will attack you.
He will completely obliterate you.
I mean, it is not by accident that we are praying.
We pray for people, you know, all the time, every day we are
praying for someone or the other.
So I got a call from a different country, supposed to be a strong
Christian, very strong Christian, and I said what is
happening in your life? I do not believe God anymore.
I thought you are a very strong Christian and how come you have
now come to a point where God does not mean anything to you?
I got problems in marriage. So OK, how did you arrive there?
Because I did this. How did you do that?
Because I have done that other thing.
How did you do that? Because I did some other sin, so
it was just linked to 1 after the other and it was one of the
main things was pornography. That is the one that was
captured, the young man's heart. I said now for 15 years I am a
captive to it. That thing has opened the door
for the devil to come in. And when the devil comes in, you
are given a base for the devil to work in your heart.
And from there he destroys you. He destroys your faith, he
destroys your witness, he destroys your passion for God.
He takes away the desire to worship, desire to obey God, to
read the word. So I told him, OK, we, it is
possible to help, but you know The thing is you need to repent.
And then I said you read this book, I sent the book and I said
take time and confess the bed of Christ.
This is very simple thing. We do the same instruction to
everybody. If he follows it, he, that young
man will come out, his marriage will be saved.
This is very simple like that. So giving base is what it is all
about. You don't give base to the
devil, don't give him a room. It's like a springboard of
action. When you go for swimming, you
want to jump from a high and then they want to dive.
Then you got a springboard and you go jump, jump, jump, jump
into the air and dive. What you are doing is by
opening. When we practice in and we say I
love to do this thing, the devil comes into your life and uses
your life as a springboard. He enjoys jumping on it.
So I just want to make it very, very practically and simple way.
I want to say we don't play with sin just because we have
freedom. If we do that, we are going to
destroy the bridge. The very bridge that was making
life convenient and comfortable will be destroyed.
So that's the whole point of what Paul is saying here, is do
not indulge the sinful nature, do not give base for operations
of the devil in your life. Can I see a hand up if you are
understanding what I am saying? Yeah, that is good.
That is good. So we should be very careful not
to give room to the devil. And then if you do not want to
give room to the devil, how should we do it?
How should we live? We have one more next one.
What is the picture you see there?
It is a self indulgence. I put it there.
Self in your life is self-centered.
The center is all about you, all about me.
What is my breakfast? What is my lunch?
What is my dinner? What am I wearing when I walk
in? Does somebody appreciate my
clothing? Does somebody appreciate my new
haircut? Somebody is all about, you know,
someone talked about this self centeredness so much that one
man wished he were a dead man in a coffin.
So everybody will keep looking into the coffin.
How is that so? This is self-centered life.
Ultimately we will drive to that kind of a situation where you
are dead and in the coffin so people can come and look at you.
So that is the self-centered kind of a life.
Let us see one more picture. What do you see now?
You have two circles. In the previous one we had one
circle with a center dot to represent the center of the
circle. And unfortunately in in Google
Slides, you cannot draw a circle with a dot center.
It is. You had to create it.
I didn't have so much of time. I put a black dot there.
That is the center. But here on the left is your
life. Where is the center now?
Your neighbor. You care for them.
You look at their need. Oh, you have your you are not
Well, I see that you are not. I didn't see you come out of
your house for two days. So what is happening?
I am sick. OK.
Have you been to the doctor? No, there is no one to take me.
I am so sick. So you drive them and take them
to the clinic, take them to the hospital, whatever the what I
am. Usually you can call an
ambulance. These days that is a different
matter. But what I am trying to say is
you care for your neighbor and then you say, ah, you need help.
I am here to help. Now.
There are so many kinds of neighbors these days.
Some neighbors think I do not need your help.
You look at them and say, I think you need help.
No, no, no, no, I don't need your help.
How can you help them? It's very hard.
But in the Christian fellowship we are supposed to care for each
other. And when the center shifts from
your own life to the other person's life becomes your
center. And you say, I need to help you.
I, you want, I want to give you advice.
Maybe it will help you. And you speak kind words, good
words, words of wisdom. And if they do not want to take
it, that is their problem. But we have to keep doing that
until God has mercy on them and gives them an opportunity to
change their life. You know, that is very, very
important. But I was thinking, how is this
anything? Everything that we are talking
about is rooted in the nature of God, say rooted in the nature of
God. The law, the 10 commandments,
the book of Genesis until the book of Deuteronomy which is
called Torah, is a reflection of the nature of God.
It is an expression of the nature of God who is God.
Read the Bible, you will find out who God is because he does
not like sin. He is holy and he says love your
neighbor as yourself is not a new commandment that Paul is
trying to say oh now we are Christians so we have to love
each other. No, he is quoting from the Old
Testament book of Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 and he says
they are the same words. Do not seek revenge or bear a
grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor
as yourself. Why I am the Lord?
Is he your Lord? If Jesus is your Lord, if Yahweh
is your Lord, if God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is
your Lord, you should not be able to have grudges against
your neighbor. You do not hate them, you love
them. Why?
Because He is God, and if you worship Him, if you have
allegiance to Him, you need to have the other people's life as
your center and their well-being as your center.
This is rooted in the nature of God, at least the same thing
Paul writes again in Romans 13/8.
Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to
love one another. For whoever loves others has
fulfilled the law, has fulfilled the law.
But you know sometimes this looks very, very, very nice.
But I ultimately say one thing is you cannot earn your
salvation by doing good works. There are many people out in the
society who can do it. I will give an examples.
One example like that you know you in India you got more on the
road or three wheeled transport we call auto rickshaw.
It is a rickshaw which is mechanized.
So it carries people, two or three people it carries in it.
So there was there is one guy in Bangalore who goes around doing
his job, driving people, making money.
But when when he sees somebody who is helpless, dirty clothes,
unshaven face, dirty hair, he will go to that guy, put him in
the auto rickshaw, take him home, give him a bath and then
he will shave his hair, beard and give him a haircut, give him
new clothes and give him food. That is, he does it every day,
seven days a week. There is no day off for Him.
Will that kind of being out? I mean loving people take person
to salvation and give them salvation and go to heaven?
No, it is first you need to have a relationship with the living
God first. You have to believe in this, in
the one God the Father sent into the world as your Savior to die
in your place, to take your punishment.
You have to believe in Jesus Christ of Nazareth 1st.
And the second thing is you will love your neighbor as yourself.
Then the salvation is complete. All the commandments are
fulfilled in one, he says. Actually, it can be summed up
into two. One, love the Lord your God with
all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with
all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
These two commandments are the essence of the all of the law.
But why is it so? Because it is rooted in the
character of God, nature of God. God is, by by definition, the
uncreated Creator. He doesn't have a beginning and
He doesn't have an end and He is the one who brought everything
into existence, so we owe our existence to Him.
We exist because He exists and we need to make connection with
Him and believe in the One who came to reveal that Father,
invisible Father, in the person of Jesus Christ.
We have to believe in the name of Jesus 1st and secondly love
your neighbor as yourself. Whatever help they need, you
just spring up into action and do what is best for them because
that is what is Gods heart. You don't have to ask for a
revelation to help somebody. You don't have to ask for
revelation so many times. Some people say there was one
particular teacher who came who claims to be healing people,
raising people from the wheelchair.
So we had advertised it and we went around calling people who
were in the wheelchair, hey, come, this man is coming.
And that man came and never went and prayed for anybody who was
sitting in the wheelchair. We asked him why.
He said, oh, I only pray. If God shows me to pray, then
why do you want to advertise that you can raise people from
the wheelchair? AM I making sense here?
You don't ask God. Is it your will to raise this
man? Oh, God says yes, so I'm going
to pray for him. Jesus paid the price already.
He's not going to do anything more.
That is the fixed truth on which you operate and pray for
everybody and leave the healing to God.
We don't go down because we prayed and nothing happened.
Oh, I prayed for that man. He's not healed.
Oh, something is wrong with me or something is wrong with him.
Don't worry about those things. You've done your job.
You have prayed so many times. I say to God, after I prayed, I
have prayed in your name. My job is done now.
Release your Angel to heal the person.
Release your Angel, give them breakthrough, release your Angel
to solve their problem. Oh my God, I can't do more than
that. My ability is limited.
But in your name I have prayed. That is how I cover myself.
Can I keep on praying for somebody?
Some people when they call me and they say mostly from India
or US or anywhere, please keep praying for us.
I said do I have any other job? I am not trying to belittle
them. What I am trying to tell them is
you agree with me and receive your healing now.
Agree with me, receive your healing now.
That problem that means you are fixed.
Receive it now by faith and it will be yours very soon.
See, we pray for a guy who had no sense after an accident.
He had no sensation on his in his hand, from the shoulder down
into the hand, no sensation. You prick him, he feels nothing.
And somebody said, oh, there is my colleague and his son who has
this condition, can you please pray?
I said no problem. And one day he came on the phone
video call and I prayed in the name of Jesus command that
healing to happen now in Jesus name.
And he said, do you feel anything?
He said nothing, OK, do not, you do not have to feel anything but
look at your hand now, do you feel anything different?
See anything in your hand? And he moved only one finger
just like that a little. Ah, I said that finger is
moving. I said, what was it not moving
before? He said no, it was dead 19, 21
or 22. He had an accident.
Since then that hand has been dead, no movement at all.
I said OK, let's pray again a second time.
I prayed and then he was moving. 2 fingers are moving little more
than it ever moved. And then after three or four
hours, he sent me a video of fingers moving very, very
clearly. And then latest that I update I
got is that now the sensation is is now come into the hand.
He never had sensation before. Now the hand can feel the pain
and he can move the fingers. So he is continuing to do the
physiotherapy so he can improve more.
How long did it take? 5 minutes.
I must have given him 5 minutes. I said, you see, if you believe
like the lady who went and touched the hem of the garment
of Jesus, the bleeding that she suffered for 12 years stopped
instantly. It is not about me praying, it
is you have to believe, touch Jesus, rope now by faith and it
worked. So we have to do what we can,
but beyond that you cannot take responsibility for certain
things. That is what I am trying to say.
There are limitations for functioning, limitations for
loving people, but we have to love people unconditionally and
we have to demonstrate the love also in the same way.
Cool. So we had to be other center,
not your center. It's not me, me, me all the
time. It's about other people's
comfort, other people's betterment.
They, we should help them. That is how we should live.
Cool. So next thing that we see here
is I was looking at all these verses, you know that I see the
same thing spoken by Matthew, Mark, John, Paul to Corinthians,
Romans, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians.
Apostle John first episode talk so much about love, a surprise
and James talks about love. So what did these apostles who
were in touch with Jesus in the 1st century, what did they
grasp? They grasp that God is love and
we need to love each other, and if we don't love each other, we
don't know this God. It's very simple.
If somebody says I know God, do you love your neighbor?
Do you help anybody? No, I don't have time.
Then you don't know your God. It's very simple.
If you are saved, you must care for somebody else to be saved.
Open your mouth, share the gospel.
So these are the very, very important things.
So Paul is now saying, my brothers, you are called to be
free, but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful
nature rather so one another in love.
So he is giving you a problem and giving you a solution.
Do not indulge in sinful nature. So if you want to come out of
it, how do you do so one another?
That's the answer to that problem and answer and then he
says the entire law is summed up in a single command.
Love your neighbor as yourself. If you keep on biting and
devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each
other. Now this is the Paul is now
giving you an animal kind of a behavior.
Have you seen any animal videos on YouTube how they try to kill
another one? In some cases they get killed
themselves. You know that is also funny to
me. The cruel nature in them is just
so cruel when it comes to killing the other animal.
But sometimes they underestimate the other opponent.
Example for example, you you think a bull may not be very
strong, but have you seen a bull killing a lion?
It does just puts his horns and flips into the air and and next
thing you see is that land force dead on the ground, the one
shot. So your strength can become a
weakness. But in Christian context, in the
Christian context, if you keep criticizing, if you keep biting
and devouring, we are going to destroy each other.
It's like 2 wild animals which are trying to have a breakfast
on the other one at the expense of other ones life.
So we should not feed ourselves, think of all breakfast, our
lunch, by looking at another Christian and destroying them.
Because it is going to decimate both.
It is going to make you useless. You are going to.
We lose our witness, we lose our power.
If you want to devour somebody else, you want to eat somebody
else, it's not right. So Paul is saying this is, see,
Paul is a very powerful writer. He is exemplifying what love is
by appealing to what cruelty is. What is cruelty is to kill
somebody. And Paul says, no, no, that's
not what it is. If you yield to it, you are
going to be dead one day. Somebody more powerful than you
will come and you will be dead. So that is how Paul is
exemplifying it. So now my time is almost
finished. Only three verses.
We are done. See the one of the other things
that he says here there was 16. I will give you a little one
minute introduction and leave it so we can carry on next week.
So I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires
of the sinful nature. So he says the sinful nature is
there, how do you overcome it? He says you can do so by living
by the Spirit. You yield to the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, I know I am very angry.
Can you please take over my life now?
And when you desperately cry to God, that anger will leave you
towards the other person or you are unsettled about somebody,
something people have said against you who are backbiting
you, just say God, I am coming to you.
Can you please give me your grace?
Holy Spirit, take over my emotions, help me to control my
tongue and the whole Spirit will say, OK, I take over.
Yielding to the Holy Spirit is the way to overcome sinful
nature. So you can either yield to this
or you can yield to that. That is how it is very simple.
So someone was talking, this is not the best example, but one
simple example. He says, oh, there are two dogs
inside of me. One is white, one is black.
So who is winning? The dog you feed wins.
You feed the black dog, it's going to finish the white dog.
But if you feed the white dog, it's going to finish the black
dog. So this this tension is talked
about by Paul in Romans Chapter 7 and it is now talking further
in this chapter, he talks about the what are the fruit?
I mean, how to identify the fruit of the flesh and fruit of
the Holy Spirit and he talks about it.
We will look at it hopefully next week.
Shall we bow our heads in prayer?
Father God, we thank you, we bless your name, we magnify your
name, we praise you because you are our godfather.
I pray deliver us from sinfulness, deliver us from
selfishness. And Lord Father, wherever there
are misunderstandings, wherever there are things that needs to
be clarified, help us to do so in love to the glory of your
name. And we worship you, we honor
you. Lord bless us as your children
that we may demonstrate your love to someone who deserves it,
someone who needs it to the glory of your name.
In Jesus mighty name we ask, Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Omega.
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