Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message. Well, we've been on a journey.
Talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of
the Holy Spirit, and we've said this, a lot of people still do
not understand in the church today, the ministry of the Holy
Spirit. And it's actually the ministry
of the Holy Spirit who is the only one that's active in the
earth today. Jesus, we already know, finished
his assignment, right? We've said this.
This time and time again he said it is finished.
He came to die, to raise, to put us back in a position.
Amen. Of sons and daughters of the
King. Glory to God to bring redemption
to our life. And he's already fulfilled that
assignment and said it is finished.
And we know that when he went, he said it's to your advantage
that I go so that what he can come.
Who was the he? He was talking about the person
of the Holy Spirit, right. We've said this that the Holy
Spirit is not a dove, It is the third person of the Godhead, and
it's actually the Holy Spirit that is involved in our lives
today, right? Hallelujah.
And we know God the Father. He's already created the earth.
He's already done everything he was going to do for mankind.
He sent His Son. Amen.
And he's done so. God the Father's done.
Jesus Christ is sitting at His right hand.
And it is the Holy Spirit whom we are connecting with in the
earth today. The Holy Spirit is that person
that we are in union with and. Communion with and communication
with Amen. Hallelujah.
And so I don't have time to go all the way back to the
beginning because this is going on weeks and weeks of teaching.
But I do encourage you that if you need to know more about the
Holy Spirit, then you need to go back and listen to all this
series. Amen.
Because it is going to benefit your life.
Amen. So last week we started dealing
with, they're talking about the fact that there are many
functions of the Holy Spirit. A lot of times people only when
you hear about the Holy Spirit, only talk about the Holy Spirit
through Pentecostalism, right through the Pentecost, the day
of Pentecost. And a lot of times they only
think about the Holy Spirit as one that will bring you power.
And an anointing and give you chill bumps.
And you know all these things, and they neglect the side of the
Holy Spirit who is there to teach us.
To guide us every day. To reveal things to us from the
word every day, and then to what?
Develop the nine, Get 9 gifts of the Spirit within our lives, the
fruits of the Spirit, And to develop the characteristics and
the nature of God within our life.
It's not just about the Holy Ghost and power.
Amen. And so a lot of people have
gotten over on to that. Side of the Holy Ghost only OK,
but we know. So there we have been talking
about many functions of the Holy Spirit.
And one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is what we would
call the inner working of the Holy Spirit.
And the inner working of the Holy Spirit is to help develop
you mature. You develop the fruits of the
Spirit within your life, and the characteristics and the nature
of God within every. Believer's life.
And so we started last week talking about that inner working
or that function of the Holy Spirit within a believer's
lives, in a believer's life, right?
And talking about how important it is, is that we begin to yield
to our inner man and the inner working of the Holy Spirit.
Because that's how the Holy Spirit will communicate to us.
Because he is Spirit John for right.
We talked about that. And those who worship him will
worship him in spirit and in truth, not just in truth,
because there's some believers and denominations that only see
him as the spirit of truth. Or the truth side, the word
side. But they neglect the power side
or the spirit of God's side for that inner working right.
And so it's important that we recognize that he is spirit, and
the way we connect with God is through our spirits, Through our
spirits, right? And we read a couple of
scriptures last week, but I want to start out by talking about
how we said that in Proverbs 20. This is where I want to start
today. Proverbs 2027.
It says the spirit of the man is the lamp of the Lord and he's
searching all the innermost parts of the being, so the
spirit of the man. Is the candle of the Lord or the
light of the Lord or the one that brings illumination and
revelation? You see that because we talked
about the Spirit, That is, the Holy Spirit is the only one that
can reveal to us today who Jesus even is, right?
It's the Spirit that brings that revelation to us.
But he does that by the light that's on the inside of us or
our spirit man, OK. And so we looked at that last
week, and we started beginning to talk about the fact at a
first Thessalonians 523. For us to totally grasp that
inner working of the Holy Spirit, we have to recognize
that. We are a threefold being, a
threefold being. Just like there is the Trinity,
God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
He is a threefold being, and we are a threefold being.
Remember, we were created in His image and in His likeness,
right? And so it's so important that we
recognize. That in first Thessalonians 523
it says this Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you
entirely when you got born again.
God's desire for his humanity, for His man, is that we would be
complete again, completely restored.
Back to the what? Same image.
Or likeness that he created man to be in the garden.
Amen. So when he saved us it he didn't
just save us so that our spirit man would be right before God.
Because this is important to recognize that a lot of people
just say that the only thing that's important is that we just
get people born again so that when they die they can go to
heaven. And that's their only focus.
Well, that was not God's only desire.
His desire was that we would be completely redeemed and restored
spirit, soul and body. He wants everything redeemed,
everything redeemed, and religion only will focus on the
spirit of the man. And that's why there's so many
believers that are still acting like the world, yet they say
they're born again because they haven't learned how to bring
their body into subjection, which is their desires and their
flesh. And they continue to live
cartel. And they haven't learned that
the only way that we can save this soul round is by the
renewing of our mind according to the word of God.
OK, so we talked about the fact that we are a threefold nature
man and he wants us to remain actually, he said, blameless,
complete. Until the coming of the Lord
Jesus Christ. So it's not good enough that we
just get people born again for us to actually be the mature
church, the church that he's coming back for without spot and
without wrinkle. Come on, those that have learned
to be fully matured and gross spiritually, he's looking for a
complete man. Spirit, soul and body.
And so we said, I want to remind you that the soul realm is our
will, our emotions, our reasonings and our thinking.
That's the soul of the man, right?
Then we see our body. Our body is our flesh.
This is that flesh. This is that nature.
And we know that it is called a carnal nature because it is not
redeemed yet, and the flesh will not be completely redeemed until
we take on the glorified body. So we know and Paul even tells
us and we're going to look at these scriptures that this body
we're going to have to bring it into subjection.
We are going to have to, Paul called it, crucify the flesh,
What, daily. And so in talking about the
ministry of the Holy Spirit, the ministry, one ministry of the
Holy Spirit is to get all three areas of our life into a perfect
man. And that's the working of the
Holy Spirit. To bring our soul, our mind, our
emotions, our our will to get it into an alignment with the word
of God and then to get this body into alignment to the word of
God. Amen.
So this is very important if we are going to mature or grow up.
First Corinthians talks about from babes into a what a man, a
mature man. So that we no longer are only
wanting to suck on the bottle or the milk of the word, but we're
actually getting to a place that we can move over into the
teachings of righteousness Hebrews talks about.
Because even the baptism of the Holy Spirit, us being born
again, those are baby teachings and most churches haven't even
got to that, according to Hebrews.
I don't have it in my notes. According to Hebrews, being
filled with the Holy Ghost is a baby.
Teaching is infantile, and yet most churches aren't even
teaching on it. Amen.
So they're staying on what? Milk.
They're staying in milk and they've not even been able to
move over into places of actually righteousness teaching.
Which is right living, because you're still a baby.
We expect babies to not want to live, right?
But those that have learned how to move over into some
righteousness understand that it's more about us.
Living right, Living holy. Come on before God.
In the word of God we can see Amen.
Hallelujah. That's why we know this church
is not for everybody. So if you want to go to a church
that's only preaching on milk, that's where you need to be
because we going to move you on over into some maturity of
righteousness. That means we're going to teach
that what sin is and that believers shouldn't be drinking
and and whoring around. Come on, this is what
righteousness is talking about. We shouldn't be committing
adultery. We shouldn't be letting all
kinds of gossip and slander going on in church.
This is called righteousness. Moses was a preacher of
righteousness. I want to be in line with him.
And what did he get for doing it?
He got mocked, right? But.
Somebody's got to do it because we see where the Church has
fallen. We've seen where the church has
fallen. So he is very interested in us
growing spiritually, completely, Spirit, soul and body.
Amen. Hallelujah.
And that is the working that is the job of the inner working of
the Holy Spirit, is to bring us into a place of what we would
call sanctification. The Holy Spirit's job is to
bring us into a place of holiness and sanctification.
Because once we get born again, our spirit man now is alive unto
unto God. Amen.
And then he says I'm gonna write my laws within their heart.
So now we have his word that's supposed to have been written
within our heart to where now our spirit man now wants to do
what the Holy Spirit is engaging us to do.
Amen. And so the working of the Holy
Spirit is going to then begin to move within our lives and show
us those things that are going to help us grow and help us
mature as a believer and develop the character of God within our
life and develop the fruits of the Spirit within our life to
mature us and to grow us. And you know what?
That will not stop. We will be in a continual
process of growing. We said that once you get born
again, you just begin the journey.
It is not a end to a mean. It is not the final destination.
I'm born again. I'm good to go so I can live
however I want to do. I can have the American Dream.
I can do everything the world does.
No, that is not what Kingdom living is about.
Amen. And so it's very important that
we see some scriptures here because I want to talk about how
the Holy Spirit talks about the inner man or the spirit of the
man. Look here at first John 413,
first John 413, it says this. By this we come to know, and I'm
reading it out of the Amplified because this is a good
description that the Amplified gives it.
When it says by this we've come to know, perceive, recognize and
understand. Because we said that the Holy
Spirit is there working on the inside of us.
But we have to learn how to perceive, recognize and know how
the Holy Spirit works. We have to understand how the
Holy Spirit is working on the inside of us.
Amen. It says that we abide and live
and remain in Him and he and us, because he has given or imparted
to us. His Spirit or the Holy Spirit?
That's why we're saying if you the minute you get born again,
the Holy Spirit comes to what make His abode within you, the
scripture says or His dwelling within you, right?
But when he's now living on the inside of you or the inner man,
he is now speaking to your spirit.
You don't have the Holy Spirit. And your spirit becomes the Holy
Spirit. You understand what I'm saying?
You are a spirit being. You have a spirit.
But then when you get born again, the Holy Spirit begins to
move in into your spirit. So it's two separate things, but
one, they're in union together. You understand that?
Because some people think, well, it's just the spirit that's
living within me. And you know, and his spirit is
the only spirit. No, you have a spirit.
You are a spirit. We've already laid out all of
those scriptures, right? But it's His, the Holy Spirit
that now moves on in on the inside of you.
And it's your Spirit that the Holy Spirit is in union with.
Talking to, remember we said in Philippians in partnership with,
communion with, fellowship with So now you are in partnership in
union as one, letting the Holy Spirit work within you.
You understand that? And we have to learn how to
recognize and understand the Holy Spirit on the inside and
how he is working. Now look at 2nd Corinthians
chapter 4, verse 16. It says this.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but through our though our outer
man is decaying, our inner man. See, the Scripture calls it our
inward inner man. King James calls it your inward
man. So inner man, inward man, spirit
of the man. All of these are talking about
the same thing when you see these in scriptures.
So it says your outer man is decaying.
Yet our inner man what is it doing being renewed day by day.
So this means that your spirit man, your spirit, can grow
stronger and stronger every day. You ought to have a strong
spirit within you, a strong spirit.
And the way we're going to have a strong spirit within us is
allowing ourselves to meditate on the word day and night.
When we begin to meditate on the Word, when we begin to read the
word of God, the word of God then is alive, right by the
Spirit. We already proved that weeks ago
the Word of God is alive, and the Spirit of God now begins to
speak to you through the Word. It becomes alive to you on the
inside. And when that happens and you
begin to actually yield to the word or to the spirit of what
the spirit of the Word is saying to you and make start making
your decisions based upon the word of God, your spirit man now
will grow. It will grow, or we can say it
will begin to mature. So when we saw about growing up
spiritually, we're actually talking about maturing into a
perfect man, into the fullness of the man that God desired or
the woman that God desired for us to be.
Amen. But we said this last week, we
are responsible to yield because you can read the word all day
long. I know people that read the word
more than I do, and yet they're still a mess.
You know why? Because they read it without
actually doing it. They continue to not yield to
what the spirit of the word is saying for them to do and there
will be no growth. And that's why you can see
people sitting in your same church hearing these same
messages come on. And actually people that are
grabbing hold of it, doing it in their everyday life, they are
growing. They're going from faith to
faith, glory to glory. Every year there, every year
looks different than the last year.
They're conquering, they've they have the victory, come on, all
of these things. Why?
Because their spirit man is growing.
It's producing, it's flourishing, It's being
strengthened day by day. Outside of the word, it will not
happen. Outside of you daily feasting on
the bread of Life, the word of God, you will not grow.
So it doesn't matter if you come to church every Sunday and
Wednesday and serve in the nursery with the babies, which
is, you know, the worst thing people think that they would
have to do to serve in a church. Y'all know I'm telling the
truth. You know what?
That's where I started actually. I started cleaning the church,
then I progressed to the babies, then I progressed to Sunday
school teacher for missionettes. It's a progression and a journey
and a leading daily every day yielding to what the Holy Spirit
is asking of you and talking to you about.
And guess who he'll talk to you through your pastors as well as
just your word. Amen.
Hallelujah. So renewed.
Your inner man can be stronger today than it's ever been, and
you ought to be like we know Caleb and Joshua were at 80
something years old, he said. I am just as strong as when the
day I walked into the Promised Land.
I'm just as strong to conquer that mountain.
You know why he was that strong? Because he meditated on the word
day and night. He didn't let it depart from his
eyes. He didn't let it depart from his
ears. He meditated on a day and night,
and he observed it. The Scripture says he observed
it. You know what that meant.
He did it. He lived by it.
And that's how come he was strong.
In his old age, his spirit was strong.
And when your spirit is strong, your body can get into
alignment. If you don't have a strong
spirit, then guess what? Is already on the decline,
because we know this body is decaying.
But if you would start tapping into developing a strong spirit
your body come on, we'll get into alignment and you'll be
better today than when you were in your 20s.
I just told my husband that just the other day.
I said I just felt like a 20 year old.
I said glory to God, Hallelujah. Because I have a strong spirit.
So we're being renewed day by day, the inner man.
Amen, Hallelujah. Now go to John 7, John 7 and
this is verses 38 through 3938 through 39.
And I'm reading it out of the amplified classic He who
believes in Me, who cleaves to and trust in and relies on me,
as the Scripture has said, from his innermost being.
Here again he calls it your innermost being shall flow, say
continuously springs and rivers of living water continuously.
Actually the King James Version says out of your belly shall
flow rivers. And this is Speaking of the
spirit. But this is supposed to be as
continuous flow day by day, keeping that spring flowing,
right? That river running.
Because what happens when the river doesn't flow?
It gets stagnant. Eventually, it can also dry up.
So there's plenty of people that are born again, but they don't
let that river flow in their innermost being.
They're not keeping it renewed in a continuous cycle with the
Holy Spirit on the inside of me. They're dry.
They're prunes. They're, you know, come on,
you've seen them. You're a Christian and act like
you don't have any life. That means that river is not
flowing. You have got it damned up.
Yeah, that will preach because you will eventually.
If you don't let it flow, you will be damned.
That's the only thing it can lead to, right?
There's scripture for that, but I don't have time to preach on
that. So there should be a continuous
river or springs flowing right on the inside, it says, But he
was speaking here of the Spirit, So out of your belly, out of
your innermost being will flow rivers.
This is Speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom those believe
trusted, had faith in him, were afterward to receive.
For the Holy Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not
yet been raised or glorified, right?
So he was talking about that there was going to be a river
that was going to begin to flow in those that got born again.
That was you becoming alive unto God, the Holy Spirit, there,
living on the inside of you. A continuous flow.
Continuous flow, say a continuous flow.
This is why I know when people, right, are not excited about
their relationship with the Lord anymore.
You know they've walked backwards.
Were what people call back Slidin.
What have they done? They have stopped up that flow,
that river. They've not allowed it to
continue day by day. And the way that we do that is
by simply acknowledging the working of the Holy Spirit in
your life. Every day when I get up, I thank
Father. I thank you.
I thank you that you saved me. And I thank you for the Holy
Ghost that today he's going to lead me.
He's going to guide me. He's going to give me wisdom.
He's going to give me everything I need today.
What does that mean? I'm acknowledging the working of
the Holy Spirit within my life. And the people that don't
acknowledge the Holy Spirit or don't have understanding of the
Holy Spirit and how he works will live a defeated life even
though they're born again. Because they haven't learned how
to know, perceive, acknowledge and yield to the Holy Spirit on
the inside. And so that river is damned,
even though it's there, ready. It's wanting to burst open the
dam. It's wanting to flow, but if you
don't acknowledge it then it won't flow because the Holy
Spirit, unlike a lot of teaching, is not going to come
on you and control you and make you do things that you don't
want to do. He is a gentleman.
He can nudge you, he can prompt you, he can lead you.
But ultimately, if it's gonna work, if you're gonna allow it
to work in your life, you have to acknowledge and yield to it.
I shared a little bit about my testimony.
Some things on and off last week, but I remember when Pastor
Earl and I first got married. We'll be celebrating 32 years in
September and I can't wait to go on my cruise.
I've never been ready for that cruise.
More than anything, I'm telling you, because tomorrow we're
leaving for Alabama or Friday, not tomorrow anyway.
So 32 years. But when we first got married,
y'all know I was a hot mess, OK? And just learning how to
navigate my life in Christ and you know, and so I pretty much
had a mouth on me. Now I've learned how to tame it,
even though y'all might not think it's tamed.
It is way Tang, way bridled compared to what it was.
And so when we first got married, you know, I would just
tell him what I thought all the time.
Anytime I wanted to, whatever I thought I said and made him pay.
And I know nobody in here ever did that.
I'm just the one honest about it because I got set free from it.
You won't be set free from anything.
You're not honest about about yourself.
And the holy goes to try to get you honest because he's not a
liar and he can only speak the truth to you.
And he knows you better than you know yourself.
Amen. And so you know you may have
heard. I I mean, you know, he would
come in from work or whatever and say something and I would
pop off, you know, telling what I thought.
I mean, I've been here taking care of these kids all day and
you gonna come in here and, you know, whatever, I don't know.
And, you know, and then another thing I would say constantly,
you know, because I wasn't going to let a man, you know, tell me
what I needed to do and how I needed to do it.
And, you know, had didn't have a submission.
I didn't submit. I couldn't submit to a man.
That's just the truth. And so you know, that was God
beginning to work within my life and and so you know, I'd say if
you don't like it, hit the road, Jack, and don't come back.
I don't need no man. You know, those types of things
and you know you don't like what I said.
Then there's the door, you know, whatever.
And just being a smart Alec. And you would think I would have
learned my lesson when I popped off at my mom and she gave me
the pop in the mouth. But I didn't.
And anyway, so here I am, married now and doing the same
thing. And you know, I Remember Me, I
was at a point in my life, you know, that God was working in
me. And I was, you know, we were
going to church and doing all these things.
And I was standing there at the sink washing dishes when, you
know, said something. And the Holy Ghost on the inside
said you need to learn to keep your mouth shut.
I mean, I'm just minding my business washing dishes after I
had already told him what I thought, you know, going on
about my business. But then the Holy Ghost said you
need to learn how to keep your mouth shut.
Well, I didn't know how to do that.
And so you know what? I I did.
I acknowledged the Holy Ghost. How did I?
I said, OK, I'm saying all this under my breath as I'm washing
dishes and they're doing whatever they're doing.
And I I said, OK, you're right. I acknowledged that I was wrong
and that I needed to adjust. But you know what?
I said. Well then you're going to have
to help me, Holy Ghost. Because he is the what?
The helper. You're going to have to help me.
So if I never would have and I
learned my lesson, was it immediate?
No. Because when I'd say you'd have
to help me, what did that mean? The next time some situation
took place, or the next time something happened and I felt
like I had an opinion and wanted to say what I thought.
That's when the Holy Ghost on the inside would say.
Remember what we talked about? We're going to keep your mouth
shut, right? Bite your tongue.
And I remember multiple times, many years of biting of the
tongue. I didn't think I had a tongue
left right every time yielding when the Holy Ghost you said you
wanted my help. So then every time he would show
me in what situations that I needed to keep my mouth shut.
What was that? Learning.
Learning how to submit to the Holy Ghost.
But learning how to submit to my husband which is a whole another
subject but anyway, so yielding, I had to acknowledge yes you're
right and I need to change that If I would have, not if I would
have overrode. Well you don't know how he's
treating me and you don't know what he's saying.
And you know all of these excuses and justified my action
to the Holy Ghost. Guess what would happen?
Nothing. And I never would have become
the woman that God needed me to become, because I would have
rejected the instruction of the Holy Ghost.
And so how many times is the Holy Ghost instructing us daily
about things within our lives that we need to adjust?
We need to change because he knows what we need to get us to
Another place of growth, another place of development, another
place. At that time in my life, I had
no idea that I would be standing and and building a church and
doing all the things, going into ministry and doing all the
things that we're doing today. I had no idea that that was his
plan for my life at those moments.
But if I never would have yielded, if I never would have
acknowledged the working, if I never would have done that well,
I can tell you we would not be married today, would not be
married today. The Holy Ghost will lead you
into victory. The Holy Ghost will only do
what's necessary to get you to a place of full maturity and
growth and into the places that he designed and purpose for your
life. If you just learn how to ignore,
he will never lead you wrong. He is the best guide in your
life. He's better than your Mama.
He's better. Then your daddy, he's better
than your pastor. He's better than your sister,
your brother, your whatever homie.
He is better. He's better cuz homie will lead
you down some places that you best not go right?
So we have to acknowledge the Holy Ghost on the inside if
we're ever going to allow maturity and development within
our lives. Go to 1st Corinthians chapter 2,
verses 9 through 16, it says. But just as it is written
things, this is it. Things which I has not seen.
I did not see my life in any of this arena, but he had a plan.
I just wanted to be married, have a happy little family, work
the nine to five job, have the six figure income back in the
day, have a husband that would come home, love me and love my
children and have a white picket fence around my house.
That was the vision for my life. But I had not seen come on, and
ear had not heard, and which had not entered the heart of man.
All that God has prepared for those who love him.
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit.
Again, everything is being revealed by the Spirit, for the
Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the
spirit of the man which is in him?
Even so, the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of
God. Now we have received not the
spirit of this world, but the Spirit who is what from God.
So that we may know, say no, say no, the things freely given to
us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by
human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, combining
spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness to him here again, and he cannot
understand them, because they are not.
They are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual
appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct
him? But we have the mind of Christ.
Say I have the mind of Christ, the mind of Christ.
You have the mind of Christ because the Spirit of God lives
on the inside of you. So you can now begin to know,
perceive, recognize the spirit of the living God on the inside
of you and begin to yield to the things that He knows better
about you than you know about yourself and the things that
need to be worked out for His purposes and His plans for your
life. Hallelujah.
And we have that advantage living on the inside of us.
Amen. Hallelujah.
Now look over at Hebrews I I mentioned this last week but I
want to read the scripture Hebrews 4 and talking about the
threefold nature of man again we see how important it is here in
Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 12. It says this for the word of God
is living and active, sharper than any two edged sword,
piercing as far as the division again of soul and spirit and
joint and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and the
intentions of one's heart. Heart can be interchanged with
the spirit of the man. OK, your heart.
You're to love him with all your what heart, your soul, your
mind, your strength. So when you see the spirit of
the man, you can also say the heart, your heart, OK, and so
that can be interchanged there. But listen to what it says.
The word is the only thing that can bring the division of the
soul and the spirit. The word.
That's why we need the word of God within our lives, because we
have to. Again, we're going to read it in
a minute. Renew our mind to the word of
God. We're going to have to allow the
word of God to transform the way we think, because we've been
thinking like our Father, the Devil when we were lost, right,
and in darkness and in His Kingdom.
But now that we're born again, we have to begin to renew or
transform the way we think about everything.
Everything in our life. Everything.
I do not parent the way the world says you should parent.
And I'm going to tell you, y'all need to be at this parenting
conference that's coming up. I don't parent according to the
world. I parent according to the word.
That means I pull out the rod and whip the butt.
I mean, I have seen craziness today.
Kids just rolling all over their parents.
No authority structure within their parents lives.
Run all over them, Hit 'em, punch 'em.
My kids would have never thought about putting a hand on me.
I can tell you that right now, at one years old, when they
start no, no and start popping at you, that's when it went on
the butt. And if you didn't establish that
at one and two years old, you can forget about it.
So when your son gets 16 and tries to raise his fist to you,
it's your fault because you didn't establish the authority
from the very beginning. No kid ought to be laying a hand
on their parent. I I am appalled at the things I
see today. Kicking, screaming, punching at
their moms and dads, hair brush, whatever it takes on the butt.
I never would have thought about laying a hand on my mom.
I mean, I know I already got what it took when I tried to
back talk soap in the mouth. Do y'all ever even do that
today? All the stuff these kids say
today. Have y'all ever put a bar of
soap in your kids mouth? I have wash their mouth out with
soap talking like that. You know what?
You never heard him say it again when the phone was bubbling out
of their mouth like a dog that has rabies.
Cuba. Cujo, come on.
I'm serious. It is, it is appalling of what I
see today with kids. I mean, it is gone crazy talking
about girls gone wild. I mean, these children have gone
wild, gone wild. And we're seeing the result of
it in society. Amen.
Anyway, let's get off that. Where was I at?
Y'all remind me. So I'll stay out of trouble.
Hebrews 12 He's here to, by the word of God, Pierce between the
soul and the Spirit, and begin to judge the thoughts and the
intentions of your heart. What does that mean?
The word of God is going to begin to divide and show you
that soulish thinking that needs to be changed.
And he will begin to then also deal with the body and the
spirit. Because you know what?
We can have a wrong spirit. We can have a critical spirit,
We can have an unforgiving spirit, We can have a resentful
spirit. Even though we're born again.
We can allow them things to grab hold of us.
Actually, he starts talking about getting a bitter root
within us. Where do you think that is?
It's in your heart. So we.
And that's why he tells us we should.
I don't even have this in the notes.
That we should what? Guard our hearts with all
diligence. So we have to not only allow the
word of God to transform our spirit in our mind, but then to
divide and show us things, even within our spirit, that is
wrong. That we need to adjust and then
also in dealing with our body, because you don't hear a lot of
preaching about the body, but there is such things that the
scripture says about gluttony, right and and different things.
And the Holy Ghost will let you know you know what you're out of
control in that area in your life and try to rein you in.
Because a lot of things that are going on in our health and
issues today, we're asking God to heal us with a supernatural
gift when actually we just need to get ourselves in alignment
with start eating properly and a lot of our health issues would
diminish and have some self-discipline right and begin
to exercise. We can't do, we can't escape the
natural decay and live in this body.
We are to present our body, soul and spirit blameless.
Now a lot of people get unbalanced, but you know what
when it comes to when you start talking about what you can eat
and what you can't eat, I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about the Holy Ghost will let you know what you need
to do on the inside for you, because he knows your body and
what your body can handle and what your body can't and what
your body needs and what it doesn't need.
And that's a personal conviction.
You're not to put your own convictions on other people's
lives, right? But you can't neglect your
temple and expect it to fulfill. Run the course and run the race
that God has for you and neglect the body side and just think
God's going to supernaturally heal you.
When we know there are three things that we have to do to
maintain a healthy body. Nutrition, exercise, right.
And water and supplements the things that we need to keep it
properly functioning. Amen.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
Doctors won't tell you that. I had to take my dad to the
doctor Tuesday up in Jacksonville.
And, you know, they were like, I didn't even know he was on all
this medication. He's like, they were like, were
you on this one still, Sir? Yeah.
Are you on this one still, Sir? Yes.
Are you on this one still, Sir? It was 12 different medications.
12 different medications. Anyway, I won't get off on that.
So the Holy Ghost is concerned though about your body so that
you can fulfill the plans that God has for your life and
represent him as you are to represent the Kingdom of God
properly. Amen.
Now look over at Romans. We did not read this last week,
Romans Romans chapter 8 and I love the book of Romans.
I would encourage y'all to read Romans chapter 8 this week.
At some point we're going to read most of it, but you need to
read it for yourself. I love the book of Romans.
Romans says this in verse one of chapter 8.
Therefore there is now no condemnation those for those who
are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of
life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do, weak as it was through the
flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of a
sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin.
He sorry, condemn sin in the flesh, so that the requirement
of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to
the flesh. Say I don't walk according to
the flesh, but according to the spirit.
Say according to the Spirit. For those who are according to
the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
So if you're going to walk according to the flesh, you are
going to set your mind on fleshly things.
It cannot be the opposite. Flesh will only produce flesh in
in your thinking and in your actions.
Because we said that the Holy Spirit was the only one that was
supposed to be the one that governs your life, and the word
of God is to govern your life. When we talk about the Word of
God and the Spirit of God governing your life is talking
about the fact that it's going to govern.
What is it govern? What you think, what you say and
what you do. And this is your actions.
This is your thoughts, right? What you think, your thoughts,
what you do, your actions, what you say, your confession or what
you speak. You speak one thing and out of
one side of your mouth and then you speak another.
I'm going to tell you the Holy Ghost is not working in you.
If you are one day speaking fleshly and letting your mouth
run off like anything else, and then oh, the next day you're
going to act like, well, the Holy Ghost is telling me this
and the Holy Ghost is telling you that No Sir, you can't speak
out of the both sides of your mouth.
There's only one Spirit that's going to be coming up.
See that? Which I don't.
I don't have that scripture down, but it isn't the Word.
OK, what's what verse were we on?
So we're going to walk up verse 5.
For those who are, according to the flesh set their minds on the
things of the flesh. But those who are according to
the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
That means if you're set on the things of the Spirit, guess
what? You're going to be speaking
things of the Spirit, not of the flesh.
For the mindset on the flesh is death.
The flesh will only produce death.
Even if you're born again, if you begin to operate in the
flesh, it will only produce flesh death because you God is
not mocked. Whatever you sow, you will reap.
If you sow to the flesh, you'll reap destruction.
If you sow to the Spirit, you'll reap life and of the Spirit.
So flesh will only produce death within your life.
Destruction, not physical, But it will produce death to your
marriage. It can produce death in
relationships with your how you talk to your children, how you
talk to your spouse. You sow to the flesh.
If I would have continued to sow to the flesh, meaning say
whatever I wanted to say to my husband and act like a fool to
him. If I would have continued to say
that I know I said we would be divorced because I would have
only produced death. Only produce death because
that's all it can produce. You see that?
So verse seven, it's Or verse six it says for the mindset on
the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life
and peace. You see what's what's being
produced in your home. Is there peace or is there
always turmoil? Is there always confusion?
Is there, Always chaos is there, Always drama is there.
Always yelling and screaming. You can look and see what is it
that you've been saying, acting and doing in your responses.
And if it's not producing life and peace, then you can be
assured you have been in the flesh.
You see what I'm saying? Because the mindset on the flesh
is hostile towards God, for it does not subject itself.
We are responsible, just like we said.
We have to renew our mind. We have to feed our spirit so
that it can grow. We have to bring this body into
subjection, this flesh into subjection.
And it will only happen when we yield to the word of God and to
the Spirit of God and what He's telling us.
And if we don't, we can still produce all kinds of things
within our life, even as a believer.
So he goes on to say it does not subject itself to the law of
God, for it is not even able to do so.
For those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You are not pleasing God when you're acting a fool, when
you're acting in the flesh, when you're going off and and just
having a piece of your mind, right?
So it says In verse nine. However, you are not of the
flesh, but in the Spirit. If indeed if you are saying that
you have the Spirit of God living in the inside of you,
that's what he's saying, If indeed the Spirit of God dwells
in you. But if anyone does not have the
Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.
If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet
the Spirit is alive because of righteousness.
But if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead
dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also
give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in
you. So what have you ever noticed?
And I noticed this. I'll give this testimony years
ago, back still, when we were over at 312 location.
It was my husband's 20th year high school reunion.
I think it was 20. Was it 20?
Yeah, it was the 20th year. And avert or you know, whatever
high school reunion, well, we had not may have been 10 years.
Five. What are you saying?
Well, whatever. You the one that graduated, not
me. So you can say, huh?
This is the truth. We shall not lie, huh?
Anyway, whatever year it was, we had not, you know, we had
disconnected to all of our past, all of our friends, all of these
things when we got married. So we had not had any connection
with any of these people. He had not.
He he went to kindergarten and graduated with these people.
So he had relationships with these people that we ended up,
you know, cutting off because we, our life was going in a
whole nother direction. So and anyway, so he decided,
you know, we're going to go back to this high school reunion.
And so we go back and I am like floored at how old these people
looked. And we were grandparents at the
time and all of them because they're lost and they all looked
so old and we come in and they're like man, y'all looking
good. Look, you know, cuz I got the
life of God on the inside of me. We're glowing.
We have the spirit of God. The glory is upon us.
So people recognize the glory and they couldn't explain it,
you know, and couldn't understand who this woman was
that Earl ended up marrying because, you know, he was the
most popular, you know, all that superlative stuff, the biggest
flirt and all that stuff. Yeah, little 135 pound biggest
flirt. He came in.
Hey, I finally get to talk about him like he always does me when
he preaches. Y'all know more about me than
y'all know about him. Anyway, so you know, there are.
I'm just like floored. These people look old, you know,
They just look beat down. They look so unhappy, you know,
And all these things. Anyway, it's because of the life
of God. It's because of the spirit of
God. That's what I'm saying.
The life of God lives on the inside of us.
And can what was I saying, quicken our mortal bodies?
Our bodies can even be quickened and changed and strengthened and
renewed by the life of God. Your mind can be restored if you
were on drugs in the past. That's why I constantly say
we're quick, we're sharp, we're bright, we're smart, we have the
mind of Christ. Come on.
We are full of wisdom and full of life.
You have to speak those things over yourself.
And when you get among some people, you'll recognize man the
the Lord really has done a work. You can say but God, but God,
and thank God for the Holy Ghost on the inside of you and the
spirit of life, and you're no longer under the bondage of
death and decay and destruction and depravity of mind and
insanity. Come on.
Because that's what the spirit of life can do.
Quick and everything. Hallelujah.
Quick and everything. So verse 12, it says.
So then, brethren, we are no longer under obligation not to
the flesh, but to live or to live according to the flesh.
For if you live according to the flesh, you must die.
But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of
the body, you will live. For this is verse 14, which is
what I was wanting to get to. For all who are being led by the
Spirit of God. These are the sons of God.
These are the sons of God, the ones that are being led by the
Spirit of God daily. The ones that are allowing the
Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into every area of our life,
every every system that we have going on within our lives, in
our jobs, in our marriages, raising our children, in our
finances. Right.
Everything should be subject in our mind, our will, our
emotions, our flesh. Everything should be subject to
the Holy Spirit and the leading and guiding of the Spirit of God
on the inside of us every day. And when we begin to understand,
recognize, perceive, that's the Holy Spirit speaking to me.
We must obey it and yield to it. And again, I said this last
week. A lot of times you may not
understand then why you're having to do what he's asking
you to do. But I can assure you, every time
I without fail in 32 years of my life and this journey of being
led by the spirit of God on the inside of me, every time I
yielded, it only brought production or or growth and
progress every time. And it was for my good.
It was for victory in areas of my life to overcome every time.
And the more you yield and the more you train.
Brother Hagan says it this way. We have to train our spirits,
and this is what we're talking about, training our spirit to
yield, to subject, to do it. And when we do it and we
actually yield to it, then growth can begin to happen.
And the more we do it, the more we yield, the more we've learned
how to recognize, perceive, understand that.
This is the Holy Spirit speaking to me, and I'm going to
acknowledge it. I'm going to yield to it.
The more we do it, the more we can grow, The more that we can
mature, the more that we can overcome.
And what we call training is what we call practice.
The more we practice it, the more we practice, yielding,
guess what? The less you'll miss it and the
less you'll find yourself in messes, Because a lot of messes
that we get ourselves in is because the Holy Ghost all along
was trying to tell us something and we rejected it.
We denied it because we really wanted to do what it was telling
us not to do. And it got us in trouble every
time, every time it gets us in trouble when we choose not to
yield to what the holy goes to saying and want to do it our way
or wanting that, or we don't want to hear what the holy goes
to saying because this, this, you know, could look a certain
way. I mean, I'm going to tell you
there's lots of things he's going to ask you to do, period,
to try to get you to grow, to try to get you to where you need
to be. I remember when, you know, we
first got married or in that time and there was some
relationships that we used to have with different people that
always used to party and do all these things.
And we would go over there and all this.
And here we're trying to get our life on the right track and do
what you know, what those times the Holy Ghost had to say?
Don't go and hang out with them any longer.
Cut that relationship off. If I would not have yielded
because you, I mean, they were my best friend growing up or
whatever the case, I'd still be smoking pot, drinking and
divorce. Like every single one of them
that have been. I'm just saying there's things
he's going to ask you to do that at the time you don't want to
do. But if you don't do it, it is
only going to be to your destruction and your demise.
That's just how it is. Amen.
Because he's trying to get you to a different place.
So. But those who were going to be
led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God.
Amen. Hallelujah.
The sons of God. Glory to God.
Glory to God, Hallelujah. I want to read one more
scripture or two more. Three more can y'all handle it.
Look over here in James James chapter one.
Remember, we're still dealing with spirit, soul and body, and
submitting everyone of those areas to the Lord.
James 12125 says this. Therefore, putting aside all
filthiness and all that remains in wickedness and humility,
receive the word implanted, which is able to save your
souls. Receive the word that's
implanted. King James says Receive the
engrafted word of God, which is able to save your soul.
Remember, we say your spirit man is the one that got born again.
Now your soul has to be saved. Still you're saved, your spirit
saved, but your soul has to now be saved.
And the only thing that can save your soul again, back to Hebrews
412 is the word of God is the word of God.
And not just you reading the Word or sitting at church and
hearing the word. No, you have to what?
Receive the word meaning. You have to receive it in your
heart, and you have to submit to it.
You have to submit to it, whatever the word is saying to
you that you need to do as a husband, as a coworker, as a
friend, as a parent, as a spouse.
Right. Whatever it is that you see in
the word that the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and saying
listen, this needs to tweak in your life to get you to another
place. And if you hear it and and and
see and recognize and the Holy Spirit reveals it to you again,
you have to begin to do it. To do it.
Because just hearing it, you will what?
OK, it says. So we have to receive the word
to transform our mind or to save our mind, it says.
But prove yourselves to be what doers doers of the word, right,
and not merely hearers. What happens when you just hear
what you need to do and you don't do it?
You become deluded or deceived. So you think just because you
come to church, you're all good, yet the Holy Spirit, through the
word of God has said no. But I need to work on this in
your life, and you choose not to be a doer of it.
You are deceived. You become deluded, thinking
that you're OK when you're not. And that's why we see a lot of
people in the church as believers that are still not OK.
The bottom line is they're not doing what they're hearing the
Holy Ghost say to do. Because I can tell you what the
Holy Ghost is always speaking. Even when I didn't even know it
was the Holy Ghost, he was speaking to me.
How much more we who are being taught this is the Holy Ghost
speaking to you. And if you don't yield to it,
and you don't yield to it, and you don't do it, and you don't
do it and you don't do it, then we know what we talked about in
the weeks prior. That you can what?
Reject. You can deny, and you can grieve
the Holy Ghost. And guess what?
He'll stop talking to you about that and you will become
deceived, right? Because you've rejected the
working of the Holy Ghost on the inside of you.
You delude yourself. And the sad thing about that is
many don't even under don't even know that they're deceived.
And then when you try to let them know you are deluded,
you're deceived. You know this is the reaction.
There should be evidence and progress and pro and production
of. There's a word I'm trying to
think always, and that's not coming out.
There should be the evidence of the characteristics and the
nature of God in your life and the fruits of the Spirit that
have been developed within your life.
And your life should be going from faith to faith, glory to
glory. Your life should be growing
evident. People ought to be able to see
that you're walking in the word, that you're going from faith to
faith, that you're growing, that nothing's hindering you, that
your emotions still don't control you.
Why? Because you've learned how to
yield to the Holy Ghost. But if you don't see there's no
evidence in your life that faith is even there, you're not
producing not one thing that the word says that we should have
like the fruit of the spirit, which is bare minimum.
Then it's evident you are deluded and deceived.
You've deceived yourself. You see that because it says,
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a do or he is like
a man who looks in the natural face, as with the natural face
in a mirror. For once he has looked at
himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind
of person he is. So the Holy Ghost is a mirror by
the word of God saying, this is what you should look like.
This is the mirror, this is the image, this is the
characteristics, This is the nature that as a believer you
should look like. But if you don't do it, you're
going to walk away. Come on, And not even be who he
said you were to be so, but the one who looks intently at the
perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having
become a forgetful hearer, but a effectual doer, this man will be
blessed in what he does. You should see the blessing of
the Lord upon your life. Hallelujah, Pastor Marcus, you
can come. You should see it because there
would be evidence of the fruit and the character being built
within your life by the Holy Ghost.
Because you're doing the word, you're becoming, you're being
transformed into the image that God created you to be.
Look at Romans 12/1 as they're coming up 12 Romans 12/1.
I want to read it out of the the Passion Translation, Beloved
friends, what should be our proper response to God's
marvelous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God
to be His sacred living sacrifice and live in holiness,
experiencing all the delights His the that delights His heart.
For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.
Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around
you, but inwardly, say inwardly, be transformed by the Holy
Spirit through a total reformation of how you think.
Hallelujah. This will empower you to discern
God's will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and
perfect in his eyes. Hallelujah.
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