And I started and I thought about this as I was going through it in the last few days. What is your history? How have each of us directed our pathway through life? And what influences really work upon us in life? You know, what changes the outcome or at least influences that outcome in our life? What impacts our growth? Well, in the natural realm, what produces our physical history is two things, our family and our environment. who we are born, what family we're born into, what situation, you know, we have with them, and then what is around us, and what are we, you know, where do we grow up, so to speak. Well, in the spiritual realm, it's exactly the same. You know, we're born into the family of God, And that lineage then gives us our position and ultimately our inheritance. And then as we grow or mature, it's as we're functioning within our environment. Now we thought about, as I thought about this, I looked at my notes, from this historical message. What I thought was, you know, we would all have to agree that one, maybe not the only one, but for certain, one of the things that the church has been based on and that we have enjoyed because of that is salvation by grace through faith. and the belief that the Holy Spirit works within us after we're saved to produce a life that we can never produce on our own. Now, first, we must enter God's family by grace, through faith. But then we live our lives each day exactly the same way. It's God's design for a successful Christian life. Our history after our salvation is a reflection then of either walking by faith or walking in the flesh. Do we expect to serve the Lord by being in sweet fellowship with him. Do we expect that that's our life after we're saved? No, I would think all of us would say that being 100%-er is an impossibility. But on the other hand, what's the reason that that would be true? It's not that we're ill-equipped to live the Christian life. We have all been given all that we can possibly have to be able to live a victorious Christian life. Our pathway to victory in the Christian life is simply to want to serve him more than any other thing in our world around us. And one of my favorite verses is Philippians 3.10, in a nutshell, as a first part. Oh, that I might know him. You know, is that our mantra? Is that what we think about as we walk day to day? Oh, that I might know him. You know, God offers a peace that can't be compared simply by having that our minds state upon thee. And we can accept what happens in our life. The tranquility comes from God, from enjoying that relationship with Him. So as we think back to those two stimuli, the first thing we have to think about is, first we must be saved, right? So initially, each and every one of us had to come to a point where we saw an accurate picture of ourselves. You know, we think there's a simple gospel message would be, you know, Romans 3.23, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And then once we realize we're a sinner, then what's the penalty for that sin? Well, God tells us in Romans 6.23 that the wages of sin is death. Separation from God. That's true of us because we're in Adam. It's also true of us inherently. But it's true because we're descendants in Adam. In Romans 5.12, He says, Wherefore, as one man, sin entered in the world, and death by sin. So death passed upon all men, for all have sinned. They're not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. So we're sinners in Adam, we're sinners by nature. And God's perfectly righteous. And in his plan of salvation, he sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. In John 1.29, as the next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him said, behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world. The payment for sin. In Colossians 2.14, he says blotting out the handwriting of transgressions or something similar. The idea is that the finished work on the cross on our behalf was done. Christ from the cross calls out, it is finished. So the question for us today is, how do we get that? Well, think back to the history of the church. You're saved by grace through faith. So Ephesians 2.8 and 9, for by grace are you saved through faith. Not of yourselves, it's a gift of God, not of works. lest any man should boast. So God loved the world so much, He sent His Son, John 3.16 tells us. And what we need then is faith. And even that, the record. What's the record? God has given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath not life. Not the strength of our faith. Strength would give us the idea that we had some part in it. Some ability. No, it's faith in an object. And the object is the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. And He died, was buried, and rose again for us. So the Scripture is plain. First, we need to be saved. And we're saved by grace through faith. Now secondly, we have to be saved. And it sounds silly to say it exactly the same way, but the answer is, it is exactly the same way. When we accepted Christ as our Savior, we were saved from the pretty small, This is the penalty of sin. When we accepted Christ as our Savior, we were saved from the penalty of sin and we were given an inheritance. We have the Holy Spirit. He is called the down payment of that inheritance. But we live our lives here in the middle. But the same salvation that gave us The ticket to heaven. The same salvation that gave us, stamped us, that we're accepted in the beloved. And that we know what our eternal destiny will be. That same salvation gives us power over the power of sin in our lives. We have victory. We have the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit. Third part, if you will, and a triune God who came to live within us. Now unfortunately, we have linkage still to our old man. Our flesh. Our natural sinful man has not been eradicated. He's still there. Our position is perfect. And ultimately, we will be removed from the presence itself of sin, but in this life, we are either dependent upon the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us, allowing our focus. It's all about our focus. Our focus to be on the Lord Jesus Christ. To have His Word. right in our brain so that as we go through life, what are we thinking about? What do we rely on? What do we revert to when things come up in our lives? Now, if we're walking by our own counsel and our own strength, then we're walking as if we weren't saved at all. Paul, we'll go through it a little more. We'll look more in Romans 7. In 7.18 he says, For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present in me, But how to perform that, I find not. And we can see, even from Paul, as we go through a little more of Romans 7, but the idea that there's a conflict within us. In 1 Corinthians, when Paul writes to them, he says, I would like to write to you as spiritual, but I have to write to you as carnal. And what that means is that they weren't thinking right. They were thinking or following the thinking of the flesh. Paul says in Ephesians 4, to put off the old man, that way of thinking that we had prior to our salvation. The way of thinking that the world propagates and that we can follow or fall right in line with. There's a quote in a book. I'll put it up. You're not going to be able to see it anyway. It's The New Life in Christ Jesus by Scofield. It talks about the process of deliverance in this life. He says, it begins with a complete removal of fear. The believer is told that he is not under law, that is a system of probation to see if he can work out a righteousness for himself, but he's under grace. That is a system of divine in-working, which produces the very righteousness which the law required, but which man never achieved. The believer is assured that Christ has given to him eternal life. and that he should never perish, that nothing is able to pluck him out of the hand of his Father, and that he who began a good work in Him will perfect it until the day of Christ. As for his sins, they are blotted out, cast behind God's back, buried in the depths of the sea, forgiven and forgotten. And this is a necessary first work, for no man can really be free if they're under the bondage of fear. But going on, grace imparts to the believer the indwelling Holy Spirit. The nature then that was open to every assault from without, or a slave to every vile impulse from within, Before we were saved, we could only follow our old nature, our old man. Once we're saved, we get the Holy Spirit to arrive, and He provides victory over that. It says, "...in the power of the indwelling One, the believer is made free from the monstrous necessity of sinning under which the unredeemed life groan." No Christian needs to sin. If he yields to the solicitations from without, or the more subtle suggestions from within, it is because he deliberately or carelessly wills it so. Now I would say, for the lion's share, it's carelessly. We simply don't pay enough attention to our spiritual condition. It's going to be on the screen. 2 Corinthians 5.17 says, Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new. A couple of verses later in verse 21, he says, For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. We have a new divine nature. We're not slaves to sin. We have the Holy Spirit to provide victory in our lives. by grace through faith. We have to believe that that's true in our life. For us to be victorious as Christians, we have to take God's word and we have to say, this is the source of victory in my life. Not anything the world offers. 2 Peter 1.4, he says, "...whereby were given us exceedingly great and precious promises, that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." So where are we really? Well, we know that our whole existence is controlled by our minds. Mind control. So turn in your Bibles to Romans 7, and we'll take just a look at how he describes this battle that wages in a Christian's life. We'll start in verse 14. It says, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do, I allow not. For what I would, that do I not. But what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, for I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For the will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God. through Christ Jesus our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but the flesh, the law of sin." Now, he can see the battle. And if you look at chapter 8 verse 1, He says, there is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And in verse 2, he says, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Now, he's not talking about first-hand salvation. He's not talking about being free from the penalty of sin. He's talking about the power of sin in our lives. Why do we struggle so in our lives? Why do we, like Paul, dwell in these verses from chapter 7 that talk about We do what we would not, rather than what we want to do, we don't do it. Well, it's because our focus is wrong. We don't allow the Spirit of God to have His way in us. We don't give Him any strength. We don't read the Word of God. We don't spend time thinking about the Word of God. We have a volition in this life. You know, God didn't save us and take us to heaven. Why not? We have the inheritance. We're going to go. Why don't we go right away? Well, there's things to do. He wants to empower. He has empowered us. He wants us to serve him, and then he'll reward us for it. Imagine that. But there's lost and dying in this world around us. There's believers to be encouraged right amongst us. There are things for us to do in this life, and that's why we're not in heaven. But He didn't mandate that. It isn't a robotic service. You have volition. He wants you to serve Him. He wants you to rely on the Spirit of God because you want to. Because that's your choice. Volition is your choice. And you don't choose to sin or not sin, that's not the point. But you choose to be positive to the Word of God, and choose to have that Word in your mind, to think, and I'll show you in a minute, we have to keep short accounts, That's Christian living. Not a conscious choice to sin. He uses the illustration in Ephesians 5.18. He says, be not drunk with wine where it isn't excess, but be filled with the Spirit. The contrast is, the drunken isn't a drink. It doesn't mean don't take a drink. Don't be under the control of the world. The idea of having that worldliness control you and absorb you, and then guide and direct your steps. Don't do that. He says, but... Be filled with the Spirit. Have that same sense of being absorbed in the Word of God, and to have that same sense then of being controlled, not puppeteering, but direction, our focus. What's God's direction for our lives? What is our vision? What vision do we have? What's our viewpoint? Is it divine viewpoint? Or is it human viewpoint? Well, how do we look at things? That's our problem. That's what we need to do. The key to success in the Christian life, really, is a continual filling of the Spirit. Think back. I didn't really dwell on it, but the idea of being a 100%er. You know, in a past life, It's a good analogy. In the past life, I was in charge of aircraft maintenance. And so we would set policy and procedures, and then we would expect that everyone would, 100% of the time, follow those. And the answer is they couldn't, and they didn't. But the idea is that A hundred percent of the time was important for them to do that. Now for us, we should be a hundred percenters, but we don't have the limitations that the natural man had. God has provided victory in our lives. Our limitation is our carelessness. I just love the way Schofield said it. We're careless with our salvation. We're careless with our relationship with the Lord. When you're careless with a human relationship, what happens? If you don't see someone or talk to them for 20 years, what's the closeness? You're drawn far away. Sometimes when you reunite, it's really good. But the idea is that you've drawn far away. The closeness comes from having that relationship on a constant basis. What do we want? What do we want in our lives? We can't be careless. We have to be... We have to think about it. It has to be on our mind. It has to be what we want to do. Now, I mentioned earlier about being filled with the Spirit. The key to being filled with the Spirit is 1 John 1.9 over and over and over and over and over again. When we find ourselves, when we see that we're not thinking right, when something jumps out that shows us that we're not thinking right, what do we do? We need to align our thinking, our mind, with God's. That's what he asked. That's what 1 John 1-9 really is. It's agreeing with God that our viewpoint's wrong. We're not thinking right. Now, confession of sin removes those obstacles that we've placed in our path. Righteousness is a byproduct. We must avail ourselves to God's perfect plan of restoration even. Keep short accounts. Examine ourselves. What are we doing? To yield to God's control, that's us abiding in Christ. It spends nearly a chapter talking about abiding in Christ in John. That's being occupied with Jesus Christ. Walking and talking with the Lord. That's fellowship. We're not trying to accomplish the Christian life. We're trying to allow the Lord to produce the Christian life in us. We just need to completely collapse in that grace provision the blessings that He's given us, and allow the Holy Spirit then to guide and direct. But it's not puppeteering. It's mental occupation. When we think about It's really funny. I'm looking at my notes. They don't match these slides. They're really nice slides, but that's not it. Ah, there's 1 John 1. We're back on track. Alright. So then, we think about our old sin nature. Again, we talked about it. I think you're in Romans anyway. Look at chapter 6. Look at verse 6. It said, Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. We are no longer completely dominated by our old sin nature. The choice for the believer really is who do we allow to control or who do we Occupy our mind, or what do we occupy our mind with? Go down a few verses to 16 of chapter 6. It says, Know ye not that to whom you yield yourselves servants to obey, His servants you are whom you obey? Whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. Let's get this crystal clear in our mind. Let's really understand that the key difference of a life of slavery to the flesh and a life of pure delight in fellowship with Christ is to whom do we yield? Who do we occupy or what do we occupy in our thinking? Okay, we looked at those. Alright. 2 Corinthians 5.21. It says, He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be what? Made the righteousness of God in Him. We have Jesus Christ living within us. God the Holy Spirit directing. Because we're in Christ. You know, what an amazing verse. I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life which I now live in the flesh. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. This is an admonition, obviously, to all saved men. Those who have placed their faith in Christ, to be filled with the Spirit, to spend our time in fellowship with the great God of the universe who has provided this salvation for us. We must be occupied with the Word of God. Spending time in the Word of God. I know I've said this many times, but every failure in your life, you can trace back to. No time spent in the Word of God. Turn to Proverbs 4, and we'll look at verse 20. In 20, he says, my son, attend to my words. Incline thy ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes. Keep them in the midst of thine heart. When he tells us to incline our ear, we must make effort. This is an effort on our part to study the Word of God. Again, the choice we make is not to sin or not sin. The choice is to hearken, to embrace really the Word of God. Yield to His direction. Why would we want to do that? Look at verse 22. He tells us, they are life to those that find them. We incline our ear to the sayings of God's Word, to energize our walk, to make our life worth living. What is our life? Again, we started with what's our history? Jesus Christ is our life. Serving the Lord is our life. We don't seek to serve. We seek the Lord Jesus Christ. We've got a 50-50 here. Oh yeah. Colossians 3.4, When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory. What is our life? Christ is our life. We're children of God. We have much more. We have an eternity. We're heirs of Christ. We have that set forth for us. That's God's promise. We have access to God through Jesus Christ. Our lives are in Christ. Just like we started, what's our personal history? Well, it depends, first of all, on being in the family of God. And once we're in the family of God, then it's dependent upon our environment. Our environment is hearing the Word of God, reading the Word of God, spending time with fellow believers. That's the environment we're in. And if that's true, then we will grow. We will live life that God intended for us. Fellowship. Walking and talking with God is a mental occupation. God produces fruit through us. We don't produce fruit. We are simply reflectors of Jesus Christ. We reflect the love that He has shown upon us. And so, seeing Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit is all of this fruit. produced by the Holy Spirit working through us. Again, we don't seek to produce fruit. We don't have a rigid life where we need to do this and that. We occupy ourselves. Think about a tree. The tree doesn't occupy itself with producing fruit. The tree's life comes from the ground, comes from the root, and it goes through the tree. And as it's occupied with the root, getting the nourishment from the ground and the rain, then the tree produces fruit. If you disturb the root, the fruit won't save the tree. What you do won't save, in a sense, your Christian life from destruction if you're not tapped into the root. The root is right here. And as we occupy ourselves with the Word of God, and allow God's thinking to be ours, we'll produce fruit. That's our life. It's a supernatural act on the part of the Holy Spirit that relies within us. Ask yourself again if this provision over the power of sin is as real in our thinking as the provision over the penalty of sin whereby we were initially saved or in the future that we're hoping to have, hoping is the wrong word, confidently expecting to have in the future. Why do we struggle then to live in this life? Why does Paul write Romans 7? After in Romans 6, he says that we're more than conquerors. That we have victory. And then in 7 he says, yeah, but. We struggle. But then in 8, he says, but we don't have to. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. What is our volition? What are we occupying our mind with? Unfortunately, that's our history. Think about personal history. Our history is that we are a study of inconsistency and contradiction. Because we take our eye off the prize, we don't keep the Word of God as frontlets between our eyes. We don't hide it in our hearts that we might not sin against Him. We need to be captivated with the Lord in our lives. I did it. All right. The struggle is real, but so is the victory. Truly, again, it's mind control. It's what are we thinking? What are we occupied with? If we are what we think, then what we think is critical, right? And we can do nothing about our past failures. We can do nothing about what's happened in our life. But we can, 1 John 1, 9, we can move forward again. Moment by moment. It should be extremely exciting for us to think about living a life and having a personal history Well, think about Enoch. Enoch was not found, because why? Because he walked with God. What an epitaph. Would to God we would have an epitaph like that. I asked someone once about his life. I said, what will you be known for in your life? What will your life be described as when you're gone? He said, oh, I'm too young to think like that. I said, so you know what day or what time your end will come? You know for certain how many days you have left? None of us do. Now that was to someone talking about his personal salvation. But the same thing could be said to each and every one of us. What are we doing? Are we redeeming the time? Are we allowing God's Word to be our sole source of input? So that our minds are right. I thought about it last time I spoke about Enoch. Judges, there's a cycle where they failed, they were given up, they called unto the Lord, and He blessed them. Well, this is a perpetual cycle too. Time spent with Jesus Christ and His Word develops an understanding of the blessings of God for us. Enjoying those blessings and the blessings of God in time develops a depth of relationship with Him. Enjoying that relationship with God develops then an intimacy with Him, which develops a desire to know Him more deeply. And therefore, we go right back to time spent with Christ. And this is a perpetual cycle of a spiritual man. Would to God this would be a spiritual cycle, a personal history of each and every one of us. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your great provision of salvation for us in past, present, and future. Just pray that we would live a life that can bring honor and glory to Christ by having the viewpoint that you have, that we would redeem the time for the days are evil. We would not waste our lives, but we'd live, truly live a life that matters. Pray for our camp and all that's going on there. Pray for the souls you entrusted to us as young children. Pray for each and every one here. Pray that we can encourage one another and even seek to reach the lost for Christ.