Practically Living Out The New Covenant

Practically living out the new covenant. We're speaking on the new covenant And wanted to share practical ways in which you live out the difference between the old covenant And the new covenant So i'll go through it some of this a lot of this is repeat But I wanted to kind of give you practical ways in which you live it out between the old covenant and the new covenant And we can ask ourselves which covenant are we living in? Next slide, please The top benefits and blessings if you're living in the old covenant We are asking god for health wealth Prosperity and I can go and find it in the bible. I find a lot of them in psalms I find a lot of them in deuteronomy and some of the old testament books And I can claim it in isaiah 2 jeremiah some of these ones I can I claim it and say lord you said it in your word So you must heal me or you must Give me this new job with better money or this and that all those prayers Are rooted even if we go to god in it in a mindset of the old covenant In the the mindset of the new covenant Is an agreement it's an agreement between god and man and if it is an agreement between god and man We're talking about things that god guarantees What does god guarantee God guarantees the divine nature God doesn't guarantee health wealth other things God guarantees that through his promises. He may give me the divine nature So I need to reduce the number of prayers That I have the guarantee they're going to be answered god you're going to heal me of this god You're going to give me this on this earthly realm Because there's no guarantee of that But I don't have to drop don't have to drop even the slightest ounce of faith when it comes to spiritual things To know god, there's no debate. I don't have to plead with god When it comes to the divine nature, I don't have to beg god he wants to give it to me And a spiritual person will take whatever the lord gives him on this physical realm Whatever health or lack of health he gets Whatever financial gain or lack of gain he gets He knows that god will give him what he needs As it relates to food and clothing and to be able to survive on this earth But he has no shortage of faith When it comes to spiritual things So let's remember that when we ask ourselves lord. Do I have faith? My question is what do you have faith for? What do you have confidence for if it is for your spiritual life? There should be 100 guarantee confidence then lord Let your will be done I Can ask god god let the scuff pass from me. I don't want to face this situation or that situation But lord your will be done This is the difference between an old covenant person and a new covenant person a new covenant person has spiritual good in mind and Everything is geared towards that So they go to god with 100 certainty that god wants to get rid of their unforgiving attitude And there's zero unbelief as it relates to that Or a lukewarmness towards god. There's a zero Doubt about whether god wants to help him with it And the fault is always with me If I go to god for spiritual benefits, and i'm not receiving it. It's not god's fault. It's a guarantee God wants to give it to me And a lot of us I think we're surrounded by christendom well-meaning, but I think Misappropriate old covenant prayers And make us doubt god because god never promised it in the new covenant god never promised us fancy lives or Healthy lives some of us are going to be sick with some sicknesses for the rest of our lives This is not a shortage on god's ability to heal us. God's never guaranteed it, but he has guaranteed us I think we can we can partake of the divine nature So that's what we need to claim in the new covenant A lot of us may already feel. I don't know if I want this like We've been sold a bill of goods We've been sold a religion that maybe said god will help me in all the great things. I want to accomplish on this earth Not at all But if I reset all of my goals and say god the only thing that you promised me in the new covenant Was the divine nature And that I may know you and that's the only thing i'm going to go to you for lord and say you got you Guaranteed to me. I want to have it We'll find that we live happy lives next line Sin the difference between all covenant and sin There's no excuse for any sin. No excuse. What is sin? Romans chapter 3 verse 23 to fall short of the glory of god in any way internal and external absence presence of some sin or absence of good I didn't do anything wrong, but I didn't say the right thing that god wanted me to say That's also falling short of the glory of god and in the old covenant They were mostly worried of whether I had a good reputation in front of people thou shalt not commit adultery commit murder Don't bear false witness. Most of the nine commandments were external a lot of the old covenant life is a christian life That is mostly worried about the external The new covenant life is a life that says lord if I had even a small wrong in my motive Even when I said the right thing I'm guilty of the worst sins as we heard in the message that we heard earlier this week if I commit if I show partiality james chapter 2 verse 9 I'm as guilty as the one who commits adultery Who in this world thinks that committing part showing partiality towards somebody who's richer or somebody who's more famous? is as bad as sin as committing adultery New covenant is to say lord. There's no excuse in either for any sin in any thought motive or action Next slide, please What is the goal? What is the goal of your life? The old covenant was to obey the mosaic law. The new covenant is to be just like jesus And to be just like jesus is to have the glory of jesus The glory of jesus was when he accomplished Whatever god gave him to do That's what it says in john chapter 17 verse 4 And the glory of jesus is his love is the love of god And the glory of jesus is that I might love one another as god loved me Those are the two things about the glory of jesus I see in john chapter 17 in his prayer lord I've glorified you because i've accomplished everything that you asked me to do now lord. Jesus help them to see my glory And the glory that I have is that I was loved By the father and that you and I are one And that we may love one another those are the two glories that I see about you is absolutely loved by the father and a desire for unity Next slide, please Now look a lot of these we've gone through before i'm trying to cover it This is material that will be available to you But i'm trying to highlight some of the differences and ask myself look. I know how the old testament I know how daniel lived because he's under the old covenant. My question is am I living? According to the old covenant, even though I claim to be in the new covenant or the new agreement How do I get to be like jesus? This is critically important And we've talked a lot about this From a long for a long period of time It's not based on human efforts. It's based on faith That god will do it look when we looked at when he said in the very beginning that the the The whole purpose the greatest blessing of the new covenant is his nature I have to see That what god is telling me Is it's like a man going to an ant listen to me carefully dear brothers sisters It's like man going to an ant and telling an ant Behave like a human being What chance does the ant have what chance does the ant have one in a million one in a billion Can you imagine an ant? Sitting and just pondering life like we do I'm going to take the day off and just sit by the lake and take my journal And think about life with my coffee. Can you imagine an ant doing that? That's what's in our nature So when we reduce the christian life to doing good works To doing good things Then I find that there are some animals who I can train to act like humans I can get in a monkey I can get a monkey to type some things on the keyboard and may actually be able to type a letter decently I may be able to get an animal to go bang on a drum and run around like in a circus looking very human-like It's not their nature though So we have to grab a hold of that. What god is asking us to do is like asking an ant to behave like a human being That's much more than just actions What is a man like what is a woman like can I get an ant to like what I like? What's the chance that I can like what god likes This is far greater than doing obeying the commandments. This is it's a completely different league So the the sooner we get to the point of saying lord has no chance It's impossible That's when faith can come in Faith can do what we cannot Fathom with our human minds. I spoke some I don't know it was a year ago or more than that that i'm like a fruit fly Who gravitates to the garbage And you're gonna now tell this fruit fly don't gravitate to the garbage Hang out among the flowers be like a butterfly What chance does the fruit fly get have to do that? You can be pretty like a butterfly one day different nature We have to see that what god is asking us is to have a completely different nature So we don't have to get frustrated ourselves when we try and we get angry Or we try and we can't forgive as easily as we should The problem is not nurture. It's nature. You know, the big debate in the human world is how do you end up with good kids? Is it nature or nurture? and it's a Complicated thing some say it's both one of the big challenges that we as christians need to understand. There's no nurturing you into the kingdom There's no such thing as let's nurture us into being good christians, it's not a nurture issue. It's a nature issue And we have to cross out trying to nurture our christian our children to be good christians It's not a nurture issue. It's a nature issue I gotta look at my beautiful daughter or look at my cute little boys and say there's a nature that's filthy in that As cute as they look as sweet as they sound there's a nature that's Fundamentally corrupted and I have to have faith and I have to pray for my children that a fundamental change in nature may happen Parents that's what we need We have to do the best we can to teach them good Character values and all of that but behind all of that I can dress them up in the nicest Behavior and clothes and send them over my boy and Go to hell If there's not a nature transformation Dear brothers and sisters. We need a nature transformation, too And our whole pursuit of life Is a nature transformation. We need faith And out of that faith comes fruit Just like a vine bears fruit just like an apple tree bears fruit. It's not works. It's just a matter of being connected to the tree Another way of looking at is worship. It's we worship god. We worship god and out of our worship service just comes out I have to ask myself if fruit is not coming out. I have to ask myself if service is not coming out of my life But the answer is now just start producing fruit. The answer is not just serving No, the answer is lord if I worshipped you service will come out If I did have faith in you fruit will come out So fruit is not coming out of the heart of service for you is not coming out. Lord. There's something wrong. I don't have faith I don't have worship. Otherwise service will come out It's the natural reaction to the action of worship Service will come out But we don't have to put the heart the cart before the horse we don't try to serve our way into worship No, we have to worship god. We have to seek god for faith lord. I can't Have the nature of god, but that's what I want. Then love comes out As we partake of god's nature Next slide, please God's holy place Let's stop calling israel the holy land Let's refuse to buy into the christendom that says let's go visit the holy land Every everywhere we see that written in any literature. We get say that's a lie. That's a lie It's not the holy land and let me tell myself whenever I read that says israel is the holy land Now no, no, no. No, this is the holy land. My body is the holy land. My life is the holy land That's where the holy spirit has come to dwell and the church local and global Church local and global and I separated this out into two parts. It's the local church and the global church Because I think it's so easy for us to think of the church just expansively as global It's first the local church it's predominantly the local church that's the holy land And some of us are good at making our individual lives the holy land But our eyes have been blinded to seeing that the local church is the holy land And our eyes need to be opened Lord, I have not done your will I have not accomplished your purpose If I see my body as the holy land, but I don't see the local church As the holy land if I am not radically committed To giving my whole body to you every day lord I have not seen you my body as the holy land, but lord if i'm also not Radically committed to becoming part of a local church. I'm blinded To what the true holy land is This is one of the truths that we have heard because of the new covenant that we have been taught through my father That it's not good enough just to have your body as the holy land we must Not just attend the local church, but see that the local church Is a holy land Bunch of holy lands that god is trying to build up and god's asking me to play a part to build up other people's holy land I have to see that my eyes have to be Gripped with that next slide, please My enemies We know what our enemies are in the old covenant all kinds of itites, you know Amalekites itites jebusites all kinds of philistines and other things like that. What is it in the new covenant? There's one enemy only one enemy Sin, and I actually flipped it around. Do we have the new version? Okay, let's take the let's take the time to swap out the old version to the new one because in the new version What I did is I put my flesh at the top You know a lot of christendom thinks that the devil is your number one enemy I don't absolutely believe that the devil is our number one enemy. I don't believe that Because god's taking care of that enemy and defeated it very easily All i've got to do is resist the devil and he says he'll flee from me But he tells me with my flesh. I have to crucify my flesh Over and over and over and over and over again and what's the difference between resisting and crucifixion That's how much more difficult my flesh is my flesh inside of me Much harder And you ask yourself how much are you afraid of the devil or how much are you afraid of Of your own flesh of your selfish will and that'll show you how we may be bought into old covenant mindsets, too Oh, don't go near that. The devil is near there. I thought the devil come in Oh, he's trivial and an enemy if the devil comes in it's very easy for me to get rid of him just resist him The real enemy is within me When i'm dealing with my marriage issues, the biggest enemy is my flesh Hmm Still thinking about the old one Then after that comes the world system That is influenced by the world by the devil And then the last one is the devil himself. He's of course an enemy We wrestle not against flesh and blood. We don't wrestle against other people But we're in principalities and powers as we are seeking to advance god's kingdom our wrestling We go against the kingdom of god. The kingdom of god goes against the kingdom of darkness But our primary enemy is our flesh is our selfish will Once my mind is gone around it. I won't be worried about what christendom is doing badly out there I won't be worried about what my boss is doing to mess me up out here or my neighbor is doing something to mess me up I'll be most worried about the greatest enemy to god That exists that's my flesh Have I seen that? every day I wake up and say lord. I gotta Drink of your loving kindness because there's this enemy inside of me Whether or not whether or not I got a horrible. Um Email or not for my boss. The worst enemy inside of me is my flesh Shall we keep going? What are the worst sins? disobeying the ten commandments the worst Sin that I can do in the new covenant is unbelief And again in the new slides I basically said what unbelief is god, I don't believe you I don't need you I don't trust you One of those things god, I don't believe you or I don't need you or I don't trust you It's because I have that subtle statement. That's why pride comes in I don't need you That's why self-pity comes in Because god, I don't trust you or I don't believe you hypocrisy comes in Or I don't need you Legalism self-righteousness all of these come in because we say god I don't need you. I don't trust you. I don't believe you We have to see that this is the root Behind some of the our biggest problems in life is because of a spirit of unbelief. It is never god's fault It is always my spirit of unbelief through my pride through my self-pity That is why i've talked about self-pity and discouragement as being such a horrible sin When I get into a bad mood, that is such a direct slap in the face to god I have to see these things and say lord. I want to be freed From this that is why when I see that I see that god Jesus was so strong against unbelief And he was so easy on adultery Think about that Did he wink did he say adultery is okay? Not at all, but relative to adultery unbelief was such a stink in his eyes And it's christians people close to the Very truth who are the most guilty of unbelief Next slide, please god's word Were you able to solve it out This is not the new one. No, is it it's not done. Okay Focus on the spirit not the life of g focus on the letter or focus on the spirit the life of jesus How do I interact with god's word? We heard today about eating god's word I we have to feel that uh, we know god's word and it's just knowledge The reason for god's word Is so that I might have the life of jesus That I might have the life of jesus john chapter 5 verse 39 said You search the scriptures because you think you think in them that you have life, but you're unwilling to come to me That you might have life Do I know the scriptures or do I have the life of jesus? If I if I if I know the scriptures and I don't have the life of jesus I've lost it. It's been worthless It's no point me knowing all the scriptures. It's no point teaching our children all the words about scriptures If we don't have the life of jesus the old covenant We obey based on fear Thou shalt of his god will punish you The new covenant We are obedience that's based out of the father's love It's love based It's because god loves me. That's why I obey him Because he loves me. I love him and I obey him There's a fundamental difference Now again, these are all ways in which I have to go back and ask myself lord Jesus am I living in the old covenant or am I living in the new covenant? Am I obeying you because I got scared because the last time I disobeyed you for three months You gave me a health scare and I had to go to the doctor The last time I wasn't living right you did something to my job. I lost my job Or one of my children got something and if that's the way I interact with god It's an old covenant mentality and i'm not saying that that's wrong god We need to do that to pull me out of my to get me to my senses But god doesn't want me to live that way in the new agreement That's how he deals with prodigal sons that are out there That's how he deal with hypocrites who are not living true lives But with the children of god who are walking with god god says you obey me because you love me I'll correct you But i'm going to be full of love and you obey based on a love that you have for me and I have to ask Myself lord every day am I responding because Of who you are and what you've done for me. Otherwise, let me reset As we have from jeremy we start off our day with the spirit of coldness well That's for sure But you may start with the spirit of hotness because you brought the lord in but by 11 o'clock, it's cold again Then you need another baptism of fire into the heat of the love of god and at two o'clock again Obedience based on the father's love we have to keep coming back to saying lord I'm not doing this out of rote and we have to keep pulling our hearts back to say lord I want to come back to your love jesus never sinned because he was Always immersed in the love of god always We sin because we don't know love because we don't know the love of god next slide please worship We know this a lot. What is worship? It's not clapping it is not singing it is not music it is not emotional It is not crying It is not feeling the holy spirit because we say everybody be quiet And let the lord speak to you and you suddenly start to feel your the hair on the back of your neck Stand up and you say that's the holy spirit. No, he isn't it isn't I'm, not saying the holy spirit can't move the hair follicles on your back of your neck. He surely can do that He can surely put a tongue of fire on top of your head, but let's not use that as the marker Let's not use that as the test My hair stood up Because we all know just a little bit of electricity will get my hair to stand up. It's not the holy spirit the holy spirit Changes my heart and gives me a desire to obey And he allows my inside to match my outside and my outside to match my inside So we worship in spirit that means in our hearts and we worship in truth Fellowship the next one. How do we have fellowship? Is it based on culture? Is it based on common interests or is it based on a relationship those have a relationship with the father and the son Next one prayer and fasting Here's a big one, we have to change our mindset about prayer for sure We we Exalt it is in our nature for us to think really highly of a person who spends four five hours in prayer We think it's a big deal. It's not a big deal It's a it's a horrible disobedience to god's word to pray for five hours Why because what does god's word say? Pray without seizing So why did you stop after five hours is my question? Why did you stop after 10 hours? Because you define prayer as kneeling down and being quiet and by yourself That's again. We have to redefine The word prayer based on what we see in scripture. God says very clearly pray without seizing So i'm not trying to go from 15 minutes of prayer with god to 30 minutes of prayer with god to two hours of prayer With god to eight hours of prayer with god every day Again, this is so built into our mindset And christendom has not done any good with it and we have to recognize that the commandment of god is pray without seizing Then I can think that prayer is like breathing Prayer is like breathing then I do that all the time So my prayer life should be like my breathing life How long how many of us can go five minutes without breathing? How many of us can go 20 minutes without breathing? You'll say sandeep. I don't pray always. Well, that's the commandment of god Let's reset our christian life and start to live slowly One day at a time saying lord. I want to try to obey these verses Pray without seizing I want to have a heart of prayer Breathing in your promises Constantly As often as I can remember in the middle of work, but I don't even realize it i'm breathing Most of the time I don't even think about it. I'm breathing and god says I want to take you out of this womb where you're not breathing You're being fed by the placenta now you come out into this world and I cut off the umbilical cord Now just got to breathe The love of god breathe in the love of god live in the love of god remind yourself often about the love of god That's what prayer is How long is the lord's prayer? four hours long 30 seconds long mass the greatest prayer of all time 30 seconds. That's it Disciples just got ready to pray and then it was over. That's it. That's all you got god. That's it Yeah pray without seizing Fasting too not as a show in secret next slide please giving In the old covenant there was an average of over 20 They had to give to the levites every year. They had to give for the festivals every year They had to give to the poor every third year. It was average of over 20 And was given based on one's increase and to be obeyed strictly The new covenant is it 20 percent 10 percent? 100 and we give based on ability and for needs based on ability And we give secretly and cheerfully what do you when we think about these things like worship and we think about fasting and Prayer And giving this last slide in this light. This is where a lot of people who know the new covenant but are carnal Will say see I don't know how to pray four hours. I don't know how to pray a long period of time I don't know how to fast like the old and old covenant did You find that they never fast Even though jesus says when you fast and jesus said when I leave this earth, my disciples will fast carnal christians So don't really pray much. Don't spend any time with the lord one on one Don't have any time of conversation with the lord in secret Don't have any kind of giving reputation before the lord not before man Say look, I the tithing is done so i'm not going to give I'm going to take care of my family first. I'm going to just take care of all my needs. How are we different from the heathen? Well, because we're living in the new covenant now. I don't need to give I don't need to fast I don't need to pray like they prayed like daniel prayed three times a day And this is where god exposes our hearts from being carnal Using the new covenant as a license to sin These are ways in which it happens I know what happened in my life and I had to ask myself. Well, am I just an old new covenant person using the advantages of it? but Disobeying your law Disobeying the heart of your command lord. I have a heart of giving. I have a heart of fasting. I have a heart to pray Next slide, please In this whole area and this is the final slide in all of these areas you talk about God gives us freedom not to give 10 or 20. God says you have freedom 100 belongs to me Eating you don't have to eat pork. The old covenant said you can't eat pork. You can't eat this animal god says free every Food is now clean But watch what you eat don't be a glutton be careful how much you eat Don't keep on eating and eating and eating have smaller portions You see that so because of the freedom god gives us in the new covenant Some of us just become gluttons Here's here's another one that I didn't mention sabbath. God said the sabbath is gone. Every day is holy Well now every day has to be holy which means what every day should be like the sabbath consecrated to the lord Most of us tend to think sunday is a little bit more important So we destroy the old covenant and live with the freedom of the new covenant without really realizing the real Spirit of the new covenant is that every day should be like the sabbath Every day should be consecrated. And as I think about these things I see how the lord has to restore me To the true meaning of the new covenant Lord, I you took away the sabbath Thank you lord that I don't have to make saturdays as a day where I don't lift This or do that, but lord you made it you wanted me such that in every day of the week I lived with you in a sabbath relationship Or I don't try to earn my favor, but I live in a life of rest with you every day Or I live in your love Lord you've freed me from the from the law of giving 10 or 20 Lord, but I don't want to just now hold on to my money and do whatever I want with it lord 100 of it is yours. What do you want to do with 100 of my bank account 100? We won't just be able to spend it on whatever we want lord My food intake is yours You freed me from having to not eat this animal that I can eat whatever I want But everything that I put into my body my body is yours I want to treat you with reverence this body that you've given me. I want to treat my time With the reverence that you've given it. I want to treat the money with the reverence that you've given it So this is the final slide Personal external holiness, but an up and down relationship god elijah had it david had it John the baptist had it preaching great messages, but then once he's in prison His circumstances changed the greatest man in the old covenant Saying sending a message to jesus. Are you really the one? Instead we need to have a growing loyalty to jesus growing Loyalty to jesus. That's what devotion is loyalty We must get offended more When jesus's name is dishonored in our lives in our family lives We must be horribly bothered When we are not on fire for god Or when our family is not on fire for god, it should bother us in the old covenant The important thing was to raise god-fearing children as far as I could tell. I mean This is not I don't know how big a deal it was, but definitely in the culture it was The new covenant god wants us to be disciples and disciples in private with family At work in every area to be disciples and the reason I use the word disciples in luke 14, it talks about three Requirements of discipleship, which we we know already that you must hate father mother brother sister and in your own life You've got to take up your cross. That means you've died yourself life And you have to hate all your possessions. Nothing should possess you Those are the three requirements of discipleship that god mentioned and we need to be disciples in private No family member Can come close to our loyalty to jesus No possession can possess us and no preference of anything of our selfish will can come in between us and our loyalty to god That's what it means to be a disciple in private life But I also wanted to underline what it means to be at family life as well Because as I mentioned the burden of my heart is that we as nccf will have better family lives We need to be a disciple Let me ask you this Husbands and wives I want I want to do this all as a exercise for all of us who are married I want husbands because this may apply to us more because our wives may be more scared of us I want all of us to be able to ask our wives a simple question Do you think? I love my family more than I love you Do you think I prefer your my mother or my father or my uncle? Or my own brother more than I love you What do you think and allow my wife to say whatever she wants? And god help Her tell you the truth I wonder what she will say But definitely flip it around wives. If you want to be godly ask your husband that Do you think that I love any of my own family including my own children more than I love you? Do you honestly think that I want your honest 100% feedback and if you'll give it to me, I will repent You have to live before god don't just use this as a way to get rid of me or to to poke me But if you honestly think that I love my parents or my brothers Or anybody in my family more than I love you I have to repent and then ask them the next question possessions Do does something possess me? Do you think my job is more important to me than you are? Do you think my career is more important to me than you are? And be open To allow my spouse to speak. Absolutely 100% open into my life I'll get a great sense of where I'm at How about selfish will do I really do you do you feel that I want Have all these expectations of the way you must Help me live my life Make the food like this keep the clothes like this something or the other. Do you really feel that I'm like that? And let our spouses speak truth into our lives And if we do If we will allow our wives to say This is the reality. We may be able to make 2018 a much better life here Because god's interested in a healthy marriage and i'm absolutely convinced that if jesus is number one who should be number two If we're married it should be our spouse It must be our spouse Not even our children can come close Definitely not our parents and our other relatives that we were born with they must be a distant third God said I must leave and cleave and if my spouse's response to me is that something either my career or my job or my My family that I was born with or my money is more important than she is or he is I must repent Because i'm not a disciple and I must have that same spirit of a disciple at work and on and on Let's take that seriously finally We're not just Devoted to jesus in private We're not just relational to our loved ones But we're also got a commitment to our local church That we are a priest You every single brother and sister who's committed to nccf? You're a priest in this church And you have a function That you have to serve god in this church out of love out of a love for god I think of some of these great priests who must have been there in the old covenant to serve god in holiness And jesus is the great high priest He's our example how he served god out of love Out of great reverence to god, but out of love We serve god There's much to meditate on A lot of these were facts that I think most of you already knew. I just tried to underline a few points But if I leave you with one thing, let me leave you with what I talked about you in terms of Your family life, please take this seriously your brothers and sisters The devil is going to come and attack us And he's going to find these ways in our flesh And our marital relationships are going to suffer Our children are going to grow up with a horrible reflection of us If we don't fight to make jesus number one and our spouse number two And we're going to have to fight against our family. We're going to have to fight against career But to fight against money and all these other things to possess us may god help us