Death To Self And The Resurrected Life

It's always good to see what was God's original purpose for man, which got corrupted and changed through man's disobedience. But God, who knows the end from the beginning, this was his plan, and his plan has never changed. And if it got disrupted by man's disobedience, Jesus came to restore man, not only to God's original plan, but to something far higher. So listen to this, and let's hear it clearly. God said, let us make man in our image, Genesis 1-26, and let them rule. God's purpose was that man should rule. Everything should be under his feet, the fish, the birds, the cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, man was supposed to be God's representative ruling on his behalf. And God blessed Adam and Eve when he created them, verse 28, Genesis 1-28. And listen to this, he said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and rule over everything. The Lord gave man authority over the fish, over the birds, all the animals, or every living thing that moves or creeps on the earth. That includes every imaginable virus. Those days there wasn't any, but that was God's purpose. Every creative thing, man was supposed to rule, but we know that man fell and lost that authority. And because he was made from the ground, his body was made from the ground, from the dust of the earth. When Adam sinned, God never cursed Adam, but it says in Genesis 3-17, he cursed the ground. The dust from which man was made, his body was made, was cursed. And therefore he said, you're going to have thorns and thistles and all types of things and sickness and everything came after that. It's because our body is made from this cursed ground, ground that was cursed because of sin, that we get sickness in our body. And that's why we finally die. The curse has been removed from our spirit when Christ comes in. Galatians 3-13 says, Christ became a curse for us on the cross. It's an amazing thing. He didn't only die on the cross. He actually became a curse so that we might receive the blessing. That's Galatians 3-14. So the curse was removed, but when Christ comes to dwell in us, it's only in our spirit. There is no curse in my spirit, zero. If I walk in the light, that's why it's important to walk in the light. If you walk in the darkness, you're going into the area of the curse. Darkness is under the curse. That's an area allotted to the devil. If you live in the country of God's protection, which is the light, God protects you there, but you move into another country, which is handed over to the devil. It's an area of darkness. It's called the prince of darkness, the rule of darkness. Darkness is a country God has given over to the devil and so you rule there. Now, if I wander into that territory, I'm going to come under the authority of Satan, even if I put a foot in there. And that's how so many believers get into problems when they allow some darkness in their life. And the darkness could be a simple thing like you don't forgive somebody. That's darkness, total darkness. And then you can have so many problems, so many sicknesses, so many problems in your life. Your fellowship with God is gone. Your anxiety, fear, so many things with one simple thing, an unforgiving spirit. Or you do something unrighteous. You know it is unrighteous. I don't mean accidentally. Accidentally, we cannot move into darkness. No. God sees our will. If I accidentally do something wrong, God doesn't hold me responsible. For example, if you don't know that there's a certain tax that you have to pay and you didn't pay it, you're not guilty. You do not. But I mean, you are guilty when you find out and when the authorities tell you you've got to pay this tax, that's fine. But if you knowingly avoid it, then you're walking into darkness. There's a difference between what we consciously do and what we unconsciously do. So there's no curse on our spirit if I walk in the light. And if you determine that I'm never going to consciously move one step into darkness, any area that my conscience says that's darkness, telling a lie, making a false statement, as I said, an unforgiving spirit, that God's will is that we rule and we do not allow darkness to have any power over us at any point. So what happened once man sinned, as we read in Genesis chapter three, is that he could no longer go to the tree of life. It was not completely banned. There was a way to go to the tree of life, but it could only be fulfilled only when Christ came back. But we read in Genesis three, in verse 24, that God drove the man out of the garden of Eden. And then he put cherubim and a flaming sword that went every direction around the tree of life to guard it. So man could not go there. Man could not go to the tree of life. But as I said, if you could get past that flaming sword which God had put, then you could go in there. And that's what happened on January, first of all. So that flaming sword, which guarded the way to the tree of life, which is the judgment of God on sin. We sing in that song, in Christ alone, my hope is found. One line says, the wrath of God was satisfied on the cross. There's a tremendous anger God has against sin, even one sin. And the proof of that is in the Garden of Eden. One sin was enough for Adam and Eve to be turned out of the Garden of Eden. And for all generations, their children and future generations would live under the curse of sickness, war, famine, all types of viruses and sicknesses and death. Caused by how many sins? One sin. Everything you see in the world today, confusion, chaos, death, is the result of one sin that Adam committed. If you understand that, you see the seriousness of one sin. Sometimes we think, oh, that's just one sin. You haven't seen Genesis chapter three. One sin, all the chaos in the world today, don't ever forget that. Don't think that one sin you commit in your home is not serious. Even one sin is serious. One sin made sure that you couldn't go to the tree of life anymore. It's true even today. One sin can cut off my fellowship with God immediately. You may not realize it, because you live for so long without fellowship with God, that okay, one sin, the fellowship with God, wasn't there before, still not there. But a man who's walking in very close, intimate fellowship with God, and I'll tell you, there are very few believers who live like that. But one who's living like that, he feels something has happened. When one bad thought comes into his mind, or accidentally he said one rude word, or he did one wrong thing, he feels something has happened. Where did the darkness come from? If you're not walking like that, I want to tell you, you're not walking in the light. You need to move closer to God. You need to move into the light. Anyway, that flaming sword is what fell on Jesus on the cross. He took it. He died and opened up the way to this tree of life. You can symbolize it with this flaming sword in the front of the tree of life, or in the tabernacle which God gave to the Israelites. He taught them the same truth in another way. The tabernacle had three parts. The inmost part was the most holy place where God dwelt. God did not dwell in the outer court. God did not dwell in the holy place. He dwelt in the most holy place, and that most holy place was blocked off with a thick curtain called a veil. Nobody could go in there. The high priest could go in there once a year with blood, symbolizing that one day there would be a way that the high priest Jesus Christ would open the way for us. Then he had to come out immediately. When Jesus died, that veil was rent from top to bottom, showing that God did it. He opened the way into the most holy place, and that way is called in Hebrews 10. If you're not familiar with this verse, it's very important that you become familiar with it. Hebrews 10 and verse 19 and 20. Brethren, we have confidence now to enter into the most holy place. That's what's referred to here by the blood of Jesus. That's very important because sin can only be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, conscious sin and unconscious sin. Let me speak a word about that before I go further here. Turn with me to 1 John and chapter 1. Conscious sin, 1 John 1.9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins. If you confess it, that means you can only confess what you know. You cannot confess unconscious sin because you don't even know you committed it. Conscious sin. When you confess a conscious sin, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us on the basis of Christ's death, that sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Also to say to us, it says in Hebrews 8.12, I will not remember that anymore. God is faithful to that. Now we go to unconscious sin. What about that? That also needs to be cleansed before we can come into God's presence. How does that happen? We cannot confess it because we don't even know that we did something wrong. And it says in 1 John 1.7, if we walk in the light, that's all. And that is according to the light you have. Conscious light. That means all that you know, your conscience tells you is right. You walk there and you avoid even a smell of anything that's darkness. Walk in the light as God is in the light. We have fellowship with God. Even though we have unconscious sin, we have fellowship with God because Christ becomes our righteousness. And see what it says here. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Have you ever thought of that? When you're walking in the light, that means you're free from all conscious sin. What is this sin that the blood of Jesus is cleansing you from? Unconscious sin. Conscious sin is mentioned in verse nine. When I walk in the light, there is no conscious sin in my life, but the blood of Jesus still needs to cleanse me from unconscious sin. And that is how I have fellowship with God. So that sword that fell upon Jesus has opened the way to the tree of life. And it says, come back to Hebrews 10.19, through the blood of Jesus. And when you speak about the blood of Jesus, it speaks about his death on the cross. The blood of Jesus symbolizes his death on the cross. He's becoming a curse for us, Hebrews. Sorry. He's becoming Galatians 3.13. And he's becoming sin also. Second Corinthians 5, the last verse that Christ became sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And it says here that through the blood of Jesus, we enter this now most holy place. And this way into the most holy place is not called a door. Now we would think when a veil is torn, it's a door that you just walk in and you're there. No. Scripture says this thing, the veil that is torn is not a door. It's a way. It's a way in which we have to walk every day if we want to live in the most holy place. So it's not that the veil is run and I'm there forever. It's a way that I have to walk, which says here, Jesus inaugurated it for us. It's like a road that's been inaugurated. When they open a new road somewhere, somebody comes and cuts a ribbon and says, okay, the road is open for all of you travelers to walk in. That's the meaning of inaugurating a way. So it says here, Jesus inaugurated this new and living way. There's no death in this way. A new and living way through the veil. And this, as I said, is not a door and that veil was his flesh. And as I've studied the New Testament, the word flesh is used in these places, meaning his own will. The will of Jesus was constantly put to death. Right up to the last moment in Gethsemane where he said, not my will. In John 638, it says, I came from heaven. It's a great verse, John 638. If you don't know it, remember it. I came from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So in one sentence, Jesus came from heaven, not to die for the sins of the world, because he did many other things. He not only died for the sins of the world, which is only six hours on the cross, but 33 and a half years, he showed how man should live on this earth. What about that? So all of that is summed up in one sentence in John 638. He came from heaven. That's his autobiography. Autobiography means the history of a man's life that he writes himself. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are biographies of the life of Jesus Christ, but John 638 is the autobiography where Jesus says, I've come from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That is the new and living way. That is the flesh, my own will. He never did it. He went it and he rented every day. That's why he says in Luke 9.23, that if anyone wants to come up to me, let him take up his cross daily and follow me. Now, what does that mean, follow him? That means he was taking up his cross daily. Otherwise there's no point in saying, if you want to, no, I don't have to take it up daily, but you have to. No, he took it up daily. And that's why he says, follow my example. You should take it up every single day. So that's why it's called a way. It's all means the same thing, different figures of speech through the veil. So this sword that is in front of the tree of life that fell upon Christ, as we understand it, fell upon us on the cross as well. Our old man was crucified with him. And that was possible only because right from the beginning, God knew us from the beginning of time. He knew us before the worlds were created. It says here, God knew us way before anything that existed on this earth. He knew us and way before we were created, he knew us. And because of that, that means my name was in God's mind before I was born, your name, if you're a child of God, and he put us on the cross with Christ. That's how we died with him. Otherwise, it's a mystery for us to understand how could God do that? But because we were in the mind of Christ before we were born, we could be placed in Christ on the cross. So for us today, the application is in Galatians 5 and verse 24. Galatians 5, verse 24, it says, they that are Christ's, because I was crucified with Christ, that's Romans 6.6. Our old man was crucified with him. And now today, Galatians 5.24, this is the new and living way. This is the flaming sword that falls, that we have to live for, allow it to fall on us every day, so that we can go to the tree of life. I can have access to the tree of life every single day. Those who have belonged to Christ, Galatians 5.24, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. What is flesh? My own will. So what does it mean, have crucified? Does it mean my will disappears? No, I have my own will every day. It's talking in Galatians 5.24 of the attitude of a new covenant Christian. What is my attitude to my self-will? I've crucified it. That's my attitude. I've chosen to put it to death. And that's going to be true of me today, tomorrow, tomorrow, day after, and the rest of my life. It's like saying, one day I got married to my wife. Next day I'm married to her. The next day I'm married to her. I'm continuously married to her. One day I took that decision. I was married to my wife 51 years ago, and I stay married. So when it says those that are Christ have crucified the flesh with his affections and lust, it means they stay in that position every day. You don't get unmarried, and you don't stop crucifying the flesh. You can't do it once for all. Marriage is not just on one day. It's something that begins on one day, but continues on through life. Being crucified with Christ begins on one day, but they that are Christ have taken that position for the rest of their lives. And that's why we have to take it up every day. Like our attitude to our wives and your husbands must never change from that loving commitment that you made the day you got married. In the same way, our attitude to the flesh has never changed from the day we decided my flesh is going to be crucified. In other words, that flaming sword will always lie upon my flesh. What will happen to such a man? He'll be just partaking of the tree of life every single day. And you'll see that in his life. This is the spiritual life. And you'll see it. I can think of three areas when a man is filled with the Holy Spirit. Romans 14 and verse 17. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14 and 17. And righteousness is a very big word. I want to explain it. It doesn't mean just doing what is right. It doesn't mean I don't have any lies. I don't make any false statements. Basically, righteousness means I love God with all my heart. And I love my neighbor as myself. And I seek to love my fellow believers as Christ loves me. That is righteousness. That is my definition of righteousness. Not just that I pay my taxes and I do what is right and I don't make any false statements. That's a very small type of righteousness, which even the worldly people have. Many. But this is referring to loving God with all our hearts and with all our being and loving others as Christ loved us. That is righteousness and peace. When we partake of the tree of life, we first of all partake of love of the Holy Spirit, spreads the love of God in our hearts towards God and towards Jesus and towards one another, and helps us to live in peace. First of all, peace in our heart, peace with God, peace in our mind, freedom from anxiety and fear no matter what happens around us, and peace with all people. We pursue peace with all men. They don't want to have peace with us. That's another thing, but we seek to have peace with everyone. And joy. I believe joy is one of the clearest marks that we are living in the most holy place, that the flesh has been crucified. One of the clearest marks, because Psalm 1611 says, in God's presence, there is fullness of joy. So for myself, I've always said this to myself, anytime I don't have fullness of joy in my heart, I'm not in God's presence. Say that to yourself. Say it to yourself. Every time you feel miserable or grumpy or you feel like murmuring or complaining about something, I want to say to you in Jesus name, you are not in God's presence. You're probably in the presence of the devil at that moment, the devil standing in front of you. In God's presence, Psalm 1611, there is fullness of joy, fullness. And I've made that a rule for myself for a number of years now. Lord, I can't keep myself there. It's the Holy Spirit who keeps me there with fullness of joy and peace and righteousness. But I have to make a choice. God will not force me. He doesn't make me a robot. He doesn't program me the day I'm born again or the day I'm filled with the spirit and says, okay, I'll walk like a robot now doing everything right. No, my will is as free today as it was in the days when I lived in sin in my unconverted days. My will is just as free today and it will be free for all eternity. When I go to heaven, I'm not going to be a robot. I'll have a free will in heaven just as I have today. So I have to make a choice every day on this earth. Am I going to live according to the flesh, according to my own will, or according to the will of God? So my attitude is just like I said, you get married and you stay married every day, faithful to your wife, faithful to your husband. In the same way, I made a choice one day, my flesh is crucified. My attitude to my flesh is the sword is fallen on it. And I keep that attitude every day. That is the new and living way. And the Holy Spirit, because I've chosen that way, the Holy Spirit does the part of giving me what I call the power of resurrection, resurrection power. You know, there's no resurrection without death. Many people are trying to experience resurrection power without going into death. That is impossible. If you go through a fake death, you'll have no resurrection. A lot of Christians, their so-called taking of the cross is like children playing dead. They play a game where a child lies on the ground and says, I'm dead. But he just kick it a little bit and he proved immediately that he's not dead at all. He's very much alive. That's how many believers are. They haven't really chosen to die. They haven't understood what death really is. Complete death to me. I am crucified with Christ. And now it is no longer I, but Christ that lives in me. That is the power of resurrection. So it's resurrected life that I get through the tree of life today. And you know, Paul, towards the end of his life, wrote in Philippians 3, that his great longing was to know the power of Christ's resurrection. Turn with me to Philippians 3 and we read here. He says, I'm not become perfect yet, but in verse 10, my longing is, in fact, let me read from the beginning to show what he says. I was a very righteous Pharisee once. He wasn't a person living in sin. As far as we know, he lived with a good conscience of a rich and ruler could come to Jesus and say, I've kept all the commandments till today. Paul could certainly say that much more. He says in verse six, Philippians 3, six, according to the righteousness, which is in the law, I was blameless. He had kept the 10 commandments, at least the nine commandments perfectly. And then the last one, thou shall not covet. He says in Romans seven, nobody could keep it. Neither could he keep it. But otherwise he kept the commandments perfectly. And he says, I was found blameless. The righteousness of the in those days, they all expected people to keep only the nine commandments because the other was invisible. You shall not covet it. It was a desire of the heart. Nobody could see. And he also says, once I found Christ, verse eight, I found, I count everything as useless, worthless, all that I've achieved in my life. Verse seven, I counted all loss and I've suffered the loss of all things also. And I counted all dung. Rubbish means dung. Can you imagine a person who's found that all the things he's accomplished in his life is that it's dung compared to Christ. Dung is something I don't want it. I don't want to be anywhere near dung. It's like we flush the toilet so that it disappears. It's all those things I've accomplished. I've flushed it down the toilet because it's dung for me. What an attitude to have. Many of you have accomplished many things in life, perhaps. Or what you think you've accomplished intellectually, spiritually, financially, spiritually as well. Dear brothers and sisters, flush it down the toilet. He says, I counted all dung that I may gain Christ. The people who hang on and try to imagine and boast about some of these things they've accomplished in their life, or who they are, or what sort of family they come from, or what their academic achievements are, or what their intellectual accomplishments are, or professional accomplishments are, they haven't flushed things down the toilet. It's still lying there. It's still lying there in the toilet bowl. They haven't found Christ to be everything, but Paul flushed it all out. He says, it's all dung for me. I have found in Christ everything. Now I'm found in Christ with no accomplishment of my own, a righteousness of his, his righteousness, not which comes through my self-effort, but which comes from God because I trust him to make Christ my righteousness. That's Philippians 3.9. And now what is the passion of my life? He basically says there are three things I'm pursuing after. One, that I may know Jesus better and better and better and better and better. We don't know the Lord fully yet. We begin to know the Lord when we are coming to a relationship with him, but we don't know him fully yet. He says, I want to know him more and more and more and more. And I want to know the power of his resurrection. That's what I was speaking about just now. Towards the end of Paul's life, he was around 60 years old when he wrote Philippians. He's already been converted for 25 or 30 years. And he says, I've known quite a bit of the power of Christ's resurrection in my life so far. He could say in 1 Corinthians 4, I know nothing against myself, my conscience is clear, but he says, I want to still know more of that tree of life, of the power of his resurrection that can only come as I choose the way of death in every situation and the fellowship of his sufferings, the way he suffered. And when he talks about sufferings, he's not talking about being whipped and beaten and crucified. Paul was never crucified, but the inward suffering of the flesh is put to death. It's called in 1 Peter 4, the suffering in the flesh. Christ suffered in the flesh. Arm yourselves with the same mind, 1 Peter 4, to suffer in the flesh, because then you will seize from sin. That's the main suffering that the New Testament speaks about, which is for every one of us, being a martyr for Christ once for all dying is something that God allows some people to go through. But this daily death, I die daily. That's what Paul is speaking about. I want to be conformed to his death. That's my passion. I want to let that sword fall on me every day on my self-will. Whenever I want to assert my will, I see, hey, that's going contrary to the will of God. Let the sword fall on it. Think of all strife we'll seize in the home between husband and wife if we go this way, a family that lives around the tree of life, what a wonderful, blessed family that would be. That is God's will. And then we will find ourselves triumphant in every situation, no matter what is happening in the world around us, no matter what lockdown or pandemic or whatever there is, we will experience what Paul experiences, as he says in Romans 8, great passage. Let me read Romans 8, just a few verses here, Romans 8, for a truly wholehearted disciple who has allowed the sword to fall on him and who accepts the debt to his self-will every single day, experiences the power of his resurrection more and more every day, gets to know Jesus personally as a friend and companion and beloved bridegroom, experiences something of the intimacy that the bridegroom described in the Son of Solomon in a very spiritual way, that's God's will. Some of these mystics in old times spoke about that intimate relationship with the Lord, but most of them were locked up in monasteries and that's the difference between them and us, we can have an intimate relationship with the Lord without closeting ourselves in a monastery, just in daily life and those folks were not married, they were just single monks, but we can live married lives and manifest that intimate relationship with the Lord, I believe I can have as intimate a relationship with the Lord as a married person living a normal life as any monk who had a mystical experience in a monastery, anyone, whether it's Madame Guillaume or anybody, Henry Sousa or anyone, we can all have it. So here it says in Romans 8, let me begin at verse 28, we know that everything works together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose, including everything that's happening around us in the world today, whether it's a lockdown or a pandemic or anything, it is going to work for my good because I love God, I decided, I don't know about the others, but I decided that Jesus is supreme in my life. Years ago when I got converted, 60 years ago, I wrote in the front of my Bible, Lord Jesus, whom have I on earth? Beside me there's no one in heaven I desire but you and there's no one on earth I desire but beside you. I wrote that and I stuck to that and I stick to that 60 years later today. It's not my ministry that's important for me, not at all, it's Jesus himself and so I love God and I'm called according to his purpose, I really want to fulfill his purpose of becoming like Christ and therefore everything happens for my good, down to the hairs on my head are numbered and his purpose is to make me like Jesus and this applies to you as well if you accept it and it says here, what then shall we say to these things? Verse 31, if God is for us, who can be against us? What if there's a pandemic? What if there's a lot of people dying of coronavirus? I don't know why and I can't explain it, I don't have the answer to everything but I know one thing, God is for me, that will never, never change. It is impossible for it to change as long as I choose death to my self-will. Once I go through that flaming sword that falls upon my self-will, I'm at the tree of life. That's Jesus himself, God is for me and that applies to you, my brother, sister and then who can be against us and why do we have any fear? If God gave us the greatest gift that heaven has, the greatest gift that heaven has is not health when you're sick, it's not to be raised from a deathbed, no, the greatest gift that heaven had was Jesus Christ and God gave him for us on the cross and if God, Romans 8 32, gave him for us, how will he not freely, we don't have to pay for it, give us everything else? What is the other thing God sees that you need? Is it health? He'll give it to you. Is it money? He'll give it to you. I've experienced that for 60 years in my life. I've had sicknesses from which I've been healed, so smitten down by asthma. More than 45 years ago when we first came to Bangalore, I thought, boy, do I have to live with this for the rest of my life and God just gave me. Most people who have it, have it all their lives and many of them die with it. You know, what God wants you to have, he'll have. I know God healed my wife also. Sickness, amazing. There's nothing God cannot do. He will give you freely everything. You just let that sword fall on yourself. That's all. And is somebody going to bring a charge against me? God is my lawyer. He justifies me. Is somebody going to condemn me? No. Christ Jesus is there, the right hand of God as my advocate, verse 34, interceding for me. If all this is on my side, Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit working on my behalf, then who can separate me from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, pandemic, nakedness, battles, sword, viruses, nothing. What is my position? Every day, we come back to the same thing, verse 36, that flaming sword in front of the tree of life. Whole day, not just once a day, since the whole day long, we accept death to the self-will. We elect sheep to be slaughtered. I choose it. No compulsion. I choose. And what is the result? I come to the tree of life and in every situation, we don't just conquer, verse 37, we overwhelmingly conquer, or as another version says, we are more than conquerors, more than a conqueror through him who loves us. And so I'm convinced, he says, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creative thing, and that includes every single virus there is in the world, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. My dear brothers and sisters, this is where we must live every single day of our lives. In Romans 8, verse 28 to 39, read it. Choose death to your self-will and see what amazing things you will experience in your life. I assure you, it will be a life of perpetual joy. Let me show you a few things mentioned in Philippians alone. In Philippians 2, it says, if you work out what God is working in you, this is what you'll experience. Philippians 2, verse 13, the book begins with God. God is the one who gives us a desire to put self to death and to partake of his life. So it says here, God is at work in you, Philippians 2, verse 13, in you means through the Holy Spirit inside us, to choose his will. If you have a desire to do God's will, I hope none of you have the crazy idea that you somehow chose it. No, I did not. God worked in me to desire his will. I'm not better than all the other people who are doing their will on this earth. I'm not better than all the other believers who are living for themselves, but God put in me, God put the desire to do his will. God is at work in me. And once he put the desire, and the next thing he did is he gave me the ability to do it, that is to put myself to death. So God is at work in you, that applies to you as well, both to will and to work, to have the desire and the ability to do his good pleasure, to do his will. And since God is at work in you and you're not a robot, it says in verse 12, Philippians 2, 12, you must work out what God works in. That proves you're not a robot. If you're a robot, in the only verse 13, God just does it and you just sit there like a programmed robot and you move around automatically. No, it's not like that. Every day, every moment of every day, I can choose God's will in the morning and do my own will by the afternoon. No, throughout the day, we are constantly delivered off to death and I've chosen it because I've seen what lies on the other side of this flaming sword. I choose to see what lies on the other side of the veil, death to the flesh of the others is on the other side. It says about Jesus that for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. What was the joy set before him? The father's fellowship inside the veil. So he chose the cross. He went through the veil. That's the meaning of Hebrews 12.2. Let us run the race, looking at Jesus and following him and says here in God works in us to do this. And then what will happen when this happens in my life? They're the practical results. I'll tell you this can be true in your life. Verse 14, you will do everything without grumbling or disputing or complaining. Can you imagine what your home will be like? Brother, sister, if your husband and wife do every single thing every day in their fellowship with each other and in the home without grumbling, without complaining, without disputing, use all the language. Where did you leave that? And I told you not to do this and all that will disappear from your home. No grumbling, no blaming of others like Adam blamed Eve. No, it will disappear from your home. Can you imagine what your home will be like if you choose the flaming sword to fall upon you morning to night? Well, in the beginning, all these things we have to learn. You have to learn to walk this way. It's like a little child learns to walk, stumbles and falls. So if you stumble and fall, and you go this way, don't worry, get up, choose that way again, choose that way continuously. And one day, like you see that child walking and running, you will also be walking and running along this new and living way where death to self becomes automatic. Automatic means you choose it automatically. And you will do all things, not some things, but Philippians 2.14, when you work out what God works in, you will do every single thing in your life without grumbling, without complaining, without disputing. And that is how we will show ourselves as children of blameless children of God. And that is how we will be like a light in a dark world. Verse 15, when Jesus said, you're the light of the world, here's the explanation of it. You cannot say you're a light in the world if you grumble and complain and murmur and find fault with others. No, then you're just like the darkness of the world. You know, when God looks at this world, which is a dark mass of murmuring, grumbling, complaining, every corner of this earth, here and there, he sees a little light. It's like when you fly in an airplane over some barren, empty area with fields and all that at night, it's all dark, but then suddenly you see light in one home, another home, a little light. That's how God sees the earth, full of murmuring, grumbling, complaining, and here and there, one home, another home where there's light, where there's zero grumbling, zero complaining, zero hitting out at each other, zero anger at each other. Don't you have a passion that you can bring delight to the heart of God to be a home like that? Thereby you can appear as a home, as a light in the world. You young people are newly married or getting married, make sure your home is going to be like this from day one. It's not going to be easy. You choose that way when you're single, to die to yourself and move into your marriage like that, every one of you. And then that's just one thing, no murmuring, no grumbling, no complaining. And the other thing is, it's all things. And the other is Philippians 4.4, where you will always be rejoicing, presence of God, there's fullness of joy. And the other thing verse Philippians 4.6, you'll be anxious for nothing. What a life, no murmuring, no grumbling, no complaining, anxious for nothing, and always rejoicing. And your home will be like heaven. Your life will be like heaven. And your children will grow up in such a home, the responsibility lies fairly and squarely on the parents. And especially on the head of the home, the father. Why does the Bible say that the father is the head of the home, the husband is the head of the wife? Because he's got to lead the way. Let me read to you Malachi 4, we'll close with this. This is God's will for the last days. The Lord says, the last two verses of Malachi, Malachi 4, 5, and 6, I'm going to send you Elijah, the prophet, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. That's the second coming of Christ. And this Elijah will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the children to their fathers. Otherwise I'll smite the land with a curse. So when Elijah comes, just before the last days, before Christ comes again, he's going to restore the hearts of the fathers to the children. It's a family life that's going to be built up first. And it's going to begin with the father. And who is this Elijah? It's the body of Christ. In the Old Testament, it was one person, one Elijah followed by one Elijah, et cetera. Today it is the new man, Christ in his church, the body. So the ministry of the body of Christ, the body of Christ, the church is the Elijah of the last days. And our calling is in our churches to restore fathers. That means lazy fathers who have not taken the responsibility as fathers to lead their home in a godly way, to build fellowship with their children, to have fun with their children. It's going to change. And that's why in our churches, CFC churches, for 45 years, we've constantly taught that your family must come above your ministry, that you cannot have a ministry in the church if you don't build your family. A man cannot bring up a few children at home. He cannot live with his wife in a proper way at home. How in the world is he going to build a church? We're just following the ministry of the last days. And I tell you, this is a day in which fathers and children are being separated. And in our churches, it is very important that fathers and children come together and must begin with the fathers. And if we live in this way, we will not fear whatever may happen in the world around us. The power of resurrection will work in us. And I'll tell you something, as a by-product, that's not the main product. As a by-product, we will experience healing in our bodies. You'll find that our bodies also become resistant to sickness because of the life of Jesus flowing in our spirits. Because it says in 1 Corinthians 6, that when our body is for the Lord, the Lord is for our body. In 1 Corinthians 6.13, Lord, my body is for you. And the Lord says, I am for your body. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Timothy 6.19. Imagine if the Lord is for my body, and that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, I can be absolutely sure, so can you. Not a single thing can happen to this body without my heavenly Father's permission. He controls all the viruses on earth. He controls the hair that falls from my head. He controls the sparrows, and He watches over everything. That's why we live in peace in the midst of pandemic, or any other chaos in the world, war, or famine, or anything. Our confidence is in Jesus, in our heavenly Father, who rules the universe, who will never forget about His own, will never leave us alone. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we bow before you, we thank you for the wonderful truths in your word. And we know the Holy Spirit is working in us all the time to make us choose your will. We've done so many foolish things doing our own will in past years, but those days are gone. We're chosen now, Lord, to let the flaming sword fall upon our self-will, so that we can do your will the rest of our lives. Help everyone who's listening, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.