Sermon Central
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Part 6 - Our Flesh Series
Contributed by Pastor Bruce A. Shields on Mar 24, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: Part 6 of our series looks at how sometimes the giants in our lives can be ourselves. We will look at the battle between the flesh and the spirit.
They Must be Giants
6 – Our Flesh
Pastor Bruce A. Shields
House of Faith Ministries
www.PS127.org
WELCOME
INTRODUCTION
Most of us are all familiar with the story of David & Goliath.
We are continuing our series entitled “They Must be Giants!”
We have spoken on;
† David & Goliath
† Unforgiveness
† Fear
† Anger
† Hate
Un-forgiveness can hold us captive to ourselves.
These Giants can literally make us a slave to it.
Fear can cause us to make irrational decisions, or even do nothing at all.
We have but two emotions. Love & fear, All of our behavior stems from one of those two emotions.
Hate comes from unresolved anger.
Anger comes from unresolved fear.
Remember, we only have two emotions, love and fear.
Everything else is a behavior.
We are told in the scriptures to do everything in Love for God is love.
And those who do not have God, do not have love.
Everything positive, including our behaviors, comes from love.
Such as the fruit of the spirit.
We are told that the fruit of the spirit comes from having the spirit of God, which is love.
All of our negative behaviors originate from our fear.
Such as with Cain and Abel.
Cain feared he would not be accepted by God as Abel was.
That fear could have been, should have been dealt with.
Cain could have voiced his fear to his brother or to God and received instruction.
But he didn’t.
And his fear of rejection grew into anger towards Abel.
Because God accepted Abel’s offering.
That anger should have been dealt with.
It was unrighteous anger; therefore Cain was living in a state of unrighteousness.
His anger then grew into hate.
And that hate led him to commit the first murder.
When battling against the giants in our lives, we do need to remember the lessons from the story of David and Goliath.
The battle between the Palestinians and the Israelites was a spiritual one.
† David had the Holy Spirit just as all of those who belong to God have access to.
† David recognized the battle was spiritual even though everyone around him could not. He was walking in the spirit, not by sight, but by faith.
† When David faced the giant, he knew the battle was not a man against a giant, but a giant against a man of God.
† The battle was the Lord’s!
We must remember these points in our lives as well when we face things.
1. It’s a spiritual battle
2. We have the Holy Spirit
3. The battle is the Lord’s
Today we are talking about our flesh.
More specifically the battle between our flesh and our spirit.
Like many a great books, one of the plots that intrigue us as human beings is man-against-self.
I took creative writing in school, and there were three major themes we saw repeated in novels.
Man-against-nature, Man-against-man, and man-against-self.
We live “man-against-self” everyday as a Christian.
“21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
This is why we need to win the war within our minds.
As the scriptures say; to take every thought into captivity of Christ Jesus.
The battle is in our minds.
Not that it doesn’t exist, but that it not only exists, but begins there!
Here something very interesting.
When we accept Jesus Christ, our souls are redeemed.
BUT, our flesh is not!
Our flesh is not redeemed when we become Christians.
We are redeemed souls living in corrupt flesh.
Have you ever wondered why even though you accept Christ, you are still going to die and we are going to receive glorified bodies?
God will never contradict His Holy Word.
God warned Adam that if he ate of that tree he would surly die.
The scriptures say that it is appointed to man to die once.
Genesis 3:17 – 19
“17 To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife (instead of God’s Word) and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ’You must not eat of it,’ (committing sin)
"Cursed is the ground because of you;
