Mike Bickle emphasizes the call to holiness as a pursuit of the superior pleasures found in loving God, rather than a mere self-denial of sin. He explains that true holiness is about being fascinated by God's beauty and experiencing the joy of His presence, which equips us to enjoy life with Him forever. Bickle encourages believers to aim for 100% obedience, highlighting that the final 2% of surrender can unlock a deeper spiritual dynamic. He outlines three principles for pursuing holiness: knowing our identity in Christ, resisting sin, and actively pursuing God. Ultimately, he calls for a vision of living fascinated by God, which transforms our lives and empowers us against the allure of sin.

Thank you, Mason. Now, how long have you been a worship leader at IHOP? Um, about a few months. Because you do, you do the set right before here. Yeah. And I just always appreciate it. And you do a couple other ones because I see you on the screen. Yeah, I do 11 o'clock on Friday nights. Anyway, you do a great job. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, let's turn to 1 Peter chapter 1. Or if you have the notes, go ahead and look at page 1. Father, we ask you for a spirit of revelation. And a spirit of impartation, even now in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, we're talking about pursuing holiness. And what we're going to look at, and we're not going to cover all the notes. I typically give more notes than we cover. So you can read them on your own and check out the verses. We're going to look at two foundational truths. And three important practical principles in pursuing holiness. Two foundational truths. And three practical principles. Now here's, here's the thing. So you're not worried as we're watching, going through the notes. I'm going to spend 90% of the time on the first point. And then I'm going to rush through the other ones. Because the other ones are quite straightforward. But the first one is the one that most believers don't have a handle on. So as, you know, when we're just about done, I'll get to point foundational truth two. And I'll just race through the three principles because they're quite straightforward. But it's just, the reason I have them in the notes is so you can just see them. One, two, three. And you can kind of get your mind around them as a person that's sincerely pursuing holiness. Verse Peter chapter one, verse 15. Verse Peter one, verse 15. Be holy because I am holy. Be holy because I am holy is what the Lord is saying. Now God calls us to holiness because He is. And when He talks about Himself being holy, what He's saying is, He's saying more than I am pure from defilement. He certainly is saying that. But God, His holiness means He has the highest, most pleasurable, exhilarating quality of life in existence. That's what it means to be holy. It's more than to be pure. His life is transcendent. It's infinitely superior to everything that exists. That's one of the definitions of holiness. And God wants to share this life with us. When He's calling us to be holy, He's calling us to enjoy the liberty of it. Now some people, when they hear holiness, they have a wrong view. They only think of the drudgery of self-denial. But God is calling us to the exhilaration of a superior experience in life. Paragraph C. God has called every, has created every human being with longings. We were created with longings for pleasure. We were created with a longing for fascination. Now God built this into our design as human beings made in the image of God. Now we need to understand these two longings if we're going to pursue holiness in a biblical way. The longing for pleasure and the longing for fascination. Because holiness is a call to the superior pleasure of being fascinated by the revelation of God. The call to holiness is a call to a superior pleasure. Because sin is an inferior pleasure, but there's a superior pleasure of fascination. Our spirit being exhilarated. It's a superior way to live. It's called holiness. Paragraph D. Holiness equips us to enjoy life together with God, but to enjoy life together with God forever. I mean, those are big concepts. Enjoy together with God forever. We cannot. We must not approach holiness with the negative. Ah, holiness. Well, let's grit our teeth and endure boring God. We are not gritting our teeth to endure boring God because we want to go to heaven. We are invited to encounter a life of superior pleasure and fascination by encountering the eternal uncreated God. Holiness doesn't keep us from pleasure, but it actually equips us to experience it. Roman numeral chapter two, paragraph A. God is the author of pleasure, and he created us to enjoy pleasure. He created us to enjoy it. God created physical pleasure. Physical pleasure is not an accident. Now the devil counterfeits it. The devil creates physical pleasures outside the will of God, but physical pleasure was created by God. He likes it. We will have physical pleasure forever. We will have emotional and mental pleasure. The mental pleasure of our curiosity stirred and then answered in a way that is profoundly touches our being. And then there's spiritual pleasures. Now we long for pleasure because we were created with a desire for it. Now that desire for pleasure must be satisfied. It won't go away. You're not going to wake up one day with no desire for pleasure. Some of the approaches to holiness through history and the emphasis of self-denial, and we're into self-denial of sinful lusts, sinful pleasures. We are not into self-denial for the sake of it, but self-denial of that which is sinful, that which gets in the way. And some groups through history were in the self-denial of all pleasure because they thought all pleasure was evil. And the truth is God created pleasure and the devil counterfeited it. And pleasure will exist forever. And it's part of the craving of our spirit. If we don't answer pleasure the right way, we will be vulnerable to the devil that counterfeit the wrong way. And that's how a lot of people are caught in sin because they have no superior pleasure to distract them in a holy way, to preoccupy them, to distract them from the negative. I'm saying that in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. Paragraph B. The greatest pleasure available to the human spirit is spiritual pleasure when God reveals God to the human spirit. There is no pleasure in this age or the age to come that equals that. When God reveals God, when God the Holy Spirit reveals the Father or the Son to our spirit, even in this age, not just in the resurrection, even in this age, it is the most exhilarating and deepest form of pleasure that the human frame can experience. When God reveals God to the human spirit, there is a profound joy, even the moments of which it happens. It exhilarates our spirit at the deepest levels. Now, many believers don't even think about this. This is the key to holiness is getting a vision for this and touching it even a little bit. Even a little bit will profoundly change you. We are liberated from inferior pleasures of sin by experiencing the superior pleasures of the beauty of Jesus. Paragraph C, 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Paul said that the spirit searches all things. He goes, yes, even the depths of God's heart, that's what he's talking about, and God's mind. Verse 12, we receive the spirit so we can know what the spirit has searched out. Now, God the Holy Spirit is as equal, is equal to God as God the Father. I mean, He's as much God as the Father and the Son. So when it says that He searches the deep things of God, the word I like to use is He discerns the deep things in the Father's mind and in the Father's heart. Beloved, this is indescribably glorious, this concept. The Holy Spirit searches, discerns what the Father's feeling, what the Father's thinking, and He makes it known to us if we want it. Now, the spirit says you can't quench me all day and then go on a journey with me. We're in agreement and I will bring you into greater experience or if we're not into agreement, I still love you, but I'm going to talk about you getting an agreement with me, not about bringing you to the mountaintop. And many believers, because they live a lifestyle of quenching the spirit, they never touch this issue of what the spirit really came to do to take the deep things that God's feeling and let us feel and think a little bit of what God's feeling and what God's thinking. Paragraph D, John chapter 16, verse 14. Jesus now is talking about the Holy Spirit. He said, He will take what is mine. He'll tell it to you. He'll take what I'm thinking. He'll take what I'm feeling and He will declare it, meaning He'll make it known to you. The spirit will connect us to the Father's heart and to the Son's heart and we will feel what they're feeling a little bit. I mean, our frame is real small and God's real big, but a little bit goes a long way. I talk in paragraph D about the Holy Spirit being our escort on this lifelong treasure hunt into the vast treasury of Jesus. We're on a treasure hunt in this age and beloved, that treasure hunt doesn't end at the resurrection. We will be on a billion year treasure hunt only to discover we're at the beginning of the beginning of the treasure hunt. And the Holy Spirit, He will escort us each step of the way. I call this divine entertainment at its highest. When the human spirit is exhilarated with God, beloved, I want to give you a vision for this. You can be exhilarated with God in this age. Now, I don't like exaggeration about things like this because exaggeration always hurts people because they get excited for a couple months and then the next five years it didn't work out and they get cynical. And so I don't like spiritual exaggeration at all. I like to be practical. I like to say it in a measured way that's truthful. Paragraph E, now when I say that the Holy Spirit gives us the things of the Father and the Son, it's in small measures. It's in small increments of inspiration, of insight. But these just small portions of inspiration and insight, they tenderize our spirit and they only last a few moments. But they add up over the months and years. And the accumulated impact over time is that it really changes our emotional chemistry. I'm going to say that strong. Though they're small measures of impartation, the Lord gives these little installments of inspiration and insight. But they tenderize us and they excite us a little bit, just a little bit. But over time there's a buildup effect of this and it shifts our emotional chemistry. It makes us feel different about God, about ourself, about people. But we have to be on this treasure hunt. We have to be touching this a little bit for its impact. And I've been pastoring over 30 years. And one thing that troubles me is how many sincere believers, they love Jesus. I mean, it's for real. But they don't go in this direction at all. They kind of want to do a little bit of ministry, have a little bit of fun, do a little this, little that, which is, oh, that's cool. And kind of go to heaven when they die and just see what happens. Beloved, you want to get a vision to live fascinated. You want a vision to go as deep in God as God will give the human spirit in this age. You don't want to look at the guy over there and just say, hey, I want to do a little bit better than him. I want everything that God will give the human spirit in this age. If you get that vision, you'll spend your time different. You'll spend your money different. You'll talk different. You will be fanatical about the use of your time. Because every time, because time is an opportunity to be before him, alone or with others, to learn and to touch more and to connect with it. Beloved, whatever connects in your spirit, it will overflow in ministry to others. Paragraph F. Paragraph F. John 1 5. John 1 5. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. So the light's shining and the light overpowers the darkness. Now, the best way to overcome darkness is to turn the light on. Now, that's silly because it's, I mean, it's simple that it almost seems silly to say it. Now, nobody, I'll be kind of ridiculous here. Nobody goes into a dark room, opens the window, and takes buckets full of darkness to empty it out of a room. What is, what do you do? You simply turn the light switch on. Well, it's the same in our approach to holiness. There's a lot of folks, they are focused on the dark emotions. And they kind of posture themselves and they kind of grit their teeth. And no, I'm not going to give in to bitterness or immorality or pride or covetousness. No. And they kind of get face to face with it. And they know and they stare at the darkness. And there's like somebody trying to take buckets of darkness and pour it out the window. The key is to turn the light on. The Holy Spirit comes. He taps us on the shoulder. He says, turn around, get a different focus. Instead of focus, paragraph G, instead of focus on the darkness, focus on gaining the superior pleasure of new light. And here's what I found, and many of you as well, that as I am going hard in a preoccupation to get light, I can turn around and say no, no to the darkness far more effective than I can stare at the darkness and try to stare down and by just the resolution of my will, overcome it. A lot of folks, they love Jesus. But they're focused, they're in a face-off with dark desires. And what they need to do is get preoccupied with gaining the fascination of light. Light always makes darkness go away. When the light increases, the darkness automatically decreases. We need to get preoccupied with getting light. Paragraph H, Psalm 16, verse 11. David said, now David had a unique revelation of the personality of God and even the leadership of God. And David understood how much joy and pleasure was in God's personality and a part of his leadership. Psalm 16, here's what he says. In your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Now he's actually getting a revelation of the throne of God. He doesn't just mean when I worship, I'm in your presence, I feel joy on the earth. That's certainly true. But around the throne of God, where the four living creatures and the 24 elders are, at the right hand of God is the epicenter of pleasure and joy. Those that are nearest the throne have most pleasure and most joy of the rest of creation. Because the nearer somebody gets to God, the more full the joy is because God is the fullness of joy. Psalm 36, verse 8. The next paragraph. David prayed a prayer. This is one of my favorite psalms. You want to, you know, you get a bunch of favorite verses, so make this one of them. David prayed that God would give his people drink. Look at this, from the river of your pleasures. What a statement. I want to drink. I want to experience the river of God's pleasures. Now there's several things that are included in this, but at the highest it's describing the Holy Spirit revealing the beauty of God to the human spirit. There is not, the river of life that lives within us, living water that wells up within us, Jesus talked about in John 7. That river, the Holy Spirit, that living water is a river of delight. He is a river of pleasure. Meaning when we connect with him, our spirit is exhilarated with Jesus. Psalm 27, verse 4. David's lifelong goal was to encounter the beauty of God on a regular basis. Now we all know Psalm 27, 4. He said, all the days of my life, I've had this premier thing, all the days of my life, to behold the beauty. Now when you study David's life, you know he was king of the nation of Israel. And as king, he's president of the nation. He's the head of the government and he's the head of the army. I mean this guy had a really big job description. His days were full. His assignment was to run the nation. Now of course he had a lot of people he delegated authority to, but David had this massive assignment in the military and in the government. He had an assignment in the marketplace, we would say. But he was preoccupied with the beauty of God. In other words, you don't have to disconnect from everything in life to make this preoccupation real, to know the beauty of God. David's hands were occupied in running the government, but his heart was preoccupied with encountering God. It is possible to do it. If we measure our time carefully, we can be occupied in a divine assignment with our hands and preoccupied with encountering the beauty with our hearts. Isaiah chapter 4 verse 2. Now this is one of the well, I mean often emphasized passages here at IHOP. Isaiah chapter 4 verse 2. It says, in that day the branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious. You'll hear that verse a lot. Now the branch of the Lord is a common term. It's mentioned six times in the Old Testament. It's a term for the Messiah. Everybody understood the branch of the Lord was the Messiah. Now there's a very important reason why he's called the branch of the Lord, but I'm not going there right now. My point is this. This is describing the generation the Lord returns. Isaiah 4 verse 2 is specifically in context about the generation the Lord returns. And here's the point. In that generation of time, just before he returns and after he returns, the beauty and the glory of the Messiah will be emphasized by the Holy Spirit. Beloved, we are approaching a time frame, I believe with all of my heart, where we are going to experience an unusual, I'm talking about the body of Christ worldwide, who's going after the deep things of God's heart. There is an accessibility to the beauty of Jesus like no time in human history in these days now and just the years that are ahead of us. You want to get a vision. Say, I'm going for this. Because the Spirit is going to emphasize the beauty and the glory of the Messiah like no other time in history. Roman number 3, paragraph A. Now God created us with a desire for pleasure. He also created us with the desire for fascination. And it's really two sides of one coin. Because one of the premier pleasures is being fascinated. That's not the only pleasure, but that's one of them is being fascinated. We love to be awestruck. We love to marvel, to be filled with wonder. We love the feeling of being awestruck by God. Now we are fascinated most. We were created with a longing for fascination. We are fascinated most by the revelation of God to our spirit. It's like pleasure. The greatest pleasure is when God reveals God to the human spirit. But it's the same with fascination. It's the same concept, different terminology. We are most fascinated when God reveals God to our spirit. Now you can't repent of your longing for fascination. Now the common term is entertainment. Entertainment is the longing for fascination. That's really what it is. Entertainment is one of the primary felt needs in the human experience. It's all over the world today. It's not just a new thing. It's been a primary felt need of the human race. They experience it in different cultures and different generations. But entertainment is an attempt to satisfy the craving in our spirit for fascination. We are either going to satisfy that craving by pursuing God or we will end up satisfying it by darkness. That craving for fascination will not go away. You're not going to wake up one day and suddenly it's gone because we were built with that longing. So we could be fascinated by God a billion years from now. We will be overwhelmed and awestruck filled with marvel. So that design is in our spirit or that craving is in our spirit now. But the problem is a lot of believers, they go, I don't really do the Bible. You know, I love Jesus. I do ministry. I don't really do the Bible. I don't really get quiet before God. I don't really, I mean, He knows I love Him. And then they're mystified while they're caught up in all these sins. These conflicting dark emotions. We all have dark emotions. But if we are feeding our spirit on fascination with God, we have a superior fascination that has more power over the inferior one. If we don't have any other fascination but the dark ones, we are going to be held captive by them. Paragraph B, psychic entertainment targets this human longing. They're making billions. It's because they understand that humans want entertainment more than anything besides food and water. They want entertainment more than anything. It's a primary felt need in the earth all through history, not just in today. Entertainment is the desire to fill a wow in our spirit. God created us with that desire. And again, that desire is not just going to go away one day. It has to be answered. This is why it is critical that we get a vision to be preoccupied with God. Because if we're not answering it in the right way, I assure you the enemy has plans to answer it in your life in the wrong way. That longing is not going to disappear. It's an eternal longing. Paragraph C, without a sense of marvel with God, without a sense of awe, without a sense of excitement of our spirit touching God in new ways, without that we live spiritually bored. And when we live spiritually bored, we are vulnerable to the enemy. And not only that, when we're spiritually bored, we are spiritually boring to other people. It is true. When our, my spirit is captivated with Jesus, I have, I have things to say. I don't mean just preach every time I talk to somebody. That's not the point. But when your spirit is bored with God and the word, you are spiritually boring to other people. I mean, they might like you. They, they might think your personality is charming, but it doesn't spark their spirit with revelation and insight. But more importantly, when we're spiritually bored, we're vulnerable to the darkness. We're far more vulnerable to darkness. Spiritually bored believers are weak. Spiritually, spiritually fascinated believers, they're fascinated with God. They have a strong spirit. Like for instance, the exploding, a crisis of pornography in the last 10 years. It's just sweeping across the planet. And in the next 10 years, in the 10 years that follows, it will be far more serious than it is now. Beloved, if your spirit is fascinated with God, you don't have any interest or need to go in that direction. Because the whole many fascinated approach of pornography is a attempt to touch the fascination of the human spirit in a dark way. And if you are already being fascinated, there is no lure that direction. But that whole industry and that tactic of darkness is going to double and triple and double again in the decades ahead. There is only one protection. And there's many other things besides just immorality. There is one protection. That is a preoccupation on a treasure hunt with the beauty of the man Jesus experiencing the superior pleasures of connecting with him. And your heart is alive and lovesick with God. And that's not just rhetoric. This is real. This is within the reach of every single believer. Because everybody is weak and broken. This is the power of the Holy Spirit to touch us. But He only will do it if we want it. But you can set your heart to go in this direction if you want it. Hebrews 11 verse 25 says that Moses chose to suffer affliction rather than to enjoy the passing pleasure of sin. Moses, he chose to say no to the passing pleasure of sin. And what this passage is pointing out in paragraph E here is that sin is pleasurable but only for a minute. It's passing. It's momentary. Now the reason we sin is that we believe that the pleasure of sin is superior to the pleasure of connecting with God. Now nobody just does the math and says sin is more interesting than God. But at the heart level, we sin because we believe. It's a lie. It is a lie, but we believe it. We believe in that moment that it is more pleasurable to sin than connect with God. And the Spirit's saying it's a total lie because sin appears like a bright shining star in the night with full of promise. But in a minute, it is a dark lonely night of despair. It doesn't matter what the sin is. It appears very bright and dazzling like the fireworks. But a moment later, it's in the dark, lonely, despairing night. It's passing. It's pleasure is passing. I don't mean over years. Just it's only a moment. But the pleasure of God is superior to it. Temptation is a deceptive promise. The devil tempts us with sin. He promises there's more satisfaction in this than there is in connecting with God. And so we say, you know, maybe, you know, my heart's hungry to connect. My heart's hungry for fascination. I want my heart's hungry for pleasure. That's right, it is. It will be forever. But God will fulfill it in exceeding glorious ways forever. But He even touches us now in this age. This isn't just something we wait till the resurrection. We can enter into it now, the beginnings of it. And the beginnings of it are just the beginnings, but they're real. And they really do change our emotional chemistry over months and years of staying with it. Paragraph F, John Piper, a very well-known Bible teacher, said, sin is what we do when our hearts are not satisfied with God. I love that statement. Sin is what we do when our hearts are not satisfied with God. He said that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. When our spirit is exhilarated with God, that's when the best things happen in our walk with God. Paragraph G, the call to holiness is a call to enjoy God. The call to holiness is not a drudgery of self-denial, though there is self-denial. Because we're denying the inferior pleasures that diminish our ability to experience the superior pleasures. We deny the inferior pleasures that diminish our ability to experience the superior pleasures. We must deny them. But to deny them in the presence of superior pleasure is not, it's a very different battle than to try to deny the inferior pleasure of sin. And you have no other experience except for other sins. The battle for holiness is the battle to be preoccupied with God. Okay, that's our first point. We spent the majority of our time on that. So the first foundational truth in our quest, our pursuit of holiness, being preoccupied with the pleasure and fascination of connecting with God. Beloved, it's critical that we set our heart for this. Okay, foundational truth number two. We'll only spend a minute on it. Then we'll give you three quick principles. Foundational truth number two, setting our heart on a hundredfold obedience. Paragraph A, it is empowering and it's satisfying to set our heart to love God with all of our heart. It's surprising. It has a surprising dynamic to set our heart to obey Him a hundred percent. Now, I'm not sure you're with me yet because I'm not saying the obvious. I'm saying something else. There is a powerful dynamic. There is a surprising dynamic that happens inside of the human heart in our emotional makeup. When we pursue a hundredfold, if we pursue, paragraph B, if we pursue 98% obedience and there's one area that we say, Holy Spirit, you can have every area, but this area, the spark and the dynamic in your life with God is absent. The power is in the final 2%. Many believers get at the 90% level and they never experience the spark. I'll just call it that spark, that extra dimension. There is more power to experience in our walk with God when the final 2% is yielded to God. So people say, I'll obey God in my physical appetites, my sexuality. I'll obey God in my money and my speech, but I want to do what I want to do with my time. And the Holy Spirit says, it doesn't work that way. Or another guy says, I'll give you my time, but I want to still be the main guy deciding what I do with my money. The Holy Spirit says, no, it doesn't work that way. You go to heaven, I'll still bless you. I'll even anoint you, but you'll never know the dynamic. That unique dynamic, I call it that spark of grace that is only present when you are reaching for 100% obedience in a conscious and a deliberate way. Now I'm not talking about attaining 100% obedience. I'm not talking about attaining it. I make a big distinction, because I believe the Bible does, between reaching for it, aiming for it, is what we're called to do. You can aim and fail, aim and fail, aim and fail, and still have the spark. I'm not saying that when you attain perfect character, you get the spark. No, I say when you sincerely aim for it. When you're so deliberate about this, you're so deliberate about it, it actually is in your prayer life. Meaning you're saying, okay, God, my time, my money, and I've got a couple lists here that you can go through the notes on your own. My time, my money, paragraph D, my covenant with my eyes, my speech, my physical appetites, every single area, there's no exception. I really want it to totally be yours. And we're so deliberate, paragraph E about it, we're not casual. This isn't a general, Lord, I'll obey you, whatever you say. A lot of people have the general commitment to obey. Whatever you say, Lord, it's good. I want your time in a different way than you're giving it to me. Whatever you say, except for my free time. No, there is no such thing as free time. There's time under the Holy Spirit's leadership. Now, He may bless you to have free time and He will in the sense that we use that word, but there is no time that's God's and then times that's ours. Now, many people live that way, but they will never know that spark, that flash, I call it those, that flash of the glory of God that touches their spirit on a regular basis. I don't mean all day, every day. That's not what I mean. But I mean, it's a new dynamic in our relationship. Paragraph E, we are so deliberate about this vision of every area, every area that it gets into our dialogue with God on a daily basis, every day. And the point isn't every, that's not my point, but regularly, God, I'm covening my eyes. I'm not going to look at anything that stirs up my heart in a wrong way. My words, yes, I said wrong words, but I'm going to repent privately to you when I do that. And I'm going to declare war about it. My time, my money, my appetites, every single area, I am consciously trying to bring it under your leadership. You get a vision for 100-fold obedience. There is a dynamic spark in your relationship, even a one-week-old believer. I'm not even talking about how well you attain. I'm talking about how well you aim. I'm talking about the aim, not the attain right now, the reach of your heart. If you do that, it will completely change your spiritual life. The 98%, every area but my time, every area but my money, mostly my money, but not totally my money. Holy Spirit says, there's so much more I'll do with you if it's everything. Most believers that I've ran into over the years, they're content, seemingly, with that 90% level. I mean, they love Jesus for real. But they don't want to get infringed on, on those final areas or two, in those specific applications of those last couple areas. I mean, I'm not talking about they're involved in scandalous sin. That's not what I'm talking about. They don't want that real precise leadership of the Spirit over their life. You go there, you will have a dynamic in your life in God that you've never had before if you've never gone there. Now, in the last 30-plus years, I have lived there and then I lose sight of it. Then I get it again. And what I mean is the mindset where I am daily, my words, my eyes, my money, my time, my appetites, the amount I fast, what I eat. I don't mean I pray over every item and say, do I have the French fry or not the French fry? I'm not talking about a, kind of a distracting preoccupation with detail like that. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, Lord, I really want you to order my life. And I've touched that for seasons at a time, for months at a time, many times over the years. And I lose it. I lose it kind of accidentally. I just kind of get busy. And mostly it's in the area of my speech. And I'll get sloppy and the Lord say, no, I want your speech under my government. I go, oh, yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, I'm positive that's right. I preach it all the time. I got it. I know it. He says, no, I want it. Anybody wants it under every area. And when I'm reaching that for it, not even attaining, when I'm aiming, not attaining, aiming, I have a spark in my spirit. Oh, I love it. And then I say, how could I ever not stay with this? And then just about, that's a few months go by or a year. And I'm just kind of, you know, somebody come up, ask me a question about it. Oops, I kind of forgot about that. Yes, Lord, how could I? This is no, I'm going to be specific. It needs to be in our dialogue with God on a daily basis. Again, I'm not talking about a distracting preoccupation with whether you eat the French fry or not. That's why I wear the blue shirt or the red shirt. That's not what I'm talking about. Those I'm not talking about that kind of detail. I'm talking about the Lord ordering the amount of time we really do fast for real. He orders the amount of time we spend in entertainment and the amount we spend with him. He orders the amount of way that we humble ourself before people in reality and the way we serve with no recognition. He really orders those kind of broad issues in our life. Very specifically, when we get into that spirit, paragraph C, it gets so satisfying. Let's go back to paragraph C. It satisfies our spirit and it empowers us. Two things, it empowers and satisfies in a, it's a surprising way, because 100% is much more powerful than 98%. That's the surprise. 100% is far more powerful than 98% obedience. To aim, I'm talking about the aiming for it. Go to top of page four. Look at the three principles. Look at them real quick. We're talking about living holy. So I give you two foundational truths to three principles. Paragraph A, the Bible describes a cooperation with grace. A cooperation with grace means there's a division of labor. Means this, there's a part that you do and there's a part that God does. There's a part that you're responsible for and there's a part that God's responsible for. God won't do your part and you can't do his part. I've heard people say this, it's totally unbiblical, though they're well-meaning. They go, I don't know that area of sin. I'm just going to let God do it. And the Lord says, well, you're waiting on me. I'm waiting on you. We have to make real decisions and we have to, these three principles, we're going to lay out in a moment. We have to know certain things. We have to resist certain things and we have to pursue certain things. While we have this, these foundational truths in the context of this preoccupation with God's pleasure, the pleasure of God and aiming for a hundredfold obedience, we do these, we cooperate with the Lord. Some folks, again, I've heard them say, well, I'll just let God take care of it. He wants to be free from that. He'll make me free from it. And the Lord says, that doesn't work that way. I won't do you. I won't repent for you. I won't resist sin for you, but I will help you if you will. It's the story I tell often about the farmer and the preacher. When the farmer took the preacher home after church for a big dinner and they're driving up the big driveway with, you know, hundreds of acres of this perfectly manicured farm, beautiful. And the preacher says, wow, farmer, God sure blessed you with this farm. And the farmer looked at him. He says, when God had this farm, it was a total mess. It's true. God says, farmer, I'm not planting those seeds. I'll shine light on them and rain on them and I'll create the miracle of life. But you've got to water and weed that garden or it will be a mess. Paragraph B, Paul outlined, and we're not even going to look at this. I'm just going to leave that on your own to read this verse. It's three of my favorite verses. It's on holiness. It's the most precise principles on holiness I know anywhere in the Bible. There's more in these three verses on practical points of holiness than anywhere else. And just for time's sake, if you're hungry, and I know the vast majority of you are, you're going to study this out. So you're going to get real familiar with this. I have this passage is so important in my estimation. That when I look over 30 years of preaching, I have preached more on this passage, maybe two or three other passages equal to it than all the others in my years of ministry. Meaning that's how important I believe this passage is. I don't know how many times I've preached on it, maybe 50 or 100 over the years. And there's only a couple passages I have talked on 100 times. I mean, if you talk, if a preacher talks on one passage 10 times over, you know, that's a real life passage. My point is this. I'm not trying to talk about me. That's not my point. My point is, in my years of seeking the Lord, Romans 6, 11 to 13 is absolutely at the top of the list in terms of practically understanding holiness. So I'm just alerting you to this. Go after this passage. There's three basic principles in this passage. Paragraph C, it's what I call the knowing principle. Paragraph D, the resisting principle. And paragraph E, the pursuing principle. And when you read Romans 6, 11 to 13, you see those three principles. And it's bigger than just this passage. It's the three principles. And you can find them all through the Bible. But there's the only place I know of, they are put in a precise one, two, three order. So you really want to study this out. Paragraph C, we must know certain things. We have to have our faith instructed. We have to know who we are in Christ. We have to know what we've received in him. We have to know the truth about God's heart as a father in a bridegroom. We have to know certain things in order to resist sin and pursue God in a right way. Look at Philemon, verse 6. Paul said, your faith will become effective through the knowledge of every good thing in you for Christ's sake. The knowledge of what is in you in Christ Jesus makes your faith effective. We must know we've received the gift of righteousness. We must know we have the indwelling spirit. We must know there is no condemnation so we can have confidence in love while we're seeking God or resisting sin. We have to know we have the authority to use the name of Jesus. We have to know God's heart as a father in a bridegroom and the tenderness and the gladness of his heart as we approach him. There are things we have to know or our resisting of sin is not near as effective. It's what I call the knowing principle. Paul called it reckon yourself dead to sin or know yourself or see yourself dead to sin. That the penalty of sin is not on you. And there's a number of principles involved, but there's things we have to know. That's the point I'm making. Paragraph D, there are things we have to resist. We have to resist sin. We have to. God won't do it for us. We have to resist Satan. We have to say, Satan, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. Many people resist sin, but they never resist the devil. The devil comes and they have heightened kind of activity of fear touching them. They have nightmares at night and they just endure it. They need to say in the name of Jesus, I take authority over you be gone. And it's not like all the problem will go. But that heightened awareness of the negative that comes from demonic activity will lift. We have to resist Satan. It's a biblical principle. But not only that, we have to resist sin provoking circumstances. Paul said it in Romans 6, the passage that I didn't read. He said, you can't present your body as an instrument of sin. You can't go places and offer yourself being naive and presumptuous. You can't go to situations that stimulate sin in you. You're presenting yourself to sin if you do that. So one guy goes to the party he shouldn't be at. And then he starts seeking God there. And God says, no, this is the resist principle. You can't go in the middle of it. You know, start smoking and drinking all the stuff that's being passed around. And then say in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. If you're there, you better claim the name of Jesus. But that's a little bit backwards. Still go for it. Jesus, help me. Louder, the better. You'll get help from some others. But there is a resisting principle that's critical. God won't do this part for us. Then paragraph E, there's a pursuing principle. We pursue God. We pursue people. We pursue serving and relating to God. That's called intimacy with God. That's called serving people, walking in love. There is a pursuing dimension that's very different from the resisting dimension, which is very different than the knowing dimension. Paragraph G. No, F. We must know truth, resist darkness, and pursue God. And pursuing God means and serving his people and, and being a vessel of righteousness that he uses to bless others, walking in love towards others. We have to know truth, resist darkness, and pursue God. Those three cannot be exchanged for one another. Some people pick two out of the three. Paragraph G. There's none of these principles can be substitute for the other. Some people resist sin. I mean, they take a stand. They rebuke sin and all these lusts that are rising up in their being. And they're actually pursuing God. They're seeking the word and they're praying. But the problem is they don't know who they are in Christ. So every time they fail, they have so much shame on them that their spirit's closed while they're seeking the Lord. So they're rebuking sin. They're seeking God. But they have such a wrong concept of God and they're so shame based. Their spirit is closed. So they're not receiving a connection with God that's exhilarating their spirit because they have no confidence because they don't know the right things. Well, the other guy, he pursues. He's at the prayer meetings. He's serving people. He's pursuing God and the people and the right and the will of God. But he's not resisting sin. I mean, he's praying and crying at the prayer meeting. And then he's just giving himself to all kinds of things outside of it. That doesn't work. We can't pursue without resisting. Well, the other guy, the end of paragraph G, he knows the truth. He knows the bridal paradigm. He knows the father heart of God. He knows who he is in Christ. He has the Bible information. He's got a right paradigm of God. He even has a desire to resist the negative. But he doesn't actually pursue God and connect. And so there's not an igniting in his spirit of that information that he knows. We have to do all three of them. But not only that, let's read the last sentence. If we embrace all three of these principles in context to the two foundational truths, being preoccupied with the superior pleasures and seeking 100-fold obedience, then there will be a dynamic work in your spirit over time. Amen. Let's stand.