Mike Bickle emphasizes the significance of understanding our spiritual identity in Christ, asserting that believers are new creations and that their standing before God is based on Jesus' righteousness rather than their own actions. He explains that the enemy seeks to distort this truth, leading to feelings of condemnation and insecurity, but reminds us that God does not count our sins against us. Bickle encourages believers to present themselves to God as alive and accepted, rather than guilty and condemned, fostering a deeper intimacy with the Lord. He highlights that our confidence in God's acceptance is rooted in the finished work of Christ, which allows us to approach God without fear. Ultimately, he reassures that our identity as lovers of God, despite our struggles with sin, is what defines us.

I ask you to release the inspiration of your spirit on the word, even now. Lord, even now, bless the hearing and the speaking of your word in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's go back to the way it was. Okay, we're going to talk about understanding spiritual identity in Christ. This is a very fundamental and simple message. And for those of you that this is new information to you, then it's for you. But those of you that are teachers, you can be hearing it as, these are some very important principles that if you encounter new believers, we must be established in these fundamental truths, or we're never going to be able to grow in our intimacy with the Lord. Because our ability to experience God at the heart level is directly related to understanding who we are before Him. Because when the devil comes to strike at us, he always comes to lie to us in our mind. He comes to distort the word of God. Because if he can get you confused about fundamental things in the kingdom of God, he can get you into condemnation, he can get you off the path. So the word of God always brings us back to the fundamental basics in terms of our attack against the enemy. So when I find a person in oppression, depression, or confused, or they've lost their passion, I try to get them back to Christianity 101, the basic facts. Because these basic facts, even though you might know them, to be reminded of them, to renew your heart in them, is what drives away the work of darkness in our heart. One of the most important paragraphs in the whole New Testament concerning who we are before the Lord and how the Lord views us is here in 2 Corinthians 17, verse 21. It says this, Therefore if anyone, if any person, whosoever, is in Christ, that means they're born again, they've accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, and they now stand before God in an entirely new position. Before they were not in Christ, and now they stand before the Father in all the benefits of what is true of Jesus Christ. So what is true of Jesus before the Father has been given to you, it's true of you before the Father because of what Jesus did for you. That's what it means to be in Christ. That everything that's true about Jesus as a man, in his humanity, before God the Father, in terms of his standing before God, God gives this as a gift to you. One of the most significant statements in the New Testament that we are in Christ, that when God looks at us, he sees Jesus when he looks at us. It says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a brand new creation. God has done a new work in his life, and though we don't always see the work, and we don't always appreciate it, when God looks at you, he looks at a new creation. And the reason this is so important is because our emotions go all kinds of places. And we have all kinds of negative thoughts. Or maybe even somebody in the body of Christ will get mad at you and say something, and you'll believe it, and your feelings will get hurt, and you don't feel like a new creation. It doesn't seem true, but it's true because when God looks at you, he doesn't see what you used to be. He looks at a brand new creation. You are a new creation because you are now relating to God the Father through Jesus. You're in Christ. That's what it means. You're relating to God the Father now through what Jesus did. And so when God looks at you, he sees the work of Jesus like a robe surrounding you, like a garment. Paul declares one of the greatest things that could possibly be true of you or me, old things have passed away. Your track record, your sins before God, God says they've passed away, that when God looks at us in terms of receiving us into his heart and receiving us with his affection, he said the old things, all of them have passed away. Now this is the one thing the enemy does not want you to get a hold of. Because if you get a hold of this, your emotions will become powerful, and they will become confident before God. Because the enemy wants to tell you that the old things are still in the way of you and God. Because what he wants to do, he wants to get you to come to a worship service, and instead of saying, Lord, I love you and I'm yours, or saying, Lord, if you will forgive me one more time, I promise you this one time, I beg you, I beg you, I'll never ask again, if you just forgive me one more time, I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go to the mission field. I'll do that if you'll just forgive me. And what happens is that people debate and they negotiate with God, and they try to give God a reason to like them. Because they don't understand the declaration, the truth, old things are gone. This is a declaration of God. Now the devil's not going to tell you this. He's going to tell you the old things are still there. But when that happens, we are instructed by the Word of God to use the Word as an enemy, as a weapon against lies. We speak the Word of God right back to the enemy. We say, no, I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Old things have passed away. And look at this. Behold, all things have become new. All things have become new. Your relationship with God is based on an entirely new foundation. Because before you received the gift of salvation, you had to stand before God based on how good you were. Do you know how horrible that is to stand before God based on how good you've been doing? If you stand before God based on how good you are or how good you've been the last month or two, I tell you, we're all in trouble. Because we'll never have confidence. But God wants us to have confidence when we stand before Him. And so He declares this to us. He goes, the old things have passed. Everything is new. When I look at you, it's a new look. There's a new stand. You're standing before me on a new ground, on a new basis. Because before you received Jesus, you stood before me on the basis of what you did. Now you're standing before me on the basis of what He did for you. Beloved, you can rest in that. You can relax. Your heart can just unpack. And you can be confident like, I'm here to stay. I'm home. And the reason I'm home in the presence of God because I'm not in His presence based on how good the last 30 days have been in my spiritual life. Behold, Paul said, all things. All things have become new. Verse 18. Now all things, all these things that are new are of God. They are the work of God. The new things are from God. He gave them to you as a gift. And this is the God who reconciled us to Himself. And to be reconciled to God means everything in between us and God has been removed. This word reconcile is a big word. It just means whatever was in the way is out of the way. Now that's why the Bible calls this the good news. It's the good news because what was in the way between you and God the Father connecting is now out of the way from His point of view. Now the problem is the enemy wants to come and lie to us. And the other problem is between our ears. It's in our own mind. It's right here. That's the problem right there. Because our mind believes the old information. And the Bible tells us that when our mind is renewed or our mind believes in the new information that the word of God declares then our heart will have confidence before God the Father. So the scripture says that all things have become new. Verse 18. Now the all things that are new are from God. The God who reconciled us, who removed the barriers to Himself out of the way. And He did this through Jesus Christ. Verse 19. Now He's going to get real specific. He says that is or specifically now He's going to tell you about the new things that He did through Jesus Christ. That God reconciled the world to Himself. Now look at this. He did not impute our sins to us. And the word impute means count. God says I do not count your sins against you if you come to Me in Christ Jesus. So when we stand before God the devil is reminding us of everything we did recently and in the past and we're negotiating, we're debating. And religion tries to argue with God to give a reason why God should love you but grace says it's already finished. I already want you. God's trying to convince you but religion's trying to convince God. The spirit of religion says oh God please give me one more chance and the spirit of grace says I don't have to just give you one more chance to trust your mind forever. It's a settled issue. Because God is not imputing or God is not counting your sin against you. Beloved, let the spirit of God speak this to you in a fresh way. He is not imputing your sin to you. That means you can stand before God in a worship service. You can stand with the confidence that He enjoys you. That He actually likes you. Now when this touches your heart and it has touched many of you already I'm aware of that. But as this touches your heart and as you use this as Bible teachers and some of you are 14 year old Bible teachers you're teaching others your age and some of them that are younger and even some older you want to teach them these principles. You want to tell them no matter what you're feeling the Word of God says that God is not imputing trespasses trespasses, that's just another word for sin He's not counting sin against us. And so why are we counting sin against us when God isn't counting sin against us? Because the enemy is lying to us. Because as long as we relate to God based on our sin we will always run from Him instead of run to Him. And the enemy knows that. If I relate to God based on my sin on how good or how bad I'm doing then I'm going to always open my heart before God and guard myself like, oh no, I better be guarded and ultimately I end up running from Him instead of to Him. But if we relate to God based on what He did based on the free gift you can open your spirit wide and you can have confidence and you don't have to negotiate with God you can relax and you can tell Him in your weakness in your immaturity in your brokenness you can tell Him you love Him and that you know He loves you that the Word of God says that you're not counting any trespass against Me Beloved, this is the glorious good news of what Jesus Christ did for us when He came and died on the cross. Now verse 21 Now Paul really says, he lays it out in the clearest fashion right here in verse 21 It says, for He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him Now what's that mean? Let's break this down For He, that's God the Father made Him who knew no sin Now who is the man that is called Him who knew no sin? That's Jesus Jesus was the innocent one He knew no sin He had no sin in His life For God made Him who knew no sin He actually became sin for you and I Now I know that's the age-old story that we've heard from the beginning from when we first began our walk with the Lord But a billion years from now we will never be weary of this story We will look at Him a billion years from now and a fresh revelation will touch our heart when it dawns on us in a new way that the man who knew no sin the man that was innocent actually became sin He actually became sin The whole sin of the human race your sin and my sin was laid upon Him and the guilty one, Jesus became I said it wrong the innocent one, Jesus became guilty The innocent one, Jesus became guilty And the guilty ones, you and I as a gift became innocent We became innocent as a gift before God because the truly innocent one became guilty Now this is called justice because He took our sin He took our failure He paid the price for it You and I get His righteousness as a free gift Now this isn't just righteousness just whatever This is the righteousness of God Himself That's the only kind of righteousness there is actually But this is a righteousness that can never be improved upon Do you understand that you are as righteous in God's sight today as you will be a million years after you've been in heaven for a million years Did you know that you will not in God's sight improve your righteousness 1% even a million years from now Did you know that it's impossible to be more righteous in God's sight than you are right now I mean this is radical Now realize it's just Christianity 101 It's fundamental But even people that have been walking with the Lord they lose sight of this The righteousness that you have been given as a free gift will never ever be improved upon It's impossible to improve upon it because it's the quality of righteousness that God Himself possesses It is yours Now this quality of righteousness is called the righteousness of God It's God's righteousness So when God looks at me and when God looks at you because of Jesus He sees His own righteousness Therefore He welcomes us instead of drives us away from His presence Now when this really settles in our spirit we gain a confidence before the Lord because we don't run from Him we run to Him when this settles into our spirit And this is one of the fundamental things that Satan does not want to settle in your spirit or in the lives of the people you're ministering to Think of the people you're ministering to Maybe one or two friends Maybe you have a Bible study back home Maybe it's just a fellowship group before five of you You can be sure of this The enemy does not want this issue settled in their understanding They'll come and say I feel bad, I feel this, I feel I quit and I feel discouraged And more times than not what they need, not only this but they need a strong dose of this to renew their mind with this truth Well I really blew it so I think I'm going to put myself on probation for a while I blew it so bad yesterday that for the next month I'm going to prove to God how sorry I am and I'm just going to like be spiritually miserable for 30 days to prove how sincere I am and I'm not going to ask God for anything because then maybe He'll understand that I'm really sincere this time and all of that is religious foolishness It's completely unnecessary You cannot add one degree of righteousness by anything that you do to your standing before God It was given to you fully and it was given to you completely The righteousness that you have cannot be improved upon It cannot be improved and it never will be The righteousness that I have today that you have today a million years from now will be the same righteousness we have right now God didn't just forgive our sin He didn't just overlook our sin He paid for it There's a difference He didn't just look down at the human race and say well you know I know it's tough down there and wave His hand and say you know I'm a good God so I'm just simply going to forgive you and some people in the body of Christ excuse me some people in the church they're still not settled about this If you ask them why are you forgiven? They go well because God's good I go well yeah but that's not the answer I'm looking for that's true God is good but why are you forgiven? Because Jesus died okay that's good but why did Jesus dying produce forgiveness for you? I don't know I don't know you know that one Christmas song you know I don't know He died you know the babe in the manger He died I don't know why that gave me forgiveness The reason it gives you forgiveness is because Jesus literally paid the debt and there is no more debt now If God judged you for the sin that He judged Jesus for then God would be acting in injustice If God made you pay for the sin that Jesus paid for that would be an injustice on God's part and God is never ever lacking justice God cannot God will not He doesn't want to but He can't anyway He cannot have you pay for a debt that has already been paid for that would violate the truth of justice He didn't overlook sin He paid for it When it's paid for it's a whole new ball game so to speak The fact that our sin is paid for that gives us a basis of security in the presence of God that is very dynamic and it will last forever I don't stand before God because I prayed good last week I don't stand before God because of what I did I stand before God because of what He did and what I do is a response in gratitude to what He did and when people lose their sense of gratitude and their sense of confidence it's these very verses or the ones that are like them that we need to feed our spirit with because when our spirit sees this our confidence grows our gratitude grows and the more I see this the more radical I want to be out of gratitude not to get God to like me I'm not trying to get God to like me the truth is He does already that's the miracle He likes us already He's trying to get us to believe and connect with this reality and again when I see a person old or young and if I'm counseling with them or they're confused in my mind I almost always I understand more times than not that these truths are what they're lacking even if they've been in the ministry for 20 years I know many guys that can preach this but when they fail in their own life they lack confidence because though they can preach it in the secrecy of their own heart they don't speak these truths when the devil comes to accuse them the devil doesn't care if I preach this to you what he doesn't want in terms of my life before God he doesn't like it when I speak it to him when he comes to try to lie to me about my standing before God and we speak the word we tell him it is written I am the righteousness of God because of Christ Jesus that God relates to me through what Jesus did and there nobody can move me from this place of security and this place of reality now this is why Jesus is the only way of salvation now this is the big stumbling block in terms of all the other faiths and it's very important that you understand this because all the other different religions around the world they get really upset when Christians say this is the only way of salvation really because here's what they hear they hear completely opposite of what we're saying they hear you think you have the best religion we have a dumb religion you think you're better than us and they just think our ideas and their ideas we weigh them out you think your ideas are so much better than our ideas it's not about that when I tell different ones that say how can you say that I go what other man lived perfect it's an issue of justice is there any other man who lived perfect I've asked this to different religious leaders of other religions and they always say no I don't know of anybody who lived perfect they go you tell me the head of your religion did that man live perfect his entire life in every thought in every word well no I go that's the issue I said the only reason we're saved isn't because we're sincere we have to be sincere but it's more than that we're saved because a man lived perfect and then when God was about to judge us this man stood in the way and took the penalty himself and so the other religions I say it's an issue of justice did anybody else pay for your sin who was innocent his entire life it's not an issue of being better than it's an issue of receiving a free gift because the man who gave us the gift had the ability and he had the power to pay for that gift for us so that's what's going on and even people in the body of Christ they get even offended about this well we don't want to be arrogant how can we say we're the only way I mean they love God too in their own way I go it's not about all of that it's about did anybody else pay when they stand before God God's going to ask one of two questions I mean he's going to have they're going to stand in one or two positions he's going to say either you stand in your own merits you stand because of what you did or you're going to stand in the light of what Jesus did that's the only two options there's not a third option you can't stand you know Buddha can't stand in your place because Buddha's guilty a guilty man can't stand in your place he can't take your place because he's already guilty himself the only person that can take our place is an innocent person an innocent man is the only possible man and there's only one so when we stand before God when all the people of history stand before God God the question is on what basis should I let you into my kingdom and the guy goes well I tried real hard yeah but I'm a holy God trying real hard doesn't I can't just overlook your sin who paid for it? someone has to pay for your sin by taking the penalty themselves for it in all the religions of the world they don't have anybody who did that for them but in Christ Jesus the innocent man became guilty so that the guilty ones become innocent let's go to the next verse Romans chapter 8 verse 1 it says there is now there is therefore now no condemnation there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus for the believer who's sincerely living right before God and I don't mean they got victory in all their areas I don't know of any Christian that has a victory in every area of their life all the time unbroken all their thoughts are right all their words are right all their use of time is right their spirit is perfect all the time I've never met such a person everyone has unsettled issues now here's what Paul said there is therefore no condemnation when you stand before God God is not condemning us at all when we stand before him as a believer now he's still working on areas of our life there's still issues he's dealing with but when he's dealing with issues in our life he's not at the same time that he's convicting me of this and convicting you of that and telling you this has got to change and that's got to change that's an entirely different subject than God saying I don't want you in my presence get out of my presence because condemnation means get out of my presence and what Paul said is when we receive Jesus God never says to us get out of my presence but rather he says welcome come near me come near me there's no condemnation well if there's no condemnation why is it we feel condemnation so much why is it that so many believers feel condemned and what do I mean feel condemned when they go to worship before God they're like oh no God knows all the bad stuff this is horrible I've got to get out of here somebody help me well somebody already helped you you are a new creation all the old things between you and God passed away you are brand new and the new things are the gift of God and you have become the righteousness of God when you stand before him he sees the robes of righteousness around you not just because he's nice but because a man who was innocent paid for him and gave us his righteousness it's a legal transaction I mean God is nice God is good but it's more than that it's a legal thing that our sin has been paid for so therefore there is no condemnation God is not saying to you any longer get out of my presence matter of fact he's saying opposite he's saying come closer come closer have confidence come closer to me you don't have to be intimidated in my presence and what I mean by intimidated is being nervous that God is thinking about kicking us out a lot of people in the body of Christ one of the reasons they're so unstable in their spiritual walk is because they're always nervous that this is the week or this is the month that's gonna all crash down and you're gonna get kicked out and the devil comes and tells us that and we even have friends that tell us that oh man you're such a mess there's no hope for you you know what you can do you can take the word of God the very thing Jesus did he took when the devil came to him he spoke the word of God right back to the devil and you can take the word of God and you can speak it right back it is written in Romans 8 there is no condemnation there is no there's nothing that's driving me out of God's presence I am welcome I'm not being asked to leave there's nothing condemning me from God's heart I am being accepted now acceptance is the opposite of condemnation when Paul said there's no condemnation he could have said it the other way there is full acceptance because of Christ Jesus so you can say it either way you want because both of them are true you can say it is written there is no condemnation or you can say it is written because there's plenty of verses that back this up I am fully accepted in the beloved and you can find that in Ephesians chapter 1 I think it's verse 5 but it's the same idea but we need to speak this because the enemy will never stop accusing us the enemy wants us constantly unsettled on this issue because once you get settled on it beloved you're going to explode in a good way you're going to go forward in God because you'll have so much confidence because your confidence will not be determined by how well you're doing the last 30 days spiritually if I had to go if my ability to enjoy God was only related to how good I did the last 30 days over these many years I've walked with the Lord I would have quit many times if my standing before God was determined by how well I've done the last 30 days but the thing that I've had as a blessing is my leaders when I was younger and the Lord taught me these things right from the beginning 35 years ago is when I met the Lord and they taught me this right from the beginning and I began to use these these Bible verses the truth and speak them against the enemy and when all my weakness and sin would come and the devil just says oh just curse God and die and quit you're never going to make it anyway I would say I'm a new creation the old things have passed from God's point of view He sees me as He sees Christ I am the righteousness of Christ I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and there's no condemnation now look at the next verse Romans chapter 6 verse 13 now here's what Paul tells us he goes now when you present yourself to God you have to present yourself as alive from the dead and then present your members that means your bodies I mean your physical body present your members the part of your personhood the part of who you are your mind, emotion, will, body, soul and spirit those are your members present them to God as vessels or instruments of righteousness now this is a really important verse because what many people do is they present themselves to God as guilty they go before God they're believers and they say God I love you I love you oh I'm such a mess and we need to be honest about what we did I am such a mess I'll tell you what God if you just don't be mean to me for 30 days I won't ask you for nothing and they make all these crazy deals now how do I know they make all these crazy deals well because I used to make them because I've heard them for years Paul says when you present yourself to God like when you come before Him to worship that means presenting yourself to God when you offer yourself to Him that's what it means to present yourself to God present yourself to God as somebody who believes that God made you alive as a free gift now when I present myself to God I don't always feel alive as a free gift but it is the truth and He doesn't want me presenting myself filled with condemnation He wants me to come and say God I believe your word I believe what your son did I am yours and you love me and you see me as righteous that's what it means to present yourself as alive and too many people they present themselves as condemned they offer themselves in worship as being guilty they offer themselves as a minute away from being kicked out of the kingdom they're on probation He didn't say offer yourself as being on probation don't offer yourself to God as a person that's all messed up now we know we have our problems we're not talking about being dishonest about our problems we're talking about how God receives us heart to heart now God sees all the mess in all of our lives but this is not what He's talking about He's talking about the way He receives you at the heart level and He receives you as new and He receives you as the righteousness of Jesus is wrapped around you like a robe now one of the reasons here in Romans 6.3 one of the reasons that people don't present their members as instruments of righteousness to God that means to be dedicated to the Lord like in holiness when you present your members you're presenting your body your soul, your spirit all that goes to making you you you're presenting yourself to God in that way to be committed and to be holy and the reason a lot of people never sustain this second part of this verse because they don't have the first part of this verse right they never get around to saying I am yours as a tool of righteousness because they're so condemned because they present themselves to God as condemned and on probation and about ready to get kicked out of the kingdom they present themselves as dead or as guilty instead of presenting themselves alive and when they do that they have so much discouragement in their spirit they're so worn out they don't want it they have no energy to present their members their body as an instrument in God's hand to do righteousness you know we tell as leaders of the body of Christ we tell people go present yourself as a servant for God to use you as a tool of righteousness and the guy goes I'm so discouraged inside I'm so depressed I feel like I'm such a failure you're telling me to go offer my service to God I feel so dead inside and what we're doing is we're getting Romans 6.13 we're getting the order mixed up you can't you can't offer yourself to serve God while you feel completely dead and condemned and kicked out of God's presence we gotta get the order right we gotta present ourselves as accepted by the Lord as enjoyed by the Lord we present ourselves as alive in God's presence with the Holy Spirit living us and God enjoying us beloved when you do this and you may not feel it at all he didn't say present yourself as somebody who feels good he goes believe the word and whatever the word says that's how you present yourself before God and the word says you are alive which means God enjoys you God's accepted you his righteousness is yours you don't present yourself as dead on probation about to get kicked out worthless you don't present yourself begging oh please forgive me one more time oh I really mean it this time how many of you got that I really mean it this time type prayer I've had a few of those over my day now just another point or two then we're gonna draw this to an end those of you that are new here when I give you notes which I normally do I never finish them so some people get ahead and I go some people don't even get ahead I go on bunny trails and I never get back and then I just stop in one second I don't even give you a wind down I just go okay we're done and so we're getting close to being done here Roman numeral two Roman numeral two spiritual immaturity is not the same thing as rebellion rebellion and immaturity sometimes look the same outwardly now beloved now you need to hear that for your own life but some of you you got this real clear and so I'm talking to you as leaders even though you might be 14 years old but the Lord's made you a leader anyway maybe you're leading 13 year olds or maybe you're leading five people but you're still a leader you're still teaching and helping others and that's an important thing to do you have to get this point clear because most believers are confused on this point they feel like they're rebellious and they really love God and the truth is they're not rebellious they're immature and there's a big difference because if you're rebellious, God is angry and you need to run out of His presence till you repent but if you're immature God delights in you and you run into His presence and open your spirit now the problem is sometimes the outward activity of somebody who really loves God but they're immature their mind's still not renewed their mind still has old thought patterns but they really love God they may do some of the same things outwardly now my goal isn't here trying to talk you into that's ok you don't want to live and do wrong things you want to resist those wrong things but between now and when you get free of these different issues you get free of a bunch of issues you think you got it made then what happens is that magnifying glass you're kind of looking down there in the microscope and you think you got that slide it looks all clean and the Lord turns up the power from 10 power to 100 power you go oh man there's so much dirt on that I've had that a bunch of times over the years and I get that all cleaned up and I go oh I'm there then He turns it up to 1000 power there's dirt everywhere and so when you get a few issues settled don't think it's over because there's a whole lot more it's a lifelong journey but here's the point I'm trying to make if you understand that sincerity I mean spiritual immaturity is different than rebellion then when you see your immaturity you don't go run and hide from God you go run into His presence and you give yourself you say Lord I am weak I am broken but I love you and you love me and you open your heart and you don't guard yourself from God a lot of people when they worship God it's like if you could picture what their spirit looks like you know the way we're supposed to worship God our heart is wide open I'm not talking about body language right now I'm just talking about if I could describe a person's spirit if they're worshiping with confidence even though they're immature their spirit's wide open but most people here's the way they worship this is what their spirit looks like they're going oh God I love you I'll do anything for you I'll do anything I'll go to the midst of hell and the Lord says shh shh get it over with beat me now get it over with hurry up kick me out get it over with the Lord's saying put your hands down I don't mean your real hands but your spirit open your heart I like you my son paid the price for you I want you his righteousness is around you come to me don't run from me open your spirit I tell you you get a person that gets this clear and they come with all the unsettled issues but they have confidence that God loves them and they know they love God and they're sincere about getting these issues settled but in their own unrenewed and their dark thinking little by little their thinking is becoming more in the light and more renewed is what the Bible calls it and the more our minds get renewed then the more the issues get cleaned up it's not that we aren't sincere it's that our mind is unrenewed that's why it's really important what we put in our minds we can't fill our minds with wrong things and expect our spirit or our heart to feel right when we fill our mind with wrong things our spirit gets real heavy and dark and our spirit gets real way down we have to fill our minds with right things I have here at the end of this paragraph that both sheep and pigs get stuck in the mud and the reason I say that is that in the Bible in the Old Testament the sheep in Israel that's a clean animal matter of fact we're constantly called the sheep of his pasture we are like sheep before him he's the shepherd we all understand that the sheep are clean animals but the pigs are unclean animals and that's a religious category I don't want to go in and explain that but it's bad news so the pigs are unclean animals and the sheep are clean animals now the sheep get stuck in the mud and when the sheep get stuck in the mud have you ever seen them in the mud they're kicking trying to get out but their hoofs are stuck in the mud they can't get out and the shepherd comes and picks them up and pulls them out of the mud and puts them on the dry ground but when they're in the mud they hate it the sheep kick and struggle and the more they struggle sometimes the farther they get in and they're trying to get out and then they need help but when they're in the mud they're trying to get out of the mud but pigs they're totally different you get them out of the mud you turn around they go right for another mud hole man they're like they're planning for a mud hole the first chance they get they're trying to get in many of you when you lay on your bed at night you're not trying to get away with sin you're not trying to trick God you're trying to get free from your sin you're trying to think of a way to stop doing it you're not trying to think of a way to fake God out well God if you stay real busy looking at that I'm going to like pull off another couple bad weekends and hopefully you won't notice now most of you that's not what you're thinking you're on your bed at night or in a prayer time you're going oh God I hate what I'm doing I'm trying to figure out a way not to do that but I get in this pressure and I end up doing it and I hate it you're like one of the sheep whose feet are stuck in the mud and the Lord wants to deliver you and he's going to deliver you but beloved between now and your full deliverance he likes you you are sincere he does not see you as rebellious there's other people and maybe some in this room right now they don't really care if they're in the mud if they're in sin they just want to do more sin and they go God you know you just deal with it God I'm going to do what I want to do and I'll do it when I want to do it and they're like the pigs but they're not they're not truly born again a person that has that attitude even though they grew up in the church maybe they're not born again they're still not in the kingdom of God you can't be in the kingdom because you went to youth group your whole life you can only be in the kingdom is if your heart receives the gift of righteousness and you commit yourself to him and he makes you clean as a deliberate act of the Holy Spirit touching your heart you can't be in the kingdom of God because your parents were in the kingdom and you went to the youth group even if you led the youth group that doesn't bring you in the kingdom there are more preachers in our nation who are not born again they're not even in the kingdom but they're head of churches or church organizations let's say it that way and so if it's in your heart I'm just trying to get away with sin and hopefully nobody will catch me then you need to repent and you need to get in the kingdom and you need to be born again and experience a real relationship with God but I believe that most of you in this room you're stuck in the mud in this issue or that issue but you're trying hard to get out and the point I'm trying to say to you is paragraph B I mean the next paragraph I'm just going to do the next two and then we're going to end with that is that we all struggle with weakness but that doesn't mean we're hopeless hypocrites the fact that our love for God is weak doesn't mean our love for God is false weak love is not false love my love for God needs to be stronger and while it's growing I'm not false because it's not perfectly strong your love is not false because it's not mature it's still real it's just weak sometimes I've heard the definition of a hypocrite and people say a hypocrite is somebody who does one who says one thing and does another that's not true that's not the right definition of a hypocrite a hypocrite is not somebody who says one thing and does another a hypocrite is somebody who says one thing and doesn't pursue the other you're not a hypocrite because you come up short of what you're aiming I mean we're aiming for holiness and love which are really the same thing and if we're aiming for holiness of love we're definitely falling short there's no one in this room that's perfect in holiness and love we're all falling short but we're not hypocrites we're hypocrites if we proclaim it but we're not seeking to do it at the heart level we can seek and still fail and still be real we're still genuine even though we're failing in issues of our life we don't attain to everything that we're aiming for paragraph C here's a question and don't answer it I'll answer it for you so you don't one guy yeah I'm this I go no no wrong answer and he got all embarrassed so question are you a slave of sin who struggles to love God that's the wrong answer or here's the right one are you a lover of God who still struggles with sin what is the core truth of who you are what sounds like exactly the same though it's not at all at the core of your being are you mostly a slave of sin who's occasionally trying to love God like well you know it's summer I'm at IHOP I might as well try to love God you know really I'm committed to sin but you know it's the summer my parents would be happy if I came home with a good attitude that'd be nice or are you a lover of God I mean at the core of your being when no one's looking you really do want to love God but you're still struggling with sin but at the core you have committed to be a lover of God and that's who you are and that's what you're about beloved the enemy wants to come and tell us that mostly we're just sinners that are struggling to love but the truth is we are lovers who are still struggling with sin yes we still have problems with sin but at the core of who we are we are loved by God and we love God back that's who we are that's what we do and that's who we are amen let's just stand with that