Mike Bickle emphasizes the transformative power of grace in overcoming sin, particularly lust, as outlined in Romans 6:12-14. He explains that believers can access God's power through three key principles: recognizing their identity in Christ, resisting sinful urges, and actively pursuing God. Bickle highlights that while believers may struggle with sin, they are not under its dominion, and through grace, they can experience substantial victory in their lives. He encourages the congregation to embrace these principles consistently, even in their weakness, to live a life free from the control of negative emotions and sinful thoughts.

But this is the most important chapter in the New Testament on personal transformation. I mean, it is completely focused on that. In this chapter, Paul tells us, a believer, how we can access the power of God, how we can experience it in our everyday life. And I'm going to focus particularly on overcoming lust and our battle against sin. Now, when you think of lust, most people think automatically of immorality, and that is obviously a part of lust. But I think the most prevalent lust that's in the human race is actually anger and bitterness and slander. That lust is actually more common than even immorality. But let's put them all together, but don't lock it into one particular issue. Romans chapter 6, paragraph B, quick outline from the previous weeks. From verse 1 to 10, Paul describes our legal position in Christ. In other words, what we receive by being in Christ, the benefits that are ours. And I've spent the last couple of sessions focusing in on that, so if you're here the first time and are interested in more, we have these notes and the videos on the website. Paragraph C, the second part of Romans 6, the part we're going to focus in on today, verse 11 to 14, how to cooperate with the grace of God that's available in verses 1 to 10. I mean, it's not enough that the grace of God's available, we want to experience it. We want to experience it in our everyday life, we want to be empowered by it. Paul outlines three particular principles, very specific ones, and these are the primary principles that are necessary for us to access the power of God so our mind and emotions can walk free from the dominion of sinful emotions and sinful thinking. These three principles, we cannot pick one above the others, we need to embrace all three of them and do them consistently. Now having said that, in our consistency, still doing these principles is flawed and weak. We do them in our humanity, and the Lord understands that, but that's enough. In our weak and broken way, we embrace these three principles, and then what happens, the final part of Romans chapter 6, verse 15 to 23, it describes our living condition or exactly what happens inside of us. And when we're changed on the inside, then our behavior on the outside follows suit. So verse 15 to 23 describes what happens in our mind and our emotions. Okay, let's begin to look at the passage now, verse 11 to 14, and we're going to really focus more on verse 12 than the other two. One of the principles of the three, paragraph A, Paul assures us that anyone, any believer that engages consistently in these three principles, they will experience victory over the dominion of sin in their mind and their emotions, and therefore in their character, their outward behavior. Paul promises in verse 14, he says that sin shall not have dominion over us. And particularly in this context, he's talking about sin won't have dominion over our mind and our emotions, that though our mind and emotions as believers, we still have the taint of sin in us, but Paul said, you have the resources in the grace of God to actually walk in a way where this tint of sin in your mind and emotions and in our bodies, it won't have dominion over us, it won't control us. Yes, we'll fight against it, we'll resist it, but we'll have the upper hand instead of the negative emotions and feelings having the upper hand in our life. Paul promises us victory, that we, sin shall not have dominion over us. Now the victory that he promises is a substantial victory in this age, it's not perfect, but it's substantial, and an absolute complete victory in the age to come. Now the problem is, many believers have experienced so much defeat, they love the Lord, they've been walking with the Lord for decades, many of them, and they're giving up on the idea that they're really going to have freedom from the dominion of negative feelings and thought patterns. And so what Paul's wanting to do is convince them, through Romans 6, that righteousness is not only attractive, the liberty and the fruitfulness of righteousness, but it's doable. It's within the reach of every single believer, no matter how broken you've been in your past. He's saying that the power of God and the grace of God is actually stronger than the negative sinful patterns we've had in days past. Let's read verse 11 to 13, and I have this just abbreviated here on the notes, you'll read it fully in your Bible, and we'll look at it more fully in a few moments as well. But just to give the feel of verse 11 to 14, I'm going to identify the three principles in an abbreviated form here. Principle number one, verse 11, he says, Reckon yourself to be dead to sin but alive to God, is what it says fully there. And to reckon ourselves is to see ourselves in the way that God sees us in Christ. We have to know certain things, and it takes time to cultivate that knowledge. Paul said that we're transformed by renewing our mind, by knowing the things we must know. Well, again, I've spent the last two sessions in this series on that point, so I'm not going to put too much more time on that today. Principle number two, it's not enough to know things, we have to resist things, negative things, sinful urges and temptations and situations. He says in verse 12, Don't let sin reign in your body. He goes on, he adds to it, he says, Don't present yourself to sin. Don't let it reign, and don't put yourself in a position that sin is stirred up in your life. So we have to know some things, and we have to resist some things. But then he goes on in the end of verse 13, and he says, And present yourself to God. And we have to present ourselves, we have to pursue things. We have to pursue God, but we have to pursue the activities that are to obey the will of God, and the kingdom activities as well. And he goes on in verse 14, and he gives the promise. He says, If you'll do these three, he goes, I want to promise you, sin will not have dominion over your mind and emotions, yes. It will, the taint of sin will be there, but it won't rule you. It won't be the primary dominant force in your life. He says, You will have ability to overcome it. You'll have ability to live in substantial freedom on the inside and on the outside, if you will do these three principles consistently, sincerely. And again, lest you say, Oh boy, I'm never going to be able to do that. When we do them, we do them flawed. We do these principles in weakness. That's the only option we have. And so that is still workable. It still works if people like you and me engage in these principles in a sincere and a consistent way, but in a flawed and an imperfect way. And he goes on in verse 14, look at this. Here's a very key phrase, he goes, or truth. He said, The reason sin won't dominate your mind and emotions is because of this. You're not under law, but you're under grace. Now this phrase, you're not under law, but you're under grace, is a very, very powerful phrase that has many implications. And I'll say as well, this is a phrase that's often misquoted and misunderstood and misapplied. In the context here, Paul is talking about, you have the power to resist sin. Having a vision to walk in righteousness, that righteousness is attractive and doable because you're under grace. Some people understand the grace of God exactly opposite. Because we're under grace, it doesn't matter if we walk in righteousness. Paul has the exact different approach. He says, because you're under grace, righteousness is doable in your everyday lifestyle. It is your destiny, it is your inheritance to walk free from the dominion of this negative influence on the inside. Paragraph B, I say it again, the principles, we are to know who we are in Christ, we are to resist, number two, resist darkness, number three, pursue God, loving God, and pursue loving people. This is the context of experiencing victory. Okay, let's look at paragraph D. Let's look at this phrase again, many implications of what it means that we're not under the law. And I'm only going to mention a couple of them here. Not being under the law means we're not under the condemnation of the law. We're not under condemnation before God, meaning that God enjoys us, God delights in us, God enjoys the relationship. Now the enemy comes and tells us just the opposite, that God is at the very end of his patience and just one more mess up and that's it. Paul says, no, you're not under at all the condemnation that you were under when you were under the law before you were in Christ. Because everybody, before they're born again, they're under the law in their relationship before God. But it's not only that they're not, not only just free from condemnation, they're not, they're no longer powerless. Meaning, by virtue of the Holy Spirit living in their born again spirit, they actually have a resource to challenge negative emotions if they, if they interact with that resource and that resource is a person called the Holy Spirit. Being under law also means it's the attempt to earn one's salvation by our deeds. Now everybody outside of Christ, they're trying, they're hoping they'll be saved or anything will go well based on how they live. That is what it means to be under the law, to relate to God based on what we do. That our confidence before God is based on what we do, not based on what Jesus did and how God feels towards us. But being under the law means more than that, means more than seeking to earn our salvation. It means seeking to live right by the power of our own flesh. And what I mean by seeking to live right by the power of our flesh, our own flesh, meaning by our own human, human resource, by our own human power, seeking to live right, to live godly. Well, now that we're born again, we know the only way to live godly is by interacting with the life of God that dwells in us. His name is the Holy Spirit. While we were under the law, we lived disconnected from God on the inside, simply because He didn't live on the inside of us. We were living disconnected. The only power we had was our human ability. Paul says you're not limited to your human ability anymore. You're not under the law anymore. You don't have to live disconnected from God on the inside because He lives in you now that you're born again. You're under grace. You have power on the inside. Now, practically speaking, many, many believers, though they're under grace, they live disconnected from God on the inside. They don't interact with the Holy Spirit on the inside of them, so basically they're living as though they're still under the law. They're living disconnected from God on the inside. That's an implication of being under the law as well. Well, there's more, but that's just a couple of thoughts to kind of start your thinking if this is new to you. Paragraph 8, he says it's just the opposite of being under the law. Now that you're born again, you're under grace. Now, being under grace, again, has many implications, and I have more written in the notes than I'm going to cover in terms of speaking it in this message. Being under grace means that God enjoys the relationship. He actually enjoys this. Can you imagine that God actually enjoys the relationship with you? We have this idea, when the enemy comes and lies to us, that God's on the verge of just being finished with us. It's not even close. He's not at all on the verge of being finished with you. That's an absolute lie. He actually enjoys the relationship, even though there's things that grieve him that we do in the relationship, but the relationship itself, he's committed to. He values it. He enjoys the interaction. We're his beloved children. Being under grace also means that we're empowered by the indwelling spirit. We have a resource on the inside that if we interact with that person, that resource, it will affect our mind and emotions, and the tent of sin that's still on our mind and emotions, we can overpower it by that source on the inside. Again, I've addressed that the last two sessions, and I have the notes on the website if you're interested in looking at that and reviewing that again. But being under grace also means we have a glorious new destiny. One of the great pains of life that's common in the human race is people feel they have no real future. They think of their future, they feel like a failure. They have no hope for anything good happening towards them, and they feel like a failure in their life. They're not doing anything that actually really matters to anybody. It's not making a difference at all, not really. They're putting a lot of energy into life, but they can't see anything that really matters that makes a difference. They don't see a good future. They know technically when they go to heaven they die, but they don't think much about it. So it emotionally doesn't touch them. Paul says, you're under grace because you want to live in the reality of what you're under. You don't want to live disconnected from God on the inside or disconnected from your destiny in the future. You don't want to live disconnected from those. Being under grace, I have written here in paragraph E, we're under Jesus's generous and merciful leadership. Being under grace is being under him, his lordship. It's gracious, it's generous, it's kind, it's so patient, his generous leadership. That's the one we're under. Now when we're under grace, just to kind of say it one, two, three, and again we're not going to cover it all in the notes here, we have confidence that we're loved. We have confidence when we're under grace, I mean when we know we're under grace, when we're connected to the truth, I mean, that God enjoys the relationship, that he actually enjoys us. We have confidence that we're forgiven. We have a new beginning every day. Isn't that amazing? I can do something today and grieve the spirit and genuinely repent and have a brand new day tomorrow. Every day is a new day. Every day is. This lie that people have, I've gone too far, I'm too messed up, I've sinned too often, it's over. Paul would say, no, no, no, you're under grace. You have a new beginning every single day under his leadership. So don't live under this sense, it's hopeless, it's too lost, you failed too many times, he goes, it's just not true. We have the confidence we can live different, there's new possibilities. Internal righteousness and therefore external righteousness in our character is doable. It really is doable. Folks says, I've lived in so much loss for so many years as a believer, I don't really believe it's doable. But have you really embraced these three principles consistently in your life? Flawed, weak, but consistent. And when you fail, you sign back up to do them. Well, technically not, I don't even know the three principles. Well there you have it, Paul says, you have hope, it is doable, it's within reach, even for you. Another thing about being in the grace of God, is that from God's point of view, from his perspective, in the most primary sense of the word, we are successful. From the biblical point of view, because God loves us, and we responded and we love him, we are already successful in the primary sense. The primary success of our life is already established in past tense. Now there's a secondary sense, we want to be successful, and that's what we do outwardly in the eyes of man. But in the primary sense, because God loves you and me, and we love him, even though our love is weak and flawed, we love him. Beloved, he sees our love as genuine, he sees it as real. God loves me, I love God, I'm already successful in the primary sense. Now in the secondary sense, we're still working in areas, but when we have that fundamental idea that we're not a hopeless failure, we're not a hopeless hypocrite, it isn't all wasted, what we need to do is shift over to the grace paradigm of life, and that we really are successful in God's sight already by virtue of the fact that he loves us, and we're one of the minority of the human race. There's 10 or 20% of us that they say 10%, some say 20% of the human race is saying yes to the grace of God. I don't really know the number, but it's still the minority of the human race, you said yes to the grace of God. Beloved, you're already successful. I love to say when the thief on the cross, you know, stepped over that line that day in paradise, he looked around, he said, wow, if I knew I was a king, I never would have been a thief. I didn't know, wow, look at this. And beloved, we don't have to wait until that day to figure out the truth about who we are. Top of page 2, paragraph 1, we need to cultivate a grace paradigm of our life, or perspective, paradigm perspective, I use that word interchangeably, we need to see our lives through the lens of grace, because that's how God sees our life. And beloved, we feel really different about ourselves, and we feel very different about our future, we feel different about our labors, we feel different about our success when we have a grace paradigm, when we see ourselves in the way God sees us in Christ. Now, just being practical, one of the main reasons sincere believers quit their diligent pursuit after Jesus, I mean, they're pursuing Him diligent, 4 or 5 years, they're going hard, they have a high vision, I've watched this for 40 years, I mean, they're going hard 5 years, some go 10 years, some less, some more, and the reason so many sincere believers give up is that sense of hopelessness, I'm not going to succeed anyway, I mean, I'm on the verge of being rejected by God, He's always mad at me anyway, why should I try, it's not going to work, why should I put so much effort into the relationship, I keep failing, I keep stumbling and lost in bitterness and immorality, those are different expressions of lust, covetousness, it's not going to happen anyway, Paul says, don't go there, don't quit, you don't have to quit, because the truth is you're under grace, God views your life in an entirely different way than you do by just your natural thinking, many people, they feel unnoticed by anybody, nobody notices them in a positive way, they feel unappreciated, I mean, life is hard, they put a lot of energy in it, and nobody believes in them, nobody believes what they're doing matters, nobody believes that what they're doing is important, nobody believes what they're doing is going to succeed, I think we underestimate the power of somebody believing in us, it's a very, very powerful reality when somebody that you value and somebody that you care about, they believe in you, and here's what I mean they believe in you, they believe you're genuine, they believe your efforts matter, they believe that what you do, though it's small, is important, they believe your future will succeed, they believe that God is pleased with you, when somebody believes that about you, it's powerful, because in our own natural way, we lose confidence in our own vision for our life, but somebody we care about, that we value, they speak it over, so we go, wow, beloved, I got good news for you, the one you love the most, that you care most about, Jesus believes most more about you than anybody else, this is called, you're under the grace of God, it's a whole paradigm of life, let's go to paragraph H, now Paul gives the promise, and then he addresses a common misinterpretation that is often associated with biblical grace teaching, he gives the promise in verse 14, he goes, you do these three things, you give yourself though weak and flawed, you embrace these three principles consistently, he said, I got good news for you, sin won't have dominion over your mind and emotions, your internal life, therefore it won't have dominion over your external behavior, I promise you, it won't, in this age, not just in the age to come, of course it won't in the age to come, but even in this age, sin will not have dominion over you, it's doable, it's within your reach, and the man says, well Paul, how could you say such a thing, Paul says, here's why, here's how come, you're not under law, you're not under condemnation, you're not any longer have to live disconnected from God, you're not powerless, when those negative emotions rise up in you, you have a resource to challenge them, you have a future, no reason to be hopeless, God sees you as successful in the primary way, no sense to quit in despair, he enjoys the relationship, no reason to give up, you're under grace, that's why I'm telling you, this is gonna work if you stay with it, but verse 15, look at it, this is a very, very common error through church history, it started in Paul's day, some guy comes along and says, well, since we're under grace, they completely misunderstand what Paul's arguing for, what he's presenting, the glorious vision he's putting in front of them, they go, since we're not under law and under grace, shall we keep sinning, is it okay to be casual about sin, because I mean, if we're forgiven, why not keep sinning, and Paul says, what, he goes, no, no, you're forgiven to give you confidence, to press in, to draw near, to enjoy the glory of this new partnership in righteousness with the heart of God, grace isn't given to you, so that's because sin can be casual in your life, it's to give you confidence that righteousness is doable, that you have a new beginning every day, that God is committed to you, that he enjoys the relationship, he believes in you using that quote-unquote, I mean, we believe in him, but I'm talking about in that sense I've just described as when somebody believes in you, what a glorious reality, paragraph 4, now some people completely misinterpret what Paul is emphasizing here, when he says, we're not under the law, they, again, they were doing it in Paul's day, it's no, it's no surprise they've done it through church history, and they're doing it today, I mean, Paul's the greatest grace preacher that ever walked the earth, and they did it to Paul, they rose up and they go, wow, Paul, thank you, since we're under grace, we're not under law, it doesn't matter what we do, Paul goes, no, I'm empowering you to be radical for righteousness, not to be casual about righteousness, I've got the exact opposite argument is what I'm giving you, Paul's not saying it doesn't matter how we live, being free from the law doesn't mean that the biblical standards, moral standards, are now invalidated, that there is no purity, righteousness, truthfulness, humility in the kingdom, Paul's saying, no, I'm not invalidating the moral standards of God's kingdom, that would contradict the whole Sermon on the Mount, Paul's not contradicting Jesus' teaching and the Sermon on the Mount, and Paul repeated all of those values and those moral values over and over through his teaching, and associated it with the grace of God, what Paul wants them to know is, unrighteousness is a total contradiction to grace, a casual attitude towards unrighteousness, and even a defeatist attitude that says, I'm never gonna have victory anyway, it's not even doable, that's a contradiction to the teaching of grace, paragraph five, being free from law is not a license for lawlessness, paragraph six, grace doesn't condone sin, it enables us to overcome sin by giving us confidence in a new beginning, and a new power, and a new conversation on the inside, a new interaction with God Himself, top of page three, well, let's look at the three principles, I'm only gonna mention two of them for just a minute, and then spend a few more minutes on just one of the principles, we'll look at the first one, but again, the last two sessions in this series, I've focused on the knowing principle, so I'm just gonna be ever so brief, but I just wanna mention it again to remind you, Paul starts off, he goes, reckon yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God, when he says reckon yourselves, he's saying, see yourself in the way God sees you in grace, it is essential that we know what we're supposed to know in the grace of God, it's essential that we know who we are in God's eyes, if we don't know how God sees us, we're never ever going to sustain our life in God, we're not gonna sustain a life of victory or commitment against sin, we're gonna just die in despair, emotionally, I mean, we're gonna cave in despair, it's not worth it anyway, it never works, God's mad, what's the use, it's all hopeless, and that's how many people believe, the answer to that, despairing, negative, which is very, very common for sincere believers, Paul says in verse 11, reckon yourself, see yourself through the lens of the grace of God, paragraph C, he says, you're alive to God, and what being alive to God means, you live in the realm that God lives in, that's what that means, you live in the same realm that Jesus in his humanity lives in before the father, you live in that realm, that's what it means to be alive to God, you live in the realm of God, you live in the realm of grace, you're not under the reign of sin, now you're under the reign of grace, Paul says, you gotta see it, you gotta see it, and when negative emotions challenge the word of God, you confess the word, and you resist those negative mind thoughts, I mean those mindsets, and those negative emotions, middle of page three, let's look, principle number two, this is the one I'll spend five, six, seven minutes on, where's the other ones I'm just spending one minute on, the principles are very straightforward, I mean they're not confusing, they, we just have to do them, and we have to do them consistently, even though we do them flawed, and imperfectly, they still work, if we do them consistently, they really, really do, principle number two, it's not enough that we know who we are in Christ, biblical grace teaching involves more than knowing, it also involves resisting and pursuing, some people present the teaching of grace only as knowing, Paul here is talking about being under grace, he puts all three principles, we cannot separate these three principles from Paul's grace teaching, if somebody does, it's a distorted grace message, well let's read it, verse 12 and 13, and again, we, our biblical view of grace and of holiness must incorporate verse 12 and verse 13, Paul said, therefore, don't let sin reign in your body, that you should obey its lusts, and he goes on, he allows, he adds a little bit more to the same principle, don't present your members as instruments of unrighteousness, don't present your members to sin, now this idea of your members, he uses this term throughout Roman sex, that speaks of your physical and your mental capacities and abilities, and your physical ones, your mental, your emotional and your physical abilities and capacities, are all incorporated as part of your members, so Paul uses the term members, he goes, don't present, don't put your members, your mind, your thinking, your body in the disposal of sin, don't put it in the pathway of something that will stir sin up in your life, don't do that, that's what he's saying here, well anyway, let's, let's look at verse 12 again, he says, don't let sin reign in your body, the taint of sinfully, the taint of sin is still on our mind and emotions as born-again believers, that are a new creation in Christ, our born-again spirit has no sin in it at all, if your born-again spirit had sin in it, God, the Holy Spirit couldn't dwell in you, God and sin can't dwell together, your born-again spirit, that's where it's true of us to say, we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, our spirit man is strong and fully alive and fully, has the fullness of grace, it's our soul, it's our mind and emotion that still has the taint of sin in it, now Paul describes sin, he personifies sin, makes sin like it's a king, like a person, he says, don't let king sin make you obey, because sin's gonna try to get you to obey its lusts, because I'm telling you right now, you don't have to, the lusts are still there, the taint is there, but you got a power and you have a new confidence, because God enjoys the relationships, he's forgiving you, you feel good about your life, your destiny, your future, because you're viewing your life through the lens of grace, so look at what he says in verse 12, he says, therefore, now what's the therefore, therefore, well it's the verse before, he says, see yourself alive to God, and in light of being alive to God, living in the realm of God, being under grace, therefore, you have the courage, the resolve, the confidence to say no to sin, he goes, and when sin, that king sin, those tainted emotions and feelings, and those tainted thoughts come against you, you have the authority to say, no, I am not going to yield to you, Paul's declaration here in verse 12 is that we can say no to sin, we really can, matter of fact, we have to, verse 12 is a strong exhortation that we have to engage our will, we have to make daily decisions to say no, now some people don't like that, they go, wow, that's the downside, I mean, I just want God to do it for me, and Jesus says, no, I made provision so that when you do do it, it works, I already made provision for you, but I'm not going to do your part of the relationship, and you can't do my part of the relationship, so this verse 12, it's a biblical aspect of the grace of God teaching, we must say no to sin, we must take a stand against sin, and we must deny it, Jesus won't deny sin for us in our daily life, some people say, let the Lord do it, he says, no, no, that's your part of the relationship, I've already made provision for you to have victory if you'll do it, others say, well, I'm praying for a heavenly encounter, and if I get caught up in the third heavens, then I won't have to deal with it, he says, no, a heavenly encounter won't deal with it either, because Paul had heavenly encounters, and he still had to say no to sin when it rose up in his members, another guy goes, well, let me go up front at the end of a meeting and have him pray for me and cast it out, you cast the demon out, but you can't cast the taint of sin out of someone's mind and emotions, the way that we get victory, we renew our mind, we resist what we resist, we pursue God in the way verse 13 describes, and we have, and our sin does not have dominion, it doesn't have the upper hand in our thinking, our emotions, over time, we will experience that new liberty on the inside, though the taint will be there, it won't have the upper hand, it won't have be the dominant force it was before, paragraph d, it's our responsibility in the grace of God, it's our responsibility, it's our role in the relationship, it's our part of the relationship, the one of the reasons why the Lord kept this in the whole process of victory, that we have to make this decision, it's our way of expressing our love to Jesus, when we have negative emotions and negative mindset, they rise up at us, negative feelings in our body, sinful feelings, and we say no to it because we love him, he says, I take that very personal, I know your no is weak, but I'm moved by the fact that you love me to say no, now we don't earn the love of God by saying no, but beloved, we express our love to God by saying no, Jesus said it himself, he said, when you keep my commandments, you are demonstrating that you love me and it moves me, even though your obedience is weak, it still moves me, I take it very personally, paragraph e, don't let sin reign in your body, not allowing sin to reign requires self-denial, look at Titus chapter 2, the grace of God teaches us that we have to deny lust, read it, Titus 2 verse 11, the grace teaching, the biblical grace teaching teaches us to deny lust, but when we understand grace, we're so motivated with gratitude, we see our new potential because of the power of God in us, we see our new future, we have a new feeling about ourselves, when we see ourselves in the grace of God and when we are listening to the grace of God from the biblical point of view, it will motivate us and energize us to deny ourselves when worldly lusts present themselves to us, paragraph 1, Jesus said, he emphasized denying self because if anyone that follows me, self-denial is a part of the relationship of loving me, Paul the apostle, paragraph 2, first Corinthians 9, the great grace teacher, the great teacher on the grace of God, he said, I have to discipline my body, well Paul, don't you understand grace, you're in the grace, he goes, that's why I have the courage and the vision and the confidence to discipline myself, I know it's doable in the grace of God, I know who lives in me, I know who's looking at me, I know what my future is, I know how he evaluates me, I feel good about who I am in God and I tell you, I'm motivated to discipline my body, when those emotions rise up, those feelings, I bring my body in subjection to the spirit, lest I be disqualified, now this doesn't mean, lest he be disqualified from salvation, he's not talking about losing his salvation here, he's talking about, lest he be disqualified from walking in the fullness of his apostolic ministry, he goes, I have to keep my body in subjection to the spirit, if I'm going to walk out my apostolic calling, I absolutely have to do that, stop at page 4, now when the bible tells us to not present our members to sin, this is very very important, paragraph F, and I'm only going to be ever so brief because we're at the end, when we, when we, Paul says, don't present your members, your members, your thinking, your emotions, your body, don't present your members to sin, don't do it, now we present ourselves to sin, when we, when we fail in this, we present ourselves to sin in two stages, first, we present ourselves to sin in our mind, through rehearsing scenes in our mind, past scenes, future scenes, potential scenes, we rehearse it in our mind, we call that daydreaming, and, but when we do that, beloved, we are actually presenting our members to the, to the powerful fire of sinful desire, Paul says, don't present your members to that, now I have here in the notes, Jesus taught on this principle too, paragraph 2, it's not enough to not just present, to avoid presenting your mind to sin, don't present your, your physical person, don't go to the social event, don't look at things, don't buy things, don't have conversations, don't touch people in ways that stir you up, he goes, don't put yourself in a position where sin is inflamed in you, in the Roman numeral 5, I give the third principle, pursuing God, pursuing people, it's a very simple principle, we know it well, and so I'm, I'm not going to mention it here, although I will take some sessions and develop this one, I'll end in paragraph D, and I'll ask the worship team to go ahead and come on up, if we're going to walk in the victory that's promised to us, paragraph D, I want to highlight this, we must know truth, who we are in Christ, we must resist darkness, don't present your members to sin, and we must pursue God, we have to know, we have to resist, we have to pursue, we can't do two out of the three, and have the dominion of, conquer, I mean, I mean, and have the promise that sin won't have dominion in our mind and emotions, we have to do all three, and all three consistently, even though we do it in a weak and flawed way, and that's just one little journey on this thing called victory over sin, we have a little bit more to go on this, but I just want to lay this out to you, and, and put it before you, amen, and amen, let's stand, I'm gonna invite anybody to uh, that would like prayer, some of you're nods, we're gonna take