True Knowledge of Self

Righteousness by Faith

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Dwayne Lemon, Lance Wilbur

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Series Code: TKS

Program Code: TKS000025A


00:30 Hello, I'm Dwayne. And I'm Lance.
00:32 And we like to welcome you to another episode of TKS,
00:35 a True Knowledge of Self,
00:36 where we get to know ourselves from a biblical perspective.
00:39 In our last episode, we talked a lot about this contrast.
00:42 We spend some time looking at a true knowledge of self
00:45 from biblical perspective and then we looked at this idea
00:48 of knowledge of self that is constantly being promoted
00:51 through hip-hop culture, you know,
00:54 a place from which both of us came.
00:56 And we looked at this idea
01:00 that righteousness is what is necessary.
01:04 Absolutely.
01:05 We saw that righteousness can only come from God,
01:08 it's something that God possess in and of himself.
01:10 And we saw that God gave it to us in the beginning
01:14 as we looked at Genesis 1:26.
01:17 And that something happened that took it away
01:20 and we call that 'sin', we looked at Genesis 3.
01:24 What man has done to replace God's righteousness,
01:28 if you will, is what we refer to as self righteousness.
01:32 So, we simply produce this "righteousness",
01:37 that really isn't at all.
01:39 We saw that the heart is deceitful and desperate
01:41 above all things and in Jeremiah 17.
01:45 And now, as we're kind of wrestling with this idea
01:52 where what God has is what we need.
01:55 That's right.
01:56 It's what we once had but we've now lost.
01:59 We've spent all of our lives in some cases
02:02 trying to produce something that we cannot produce.
02:05 It requires, in order to obtain it,
02:07 it requires total dependence upon God.
02:10 In fact, it's God's plan of salvation,
02:12 we're going to be talking about that a little more.
02:15 And when I think about this, what hip-hop culture gave me
02:21 in this promotion of self righteousness, self exaltation.
02:28 I was thirsty for knowledge,
02:31 I mean, I got to a point in my young life
02:34 where I was sick and tired of the grinds, you know,
02:37 the day-to-day doing the same things
02:40 with the same people and, you know,
02:43 whether it was crime or parties, having fun,
02:47 or whatever other dirt I was involved with
02:49 in confusion I was subjected to.
02:52 I got sick and tired of it, you know.
02:54 And I refer to it as my mid-life crisis
02:56 even though I was just a teenager.
02:58 And I remember that one day
03:00 when I was there surrounded by friends, you know,
03:02 in this party atmosphere and I began to, you know,
03:06 reflect in my own mind and ask myself those questions,
03:08 you know, does God exist and all this stuff.
03:11 And I got a voice in my head, it said,
03:13 "If you want answers, go and read."
03:14 So I had this desire to know.
03:16 I knew that I was ignorant even though I was intelligent
03:20 and I was in control of my domain, if you will.
03:22 I knew I was ignorant, and I lack certain knowledge
03:25 and I wanted it desperately.
03:27 So I was already a citizen, if you will, a representative,
03:31 I'm an ambassador of hip-hop culture.
03:34 And kind of that's the lens
03:37 through which I looked at the world.
03:39 So when I got this voice came in my head, I literally...
03:41 It wasn't audible but, you know,
03:43 this voice came in my head
03:44 in my own quiet reflection, it said,
03:45 "If you want answers, go read."
03:47 So in this thirst for knowledge and this desire
03:50 and this seeking after knowledge,
03:51 I started just reading, you know,
03:52 reading philosophy and all these different books,
03:56 and different religions, and studying.
03:58 Because pretty much this idea that,
04:03 "We are God, essentially"
04:05 that's promoted by what you were involved
04:07 with 'Nuwaubianism',
04:09 what I was involved with in the Five-Percent Nation,
04:12 you know, or the NOI, Nation of Islam
04:14 or many other is that
04:15 the true knowledge is that God is us.
04:18 We are God.
04:19 And therefore what we say is truth is truth
04:23 and what we decide and what we choose
04:26 is righteousness and is authority.
04:28 So truth is kind of everywhere.
04:30 The various religions have become fronts, shields,
04:35 veils, if you will, for the deaf, dumb,
04:37 and blind that the ignorant, you know,
04:39 the mental dead and you have to peel back
04:42 those religious layers and those labels
04:45 to obtain the true hidden knowledge,
04:47 kind of that esoteric knowledge.
04:49 So that's what I was after.
04:50 And so I'm looking at philosophy books,
04:51 looking at Shamanism, looking at Buddhism,
04:54 looking at Islam, not necessarily for its value
04:57 but to peel back the layer
04:59 and see the true hidden knowledge
05:01 that I believed at that time
05:03 was true knowledge of self, right?
05:06 And I found myself, year after year,
05:10 completely unfulfilled in that, you know,
05:14 rat race, if you will, that constant desire,
05:17 although God was leading, you know,
05:20 God was kind of winking
05:22 as the Bible says at my ignorance
05:24 and he was drawing me and drawing me.
05:26 So as I was continuing and persevering
05:28 through the hardship and still trying to obtain the truth,
05:32 God was actually leading me, you know,
05:34 unbeknownst to me to the reality
05:37 that scripture presents that His word presents.
05:40 And so whether it was in my decision making
05:44 as it relates to crime,
05:47 decision making as it relates to,
05:49 you know, family.
05:51 By that time in my late teens
05:53 my oldest daughter was born, you know.
05:55 So I'm making kind of life-changing decisions
05:57 as I'm navigating through this search for knowledge
06:00 and really all I was consulting with was myself.
06:05 And even as I started, you know,
06:06 looking at 'New Age' religion
06:08 and started practicing meditation.
06:11 Meditation is kind of emptying self
06:14 and you're looking within,
06:16 if you will, the solution is inside.
06:19 So you're learning how to empty your mind
06:21 and focus on all these things
06:23 and, you know, it goes on and on.
06:24 But nevertheless I'm consulting with myself.
06:27 I am the barometer. I am the standard, if you will.
06:31 And whatever I choose to accept and identify
06:34 as truth becomes the truth.
06:35 So I'm looking at everything and I'm saying,
06:37 "Well, there's a little bit of truth in everything."
06:39 I simply have to manufacture it into my package
06:42 and this becomes truth.
06:44 And I am the controller of my own destiny.
06:47 I am the master of my own domain
06:50 and whatever I identify as truth, that's what it is.
06:53 And you, kind of, look in disgust at Christianity
06:58 and set religions and labels
07:01 and you feel like you transcended any label
07:05 that human has put on individuals.
07:08 So I was hip-hop culture and hip-hop culture taught me
07:12 that I am God, that labels do not bind me
07:17 that my expression is paramount.
07:20 And so it's one of the most deceptive
07:25 and powerfully selfish forms in ways of living.
07:30 Because every single decision you make
07:33 is tainted with self-interest, and self-exaltation,
07:37 and self-gratification.
07:39 And so, I was completely empty, empty through it all.
07:45 And it wasn't until, and as I told the story before,
07:48 it wasn't until I started actually studying the Bible
07:51 through a series of, you know, providential circumstances.
07:56 The very thing that I was rejecting,
07:58 the very thing that I was dismissing
08:01 became the very source that fulfilled me
08:03 and gave me a true knowledge of self.
08:06 So as we are talking about this stuff
08:07 and we are talking about righteousness,
08:09 self-righteousness,
08:11 we are talking about God's plan of salvation.
08:14 You know, how does it work?
08:15 We're going to talk about that but you know,
08:17 what do you have to say about this
08:19 'cause I know you had a similar experience?
08:20 Yeah, I mean, and it's not just me,
08:22 I think it's all of us, you know.
08:24 All of humanity at some point or another
08:26 has run into a place
08:27 where we were trying to make ourselves right, you know.
08:30 And often it is without God
08:33 we have all this experimentation.
08:35 If you really wanted to sum up self-righteousness
08:39 or this deceptive aspect of self-righteousness,
08:42 it actually goes back to the garden.
08:45 Satan introduced a thought process
08:47 and through the medium of the serpent to Eve's mind
08:49 that speaks volumes
08:50 because it's still what's happening today
08:52 that is causing the skewing of righteousness by faith.
08:56 When you look at Genesis 3, it says right there
08:59 in verses 4 and 5.
09:02 "And the serpent said unto the woman,
09:03 you shall not surely die."
09:05 Now, God made a clear command,
09:07 "If you eat of this, you shall surely die."
09:10 Satan comes along and tries to supersede God and says,
09:15 "What God said is wrong."
09:16 He says, "You shall not surely die,"
09:17 but then he puts in another piece to the package.
09:20 It says, "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof,
09:24 then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as Gods,
09:28 knowing good and evil."
09:31 Here it is that Satan tried to introduce
09:34 that if you disobey God and His commandments,
09:38 you can actually ascend to a higher existence.
09:41 And this is basically the same lie
09:43 that is being perpetuated today.
09:44 Right, and so, from both of our perspectives,
09:46 we were victims of that ancient deception.
09:49 That's correct.
09:50 That's exactly is, because it goes way back
09:52 to the beginning of time.
09:53 You can ascend, you can be right with God,
09:56 and you can still violate His law,
09:58 and somehow be in right standing with Him.
10:00 And this is the deception that goes way back.
10:02 Even last year, you know, there was a statement
10:05 that was made interestingly enough through an individual
10:09 who was an evangelical by the name of Bishop Tony Palmer
10:13 where he was kind of instrumental
10:15 in being a voice of ecumenism for the Roman Catholic church
10:20 and Pope Francis where he tried to tell Protestants,
10:23 "You don't need be a Protestant anymore,
10:25 the protest is over."
10:27 And he actually tried to say it like,
10:29 because now we even as Roman Catholics,
10:32 we also believe in righteousness by faith,
10:33 we believe in justification by faith
10:36 and they are trying to present that.
10:38 And I thought it was a very interesting statement
10:40 because there are individuals that think
10:43 we can be in right standing with God,
10:45 yet we can still violate His law.
10:47 And whether it be,
10:49 you don't have to keep God's commandments
10:51 specifically the seventh-day Sabbath
10:53 and you can go ahead and keep another day of the week
10:54 as the Lord's Day.
10:56 Or otherwise there are errors
10:57 that are constantly being perpetuated
10:59 in the name of righteousness by faith,
11:01 violating God's law,
11:02 yet being in right standing with God.
11:05 In other words, it's like let's not focus on the things
11:08 that divide us.
11:09 That's correct.
11:11 Let's focus on the things that we agree upon.
11:12 And that's okay to a certain point,
11:14 but not at the expense
11:16 of God's righteousness and His commandments.
11:17 Well, let's think about it this way.
11:19 If you look at Romans 2:13, the Bible says,
11:22 "For not the hearers of the law are just before God,
11:26 but the doers of the law shall be justified."
11:29 Now that doesn't mean that if I perform a work
11:33 that I can be made in right standing with God.
11:35 What this verse is actually saying
11:37 and that's why sometimes looking at
11:38 in the original is helpful.
11:40 Because when it says,
11:41 "For the doers of the law shall be justified,"
11:43 it actually says in the Greek,
11:45 "For the doers of the law shall be declared justified."
11:48 In other words, if an individual
11:49 truly is experiencing justification by faith,
11:52 it will be shown through their lives
11:56 being in harmony with God's law.
11:57 Nobody can live in sin
12:01 and at the same time claim to be in harmony with God.
12:04 It is a lie, it is a deception.
12:06 It goes way back to that deceptive work
12:08 of the serpent right there in the garden.
12:10 So there is a biblical culture of Christianity.
12:14 We realize now that we are outside of it,
12:17 you know, some of us where we were outside of it.
12:20 So the question is how do we turn
12:22 from the slavery of sin
12:26 and doing the things that we,
12:27 in many cases, know to be wrong.
12:29 That's right. But we are slave to it.
12:31 That's correct.
12:32 How do we get out of that? How do we turn?
12:33 Fantastic question, because this I believe is the question.
12:37 A lot of people have given up on Christ, Christianity,
12:41 and the Word of God
12:43 and the true principals of righteousness by faith
12:45 because they did not know how to apply it.
12:47 They did not know how does it work.
12:49 And when you keep trying something
12:51 and you keep failing, you start to convince your mind,
12:53 "You know what, it's not possible."
12:55 So, when you think of the concept
12:56 of victory over sin,
12:57 that man can get to a point that he can love God so much
13:00 that he'll actually keep God's commandments
13:02 rather than break them.
13:03 1 John 3:4 says,
13:05 "Sin is the breaking of God's commandments."
13:07 God's commandments are righteousness as we studied.
13:10 So therefore God, when He says,
13:12 "If you love Me, you'll keep My commandments,"
13:15 then God is saying, "Love enables us
13:18 to actually obey and experience true righteousness."
13:21 And this is the love that God must shed in our hearts.
13:23 It's something we can't shed in and of ourselves.
13:26 So one of the first things that man has to understand
13:28 in true righteousness by faith, is the principle of John 15:5,
13:33 "Without me you can do nothing."
13:34 And that includes you can't even love God.
13:37 I can't love God.
13:38 People can say they love people all the time
13:40 and this why again I believe
13:42 it's so important for us to deal with the realities
13:44 that are taught through hip-hop culture
13:46 because hip-hop culture has many pillars
13:48 and we're going to talk about them.
13:50 And one of the chief pillars is something called love.
13:52 But we're going to identify
13:53 is it true love or is it false love.
13:55 Jesus says, "If you love Me, you will keep righteousness.
13:58 You will keep My commandments."
13:59 But the problem is naturally I don't love God.
14:02 Naturally no man loves God.
14:04 Jeremiah 13:23 says,
14:06 "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?"
14:08 The answer is no.
14:09 "Can the leopard change his spots?"
14:11 The answer is no.
14:12 Then it says, "Then, how can you do good
14:14 that are accustomed to doing evil?"
14:16 So, if I am bent on evil,
14:18 I can't at the same time profess
14:20 that I love righteousness.
14:21 So I need a power source outside of myself
14:25 to enable me to do
14:26 what is impossible for me to do otherwise.
14:28 So in that sentiment that's presented in the culture
14:33 we, you know, it's...
14:35 Christianity in the standards
14:37 that the Bible presents are dismissed
14:39 because they view it as oppressive.
14:40 You know, they're colonial, you know,
14:43 remnants of colonialism there.
14:44 There's something
14:46 that people have used to enslave other people.
14:50 Well, think about it this way.
14:51 Satan goes to Eve and says, "You won't die,"
14:55 so he's inferring God as a liar,
14:57 then he says, "Actually when you sin,
15:00 your eyes are going to be open."
15:01 What is that infer?
15:02 That means that God was keeping your eyes closed.
15:05 It's like, he's constantly attacking God.
15:07 The same way we see that the culture of hip-hop
15:09 is constantly attacking biblical religion today.
15:12 It's constantly making it sound like,
15:13 "Stay out of this box, don't be boxed in, be free."
15:17 That's exactly what the serpent said to Eve
15:19 and he did tell part of the truth
15:21 because he said, "When you eat from it,"
15:24 he did say "your eyes will be opened,"
15:26 and that was true.
15:27 But the problem was when their eyes were opened,
15:29 they were not like God's,
15:30 they did not ascend higher, they went lower.
15:32 And that's the part that he kept out
15:34 because that's the deceptive nature of the serpent.
15:36 So it is that that's the deceptive nature
15:38 of hip-hop culture.
15:39 And I think it's important to interject this point.
15:41 Yeah.
15:42 We are not saying that those who teach, and proclaim,
15:47 and uplift hip-hop culture
15:49 are actual manipulative deceivers
15:54 that are deliberately going out and trying to do people wrong.
15:57 There are people, I am sure, that are in hip-hop culture
16:00 that lift it up and they believe is right.
16:02 They believe what they are doing is right.
16:04 Yeah. They think it's a solution.
16:05 Yeah. They're sincere.
16:07 But the problem is this that you can be sincerely wrong.
16:09 And that's why truth makes people free.
16:11 So that's why our program is based on teaching the truth
16:13 and giving people the true knowledge of self.
16:15 And we are not trying to simply condemn individuals
16:19 and things of that nature,
16:20 even though they lift up hip-hop culture
16:21 because they just might be counted amongst those
16:23 who are suffering with blindness, spiritual blindness.
16:25 And we're also not saying is that
16:27 everybody that wears the label 'Christianity'
16:30 is all of a sudden representing God
16:32 and the truth and the Word and all those things.
16:34 We understand and that's
16:35 one of things that we looked at,
16:36 you know, that I know I did.
16:38 When you looked at Christianity
16:39 I only saw evil, treachery, deception...
16:42 The dark ages, persecution, you know,
16:45 killing of other people,
16:46 enslaving other people, conquering nations,
16:49 forcing whole entire ethnicities into,
16:52 you know, almost extinction.
16:53 So I saw historically Christianity is something
16:57 that is oppressive and not uplifting.
16:59 That is correct.
17:00 And so we're not saying that every person that names
17:02 the name of Christ or calls themselves,
17:04 you know, goes to a church
17:06 or is the example that we are supposed to be following.
17:08 But the Bible gives us an example.
17:10 Well, the Bible is very clear, isn't it?
17:11 Yeah.
17:12 It says in Matthew 7,
17:14 "By their fruit you shall know them."
17:15 So anybody can say they are Christian,
17:17 they say, well, anybody can say that they love their wives
17:18 but the problem is,
17:20 if you are coming home and beating your wife up
17:22 or, you know, beating your children up
17:23 because they irk you or got you upset.
17:25 Your actions are demonstrating that your declaration is false.
17:29 And so it is that when an individual is saying
17:31 that they love God, and they want to serve God,
17:33 and do all these things, and yet they know
17:36 what God requires but just choose not to do it.
17:38 The Bible has a word for that and it's found in 1 John.
17:41 In the Book of 1 John,
17:43 you'll see right there in 1 John 2.
17:45 The Bible makes it very clear, 1 John 2:4,
17:49 "He that saith, I know Him
17:51 and keepeth not His commandments,
17:53 is a lair, and the truth is not in him."
17:56 So this is what the Bible says and we have to accept
17:58 the clear testimony of scripture.
18:00 So there are people who are making professions,
18:02 declarations etc, people are,
18:05 they are pursuing righteousness.
18:06 They want it but the problem is they don't really know
18:08 how to get it.
18:10 So the first phase is for an individual
18:12 to understand, "I am a sinner. I am wrong.
18:16 I am not as great and wonderful and marvelous and righteous,
18:21 a person as I think I am, or thought I am.
18:24 I must recognize I am a sinner."
18:26 In fact, I like Leviticus 4,
18:28 I think Leviticus 4 makes it plain,
18:29 this whole process we're talking about.
18:31 So we're going to just meditate a little bit on Leviticus 4.
18:34 It was, you know, the sanctuary services
18:37 God was showing the common people,
18:40 this is how you come to Me,
18:42 and this is how we can make some wrongs right, all right?
18:45 So I believe the more that we look at Leviticus 4,
18:48 we can find some nice principles in here
18:50 that we can apply today
18:52 of how God can help us get out of the false concepts
18:55 of righteousness into the true knowledge of self
18:58 and true righteousness by faith.
19:00 Yeah. All right.
19:02 In Leviticus 4, it starts right at verse 27, the Bible says,
19:05 "And if anyone of the common people sin through ignorance,
19:09 while he doeth somewhat against any of the commandments
19:12 of the Lord concerning things
19:13 which ought not to be done and be guilty or if his sin,
19:17 which he hath sinned, come to his knowledge:
19:21 then he shall bring his offering,
19:23 a kid of the goats, a female without blemish,
19:25 for his sin which he hath sinned."
19:27 So the first part we see is
19:28 that the individual must acknowledge their sin.
19:30 They have to see, I am a sinner.
19:32 I'm not in as greater shape as I thought I was.
19:34 I'm not as great a mother, father, brother, sister, friend
19:37 or worker, even gospel worker, or religious person.
19:41 I am not as great as I thought I was
19:42 and I'm certainly not a God.
19:44 So I need help, I am a sinner.
19:46 "And all sinners have the same condemnation which is death,"
19:49 Romans 6:23. The payment for sin is death.
19:51 If you are a sinner, it means you committed sin
19:54 and nobody likes to work and not get paid.
19:57 And so it is that the Bible says,
19:58 "The payment for sin is death."
20:00 So sinners are on a path that leads to destruction.
20:04 God's love says, "I don't want you to die,
20:06 I want you to live."
20:08 So He was willing to do for man what man cannot do for himself.
20:12 Man couldn't save himself.
20:13 So God so loved the world that He said,
20:14 "I'm going to let you have My only begotten Son."
20:17 Now, that word 'begotten' needs to be understood right.
20:20 That word 'begotten' in the Greek
20:22 is a Greek word 'monogenes'.
20:23 It means the only one of its kind.
20:25 So when God says, when the Bible says,
20:27 "For God so loved the world
20:29 that He gave His only begotten Son,"
20:30 He was saying, "I'm giving the only One
20:32 that's like Me."
20:33 In other words, the Father gave everything
20:36 so that man can have everything.
20:38 Yeah, the only solution. The only solution.
20:40 This must be brought to the mind of the individual,
20:43 you can't save yourself.
20:45 You cannot do...
20:46 Acts 4:12, "There is only one name under heaven
20:49 whereby a man may be saved and that is Christ Jesus."
20:52 So the first thing I had to realize
20:53 coming out of hip-hop culture is that
20:55 I can't do anything to give myself merit
20:57 before God.
20:59 I am messed up and I need help.
21:00 I am a sinner and I need salvation
21:02 and it only comes through one man.
21:04 It doesn't come through Buddha,
21:05 it doesn't come through Muhammad,
21:07 it doesn't come through Zen,
21:08 it dose not come through many of the other names
21:10 in various religions
21:11 and it certainly doesn't come through my name
21:13 Dwayne Lemon.
21:14 So therefore it comes through Christ.
21:15 So the individual must be willing to accept
21:17 that propitiation that was made on their behalf.
21:20 Jesus was willing to die that man may live,
21:22 we must accept that by faith.
21:24 This would be what we will call phase I.
21:27 I am a sinner, I am in sin, I have violated God's law,
21:30 I am guilty, and I need salvation,
21:32 and it can only come through the merits of someone
21:35 who suffered the death I should die
21:38 that I may have the life that He lived.
21:41 And so what's the next step?
21:43 Well, then the next step would be very simple.
21:44 After an individual receives the Bible says
21:46 something beautiful happens.
21:48 It's in Romans 3 and in Romans 3,
21:51 it is sweet, and I love talking about this.
21:53 It says in Romans 3, we read it before
21:56 in our previous program but I'm going to read it again.
21:58 It says, "Even," in verse 22, "Even the righteousness of God
22:03 which is by faith of Jesus Christ
22:07 unto all and upon all them that believe,
22:11 for there is no difference."
22:13 When an individual recognizes,
22:16 "I'm a sinner, I need salvation.
22:18 I can't save myself.
22:20 I can't make myself right with God."
22:21 Then what they do is they go to the one
22:23 who can make them right which is Jesus.
22:25 They confess their sins, "Lord, I have sinned,
22:28 I have messed up, I have done wrong,
22:30 I need your help.
22:32 Will you please have mercy on me and forgive me?"
22:34 And as long as that's done with a sincere heart,
22:36 the Bible says, "God will forgive them,"
22:39 1 John 1:9.
22:41 If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just,
22:43 He will forgive us,
22:45 He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
22:47 Now, if you're cleansed from all unrighteousness,
22:50 then what are you?
22:51 Righteous. Righteous.
22:53 So, now this person is in right standing of God but why?
22:55 It said in the verse 22,
22:57 "Even though righteousness of God
22:59 which by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them
23:03 that believe."
23:05 God takes His righteous robe
23:06 and as after we confess our sins
23:08 and plead the merits of Christ on my behalf
23:11 that God now can take away our filthiness in that record.
23:15 And He now can clothe us with His righteousness.
23:20 So now when God looks at us, He sees us just as He desired.
23:23 He sees us as righteous
23:25 and now there is only thing left to do.
23:26 Stay righteous.
23:29 This is what we call abiding in Christ.
23:31 So now we have to go ahead and say, "All right.
23:33 I am actually made in right standing with God
23:35 not because of anything I did
23:37 but because of the one who did all things
23:39 on my behalf.
23:40 I acknowledge what Christ has done for me
23:42 and accept it as a substitute,
23:46 His death for my death, His life for my life.
23:50 So now I'm seeking to live the life of Christ day-by-day,
23:55 and that's why Romans 8 becomes
23:57 a balancing point of the scripture.
23:59 It is not just simply a robe of righteousness
24:01 that God wants to put upon us to justify us.
24:05 And I want to be clear.
24:06 The robe of Christ is not put over a dirty robe.
24:11 I want to make that clear.
24:12 The robe of Christ is put on an individual
24:15 after their dirty robe has been taken away.
24:17 A beautiful way to look at this is to simply study Zachariah 3.
24:21 When Satan had to accuse Joshua before the angel,
24:26 Satan was accusing, accusing, accusing
24:29 but the Lord rebuked him.
24:30 And then the Bible says, "Take away the filthy garment
24:35 and then put on the right garment."
24:38 This is what God does with us.
24:39 So He doesn't clothe our sinfulness
24:42 with His righteousness.
24:43 We can't keep sinning against God
24:45 and think that we are in right standing with God
24:47 just because we confess.
24:48 Our confession was not genuine. Right.
24:50 So it's not a cover up. It's not a cover up.
24:52 It's a 100% transformation. It's a transformation.
24:55 It's not a modification,
24:56 it's an absolute new creature in Christ.
24:59 Now Romans 8 brings out a balancing point to it.
25:03 It says it right there in verses 1-4,
25:06 "There is therefore now no condemnation to them
25:09 which are in Christ Jesus."
25:10 When a man comes to Christ and he confesses his sins
25:12 and accepts the atonement made on his behalf
25:15 as his only hope in this life or the future life
25:17 that individual is pardoned, literally they are pardoned.
25:20 And God wipes away the foul record
25:22 and He lays upon them His robe of righteousness.
25:24 It is upon them and they are clean before God.
25:27 Well, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them
25:30 which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
25:34 but after the Spirit."
25:35 We got to break that down.
25:36 What is it mean to walk after the spirit?
25:38 So watch this, "For the law of the Spirit of life
25:42 in Christ Jesus hath made me free
25:43 from the law of sin and death.
25:45 For what the law could not do,
25:47 in that it was weak through the flesh."
25:49 Us trying to keep God's law ought be righteous
25:51 in and of ourselves according to our own flesh, it says,
25:54 "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh
25:57 and for sin condemn sin in the flesh,"
26:00 watch verse 4,
26:01 "That the righteousness of the law
26:04 might be fulfilled in us
26:07 who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit."
26:10 So what is it mean to walk after the spirit?
26:13 It means that the righteousness of God's law
26:16 can now be fulfilled in us.
26:20 That means the life that I live now will be a life
26:23 that is in harmony with God's law.
26:26 Or let me put it in another way,
26:28 in harmony with God's righteousness.
26:30 But it's God that's working in us
26:33 to willing to do of His good pleasure.
26:35 So true righteousness by faith is,
26:37 I love the word that you use, 'dependence'.
26:39 It's a total dependence of God not only for pardon
26:42 but also for power to live a new life.
26:44 At no point is the life is an individual's life
26:48 moving from submission.
26:50 It always stays in the state of submission before the Lord.
26:53 Lord, I need you for pardon
26:55 and I also need you for power to love the new life in Christ.
26:59 So, absolutely powerful, you know,
27:02 mind-blowing perspectives and points.
27:05 And this is essentially, it's almost like,
27:07 I'm re-living the moments when I first discovered this.
27:10 Because this is what gave me the freedom
27:14 to break away from the slavery of self-righteousness,
27:18 the slavery of earthly culture
27:20 and in my case hip-hop culture,
27:22 and opened me up to the truth and righteousness
27:26 that only God can provide.
27:27 So we understand, and this is important point
27:29 we don't want to overshadow it,
27:31 that the first step is admitting that we are wrong
27:34 and that's something that many of us struggle with
27:36 even today.
27:38 So we're gonna talk more about this 'cause this is not over...
27:41 No. Far from it.
27:42 By any stretch this is not over.
27:44 So when we look at this idea
27:45 that God has a plan for our problem
27:48 and that He wants to bring us out
27:50 of our sinful condition into His righteousness
27:54 and allow us to live the life that Christ essentially lived
27:58 while He was walking the earth is a blessing
28:00 that we all need to acknowledge.
28:01 And remember Proverbs 2:6,
28:03 "It is the Lord that gives wisdom
28:05 and out of His mouth comes knowledge and understating."
28:09 God bless.


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Revised 2017-02-24