Walking by the Spirit

SERMON: 2015-06-14--g0515--walking-by-the-spirit SOURCE DURATION: 00:47:42.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The material begins with the speaker picking up a previous topic (exposition) and concludes with theological application regarding shining light in darkness, all fitting within the scope of the main sermon content. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- I want to pick up this morning where we left off last week, and if you were here last week, you may recall that I pointed out that one of the most powerful weapons that the Lord God gives to the Christian in the fight against evil is the ability to walk in obedience before God. The Apostle Paul in the book of Romans chapter 16, the verses 19 and 20 puts it this way. He says, "Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." There is a connection between our obedience and the fact that God intends to crush evil, including Satan, under our feet. And I pointed out last week there's two reasons for that. When in Christ we are righteous before God, Satan has no claim on us, can't get at us. And when in Christ we are righteous before God, we have God's favor. And of God before us, who can be against us. And I believe with all my heart that what God is looking for in this battle against good and evil in the world is a nucleus of Christians. It doesn't even have to be a very large group. But a nucleus of Christians who copy the DNA of Jesus. Who are righteous before God and who will not sell out to evil regardless of the cost. The book of Revelation calls these threefold overcomers. You will recall this verse from the book of Revelation. "They overcame him by the blood of the lamb, by the word of their testimony, they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." What does it take to overcome Satan? What does it take to overcome evil? We need the blood of Jesus by which we are declared righteous. We need the word of our testimony. We need to be able to say, "You don't own me, Satan. I belong to God and I call on the name of God." And we have to be prepared to lay down our lives. Because it is Satan's tool to hold us in bondage by the fear of death. And God, I say, is trying to raise up a people together with the saints of old who will stand firm before God no matter what the price and what the cost. And the way for us to get there is by walking by the Spirit. Galatians 5.25, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Or other translations, "Let us walk by the Spirit, let us walk after the Spirit." The literal Greek translation is, "If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also we should walk." Well, that's the theme of these verses that we've read together from Galatians chapter 5. And in the moments that we have together as we prepare this morning for the celebration of communion, I want to point out a number of things in that passage that are very pertinent to us if we're going to walk faithfully before God in a world that is increasingly filled with pride, rebellion, and evil. Number one, every Christian can draw life from one of two forces. Every Christian can draw his or her life from one or two forces or sources if you prefer. Listen again to the verses 16 and 17, "So I say, live by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature, for the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want." Two opposing forces. The first one is the sinful nature. The sinful nature is the nature that you and I are born with by virtue of being the sons and the daughters of Adam. The sinful nature is alienated from God. The sinful nature is under Satan's power. The sinful nature is self-centered through and through. It is in rebellion against God. Here is how Paul puts it in Ephesians chapter two, the verses one, two, and three. He says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world, and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the Spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature, and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath." Not a very complimentary passage. Very much at odds with what a lot of people want to believe about human nature. They want to believe that human nature is essentially good and kind and nice and it's only living in a rough world that makes... No, no. We are by nature alienated from God, by nature sold out to the evil one, by nature only interested ultimately in ourselves. That is one force that is at work in your life. Paul calls it the sinful nature. But in contrast to that, if you're in Christ, he says over against this is the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God is also the Spirit of Jesus. The Spirit of Jesus in us is totally obedient to God. It is not under Satan's power and it is committed to a life of perfect love and perfect relationship. The life of the Spirit in us is the life of Christ. Now notice how these two forces are in opposition to each other. Listen again to how Paul puts it. He says, "For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want." The desires of the sinful nature are in conflict with the Spirit. The desires of the Spirit are in conflict with the sinful nature. They are opposed to each other. Now it's very important to understand that because it explains why even as God's people, we sometimes have this tug of war, isn't it? We sense these different forces at work within us. There are times when our souls are stirred and we rise up and we love God and we want to do his will and we find joy in doing his will. And then there are those Sunday mornings you wake up and you say, "Going to church is the last thing that I want to do." Or you're standing around here when we are worshipping and instead of entering fully into the sacrifice of praise before the face of God, everything inside you says, "I don't want to do this. I don't like the music. I don't like the people. I don't like my neighbors. I don't want to sing." Some of you know what I'm talking about. That's human nature. And human nature and the Spirit at work within our lives are sometimes in conflict with each other. That is the reality of the Christian life and until Jesus comes back and changes everything, there will be moments when you and I experience that tension. Doesn't mean you're not a Christian. Doesn't mean that you're bad. Doesn't mean that you've wiped out. It is the reality of two forces at work in your life that are at odds with each other. The desires of the Spirit are against the desires of the sinful nature. The desires of the sinful nature are against the desires of God. And we understand what it is that Paul meant. In Romans chapter 7 in another context when he said, "The good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I do not want to do, that is what I do." Two forces at work within our lives. Now second thing to notice then in this passage is that these two forces lead to very, very different lifestyles. These two forces lead to entirely different lifestyles. On the one hand they can lead to what Paul calls the works of the flesh or the works of the sinful nature. On the other hand, it can lead to the fruit of the Spirit. Let's look at each of these in turn. First of all, the works of the flesh or the acts of the sinful nature, he says, are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now if you know anything about the writings of the Apostle Paul you know that he loves to make lists. And he loves to rattle them off and I believe the reason that he does that is because he understands human nature that we tend to see the faults of other people but we don't see our own. And so when he rattles off these lists he does so because he wants to make sure that none of us think we can escape what human nature is really like and what living according to human nature will really produce as a lifestyle. Now we don't have time this morning to talk extensively about what he calls the works of the sinful nature or literally the works of the flesh but I do want to point out that this whole list can sort of roughly be subdivided into three categories. Let me walk you through that just very quickly. The first category that he really talks about are what I would call sins of the body or sins of lust or desire. Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery and then the last two on the list are drunkenness and orgies. Sexual immorality, the Greek word is pornea. You'll recognize the word pornography in there. Sexual immorality is giving your body over to sexual relations outside of the biblically sanctioned concept of wedded bliss between husband and wife. Impurity, if we can just keep that verse up, impurity represents anything that defiles you and me in body or spirit makes you feel dirty. You know that this is a violation of conscience. Debauchery means living for sensual pleasure. It means you're just craving excitement physically. Drunkenness of course, we know what that means. The word orgies there really is wild parties of drinking and eating and sex and Lord knows whatever else. All things that are high values in the world and things that you will plunge into once you start catering to human nature and to human desire. Second category I would call sins of the spirit, idolatry and witchcraft. Idolatry as you know is looking for life anywhere but God. In the Bible it's usually identified with covetousness because idolatry means I don't really believe that God is going to provide for me. He's not going to give me a boyfriend, he's not going to take care of my practical needs, he's not going to help me get a job and so I will sell myself to whatever force I need to sell myself to in order to acquire what I think I need. It is a very serious sin from God's perspective because it removes God from his throne of centrality in our lives. Witchcraft of course is drawing on spiritual powers to control the universe. I don't really believe that God will control things on my behalf and so I must try to control it for myself. Interestingly enough the word for witchcraft in Greek is the word pharmakeia and you'll recognize what English word did not. Pharmacy. Witchcraft is always associated with drug use because in every culture drug use breaks down I believe the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world and so it enables you to enter into another whole world that promises you power over life but of course ultimately always at the expense of selling your soul. Those are sins of the spirit. The third category I would call sins of the heart or sins of relationships and we all recognize these. Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy. These are the kind of conflicts that we get into with each other because we're not getting from each other what we think we deserve or we really want and all of this is rooted in an inability to trust God. It is rooted by being sold out to the devil's lies who tells me either God doesn't exist, doesn't care for me and who tells me that I've got to fight my own battles and the result is conflict and confusion. Here are some verses from James four that you will recognize powerfully. James says what causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires, your passions that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill in covet but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God and when you ask you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your own pleasures. That is the works of the sinful nature and it builds on itself and it produces this kind of fruit not only in our individual lives but also in the nations of the world and you know as well as I do that we live in a society that is rapidly throwing aside any sense of God's authority, any sense of divine power and so the result is that even as we cater to the flesh as it's all about us and our needs and our human rights we live in a society that is going downhill extremely fast because we are reaping what we sow. Later on Paul talks about that. He says don't let anybody fool you. What a man reaps that he will also sow. If you sow to the flesh from the flesh you will reap destruction and to the degree that you and I make allowances for the flesh we cater to our sinful passions to that degree life will get out of control. It will lead us in that direction. Most of us think that if we pamper the flesh just a little bit we can stay in control. Watch a little bit of the porn. Watch a little bit of things that aren't edifying. Indulge in this party or in that relationship and I can sort of keep it all together. Well it works for a season but it builds on each other and eventually it brings about chaos but by the time you wake up to the chaos it's often too late to escape it. So that is what he calls the works of the flesh. Now notice, and this is very important, Paul's assessment of the works of the flesh. I warn you as I did before that those who live like this will not, will not inherit the kingdom of God. In Ephesians 5, 6 he says the same thing. Let no one deceive you with empty words for because of such things, that whole list again, God's wrath comes on those who are disobedient. He says don't let anybody deceive you and that's a very important thing to keep in mind because we live in a world where not only are there many people who do these things but remember Romans 1 ends with they also approve of those who do those things. And all you and I need is for somebody to say oh what you're doing is not so bad, it's okay, God understands and he will forgive you without repentance and we're more than happy to keep one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom. And sadly enough there's clergymen upon clergymen who is more than willing to accommodate the views of a fallen human race. Many of us were profoundly troubled this past week for example to hear that one of the foremost evangelical voices in North America, Tony Campolo, has just come out fully in support of gay marriage. A shocking revelation. Many are going to follow his lead in that. David Neff, you won't recognize the name but he was for a long time editor of Christianity Today, one of the foremost evangelical magazines in the world. He has come out in favor of same-sex marriage. It's like the train is rolling down the tracks and nobody can stop it and oddly enough more and more people are getting on board. Paul says those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And if you're aware of politics locally in Ontario then you will know that as of June the 4th the Legislative Assembly of Ontario passed with the full support of all three parties this anti-reparative therapy bill. We've talked about that before. The purpose of that bill is to say that if a young person under 18 has gender confusion you are not allowed to try to counsel him or her to drop the confusion to choose heterosexuality over homosexuality, bisexuality, or transgender issues. That's illegal. It's a hop, skip, and a jump from there to telling the church that we cannot disciple people into obedience to Jesus because that would be at odds with their sinful fallen human nature. We'll talk more about that some day but this is a train that is just roaring down the tracks and you've got voice after voice saying God understands and it's okay with God. Now understand that God understands Sid. We're all sinners but God calls us to repentance. Jesus not only says to the woman go when she's been caught in adultery but he says sin no more. God is a holy God. Do we understand that? And when you get to the book of Revelation and it talks about the holy city of God nothing unclean is going to enter it. Doesn't mean we have to be perfect. Doesn't mean we have to be righteous in ourselves but it does mean we better be covered by the blood of Jesus and it better mean that we walk as best as we know how in repentance and in faith. See that is where the flesh leads. It leads to the wrath and the judgment of God. But in opposition to the works of the flesh is what Paul calls the fruit of the spirit. The acts of sinful nature versus the fruit of the spirit and that he describes in verses 22 and 23. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such there is no law. Notice he uses the phrase fruit of the spirit. That stands in opposition to the works of the flesh. And if the works of the flesh are things you do that lead to a particular lifestyle then the fruit of the spirit is the growth of God's grace in our lives through faith in Jesus. Because see what is it that makes us a Christian? Are we Christians because we believe there is a standard up here that we need to try to live up to and to the degree to which we live up to that to that degree we're good? No, that's not how it works. We don't do good because we try. We're not good because we try to do good. We try to do good because in Christ, as we'll see in a moment, we are good. And when you and I are joined by faith to Jesus, Jesus himself comes to live within us. And Jesus within us is like new seed planted. It is the opposite of Adam's nature. We talked about that last week. If Adam was rebellious, if Adam was under Satan's domination, if Adam was a son of wrath, in Christ we are children of God, and Christ in you and me is the hope of glory. And when that life, I mean think of it as a seed you put in the garden. If the soil is decent, the seed is healthy, and you got the moisture amount that you need, what happens to that seed? It starts to grow. And if it's a weed, it will really grow. I mean we all know about weeding, don't we? But the fruit of the Spirit is the fruit of union with Christ. And if Christ is in me and his life begins to work within me, then my life begins to change. The word is singular because my life gets integrated. The first thing that happens is God begins to teach me what love looks like. The word is agape. I want somebody else's good over against my own good. I will sacrifice myself so that you can be blessed. How different from the passions of the flesh where it's all about taking advantage of you. The fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy in the Holy Spirit. Not so much joy in the circumstances of life, but joy knowing that I'm a child of God and nothing can separate me from the love of God. It's peace. It's shalom. Because you see when I walk in harmony and fellowship with the Holy Spirit, then life begins to come together instead of discord and enmity and fights. I get shalom because I learn to be humble and you learn to be humble and we learn to apologize and we learn to integrate life together. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. See, in the flesh, life gets out of control because sin is addictive. It takes me over. It drives me further and further down the line into things that I ought not to be part of. But the Holy Spirit, he's the one who sets me free and one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit is that I learn to control my passions. I learn to control my desires. I learn to live according to the Spirit of God. Again, such things, he says, there is no law. Why? Because I don't need to be told what to do. I don't need to be, let me put it this way. You know, there are two ways in which people can be good. They're good because they're motivated from the inside, or they are good because they are controlled from the outside. Under the law, the law tries to control you from the outside. That's why people who break the law and who commit crimes get put in jail. Why do they get put in jail? Because they're not safe to leave out in society because they can't control themselves. The law holds us in bondage because it can limit our wrong behavior, but it cannot change us from the inside. But in Christ, we're not under the law. In Christ, we're in a new dispensation. The Holy Spirit lives within us and the more the Holy Spirit lives within us, the more the Holy Spirit from within directs us. If I love you with all of my heart, I don't need a law to tell me that I need to love you. Later on, Paul writing to the Thessalonians says nobody needs to teach you what love looks like because God himself is teaching you how to love. So, under the new covenant, Christ lives inside us and just like seed put in the garden will bear fruit according to its nature, the seed of Christ in your life and in my life, given half a chance, will grow up and become like Jesus. It's called the fruit of the Spirit. I can guarantee you that if you are in Christ, all things being equal, there ought to be growth in the grace and in the knowledge of Jesus. You ought to be more loving today than you were yesterday. You ought to have more joy in the Holy Spirit today than you had yesterday and you ought to have more of all the fruit of the Spirit. It doesn't always feel like it, doesn't always look like it, but there ought to be progression in Christ because that is the nature of faith. Are you hearing what I'm saying? We can expect Christ to transform us because his life is in us. So, what Paul is saying to us is first of all, there are two forces at work in your life and in my life that we can draw on. Which one we draw on will determine where our life goes. If we sow according to the flesh, we're going to bear fruit that looks like the works of the flesh. If we draw on the Holy Spirit, we will bear the fruit of the Spirit and our lives will change accordingly. One more thing that he points out that's really important for us to understand that I don't quite know how to word this except to say that in Christ the die is cast, or to put it another way, the matter is already settled. Let me read you two verses and then talk about that just a bit before we wind up. He says, "Those who belong to Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. And then since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." Three things there, just very quickly, that Paul is saying. And the first is this, "If I'm in Christ, then I'm already committed to obeying God." Let's understand that the purpose of the gospel is not just to get us to heaven or to give us a better life in the here and now. The purpose of the gospel is to bring about, Paul says in the book of Romans, "Among the nations, the obedience of faith." Remember, Satan claims us as his kingdom. God is building a kingdom. And in that kingdom, people acknowledge his authority and they do his will. Now, if you've come to faith in Christ, like we heard two weeks ago when people made profession of faith here and became new members here, or if you have prayed the sinner's prayer, then whether you understood it in full or not, you are committed, you are committed to living in the kingdom of God. You've had your eyes opened to the foolishness of walking after the flesh. You've become tired of living according to your own wisdom. You've become tired of thinking that you know best. You've become tired of pitting your knowledge or your experience over the wisdom or the experience of scripture, God or the Holy Spirit. You have said, "I don't want that kind of life anymore. I don't want to do the partying. I don't want to have all the competition. I don't want to do all the foolishness that is a part of it. No, I want to follow Jesus. I want to walk with God, my Father. I want to do his will." Really important to understand this because too regularly in leading people to Christ, we encourage people to invite Jesus as savior, but we forget that Jesus needs to be the boss. He's either Lord of all or he is not Lord at all. And I know that's a progression that we grow into and we learn, but we need to understand from a Christian point of view that Jesus is Lord of lords and King of kings and that when you and I come to him by faith, he owns us lock, stock and barrel. We are committed to doing his will even though sometimes we'll find that very difficult and we will need all his grace that can be stirred up to help us to live there. That's a starting point. The starting point is that in Christ, we are committed to that. When you said yes to Jesus, you said yes, you are the boss and you left to help me, but I want to live the way that you want me to live. So second thing that Paul is saying here is that in Christ, I already have the resources to obey him because did you notice that he says, "You have already been those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature." It doesn't say crucify the sinful nature. No, you already have crucified. And he repeats that even more emphatically in Romans chapter six when he says, "When by faith we are joined to Jesus, we have not only died with him on the cross, but we've also been raised with him into newness of life." You know what that means? It means that positionally when you're joined to Jesus by faith, that sinful nature inside you that wants to rebel and be stubborn and go your own way and be proud of going your own way has already been put out of gear on the cross of Jesus. You may not know it, you may not feel it, you may not experience it, but God says you are dead to sin. It's been put out of gear. The engine's been stripped of its power. More than that, when by Christ you're joined to him, you're a new creation. So now you have new life. So whereas in the old life you had no option but to listen to the desires of the flesh and you gave into your temper and you gave into all the things in your life that are mixed up and messed up and you become who you are, now you have a new power inside you that enables you to say no to the old life and yes to the new life. Understand that. You're no longer a helpless victim to how you were born, what you were born with, or how you have become accustomed to living because in Christ there is a new creation. That's not to minimize the struggle. This is a hard one for Christians to get their heads around because as one of my professors at seminary used to say about we foreign people, they are so committed to believing in the doctrine of total depravity they feel they need to practice it all the time. You don't have to live over there anymore. You can live over here because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And most of us we have to fight that one through in our heads because frankly it's very convenient to be able to say well you know that's just who I am. I mean I was born with a foul mouth, I was born with a mean temper, I'm impatient, I'm unkind, and people just better accept me the way that I am. Look a fooey on you. That's wrong. Yes you may slide back into that a thousand times over and God will forgive you a thousand times over but don't go and leave in that country any longer because you don't belong there. Christ died on the cross, rose from the dead, poured out his Holy Spirit so that by faith in him you can be transformed to the very depths of your being. And I'll tell you, I have seen enough lives turned around from very very deep places over the years to know the reality of the resurrection power of Jesus. And what we need is a community. If we're ever going to stand against the spirit of the age that says oh I was born this way or I was born that way and we baptize what is broken is normal we'll never fight that and we'll never overcome that until we have a vision, a revelation of who Christ is and who it is that we are in him. You have been crucified with Christ, you have also been raised with him in newness of life. I don't know how to make that any plainer except to cry out and say God just baptizes with the Holy Spirit until every piece of flesh has died and we are filled with Gods glory. So one more thing then that flows out of this and this is what it all comes down to. You and I must let this spirit lead me. Because remember verse 25 since we live by this spirit, since we live by this spirit let us keep in step with this spirit. Remember I just said in Christ we're a new creation, in Christ we have new potential, in Christ there is a new fountain of life in me that wants to drive me towards God and that wants to teach me to say no to the works of the flesh. So now I've got to make a choice, day after day I've got to make a choice. Will I sow to the flesh or will I sow to the spirit? So here I am I'm driving along in traffic and a guy cuts me off and what does my flesh say? What a jerk and we have a whole, depending on our temperament, we have a whole litany of self-righteous indignation don't we? Now I've got to make a choice. Am I going that way and am I going to sow weeds in my garden? Or am I going to say what would Jesus do? What does love look like? Maybe he had a blind spot in his mirror, maybe he had a bad day. What does love look like when somebody cuts me off in traffic? Or you're having a conversation with somebody and they're getting under your skin and you're the kind of volatile person who just, you know, you just let it rip. And then the Holy Spirit comes along and he says, you know, why did you do that? You said things there that were unnecessarily hurtful, they weren't meant for that person's redemption, they weren't meant that was just your way of getting rid of your frustration. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to justify it and say, well, he had coming? Or are you going to say, you know, I was really wrong, I'm going to call him up or I'm going to meet back with that person and say, listen, I'm really sorry for the way that I blew my top at you. Sowing to the Spirit as opposed to sowing to the flesh. Or the Holy Spirit is at work in your life and he called you to step out into a new situation. Maybe get involved in a ministry or take somebody into your heart or into your home or get up front and speak the testimony of what God has done in your life. And everything inside you says, I cannot do that. Your whole history indicates that that you're a failure and nobody will listen to you and they will ridicule you. And now you've got to decide what am I going to listen to? I'm going to listen to my flesh and hide my light under a bushel or am I going to step out in faith and say, all right, Lord, if I die, I die, but I'm going to do what you call me to do because in Christ you have called me to this. Are you hearing? We all have our own places and what's easy for the one is hard for the other. Some people are so out front that the Holy Spirit constantly has to drag them into a lower gear. And other people are so used to hiding under the chairs that the Holy Spirit has to come along and give them a good swift kick and get them to stand up so they can be counted. But the Holy Spirit is looking for is men and women, boys and girls who are led by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Because the more we sow to the flesh, the more we're going to re-harvest of sowing to the flesh. And the smaller our world will become and the deeper we will hide from God and from each other. But when we sow to the Spirit, we come to life. And yes, it will be a difficult life. And yes, it will hurt. And yes, you will be challenged and you will be tested beyond anything that you've ever experienced before. But I'll tell you something, your life will bear fruit. There will be a stream of living water that flows from you. It will impact your children. It will impact your grandchildren. It will impact your neighbors. It will impact the community because it is the life of Jesus that cannot be contained because it is resurrection life. Amen. That is the Christian life. And so this morning as we turn to communion, do some reflecting on where you find yourself in relationship with the Lord Jesus. First of all, have you already given your life to Christ? Many of you I know have. Number two, is there something stirring within you that the Holy Spirit is calling you to? A sin to give up? A bad habit to break? A new place to step into? A new responsibility to accept? Will you prayerfully ask him to stir the fire within your soul so that you cannot stay put where you are but want to live out of what he has already given you deep in your heart? And then, number three, will you believe that as you step out in faith, he will more than meet you and he will give you the joy of watching the Kingdom of God grow in your life and you will be salt of the earth, you will be light of the world, you will be part of the solution to the problems that we face in the world because it only takes a little bit of light to light up the darkness. Our only hope in this day and age of darkness, believe you me, is for God's people to shine so brightly that the darkness is exposed for what it is and people can see [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:47:35.920; remove through 00:47:42.000] clearly the coming of God's Kingdom. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:47:42.000; resume after this marked segment]